San Francisco Day 1 (aka I seem to follow trouble)
Last weekend I was supposed to go down to San Diego with my mom, my niece and her friend to cheer on my favorite Aunt and cousin for a breast cancer marathon. Well...then the fires happened and after speaking with one of my reps who lives in the area we would be visiting I decided there wasn't any way I'd go. Since I had already taken the days off we decided to make use of them and my mom booked a hotel and we decided to go to San Francisco. It's been a very very long time since I last went there. I decided to drive since my mom doesn't like driving in cities and my car gets better gas. Normally we just head to the wharf, but because of Veteran's Day on Monday we decided to go to China Town, Japan Town (I gave them no choice in going there.), the Exploratorium and the Golden Gate Park.
We decided to go up a different way then we normally do. Usually we take the 99 to the 152 to the 101. It's an easy, simple, fast and nice drive. Since we were staying in Mill Valley we decided to go up and around. Well of course we got lost. I ended up having to drive across the Bay Bridge. I don't hate the Bay Bridge, I just find it more unsafe then the Golden Gate. As we went across my niece's friend noticed a large boat not moving. I thought it was odd and wanted a looky so I went to the side. I hadn't realized that the reason it was stopped was because of an oil spill that happened a couple of days before. I only heard about it that night when we watched the news, and they made it seem like it just happened. I couldn't believe it. The night before when I was packing I noticed it was going to RAIN on Sunday, the only full day we stayed, and now an oil spill?
This trip was the first time I drove in San Fran and boy was it an experience.
In Fresno there are a ton of left turn lanes, right turn lanes and the lights go up high so they are easy to see. In San Fran. only a couple of places had "normal" lights and so I almost ran a red light since I was following a truck from Alaska and didn't realize the lights are on the side and hard to see when surrounded by large vehicles. The lanes, except a few major streets and small residential streets, were soooo skinny. I hated the cramped feeling on the road, but luckily I wasn't in the downtown area too much.
We were able to check into the hotel early and decided to go first to the park and then to Japan Town. We, of course, got lost heading to the Park. My mom can't seem to be "on the spot" when it comes to navigation and with it being the first time I drove in San Fran. I was paying more attention to lights, no left turn signs, etc. then street names. The park was a lot of fun, but I was very disappointed with the Japanese Tea Garden. It didn't impress me at all. It felt cramped and wasn't very relaxing. I guess the Fresno Japanese Tea Garden pampered me. It's very beautiful and has a much larger feeling. Then again it also didn't cram in a gift shop or a tea house. The Planetarium and Aquarium are shut down until 2008, we couldn't find the Conservatory of Flowers (we got lost twice trying to find it) and after checking out the De Young Gallery we decided to just go to Japan Town.
Japan Town was wonderful! The parking was pretty cheap, so much food, so many shops! It was very exciting. We were pretty hungry by the time we got there so we decided to have an early dinner at a Korean restuarant called Seoul Korea. We ordered so much food! Three orders of Bulgogi, an order of mandu gook (a pot sticker soup) and some fried pancake things with calamari, shrimp, green onions and carrots. It was soooo good! I missed having real kimchi and Korean side dished. I'm not a fan of all of them, like the seaweed. I just don't get how people can like it. Sure at first the pickled seaweed tastes ok, but then a minute later you have the taste of nasty sea in your mouth. I just don't get it.
Well everyone knows how I am around other Asians. That dinner just proved my point, well that whole trip. For those of you who don't know I'm adopted and my whole family and husband are white. So we're having dinner and I don't eat with chosticks very often, well none of us do. My mom asks for forks for all of us since large dinners like that usually take a long time. The waitress brought three. That's right, THREE!! I was stuck without a fork, in fact every place we went to did the same thing! Needless to say I'm good at chosticks now and can go an hour and a half straight using them.
I love the Japanese Plum Wine so given the chance to drink some Korean Raspbery Wine I took it. Now it came in a small bottle with a screw on cap. I figured there would be like 5 small glass fulls in the bottle. You know how they are usually made with thick glass with very little alcohol inside. I was wrong. Normally I would have just had a couple of glass fulls, but my niece wanted the bottle as a suviner. I decided why not and to drink it all. Of course by the time she mentioned it I was already slightly buzzed and not in my right mind. It wasn't until I said that my niece "owed me" when I had one glass left to drink and totally buzzed did my mom point out the cap could screw on. <_<;; The wine was very good though. XD
The shops, oh the wonderful shops! The prices for the cds were pretty fair. It was so sad that I couldn't buy much since we're on a tight budget. We both want to pay off debt and to buy a house. I was soooo tempted though! Orange Range, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Arashi... /sigh I ended up buying two singles (well cds with only 4 songs); one Orange Range and the single for Love so Sweet by Arashi. I already have the sone Love so Sweet, but I picked the single by how hot Jun looked on the cover. XD I know, a pretty bad reason to buy any CD, but he looks so great!! I bought a ton of Pocky (strawberry w/ bits, dessert, mint chocolate, dark and milk chocolate, hazelnut and tiramisu) and some an-pan. I'm disappointed with the an-pan though. The an part is more like a ball of it instead of evenly spread. It's also more of a puree and sweeter tasting. Oh well, can't win them all. :)
We left back to our hotel with plans of coming back on Sunday on the way home and with me knowing I need to go back when they hold their Hana mei. There's a hotel right in the middle of the shopping malls that looks very nice, I took a look inside. I just need to save about 1,000-1,500 bucks for food, shopping and a one night stay.
Woo.. Sounds nice except for the getting lost part. Well, it doesn't really matter, it is nice to know that you had a fun time! How I want to eat sushi right now.
» Nuttz on 2007-11-15 03:03:32
i always get lost on the roads... been used to it.. blame it on the signboards.
» renaye on 2007-11-15 10:43:54
Trouble stalks YOU! lol
I love seaweed... the dried and spicy stuff or the soup is good. =) I like the pickled seaweed too. =X
ugh~ i want poccckyyyy~~ *steals* what!? there's a mint chocolate. I don't go out much so i only get the regular chocolate one or strawberry. =( now i need to go pocky hunting. =)
i have no sense of direction so i get lost easily... XD
seems like you had fun...*steals jun as katrina is distracted by cd cover* =P
» cynnielee on 2007-11-20 08:30:43
good women from china is a good book. i read that during college. i actually have read a lot of books on chinese cultural revolution. i cried reading one in the library.
i still haven't found any good ones lately. waiting for my twelve kingdoms...
» renaye on 2007-11-21 09:21:07
nya~~ i want my twelve kingdoms !!!! meow u got msn messenger?
» renaye on 2007-11-21 09:44:12
work is tiring... i hate my no social life...life due to work and school... I don't get one offical day off... 7 days a week are all tiring for me. =(
orange range is awesome!!! =) I love their music! I think Hana is my favorite orange range song or maybe Ikenai Taiyo... those two songs I really love and Sayornara is good too~ =X
» cynnielee on 2007-11-21 11:16:16
12 kingdoms...so it's not an anime? i saw something about an anime but not the manga.. =
uh... now i feel paranoid about putting up my photos. =
uh... i'm still stress but more so because of end of semester rush before exams... =(
» cynnielee on 2007-11-23 04:19:13
Haha! Everyone says that! You're in number 2 because I didn't have much time to type the post and there is so many names. X3
Whoo... that happens here like every 4 months or so. I sometimes rather waste more money buying things when they are not on sale so that I don't get all annoyed and bad tempered when I get squashed like a pumpkin.
» Nuttz on 2007-11-23 04:31:24
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