It's always fun to see a Pac-Man game in a bar, but when you consider that San Francisco has an arcade with games that are over a hundred years old, it's not quite as impressive anymore. The Musee Mecaniqueon Fisherman's Wharf is an old-timey arcade, similar to the ones on boardwalks years and years ago. They have over 300 "coin-operated mechanical musical instruments and antique arcade machines in their original working condition"-- that's right, boys and girls...you can actually play these ancient arcade games and make the animatrons dance for your enjoyment. It all started in the 1930's when an 11-year-old Edward Zelinsky used some pocket change to buy a penny skill game-- he used the money earned from getting his friends and family to play it to buy another game--and then the money earned from that game went to another machine, and so on. The machines require quite a bit of maintenance, since they're so old and rare, so a collection of games in working order, especially one of this size, isn't something you see every day. They've got player pianos, fortune tellers (even creepier than the damn Zoltar Speaks machine from Big that scared the 8-year-old crap outta me), skeeball, love testers, arm wrestling machines, music boxes, mechanical dioramas, pinball, and yes...they've got 1980's-era arcade games too. Among the more notable pieces in the collection are machines made by prisoners at Alcatraz from toothpicks, a steam-powered motorcycle, and Laffing Sal, a 6-foot-tall automatron that's been described as "famously creepy". Shiver. It's basically like a museum telling the history of arcades, but instead of all the artifacts being behind glass, you can play with them! Even better, it's free to visit-- just make sure to bring lots of change so you can work the machines (most games are between 25 and 50 cents). Oh, and maybe stay far away from Laffing Sal. -Roadtrippers The Musee Mecanique is a collection of penny arcade games and related artifacts located in San Francisco, California. The museum contains one of the world's largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines. Many exhibits are over 100 years old. The Musée Mécanique is a for-profit interactive museum consisting of 20th-century penny arcade games and artifacts located at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, California. The museum owns over 300 mechanical machines, and is one of the largest privately owned collection of such games in the world. The Musée Mécanique has a collection of more than 300 mechanical games including: music boxes, coin-operated fortune tellers, Mutoscopes, video games, love testers, player pianos, peep shows, photo booths, dioramas and more.  The museum displays about 200 of the machines at their current location. The museum has many rare and historical pieces. A large diorama of a traveling carnival with a ferris wheel and other rides sits in the center of the museum. The museum owns what is believed to be the only steam-powered motorcycle in the world, built in Sacramento, in 1912. The Royal Court diorama features couples ballroom dancing and was featured in the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. Laffing Sal, which has been described as "famously creepy", is a 6-foot-tall, laughing automaton and was originally located at the Fun House at Playland. The museum also owns a collection of machines made out of toothpicks by prisoners at Alcatraz.

Visitors to Golden Gate Park are often astounded to stumble upon a herd of American bison browsing in a meadow in the park’s western end, but these huge, shaggy Great Plains denizens have been a beloved institution since 1892. Before San Francisco opened its first zoo in the 1930s, a menagerie of creatures were kept in Golden Gate Park, including elk, deer, bear, sheep, and bison, more commonly known as buffalo.  An emblem of the American west, bison had been driven nearly to extinction by the time Golden Gate Park’s herd was established. The herd’s first home was in the park’s eastern end, near where the Music Concourse now stands, but in 1899 they were moved to the meadow where you see them today, just west of Spreckels Lake along John F. Kennedy Drive.  The small herd that remains is cared for by staff from the San Francisco Zoo, while Recreation and Parks Department gardeners maintain the enclosure.

(also known as J-Town or historically as Japanese Town, or "Nihonmachi" (Japan town, in Japanese)) is a neighborhood in the Western Addition district of San Francisco, California. Japan town comprises about six city blocks, and it's considered one of San Francisco's largest and oldest ethnic enclave in the United States.