Chinatown

Good morning, San Francisco!  The weather forecast was rain, but Saturday broke sunny and mild.  We were so lucky!  Our fire escape was the perfect setting for some pretty photos.  I love the brick wall!

I went out super early, as I am wont to do, and wandered.  I seem to crave alone time.  I brought juice and bagels back for everyone, then the girls and I left Coco and Bill at the hotel and walked to Chinatown.  We planned to spend a lot of time there.

I love this place.  We walked all over as the sleepy neighborhood came to life, with tai chi in the park, shops putting wares outside and grandparents walking tiny tots to school.

When we happened upon Yee's Restaurant and saw the duck in the window, I knew I had to stop.  Even though I didn't speak Cantonese, I managed to order just what I craved; duck with Chinese cabbage and rice.  Ruby and Araceli went out shopping while I thoroughly enjoyed my duck.  I was the only"gwai lo" (Cantonese for White person) in the whole place.  Behind me, three ancient Chinese men were dumping something from a flask into their tea.  In the back kitchen, there were tanks of murky water teeming with sea life.  In the front, three Cantonese-speaking butchers were chopping and shouting and taking orders.  Oddly enough, I felt a sense of belonging, although to everyone else, I'm sure I stood out terribly.  Maybe it's Xanthe's Chinese ancestors hovering, or maybe it's all the time I spent in violin making school with Chinese friends, maybe it's my deep fascination with immigrant communities, but I love this environment.  I drove to San Francisco once with my frineds Yanfu and Yaqing and their 10-year-old twin boys.  Yanfu and I were attending a violin making convention, and we saw friends there during the day, but at night, we went to Chinatown.  Mandarin and Cantonese were exchanged with enough understanding that we never looked at a menu.  We just ate boatloads of food, family style.  That's how I wish I could do Chinatown with my girls, but as gwai los, we never could.  Nevertheless, I was more or less accepted at Yee's and was able to soak in a culture I'll never see fully from the inside.

Across the street, a place to buy live poultry.  I love Chinese/English translations!  "Old brown chickens."  Sounds tempting!

A funeral rolled by with much fanfare and many limos.  Coco and Bill joined us right on this corner at this moment and we were honored to watch the procession.

Next stop, Little Italy.  Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard sounds like a street Tziporah's imaginary frined, Heart Sweet Double Dipper, would live on.

Angela Fife recommended a place called Italian Home Made.  She feels a connection to Italian culture the way I feel to Chinese, so we knew she would have all the best spots staked out here.  The tiramisu was the freshest and most delicious I have ever had.  We sampled a few that day!

My dad's left ankle bone is essentially disintegrating.  It cause a lot of pain.  The "good" ankle was bad too, on this trip.  We later found out he had torn some ligaments right before the trip.  But hey, that's not going to stop my dad from walking 10 or 12 miles a day without complaining!  After walking 22,000 steps Saturday, he asked me,"Does our hotel have a gym?"  This guy is die-hard!  He's cut from an entirely different cloth than I am.  I tore some ligaments in my foot a couple of years ago, on our front porch.  I didn't even make it the ten steps into the house. My kids have nightmare flashbacks about me writhing on the ground in pain, screaming, "Get me some pillows for my leg!  And my phone!  AAAAGGGHGHGGHGHGH!"

Not my dad.  He did agree to get a foot massage when we saw this sign.  I hope it helped.

Yes, we went to super-touristy Fisherman's Wharf.  I wanted to see the sea lions.  There were so many bad street musicians!

This erhu player was good, though.  It's so fun to hear this instrument.  My friend in Violin Making School, Eli Potash, played the erhu frequently.  Then he became a meth addict and his beautiful soul was annihilated.  But that's not a good story.  Whenever I see an erhu player, I take a brief moment to remember Eli before his addiction.

We basked in the sun, just like the sea lions!

Then the ankle therapy

It just happened to be SantaCon.  The city was teeming with Santas.  The main objective of the participants is to party.  It's a bar crawl, after all.  By the end of the night, many Santas were not having as much fun as they appeared to be having earlier in the day.  :)  They made the city so festive and fun.  We loved it every time a group of them walked by.

Ruby and her Blackberry Cabernet gelato.  Oops.  Crash course in wine terminology.

Bar next to our hotel

Chinatown at night.  We retraced our steps all the way back trough Little Italy and Chinatown, back to the Mark Twain.  It was a good day in San Francisco.  The best.  It was sunny and warm and we had noplace to be.  Our only job was to take in the vibe of the city, and we did that, truly.