San Francisco: Zigzag Through Chinatown

After I step out of the shower, I hunt for my makeup bag. I dig through our suitcases several times. Wary of how this affects the feminine psyche, Gene helps me dig. It is nowhere. I am certain I didn’t leave it behind.

In sunglasses and shorts, I ask the front-desk clerk directions to the nearest drugstore.

She tells us to walk up Stockton—the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown—to Broadway. At least Stockton is not as impassable as New York’s Canal Street I say, but within a block or two, the street clogs with shoppers. We weave around parked cars to avoid the masses.

At Walgreen’s, we buy makeup and pick up a couple of other forgotten items. Aren’t there always forgotten items, no matter how carefully you pack your bags?

We reroute to Columbus Ave on the return. We see last night’s clubs, bars, storefronts and restaurants bathed in early Sunday sunlight. We pass some interesting spots: The World of Ginseng, Asians.com and Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope studio-turned-wine-bar. I take many pictures of the Flatiron-ish building that houses Coppola’s restaurant.

Back at the hotel, I find my makeup bag, cleverly packed inside a straw hat.

Armed with brunch suggestions from the Hilton’s concierge, we head out again on the now-familiar Columbus Avenue to the Café Divine. And divine it is; the one-room cafe is constructed of beautiful, dark wood and glass. Tiny white floor tiles add to the Victorian ambiance.

We sit in one of the window tables, looking at the people dining at the sidewalk tables. A young, tattooed father hands a baby to the mother. She hold the baby girl to her shoulder and the baby flirts with us and laughs, inches away but with the glass between us.

Gene snaps a picture of an elderly patron sitting alone.