Recommendations on shops, restaurants, etc that I must visit?
Thanks
The city itself and/or the surrounding area as well?
Expect quite a few quality answers to your post. San Francisco is a great city to visit.
I’m going into the city itself. I’ll be staying with my brother, who lives and works in SF as an attorney. During the day while he is working I’m going to have quite a bit of time to kill, so I’m trying to find some cool things to do.
Go to wishermans warf, check out lombard street which is near fishermans warf, muirwoods to see the redwoods, there is so much to do there, remember that it gets cold in the city so bring a sweater or jacket.
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
a recent thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140826
p.s. - avoid the wharf/peir 39 - you can see a tourist trap anywhere.
Just there Monday and Tuesday. A fascinating town. We like to visit every couple of months.
If you haven’t made reservations yet I suggest you do it on line. Expedia has served me well in the past. You can save up to $100 per night. Also get a pass to ride the cable cars when you get there. It’s $15 for a week and gets you on the buses too. You don’t want to drive in town. Parking is a nightmare. You can easily end up spending $40-50 a day.
Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
See Alcatraz.
Chinatown is an absolute hoot.
The Legion of Honor Art Musuem is great.
It’s only two hours, or less, to Napa Valley.
The Italian restaurants on Columbus Ave., just out of Chinatown, are good.
The shopping around Market and 5th and around Union Square is good.
Fisherman’s Wharf is fun.
Haight - Ashbury’s head shops are fun, especially if you lived through the 60’s & 70’s
They have a good zoo
BRING MONEY!!! Fun it might be, but it’s a pricey town.
Have fun.
Yeah, but where else can you see sea lions mating? I was out there for my Grandfather’s funeral a couple years ago. It gave a sort of life, death and rebirth vibe to the whole trip.
The Castro’s a laugh. Great restaurants and nightlife. I went with an gay Irish friend who had only recently come out so watching his ‘child in a sweetshop’ reaction to things was more fun than anything. You just don’t get that in Co. Louth.
[Disclaimer]I’m not suggesting that the Castro is a tourist themepark, ripe for the pointers, starers and gigglers. Obviously, people shouldn’t go if they’re not going to respect the place and people.[/disclaimer]
Oh yeah, take SandyHook’s advice and bring money. All that disposable income;).
You must see the exploritorium! I don’t care if it is made for 12 year olds, the place is a ton of fun and any member of the teeming’s dream.
So your grandfather is now an adolescent sea lion? 
How long you going to be here, what do you like to do?
If you like theater, you’re out of luck, and the local newspaper(s) are jokes, but aside from those quibbles, there’s pretty much anything you care to see.
If you have time and patience, take CA route 1 - the coastal highway - head south on 19th Ave, watch for the Pacifica exit, and go slow - there will be another bunch of slow moving vehicles ahead of you, no matter how many you manage to pass.
Go to Golden Gate Park (a lovely park, by the way) and find Lloyd Lake, where you’ll see the only monument to the San Francisco fire & earthquake.
There’s a botanical garden (I forget its name) in SF Park that’s fantastic, if you’re into that sort of stuff.
Also, check out the two WWII ships docked at the Wharf: The U.S.S. Pompano (submarine) and the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien (Liberty Ship). Both offer a wonderful learning experience about what it was like to serve in the Navy on such ships. They are staffed by WWII vets, some who actually served on these same ships (and they are very talkative!).
And I’ll second the suggestion to see the Exploratorium.
If you still have the sense of fun and wonder of a kid, definitely check out of the Exploratorium. I love the Exploratorium!
SFMOMA is a great art museum.
SF is a small city, and you can walk all over it. Bring good shoes, as it is very hilly! Good neighborhoods to wander are the Castro, North Beach, and Chinatown. (Chinatown is a tourist trap, but it’s a pretty entertaining one.) North Beach has all the cafes and people-watching you could ever want, and stop in at City Lights. Best. Bookstore. EVAR. Downtown has lots of neat shops and department stores, but it does smell of urine. I like the Mission, too, although it has sort of a seedy reputation. Do try to find some pandulce in the bakeries on 24th St. (And please send me some?)
There are a thousand things to see in Golden Gate Park. I like the Academy of Sciences and the Japanese Tea Garden. Keep your eye out for the herd of buffalo, too.
Avoid Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s stupid.
I loved Alcatraz. Get tickets in advance.
Ride the cablecars. Hang off the sides. Fun!
Rent a bike and ride around the Presidio and across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Alcatraz is definitely a high point. So is the Exploratorium. And ride the cable cars (and visit the Cable Car Museum).
North Beach has too many good restaurants to choose from (though there is a technique to finding a good restaurant in SF: take a pebble and toss it behind you. It’s bound to hit one.) However, all in all, the best meal I ever had was at Kiku of Toyko in the Hilton. Amazing and a great deal for their dinner special.
If you do hit the Fisherman’s Wharf area, there’s a great seafood place (of course) called Scoma’s… sort of down an alleyway I think. Then again I live in the midwest so maybe my opinion of a “great” seafood place is tainted by all the red meat in the restaurants around here…
Thanks for all the great information guys, I’ll try to do as much as possible of it =(. It seems like an odd question perhaps, but is there any places there of political importance or attraction…aside from Haight street.
Remember Exploritorium!!!
And I forgot! It is really just a bunch of high-tech (high-priced!) stores, but sony built a large complex called something like the “mediatrone” or something. There is a microsoft store their, an arcade with nothing but VR games, a great IMAX theater, and a sony store with all of their coolest gizmos. The place will give you massive sticker shock, but is still really cool.