Mixing business (travel) with pleasure.
I knew traffic in the Bay Area was bad, but man...two and a half hours to get to San Francisco from San Jose? Half an hour of that was just trying to get free of San Jose, to cross four-lane streets with wall-to-wall cars in futile attempts to make left turns. And I thought New Jersey traffic was bad!
Anyway, I did eventually make it to the heart of downtown San Francisco to meet mrsmetallian and noahflower. We quickly found parking, met up with jubjub_bird and determinist, and proceeded to the restaurant noahflower had discovered: Dojima-Ann.
It was billed as "Japanese comfort food" and "authentic Japanese diner food" and supposedly many people from Japan liked to eat there. They had sushi, but I can get sushi anywhere! I instead tried the katsudon donburi as it had was praised in several online reviews. (Sadly, they were out of Asahi Black, a Japanese schwarzbier.)
Damn, was it good! It totally blew my mind. It tasted reminiscent of the delicious fish/mushroom/scallion dish that mrsmetallian prepares, presumably due to the presence of mirin in the sauce. I highly, highly recommend that you try it if you can get your hands on it.
Over dinner, mrsmetallian mentioned that she and her sister had sought out some mythical Bar That Serves Pie on a drunken rampage the other night but were unable to find it. We all agreed that it sounded like a fantastic idea and tried to find it. We failed. However, we did get a nice tour of downtown San Francisco. I expected it to be full of cool shops and restaurants (it was), but I had not been expecting it to be filled with such great architecture. I never really considered it, but I must have subconsciously supposed that the hills and the earthquakes prevented any truly nice buildings from cropping up. At times (especially due to the elaborate decorations all over the place) it felt like a warmer version of New York City at Christmastime...as long as I didn't crane my neck too far up. I can see why people are willing to put up with the traffic and other practical difficulties of living there.
We initially failed to find the Pie Bar, and we failed to get into the Cheesecake Factory, but determinist led us to the San Francisco location of Beard Papa Sweets and we nabbed some Japanese cream puffs for dessert. (Japanese food FTW all around!) Then mrsmetallian got a hold of her sister and she told us where the Pie Bar was. After a quick detour to inspect some artificial snow, we found the Pie Bar. At this point, nobody was hungry for pie anymore, but everyone but me (as I had to drive) had drinks and conversation was had until we all got tired.
We said our farewells and mrsmetallian and I headed east to her hometown, arriving late at night. The next day we had an elaborate lunch at home with her parents, sister, maternal grandmother (who I'd last seen about 8 years ago), and uncle (who I'd never met - but liked). We learned some interesting genealogy about her mother's side of the family (going all the way back to medieval Switzerland) and exchanged some early Christmas gifts I got Arrested Development Season 3 and, at long last, Benji, Zax, and the Alien Prince, which smells like... vindication.
Afterwards, her grandmother and uncle said goodbye and the rest of us walked to a full-service athletic shoe store that studies you while you run and helps you pick the perfect running shoe. mrsmetallian's whole family got new sneakers, which was a good thing as mrsmetallian's old sneakers were at least 12 years old and wearing pretty thin.
We puttered around the house for a bit after that, and later went to La Esperanza, everyone's favorite Mexican restaurant.
That night, I converted mrsmetallian's mom to the Church of Firefox, then started watching Azumanga Daioh on mrsmetallian's laptop before bed.
The next morning, we had breakfast and mrsmetallian's sister took her to the airport since she lives near there. That left me free to go Christmas shopping downtown in mrsmetallian's hometown and then later in a mall in Sacramento. I got some cool gifts for mrsmetallian, her parents, her sister, my parents, and my grandmother. It was very tiring running around the mall and trying to cram an entire season worth of shopping into one day. Then I returned for dinner with mrsmetallian's parents, did a little more Christmas shopping on Amazon, and went to bed.
The next morning I work up at 5 am and hauled ass to San Jose (again with the traffic! but not as bad as on Friday night) to pick up AJB at the hotel and go into the office for a bit in the morning. Then he drove me to the airport and I got home that night without incident.
So, yeah, it was quite a lot of activity.
Anyway, I did eventually make it to the heart of downtown San Francisco to meet mrsmetallian and noahflower. We quickly found parking, met up with jubjub_bird and determinist, and proceeded to the restaurant noahflower had discovered: Dojima-Ann.
It was billed as "Japanese comfort food" and "authentic Japanese diner food" and supposedly many people from Japan liked to eat there. They had sushi, but I can get sushi anywhere! I instead tried the katsudon donburi as it had was praised in several online reviews. (Sadly, they were out of Asahi Black, a Japanese schwarzbier.)
Damn, was it good! It totally blew my mind. It tasted reminiscent of the delicious fish/mushroom/scallion dish that mrsmetallian prepares, presumably due to the presence of mirin in the sauce. I highly, highly recommend that you try it if you can get your hands on it.
Over dinner, mrsmetallian mentioned that she and her sister had sought out some mythical Bar That Serves Pie on a drunken rampage the other night but were unable to find it. We all agreed that it sounded like a fantastic idea and tried to find it. We failed. However, we did get a nice tour of downtown San Francisco. I expected it to be full of cool shops and restaurants (it was), but I had not been expecting it to be filled with such great architecture. I never really considered it, but I must have subconsciously supposed that the hills and the earthquakes prevented any truly nice buildings from cropping up. At times (especially due to the elaborate decorations all over the place) it felt like a warmer version of New York City at Christmastime...as long as I didn't crane my neck too far up. I can see why people are willing to put up with the traffic and other practical difficulties of living there.
We initially failed to find the Pie Bar, and we failed to get into the Cheesecake Factory, but determinist led us to the San Francisco location of Beard Papa Sweets and we nabbed some Japanese cream puffs for dessert. (Japanese food FTW all around!) Then mrsmetallian got a hold of her sister and she told us where the Pie Bar was. After a quick detour to inspect some artificial snow, we found the Pie Bar. At this point, nobody was hungry for pie anymore, but everyone but me (as I had to drive) had drinks and conversation was had until we all got tired.
We said our farewells and mrsmetallian and I headed east to her hometown, arriving late at night. The next day we had an elaborate lunch at home with her parents, sister, maternal grandmother (who I'd last seen about 8 years ago), and uncle (who I'd never met - but liked). We learned some interesting genealogy about her mother's side of the family (going all the way back to medieval Switzerland) and exchanged some early Christmas gifts I got Arrested Development Season 3 and, at long last, Benji, Zax, and the Alien Prince, which smells like... vindication.
Afterwards, her grandmother and uncle said goodbye and the rest of us walked to a full-service athletic shoe store that studies you while you run and helps you pick the perfect running shoe. mrsmetallian's whole family got new sneakers, which was a good thing as mrsmetallian's old sneakers were at least 12 years old and wearing pretty thin.
We puttered around the house for a bit after that, and later went to La Esperanza, everyone's favorite Mexican restaurant.
That night, I converted mrsmetallian's mom to the Church of Firefox, then started watching Azumanga Daioh on mrsmetallian's laptop before bed.
The next morning, we had breakfast and mrsmetallian's sister took her to the airport since she lives near there. That left me free to go Christmas shopping downtown in mrsmetallian's hometown and then later in a mall in Sacramento. I got some cool gifts for mrsmetallian, her parents, her sister, my parents, and my grandmother. It was very tiring running around the mall and trying to cram an entire season worth of shopping into one day. Then I returned for dinner with mrsmetallian's parents, did a little more Christmas shopping on Amazon, and went to bed.
The next morning I work up at 5 am and hauled ass to San Jose (again with the traffic! but not as bad as on Friday night) to pick up AJB at the hotel and go into the office for a bit in the morning. Then he drove me to the airport and I got home that night without incident.
So, yeah, it was quite a lot of activity.