Before we left home we found this excellent site: freetoursbyfoot.com which has walking tours of San Francisco $ includes one of Chinatown. We printed it out & today we caught the bus into Market Street & made our way to Dragon Gate to follow the instructions.

They were really easy to follow & provided a lot of information. It’s a very large Chinatown with the first Chinese immigrants arriving before the gold rush in 1849.

When you first enter in Grant Street there’s a lot of souvenir shops which aren’t very interesting but further in there seems to be more traditional areas. Stockton Street made me think I was in a market in China with tiny shops selling dried herbs, nuts, dried fish, Chinese greens & plenty of other fruit & veges.

In St Mary’s Square there were many Chinese people playing cards & gambling & some just lying back having a nap & soaking up the sun. The area was protected from the nasty winds we have been dealing with over the last few days. At the moment the temperature is 14* but with the find it feels like 12. Bit chilly for us Queenslanders!

We decided to have lunch at a dim sum restaurant & had to wait a few minutes for a table. It was a huge restaurant & was full. All over the area you could see families out for Sunday lunch. We missed having Sal & Shao Meng & the kids here to share with us & to help with the food choices. But, trust us, we managed very well! And we certainly weren’t hungry when we left. Not much dinner needed tonight.