chinatown

sorry my phone was out of battery and i didnt take any pictures this is from the internet its the chinatown gate we saw

After ballet class last Saturday I got to go to chinatown! Asians are VERY good at taking advantage of tourists. Chinatowns are generally packed with cheap, touristy junk, but they have great food and you can usually find some interesting stuff.  The Chinatown in San Fran is definitely the largest and most picturesque that I've seen.  New York Chinatown/Canal street is great for finding knockoffs, and LA Chinatown has some fun shops , but its easy to see why the one is San Fran is so famous.  Sure it's a little run down and dusty looking (and not a great place to be at night) but for some reason it has this charm to it.  Something about the banners hanging over the busy streets and the carts of exotic vegetables mixed in with bins of plastic toys...it has a really interesting atmosphere.  There's actually a lot of cool buildings that imitate asian stye roofs.  Even though its all plaster and show, there's an ironically authentic feel to the San Fran Chinatown, just because it is so old. It's where so many Chinese immigrants made their home in the United States.  I loved it and since I'm going through a cut-up shirt phase, I bought a couple cool T-shirts.  I won't worry about ruining it if it only cost a couple bucks right?  It's so funny- I saw this really awesome vintage looking "Port of San Francisco" shirt on display under a bunch of newer shirts and I asked the lady if she still was selling it.  She kept telling me that it was not for sale and there was no more, so I asked her if I could just buy the display (it was taped on the edge of a table).  She thought I was crazy and tried to convince me that it was too dirty until I begged her to let me have it for 2 dollars.  I should have just asked for it for free.  She obviously didn't want it and look she got 2 dollars off of me for an old T-shirt no one else was going to buy.  Lesson learned- next time bid lower.