San Francisco Japantown Audio Tour by VoiceMap Food History and Resistance

San Francisco Japantown Audio Tour by VoiceMap Food History and Resistance

Explore San Francisco's historic Japantown at your own pace on this self-guided audio tour. Japanese-American local Kristin Eriko Posner will guide you through the neighborhood, sharing little-known stories on how history shaped the food, culture, and landscape of the oldest Japantown in the U.S. This geo-tagged audio tour is best between 10:30am - 3:30pm on Wednesday-Saturdays, when all of the businesses on the tour are open. However, it can be taken at any time, on any day. Most stops are open until 6pm.

The tour is ready whenever you are and the audio plays automatically at exactly the right time and place using your smartphone's GPS and the VoiceMap mobile app, which also works offline.

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Pass By: Japantown, Post and Buchanan Streets, San Francisco, CA

While there are many great restaurants, there’s just so much more to Japantown than ramen and sushi. There are stories here that so many don’t know - stories you might never know unless you were part of the community.

Pass By: Benkyodo, 1747 Buchanan St, San Francisco, CA 94115-3208

Benkyodo is one of only three traditional Japanese manju makers remaining in the US. The others are in each of the other two remaining Japantowns in Los Angeles and San Jose. Manju is a traditional Japanese confection, traditionally filled with sweet bean paste and wrapped with mochi, a glutinous rice that is pounded down into a sticky, gooey, delicious mass.

Pass By: Fillmore Street, Between Jackson and Eddy Street Pacific Heights, San Francisco, CA

Bop City at 1712 Fillmore Street became the place to play after hours. Anyone who was anyone in jazz played here: John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to name a few. In the 1940’s San Francisco’s black community grew immensely and Fillmore Street was dubbed the Harlem of the West.