Hello, San Francisco

After a smooth and (relatively) short flight, we landed in San Francisco by 2:30 p.m. After retrieving our luggage, we got on BART to transport us from the airport to our hotel in Union Square. We got off at Powell, and were immediately thrust into the heart of the city.

Since we hadn’t figured out the whole trolley system yet, we figured we’d walk up Powell to our hotel (located at the intersection of Powell and California). Little did we know that this would end up being a HUGE mistake, as our trek up Powell was both longer than expected AND on quite an impressive incline. We lugged our suitcases ALL. THE. WAY. UP. a gigantic hill, and I’ll confess that it was not without plenty of cursing along the way.

But we made it.

We checked into our hotel, The Stanford Court, which we “won” for $85/night through Priceline. Its location atop a hill is quite nice (aside from the lugging suitcases thing), and the lobby seems new, and is nicely decorated. We were given keys to our room, which is on the second floor. I’ll admit I am not so impressed with the decor in the hallways. The carpet seems outdated–not sure if it’s actually old, or if it is just a poor choice. Either way, once we got into our room, we were fine with it. The room is pretty spacious, with nice bedding, a nice bathroom, etc. And it’s clean. Can’t complain!

After getting settled in, we decided to get out and explore a little bit. We walked down to Chinatown to get some dinner.

We ended up at a place called Hunan Home’s, which was actually recommended by a blog reader (thank you!).

After an enjoyable meal, we spent some time in Union Square just to check everything out. We realized we were pretty beat, so we decided to come back to the hotel to relax for a bit and try to figure out a plan for tomorrow (we’re renting a car and either going to Napa or Sonoma Valley… haven’t decided yet!).

It will probably be an early night, as we want to get up early tomorrow to get a good start to our day. ‘Night!