San Francisco: Flower Show, Fortune Cookies and Fantastic Hotel

 

I love to visit San Francisco. When I lived there, I was teaching and going to graduate school and somehow never knew about the Flower Show and the Fortune Cookie Factory. Fortunately, friends of mine showed me the way and I discovered new things on my recent visit.

San Francisco ViewIn Union Square at Macy’s, there is a spring time flower show. The 2018 theme was “Once Upon A Springtime.” My favorite part was to sit in the Princess chair but I was told that in San Francisco, “We do not bother with Princesses, we are all Queens here!” So grab some attitude and enjoy the flower displays all over the store. This event happens at Macy’s New York, Chicago and San Francisco where the stores are “transformed into breathtaking floral scenes with blooms, fantasy flowers and lush plants from around the world. Millions of guests filed in during the two-week exhibition as our stores blossomed with themed events, specialty gardens and more.” The theme of the show was “heroic characters triumphing over competing forces to usher in the beauty of spring.”

During my stay at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, I learned that the Fortune Cookie started in San Francisco in 1914. I walked from the hotel to historic Chinatown and visited the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory.

Fortune Cookie at The Ritz Carlton SF

It is free to visit the factory which is open from 9am to 6pm and you can create your own fortune cookies! Located at 56 Ross Alley, you walk in and say hello. You are welcome to take photos but the best part is you can write up your own fortunes and watch them get wrapped into cookies! I wrote Happy Birthday messages for my mom! You will pay $1.50 for two cookies with your personal messages. If you take photos, please leave a tip for the hard working team. While this Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory has been in operation since August 5, 1962, you will not find fortune cookies in China. They are a San Francisco invention started by a Japanese American in Golden Gate Park at the Japanese Tea Garden.

I loved my stay at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco. Did you know that children have their own check-in table?

The Ritz Carlton SF Kids Check in here

Not only was my room gorgeous but it had the best black-out curtains so after my adventures in the city, I could take an afternoon nap!

My room The Ritz-Carlton San Francisco

This array of chocolates, cookies and brownies were a most delectable San Francisco treat!

My treats at The Ritz-Carlton San FranciscoWant more information and rates for The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco. Click here!

Outside at The Ritz-Carlton San Francisco

Whether you are staying at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco or just nearby, make a reservation for The JCB by Jean-Charles Boisset Tasting Lounge with rare wines in an intimate setting.  Looking for a romantic date, a place to propose or a wine tasting to rekindle the fires, this stunning tasting lounge offers exclusive wine tasting flights, ranging from $35 to $75 per person, and includes some of the most decadent, exquisite, limited wines within the Boisset Collection. JCB-at-The-Ritz-Carlton-SF

Are you wondering about the service at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco? The Ladies and Gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton always go the extra mile to make sure your stay is remarkable in every way. They even helped me get more organized! Thank you to The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco.

Lisa Ellen Niver

Lisa Ellen Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. She is the founder of the website WeSaidGoTravel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. Niver is a speaker at the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas Travel and Adventure Shows for 2023. Her podcast, “Make Your Own Map,” has been watched in more than 11 countries on 4 continents. Niver is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc. Look for her memoir in Fall 2023 from Post Hill Press/Simon and Schuster. You can find Lisa Niver talking travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours, The Jet Set TV and Orbitz travel webisodes as well as her YouTube channel, where her WeSaidGoTravel videos have nearly 2 million views. With more than 150,000 followers across social media, she has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best, is verified on Twitter and listed on IMDb, and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club. As a journalist, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors and been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She has been a judge for the Gracie Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media, and has run 15 travel competitions on her website, publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries. For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty times.   Niver has published more than 2000 articles, in more than three dozen magazines and journals including National Geographic, Wired, Teen Vogue, HuffPost Personal, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, AAA Explorer Magazine, American Airways, Delta Sky, enRoute (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, BuzzFeed, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, USA Today, TODAY, Wharton Magazine, and Yahoo. https://bit.ly/m/lisaniver Awards National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards 2021 Winner: Book Critic: Ms. Magazine “Untamed: Brave Means Living From the Inside Out” 2019 Winner: Soft News Feature for Film/TV: KTLA TV “Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver” 2019 Finalist for: Soft News, Business/Music/Tech/Art Southern California Journalism Awards 2022 Finalist: Book Criticism 2021 Winner: Technology Reporting 2021 Finalist: Book Criticism 2020 Winner: Print Magazine Feature: Hemispheres Magazine, “Painter by the Numbers, Rembrandt” 2020 Finalist: Online Journalist of the Year, Activism Journalism, Educational Reporting, Broadcast Lifestyle Feature 2019 Finalist: Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment for “Ogden Ski Getaway” 2018 Finalist: Science/Technology Reporting, Travel Reporting, Personality Profile 2017 Winner: Print Column “A Journey to Freedom over Three Passovers” Social Media Presence YouTube Channel: We Said Go Travel (1.7 million views) Short form video:TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts Twitter: lisaniver (90,000 followers) Instagram: lisaniver (24,000 followers) Pinterest: We Said Go Travel (20,000 followers and over 70,000 monthly views) Facebook: lisa.niver (5,000 followers); We Said Go Travel (3,000 followers) LinkedIn: lisaellenniver (9000 contacts)

One response to “San Francisco: Flower Show, Fortune Cookies and Fantastic Hotel

  1. Hello
    I would like to show you my appreciation about your talent in writing and photography.
    I like the full travel guide to San Francisco that tells us about things to do, places to visit and more of the beauty of such a great city. Your photos take us to those places like an amazing film.
    Please keep on writing you are really talented. Reem Zeyad

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