Shopping in San Francisco

I love shopping. I love shopping for shoes. I love shopping for purses. I love shopping for clothes in general. Shopping fulfills me. When in San Francisco, I generally go shopping around Union Square. That’s where you can find most of the department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and soon to arrive Barneys. Nordstroms is located nearby on Market Street in the Westfield Shopping Center. However, there are lots of other great stores around Union Square. Most of the fancy, schmanzy stores in San Francisco are located in that area. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Salvador Ferragamo, Prada, Dior, Burberry, Ralph Lauren and many more. You’ll also find lots of mid-prized to less expensive stores like Banana Republic, Gap, Cole Haan, Diesel, BCBG, Nike, Kenneth Cole, Old Navy etc. If you are in the mood for big-time shopping Union Square is the place to focus your attention.

However, there are at least two other cute and interesting shopping streets in San Francisco. Union Street and Fillmore Street. Both streets have lots of cute boutiques, restaurants, coffee shops, art-galleries, and one of a kind stores. These streets are both fun places to explore. You can easily kill a whole afternoon in both places. These are streets that are surrounded by neighborhoods so it gives you a feeling of the real San Francisco (minus the 20 million tourists that visits the city annually.)

When we go to San Francisco we always make to Fillmore Street, in part because that’s where my husband’s favorite Thai restaurant is located. Thai Stix is the name and we go there for lunch at least one time on every trip we make to San Francisco. We always order the Tom Ka Gai. This coconut soup is quite a bit richer than you’ll find in other restaurants, but they use the real ingredients they would use in Thailand. The satay sauce is a special concoction that is made of 15 different ingredients. The fried tofu and basil leafs in tamarind sauce is also an item we always order. We find it very entertaining to have lunch and look at the San Franciscans who are walking by on the sidewalk. After lunch, we usually stroll up and down the sidewalk and peek in interesting stores that catches our eyes.

One of my favorite stores to visit in San Francisco is Artisans. It is located on Union Street which is another cute shopping district. Artisans is a framing store that also sells old photographs of San Francisco taken during the late 1800’s and through the first half of the 1900’s. For a 11X17 black and white photograph the price is approx. $30. We have probably 12-15 of these photographs decorating the walls of our home. I love San Francisco, I love history, and I never get tired of looking at these pictures. I can’t wait to go back to San Francisco again.