{"id":1540,"date":"2011-10-21T16:25:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-21T06:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=1540"},"modified":"2012-02-01T22:51:37","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T12:51:37","slug":"san-francisco-2011-part-3-chinatown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=1540","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco 2011 part #3 – Chinatown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chinatown SF<\/p><\/div>\n

San Fran’s Chinatown<\/strong> is one of the biggest in the world outside of Asia thanks partly to the early gold rush days. You could easily spend a day traversing the hills sampling cuisine and buying any number of knick knacks and knock offs, though if you’re on a schedule, a few hours in the afternoon is enough to get the jist of it.<\/p>\n

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Doublepunch <\/p><\/div>\n

We actually started by overshooting Chinatown by a couple blocks north to check out some toys at Double Punch<\/a>. This is a well rounded store with a good selection of all the regular pieces you’d expect to see at an art toy store. Most are reasonably priced with a few sale items floating about. While the retail store is pleasant enough, unfortunately I had found the online experience far from it and recommend everyone to stay well clear of it. Service was extremely poor, replies were dragged out and vague at best and little attempt was made to find a solution to simple requests to gain my my business. Sad when all I wanted was to purchase some items and pick them up from the store to save on the horrendous international postage charges. A few of the pieces were getting tough to find so I wanted to make sure I could secure them, of course after a few weeks of toy blocking I gave up and hoped to find them in store. Of course, they were sold out by then. Thanks a lot, bastards \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

Unpleasantries aside, while you’re out that way, pop next door to Recon\/Darkside Initiative<\/a> skate store, a designer skate store in the vein of Supreme<\/a> or HUF<\/a> but with a lot friendlier service. They carry the usual designer items of clothing and a small range of sneakers. Being a smaller slightly out of the way store they also had a few older models\/colours of items that have been sold out else where, Undefeated caps and tees where the ones that caught my eye.<\/p>\n

The bus stop is barely a block away which took us back to Chinatown. If you’re looking for model kits then Sun Entertainment<\/a> is the way to go. The store is very unassuming from the street with only a small sign, in fact you’re more than likely to walk straight passed it. They stock a large range of model kits, regular vehicles along with Gundam<\/a> (inc. Master grade) and similar anime favourites. There’s also a small selection of figures and slot cars.<\/p>\n

While there are plenty of el cheapo souvenir shops around the place Far East Flea market<\/a> dwarfs them all. Perched on top of a hill its about the size of a large Crazy Clarks<\/a> store and with the same mish mash variety of “everything but the kitchen sink”. This is definitely one of the best places to buy cheap souvenirs, either Chinese\/Asia or San Fran related. Its not all junk either, there are some quality ornaments, cool Asian toys and retro items like vintage Coke<\/strong> or Star Wars<\/strong> metal lunch boxes along with all manner of household and travel related items. They even have replica weapons like swords and nunchucks, not too sure how you will go trying to get them through customs though!<\/p>\n

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Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory<\/p><\/div>\n

The last stop in Chinatown is a must for the novelty factor alone, the now famous Golden Gate Fortune cookie factory<\/a>. No more than a little business operating out of a cramped store front in a lane way, but thanks to plenty of online love its grown popular, to the point where you have to pay if you want to take photos! $1 if you can squeeze to the front but def. worth it to see the things being made. Of course there’s plenty of cookies available for purchase, a couple bucks will get you enough to wish you’d never want to see another one again! “Tough cookie not so tough when stuffed with tough cookie”…. or something :p<\/p>\n

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Chinatown Entrance SF<\/p><\/div>\n

We keep the Asian theme going next with a cuteness overload in Japantown<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Milpitas 2011 – Great Mall<\/a>
\nYosemite 2011 part #1 – LA to Oakhurst via Bakersfield<\/a>
\nYosemite 2011 part #2 – Yosemite National Park<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #1 – Arrival<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #2 – Shopping – Haight, Downtown SF<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #3 – Chinatown<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #4 – Japantown<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #5 – Alcatraz<\/a>
\nSan Francisco 2011 part #6 – Fisherman’s wharf, Golden Gate Bridge<\/a><\/p>\n

Complete Yosemite 2011 photo gallery here<\/a>
\nComplete San Francisco 2011 photo gallery here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Fran’s Chinatown is one of the biggest in the world outside of Asia thanks partly to the early gold rush days. You could easily spend a day traversing the hills sampling cuisine and buying any number of knick knacks and knock offs, though if you’re on a schedule, a few hours in the afternoon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1319,388],"tags":[1006,1366,767,1365,827,1358,1356,1127,1363,438,1367,1368,1361,487,1359,1369,1362,1357,525,1313,1328,1288,1312,1347,990,1293,521,100,1364,1360,2774,2775,391,1344,78,1305,444],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1869,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions\/1869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}