Chinatown

Good morning!

How are you doing? I hear that the weather there has been pretty warm. Would you believe that most of the time here I am wearing pants and in the evening I need a jacket because it gets a bit cool. I thought California would be warm, but being so close to the ocean actually makes it cooler!

Well, I am going to tell you about my day yesterday so I can get going today! Yesterday I visited Chinatown.

Here is Dolphy at the Chinatown gate. It is only a couple of blocks from our hotel room, so I walked the whole way. I also walked up and down the streets of Chinatown.

Sheldon thought that the gates of Chinatown were a nice color (I think he likes green) and their shape kind of reminded him of a shell. On each side of the gate there are some statues. They look like this:

I am pretty sure they are dragons, don't you think?

The streets of Chinatown are very colorful and have lanterns strung across them. It looks very different from the rest of San Francisco!

The shops sell all kinds of different things. Some of them even sell colorful paper lanterns and have them hung up all over the shop.

The shops of Chinatown sell all sorts of little statues, parasols, chopsticks, dolls, swords, handheld fans, postcards, keychains, hats, shoes, and silk shirts. I had a lot of fun looking around. There is also some interesting paintings on the sides of some of the buildings. I liked this one:

Dragons are very important to the Chinese people. The shops even sell little dragon puppets and statues. Here is a dragon that was on display at one shop.

Pretty cool!

Since Chinatown is close to the cable car museum, I decided to go on over there and check it out. Inside the cable car museum they have some big wheels that are moving the cables for all the cable cars in the city.

None of the cable cars have motors or engines! They are pulled along these moving cables. Pretty cool, huh?

They also had a cable car on display at the museum. Dolphy wanted to play hide and seek with me. Can you see him?

Sheldon wanted to go for a ride on the cable car again! But I had to tell him that this cable car doesn't go anywhere!

Outside the cable car museum we watched the cable cars go up and down the street. It was pretty cool. There was a cable car stop right where I am standing, so the cable cars would stop to pick up passengers.

Some people sit inside the cable car, but if it is crowded you can also hang onto the side of the car. Just like you boys like to hang onto the shopping cart at home.

After I saw the cable car museum, I was getting hungry! So I decided to walk back to the hotel. I went back to Chinatown so I could walk down the other side of the street. I saw some more fun paintings on some buildings.

I also saw some more pretty buildings. A lot of places in Chinatown also played music, which was fun to listen to.

On my way back I found a place where they make fortune cookies. The cookies are flat and then the ladies fold them into shape.

I got to taste a flat cookie, and they were pretty good. Probably because I was hungry! So I kept walking toward the hotel.

I really liked all the pretty lanterns on this building!

On my way back through Chinatown I found this fun painting that I thought you boys would like. It is a red and green dragon.

I knew I was almost through with Chinatown when I came to this church. It is only a block or so from the entrance. Dolphy thought it was a pretty cool church.

Sheldon liked the Chinese building that was on the other corner. He thought it would be fun to climb up the fire escape.

So that is what I did yesterday. In the afternoon I mostly stayed at the hotel and wrote postcards. I met Daddy down at the conference center for a minute too. Later in the day we went out for dinner at Super Duper Burger. It was pretty fun. Then when we got back to the hotel Daddy had to work for a while. I am excited for tonight because I get to spend the evening with Daddy at the closing party of the conference. We get to go to a concert and see Bon Jovi sing. It will be tons of fun!

Be good boys! I am off to see Coit Tower and a few other places today. I will show you my adventures tomorrow!

Love ya!
Mommy