First off, we went over to the Cherry Blossom festival that happens in Japantown of SF every year.  It's one of the largest cherry blossom festivals in the country and a great place to walk around and admire all the booths filled with food, games, and goodies. 

I even noticed a little children's area where they had carnival type games for the younger kids.  One of the games in particular caught my attention...  They give you thin paper nets and the kids would take these and try to catch as many gold fish as they could from a little bucket of water.  Reminds me of the good old days.  I used to love games like that.  Too bad those goldfish don't ever live very long. 

I've been to this festival once or twice before and, as always, it's crowded and crazy.  They block off the entire street and fill it with plenty of tents for companies to display their goods/products.  One in particular tent involved a free giveaway with some pretty nice prizes that they said they'd hand out on live television.  The catch was they required that we sign up and give them our email addresses...  I don't think I won anything but I have a bad feeling that I just signed up for more spam. 

There were also plenty of booths for souvenir shopping.  My gf ended up buying a nice looking necklace.  And I purchased some small bracelets for my nieces.  Our friends didn't buy anything.

And, there was a food bazaar filled with snacks and good food.  The lines can get crazy though so be prepared to wait in line.

We also decided to take advantage of the great weather and enjoy some time at Golden Gate Park.  The first place we wanted to go to was Stow Lake.  I heard that they had paddle boats and some amazing scenery there.  And, I figured it would be a nice way to relax after our morning of walking around at the Cherry Blossom Festival. 

The problem was...  none of us had ever been to Stow Lake.  We've been to Golden Gate Park before.  We've seen different parts of it here and there.  But, none of us knew what to look for.  We knew the general area where it should have been.  But, we didn't know what to expect.  So, we set out somewhat blinded and tried to find Stow Lake...  Alas... it was not to be.  Just a word of warning: Golden Gate Park is ginormous.  Yes there are signs to point you to the main attractions.  And, yes there are maps all around.  But that place is still HUGE.  There are parts to it that people just never realize exist.  We searched and we searched and we searched.  We went up one trail and walked to the end of it and realized that it was leading us out of the park.  We tried another trail and and then we saw it....  A waterfall.  Perhaps the source of the water could be the lake?  So, we ventured onto a trail near the waterfall to find the source of the water.  

What we found at the top of the trail we took was a large cross.  No Stow Lake.  And, we realized that the waterfall was also being pumped up...  so it was pretty disappointing.  But, since we were here anyways, we might as well explore and take some pictures.

This is what we saw.

Wonder if we can climb this thing?

Victory!

More pictures on the Cross. 

After some persuasion, even the girls joined us.

We weren't done yet.  So, we continued on our quest to find Stow Lake.  Now, at this time, it was getting a tad bit later.  So, we didn't have much time to find it if we still wanted to walk around and see some of the other sights that we had originally planned.  So we tried to pick up the speed a bit.  But, it was such a great day that we still took some time to stop and enjoy the scenery around us. 

We tried.  But, it was not to be.  We couldn't find Stow Lake.  But we did find somewhat of a stream that we decided to call "Stow Wannabe Lake."  Could this be it?  I'm sure it isn't... but we were all ready to move on to the next attraction.

Stow wannabe Lake

Then, off in the distance...  a big expanse of water.  Could this be it?  Alas... it was Spreckles Lake.  We looked on the map and realized that we had already passed it and decided... what the hell... we'll go next time.  Lets go and see the buffalo instead.

Spreckles Lake

Now there have been many people who have told me that there are buffaloes in Golden Gate Park.  At first, I thought they were joking.  After some research, I realized... there are indeed supposed to be buffaloes in the Park.  Not just roaming around.. but there is an area where you can see buffaloes.  So, I had to check it out.  After our failures with Stow Lake, I was not about to make the same mistakes.  I kept to the bath and kept checking the map on every stop.

It paid off...  we saw them.  BUFFALOES IN GOLDEN GATE PARK!  I was quite excited.

Buffalo roaming freely in the distance

Info about the American Bison (Apparently it's called Buffalo Paddock but those aren't buffaloes... they are American Bison... now I know.)

Getting a closer view at them.

And one last picture of them before heading off.

And, we were off on our way to more exciting Golden Gate Park establishments.  Since it was getting late, we decided to check out the windmills another day as well. 

Instead, we just relaxed

I've been hearing and reading some rave reviews about Little Star Pizza.  So what better way to finish up the evening than to go there and see if those reviews are right?  So, we drove over after our day in the park.  

We ordered a thin crust pizza and a Chicago-style pizza just to see the difference between the two here at Little Star.  I've read tons of their rave reviews of the thick-crusted Chicago-style pie and wanted to see how it ranked against good ol' Zachary's in Berkeley or even the real-deal Chicago pizzerias that I'd had when I went there.  My final verdict: just as good, if not better in a few ways. 

The regular thin crust pizza was pretty good.  What surprised me was how crunchy the bottom was without being at all burnt and with so much topping on it too.  It was also quite nice and fluffy on the inside.

Regular thin crust pizza

But, the real reason  to come here is their deep dish pizza.  I really liked their crust (some people disagree on the crust point) because to me...  it reminded me of cornbread.  Maybe they used cornmeal in it, but it was nice and flaky and it had the perfect amount of crunch to it but also became tiny flakes in your mouth after you bite into it.  The toppings were also quite good and worked very well to balance out the pizza.  To compare this to Zachary's, I'd say it's completely comparable.  I liked the crust for Little Star a tad bit more, but the overall pizza is still about the same as Zachary's.  If I'm in SF and get a craving for Chicago-style pizza, I'm definitely coming back here.

The deep dish