While you are sure to stumble across any number of Asian eateries, businesses, art or cultural influences throughout your stay in San Francisco, the following are two day-long itinerary suggestions for your Asian immersion. It’s well-worth a check of our event calendar to see if your trip falls on one of the Asian festival days such as the Cherry Blossom Festival or Chinese New Year, or even to plan a trip to the City around one of these grand events.

Japantown and the Asian Art Museum

After tea and a light breakfast at your downtown hotel, duck in the morning commuter rush as it whooshes past and hop on the Historic F-line along Market. Exit at Civic Center for your morning at the Asian Art Museum, redesigned by internationally renowned Italian architect Gae Aulenti with three floors of collection galleries, a gleaming slit glass ceiling through which sunlight pours and a grand staircase. Spend the morning gazing upon more than 15,000 remarkable objects that span 6,000 years – from jade, stone and bronze sculptures to paintings and scrolls, furniture, armor and puppets. When it’s time for lunch, stop for a bite at Café Asia. The Pan Asian menu boasts bento boxes, rice bowls, hot noodles and sushi. If the weather’s nice, take a spot in the sun on the outdoor dining terrace.

Just outside City Hall, take the 49 up Van Ness, and exit at Sutter. From here, it’s just a few blocks west to Japantown, the few blocks running between Geary and Bush, Filmore and Laguna. Nihonmachi, as the locals call Japantown, emerged in the mid-1800’s with the influx of Japanese immigrants. Now only about 12,000 of the city’s Japanese Americans live here but many return here for shopping and social and religious activities.

Japan Center is at the heart of Japantown. The five-acre shopping, dining and entertainment complex, is where much of the action is centered and Peace Plaza is the focal point. The Peace Pagoda, 100 feet in five tiers, is at its center; a gift to the community from the Japanese government. Also in Japan Center are the Ruth Asawa Fountains, bronze creations surrounded by stone benches. Stop over at the Ikenobo Ikebana Society for lessons in the Japanese art of flower arrangements, or just gaze at their artful designs. From clothing to books, furniture, jewelry, the elegantly inspired stores are filled with Asian-inspired goods. If all that walking has your feet in need of some rejuvenation, Kabuki Springs and Spa will be happy to oblige. Their traditional Japanese-style communal baths and shiatsu massage are a local favorite – and well worth effort to book ahead.

Just outside the mall, at Sutter and Buchannan, is the Japanese Cultural and Community Center where art exhibitions, film screenings and discussion groups explore the Japanese American community. The Soto Zen Mission Sokoji Buddhist Temple at Laguna and Sutter is one of the five churches in the area where many Japanese from outlying areas come for services.

When the mood for dinner strikes, sushi, tempura or soba are plentiful. Whether uniquely upscale or mindfully mid-range, you are likely to find a selection that fits your liking in the heart of the city’s Japantown.

Chinatown and Angel Island

Take tea in the hotel before leaving for Pier 39, where you will catch your boat for Angel Island, often referred to as the “Ellis Island of the West.” Your advance planning was well worth the effort (there is limited ferry service in the winter), as the Blue and Gold Fleet ferry will likely be busy, as it is most days, especially during the summer months.

Your guided tour of the 740-acre island in the middle of the bay will include its rich history as a Civil War encampment, a quarantine station, a POW camp, a missile base and as an Immigration Station. The island is where 250,000 Chinese immigrants were processed with an average detention of two weeks -- the longest was 22 months. Families were isolated, separated and the interrogated and conditions were harsh. One of the old barracks has been preserved in what was then called China Cove.

Back on the mainland, exit to your right to the Cable Car turnaround. Catch a Cable Car to Chinatown, and find some dim sum that appeals and dig in for lunch. Spend the afternoon wandering the streets and alleyways along and around Grant and Stockton, ducking in and out of stores of knick knacks and knock offs, fine jade and not-so-fine pearls, silk kimonos and cotton I love San Francisco T-shirts. Humming with street life morning and night, Chinatown bursts with energy and things to see and do. Some really recommended:

Be led: The Chinese Culture Center, at the Holiday Inn, offers historical or culinary guided tours so you can learn what’s in your dim sum and how much that duck is in the window.

Get historic: For a look at the most extensive collection of Chinese American artifacts in America, stop in to the Chinese Historical Society at 985 Clay.

Go through the gate: The official entrance to Chinatown is at Bush and Grant, where you will find an elaborately decorated gate, a gift from Taiwan in 1970.

Be fortunate: Be sure to stop by the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory on tiny Ross Alley. The century-old factory still makes their cookies by hand and anyone is welcome to take a look or a taste.

Walk Waverly: This little lane is home Tien Hau Temple and Norras Temple, the oldest Buddhist Temple in San Francisco.

Say hello to an herbalist: A peek into one of Chinatown’s real herbal pharmacies will bring you right to the roots of modern medicine.

Hail Mary: Old St. Mary's Cathedral, was built by Chinese laborers in 1854 using granite from China; though the original was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, the cathedral was rebuilt.

Once you’ve had your cultural fill, it’s time to choose one of the many choices for dinner. It’s Chinese tonight. And if it gets to be dim sum again, so be it!