The second day of our Labor Day weekend was spent enjoying San Francisco! Even though we’ve been to the city a few times before, there’s always more to see and experience, and the city never gets old.

We explored Chinatown. So many of the shops were closed because of coronavirus, and it seems many of them will be for good. For the few still left though, it was fun to explore.

One of the more interesting things we noticed was in one of the parks in Chinatown, there were a lot of Mandarin speakers in groups of two to four huddled over makeshift tables made from cardboard boxes. They were playing some sort of card game and after every round one of them would pull out their wallets and put money on the table. We have no idea what they were playing but it was fun hanging out there and people watching.

Another fun thing that happened was as we were walking down the street, I noticed a shop that appeared to be in a basement as it had stairs leading down to it. The sign for it was in Mandarin which I couldn’t read so I figured, hey why don’t I just go down and see what’s happening there? As soon as I started walking down, an elderly Chinese woman looks at me sternly and says in a disapproving and stern town “Mahjong” while wagging her finger. Taken aback, I took a step back. She then proceeded to pass me, reeking of smoke, and go down the stairs into the place! I guess it’s time to learn Mahjong!

We ended the day getting a late lunch and shopping in Japantown. If you haven’t had Marufuku ramen yet, you haven’t truly lived!