Dispatches from San Francisco, parts 1 & 2
Erm, for those of you who don't know, I'm in San Francisco for a week. These are the emails I'm sending home (parents would rather have a written account instead of roaming charges on their phone bill).
TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2008: Once I fast-forward past the plane ride (during which I did NOT like the view of all that water under the plane upon landing) and the BART ride, and the rather zig-zaggy walk from Powell Street Station to Libby's apartment on Post (at that point I knew I was screwed in terms of blistery feet):
Since Andy and I hadn't eaten since, er, 4:00am, it was time for lunch regardless of what the clock said. So Libby (Andy's sister) led us to Chinatown to hit up the House of Dim Sum -- which turned out to be closed on Tuesdays. Luckily, Delicious Dim Sum was right across the street -- and just as small, with tiny Chinese women behind the counter taking orders in Chinese from even tinier Chinese women, who were reading off the menus (written only in Chinese.) No chicken fried rice here, and thank God for that. Libby ordered for us: Shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, one LARGE bbq pork dumpling/pastry (barbequed pork encased in a white spongy carb of some sort), shark fin dumplings, and two giant confections wrapped in lotus leaves. It sounds like a lot, especially for three people, doesn't it?
Our lunch total was $8.50. I love Chinatown.
We took our food to a park across the street from the Chinese Cultural Center so we could watch small mobs of Chinese guys playing poker and go. We peeled back the lotus leaves first: inside was a concoction of sticky rice, Chinese sausage, chicken, and a hard-boiled egg. MMMMMMMMMM. It turned out the white pastry around the BBQ pork was made from crack, or at least a derivative of it. Too bad we only bought one! It also turns out I'm a giant animal-rights hypocrite, because the shark-fin dumpling was my favorite. Oops.
After lunch we started our four-hour wander of "all the Asian neighborhoods in San Francisco," stopping first at a Chinese pastry shop that had these milkshakes made with red beans at the bottom. (I was warned not to get one of those.) So I ordered a mango shake. It turned out to have a TON of red beans at the bottom. They give it to you with a big effing straw so you can just suck it all down. That's the point where I realized I was still American. (Actually, it didn't taste that bad, as the red beans turned out to be either Jello or some kind of squishy berry, but it just weirded me out to see like five "beans" come shooting up the straw, knowing my mouth was next. [that sounds wrong. oh well.]
Libby then led us down a side alley to one of the oldest fortune-cookie makers (at least in the City, maybe in the country) where they still fold the cookies by hand. If you buy something they give you a few from the current batch as a sample. The man picked off three chocolate cookies right off the machine/cooling rack and gave them to us, still warm and not even folded. Mom, even you would like these fortune cookies.
One can't have a complete meal without tea in Chinatown. So we found the Red Blossom Tea Shop, a place cut from the same cloth as Gong Fu Tea (though I don't think their selection was quite as big). The eagle-eyed sales ladies brewed us samples of whatever teas we chose to smell (or even glance at). You could also sit down for a full tea service. (The tea is fantastic, by the way.) Then we wandered into some import shop that had the largest selection of Yixing teapots I've ever seen. I'm tempted to go back and get one.
The breeze had started to come in full-force from the Bay by then, so we went back to the apartment to grab coats before heading to Japantown. Japantown is (unsurprisingly) largely situated in a mall and mostly consists of restaurants serving sushi, restaurants serving teriyaki and udon, stores FULL (and I mean full) of anime/video game stuff, a bonsai store, and several Japanese antique stores. I wanted to pick up an obi belt, but those suckers are e x p e n s i v e.
No matter. Japantown is the perfect place to buy silly shit. Right now I'm wearing a t-shirt that I'm assuming says "no smoking" in kanji, complete with a picture of a cigarette looking pissed off/constipated/like the unwitting victim of buttsex. (Funny, but obviously not appropriate for work.)
Dinner was late as we had to wait for Libby's fiance to come home from work. They took us to Chutney, were I was served the hottest (and best) curry I have ever ever eaten. There's not much more to say about that. I'm going to cry the next time I have Indian food in Iowa.
No pictures yet, but Andy and I are going back to Chinatown and Japantown so we can see more (and make a few repeat visits).
Also, my ass is going to hurt like a bitch in the morning.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2008: OHHHHHHHHHH HOLY GOD MY ASS HURTS. And I can't do anything about it, because we've reserved a car to drive out to Muir Woods (yes, Mom, this is the Muir Woods entry) and Point Reyes, so there will be a lot of walking. We were at the rental place by 9:00, driving across the Golden Gate Bridge about 20 minutes later... and then dealing with the utter terror that is Scenic Highway 1 about 20 minutes after that. Oh God. I thought I was going to die. Hairpin turns that are heading DOWN a mountain AND skirting the side of a steep cliff should not be called "scenic," because nobody has the balls to look out at the scenery, or even inhale the perfumey scent of the eucalyptus groves we were driving down into.
But Muir Woods, oh, that's a whole different thing altogether. I could camp out and live the rest of my life there. I don't even know what to say about it at this point, but Andy said I was glowing the whole time. I took so many pictures that I killed a fresh pair of batteries. We were there relatively early in the day, so we missed the bulk of the crowds (at one point we were the only people on the trail) and watched the sunlight filter through the morning haze and the canopy of trees, making the woods look holy and instilling a sense of peace in me that I have not felt since we went hiking in the Ozarks. It makes me glad to see there are still places like this on Earth, and that enough people have the good sense to leave them alone.
Our walk through Muir Woods was surprisingly short -- only about three hours (it felt a lot longer, but maybe the redwoods make your body clocks slow down). By the time we left it was lunch time, so we took another harrowing drive north on Hwy 1 to the Parkside Cafe, where I found out I will actually eat calamari if it's fished out of the water the day that I eat it. (Very. Fresh. Seafood.) Then, another harrowing drive north, first to the Earthquake Trail (close to the epicenter of the 1906 SF quake -- I stood on the original San Andreas fault) and then to Point Reyes National Seashore. I was expecting the Pacific Ocean to be much like the Gulf -- calm and emerald, with a well-populated beach. I was wrong. The Pacific Ocean at Point Reyes is not "peaceful," like its name implies -- it is rough, with huge breakers, sharks (yes, really), riptides, and sneaker waves (waves that break higher than you think, sending the foam halfway up the shoreline). There were no surfers or swimmers or even waders at Point Reyes. It is a seashore for tortured poets. But I have touched the Pacific Ocean, so all that's left for me now is the actual Atlantic and then I'll have put my hand in every major body of water that butts up against the United States.
We took a different way back to San Franciso, going through San Rafael (the home of Skywalker Ranch) and dealing with marginally straighter highways. No, Mom, Hwy 1 is NOT fun to drive. It is nice to look at from a distance and perhaps walk. But I don't want to be on it, in a car, ever again.
MaCay
TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2008: Once I fast-forward past the plane ride (during which I did NOT like the view of all that water under the plane upon landing) and the BART ride, and the rather zig-zaggy walk from Powell Street Station to Libby's apartment on Post (at that point I knew I was screwed in terms of blistery feet):
Since Andy and I hadn't eaten since, er, 4:00am, it was time for lunch regardless of what the clock said. So Libby (Andy's sister) led us to Chinatown to hit up the House of Dim Sum -- which turned out to be closed on Tuesdays. Luckily, Delicious Dim Sum was right across the street -- and just as small, with tiny Chinese women behind the counter taking orders in Chinese from even tinier Chinese women, who were reading off the menus (written only in Chinese.) No chicken fried rice here, and thank God for that. Libby ordered for us: Shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, one LARGE bbq pork dumpling/pastry (barbequed pork encased in a white spongy carb of some sort), shark fin dumplings, and two giant confections wrapped in lotus leaves. It sounds like a lot, especially for three people, doesn't it?
Our lunch total was $8.50. I love Chinatown.
We took our food to a park across the street from the Chinese Cultural Center so we could watch small mobs of Chinese guys playing poker and go. We peeled back the lotus leaves first: inside was a concoction of sticky rice, Chinese sausage, chicken, and a hard-boiled egg. MMMMMMMMMM. It turned out the white pastry around the BBQ pork was made from crack, or at least a derivative of it. Too bad we only bought one! It also turns out I'm a giant animal-rights hypocrite, because the shark-fin dumpling was my favorite. Oops.
After lunch we started our four-hour wander of "all the Asian neighborhoods in San Francisco," stopping first at a Chinese pastry shop that had these milkshakes made with red beans at the bottom. (I was warned not to get one of those.) So I ordered a mango shake. It turned out to have a TON of red beans at the bottom. They give it to you with a big effing straw so you can just suck it all down. That's the point where I realized I was still American. (Actually, it didn't taste that bad, as the red beans turned out to be either Jello or some kind of squishy berry, but it just weirded me out to see like five "beans" come shooting up the straw, knowing my mouth was next. [that sounds wrong. oh well.]
Libby then led us down a side alley to one of the oldest fortune-cookie makers (at least in the City, maybe in the country) where they still fold the cookies by hand. If you buy something they give you a few from the current batch as a sample. The man picked off three chocolate cookies right off the machine/cooling rack and gave them to us, still warm and not even folded. Mom, even you would like these fortune cookies.
One can't have a complete meal without tea in Chinatown. So we found the Red Blossom Tea Shop, a place cut from the same cloth as Gong Fu Tea (though I don't think their selection was quite as big). The eagle-eyed sales ladies brewed us samples of whatever teas we chose to smell (or even glance at). You could also sit down for a full tea service. (The tea is fantastic, by the way.) Then we wandered into some import shop that had the largest selection of Yixing teapots I've ever seen. I'm tempted to go back and get one.
The breeze had started to come in full-force from the Bay by then, so we went back to the apartment to grab coats before heading to Japantown. Japantown is (unsurprisingly) largely situated in a mall and mostly consists of restaurants serving sushi, restaurants serving teriyaki and udon, stores FULL (and I mean full) of anime/video game stuff, a bonsai store, and several Japanese antique stores. I wanted to pick up an obi belt, but those suckers are e x p e n s i v e.
No matter. Japantown is the perfect place to buy silly shit. Right now I'm wearing a t-shirt that I'm assuming says "no smoking" in kanji, complete with a picture of a cigarette looking pissed off/constipated/like the unwitting victim of buttsex. (Funny, but obviously not appropriate for work.)
Dinner was late as we had to wait for Libby's fiance to come home from work. They took us to Chutney, were I was served the hottest (and best) curry I have ever ever eaten. There's not much more to say about that. I'm going to cry the next time I have Indian food in Iowa.
No pictures yet, but Andy and I are going back to Chinatown and Japantown so we can see more (and make a few repeat visits).
Also, my ass is going to hurt like a bitch in the morning.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2008: OHHHHHHHHHH HOLY GOD MY ASS HURTS. And I can't do anything about it, because we've reserved a car to drive out to Muir Woods (yes, Mom, this is the Muir Woods entry) and Point Reyes, so there will be a lot of walking. We were at the rental place by 9:00, driving across the Golden Gate Bridge about 20 minutes later... and then dealing with the utter terror that is Scenic Highway 1 about 20 minutes after that. Oh God. I thought I was going to die. Hairpin turns that are heading DOWN a mountain AND skirting the side of a steep cliff should not be called "scenic," because nobody has the balls to look out at the scenery, or even inhale the perfumey scent of the eucalyptus groves we were driving down into.
But Muir Woods, oh, that's a whole different thing altogether. I could camp out and live the rest of my life there. I don't even know what to say about it at this point, but Andy said I was glowing the whole time. I took so many pictures that I killed a fresh pair of batteries. We were there relatively early in the day, so we missed the bulk of the crowds (at one point we were the only people on the trail) and watched the sunlight filter through the morning haze and the canopy of trees, making the woods look holy and instilling a sense of peace in me that I have not felt since we went hiking in the Ozarks. It makes me glad to see there are still places like this on Earth, and that enough people have the good sense to leave them alone.
Our walk through Muir Woods was surprisingly short -- only about three hours (it felt a lot longer, but maybe the redwoods make your body clocks slow down). By the time we left it was lunch time, so we took another harrowing drive north on Hwy 1 to the Parkside Cafe, where I found out I will actually eat calamari if it's fished out of the water the day that I eat it. (Very. Fresh. Seafood.) Then, another harrowing drive north, first to the Earthquake Trail (close to the epicenter of the 1906 SF quake -- I stood on the original San Andreas fault) and then to Point Reyes National Seashore. I was expecting the Pacific Ocean to be much like the Gulf -- calm and emerald, with a well-populated beach. I was wrong. The Pacific Ocean at Point Reyes is not "peaceful," like its name implies -- it is rough, with huge breakers, sharks (yes, really), riptides, and sneaker waves (waves that break higher than you think, sending the foam halfway up the shoreline). There were no surfers or swimmers or even waders at Point Reyes. It is a seashore for tortured poets. But I have touched the Pacific Ocean, so all that's left for me now is the actual Atlantic and then I'll have put my hand in every major body of water that butts up against the United States.
We took a different way back to San Franciso, going through San Rafael (the home of Skywalker Ranch) and dealing with marginally straighter highways. No, Mom, Hwy 1 is NOT fun to drive. It is nice to look at from a distance and perhaps walk. But I don't want to be on it, in a car, ever again.
MaCay