This one’s easy to miss because it’s dwarfed by one of the many loud discount stores on Mission selling Day-Glo flowers and phone chargers. When you find it, the inside is tiny; there’s just enough room for you, an espresso machine, and a guy or two playing great music every time. And they have egg creams!

You have a lot of hills to choose from in San Francisco but in my opinion the best (and most varied) views are from Bernal Hill. Bonus: from my kitchen table I can watch tiny blobs moving around on this hill-- slow blobs are people, fast blobs are dogs.

Murals! where? everywhere! walls, streets, signs, windows. keep your eyes peeled. I walk a lot in San Francisco and always seem to find new murals in the least expected places. They are a constant source of inspiration, and make me wish I could paint worth a damn.

Shopping area in Japantown connected by an outdoor plaza with a Japanese Pagoda. The malls feature some good food spots and as well as Kinokuniya Bookstore.

If you can get past the bourgie factor and/or you work down the street like I do, you will come to love this place. It has some of the best food in the city, a Blue Bottle coffee, and an observation deck from which you can watch the ferries come and go, emitting their weird beeps and disgorging tourists. The people who work here are great too (whether or not I dated a baker from the Acme Bread kiosk because of a Craigslist missed connection will be left to history).