Triscribe

What did I learn about San Francisco? It isn’t really a big city — P– and I hit virtually all of the neighborhoods (with the notable exception of Embarcadero/Financial District) on a 3 day $15 Muni pass. That included a half day at Alcatraz and walking over the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. The free tourist map has a convenient checklist of tourist things to do — there were like only 15 things on the list, and we actually did most of them without even looking at the list. If you are going just to see sights, you can max out the place pretty easily. But that’s really not what the city is about.

San Francisco is an expensive city. It’s even more expensive than New York. However, the food is fresher and the seafood is more amazing. Value shopping is key. We paid $5 for sundaes at Ghirardelli Square and felt ripped off for getting only 6 oz of ice cream. However, we paid $26 for the omakase (chef’s selection) at Sushi on North Beach, and we got a 10 course meal. Gourmet Chinese food was excellent, but wasn’t value for money. However dim sum at Four Seas and Chinese pasteries at Gum Man Bakery (both Grant Avenue institutions) were incredible values. We ditched a $65 Napa tour and instead walked to Marin over the Golden Gate Bridge for $zero (not counting the transit pass). We bought wines at Safeway (10% off for a six-pack, and I joined their shopper’s club to get 2 for 1 discounts — we picked up a Modavi Private Reserve Merlot 2001 that YC and I saw being made the last time I was there — it took about 30 minutes of breathing, but afterwards, it was a fantastic wine) and chocolates at Walgreens ($2-5 cheaper than at the company store) and saved a bundle. We picked up Beach Blanket Babylon tickets for half price at the Tix Bay Area booth at Union Square, which when we told Bob the consierge gave us a totally dumbfounded look — apparently it was as if we got half price tickets to The Producers or something.

Sometimes, though, you just have to do things regardless of cost. You’re going to go to Alcatraz at least once for $15. Staying near Union Square was such a convenience it didn’t matter that it was $95 a night. Buying Girl Scout cookies from cute Japanese brownies will make you cough up $3.50. I’ve taken a new fondness for Red Bull (we snagged a 6 pack from the film festival after-party as they were a sponsor — it’s the perfect jet lag solution).

SF can be a lonely city, especially when we couldn’t get into Cafe du Nord (maxed out their capacity), and ended up missing the last tram back to downtown (froze our butts out on the median for 45 minutes for the next bus). Or when we got up for a Sunday morning flight and the BART wasn’t running and had to blow $35 for a cab. It can be a lonely city when you’re in a crowded theater and don’t know exactly how you got there, or why you eating Bento boxes in the middle of such a national landmark. There are many sidewalks where you are the solitary pedestrians, even when the street is busy. However, it encourages people to cling, especially since rents are so high that people have 4 or 5 roommates.

I made my quota of bumping into people I know unexpectedly. Risa I know from the film festival in New York and NYU. She’s such an over-achiever! MinJung is more funny, more sincere, more huggable in person than even on her website (maybe it was the liquor talking).

Of course the biggest thing that I learned was how great a travelling companion P– is. She’s good at getting the trains running on time, figuring what the hell happened to my cap or my cell phone for the 30th time, or making command decisions on cabs or public transport. Her Chinese is a gazillion times better than mine, so she bails me out when the need arises. She can make her entire wardrobe, six bottles of wine, a box of Chinese pasteries and more fit into a small red pullman, smaller than mine. She’s incredibly comforting when you’re in the middle of nowhere. And of course, that huge travel pillow that she carried, which we named “pseudo-Shelly” in honor of her sister’s beagle.

At one point I had thought about living there, though I don’t see how I would anymore. Nevertheless, I do share the intense joy for the city that Beach Blanket Babylon emits, and we intend to make the SF Asian American Film Festival a regular pilgrimage. Just stay away from the chocolate!

So I’m back in Taipei again…. just arrived this evening. SO that means more consistent blogging. Malaysia has infrastructure issues which make being on-line quite difficult. Even many of their internet cafe’s can be really iffy. Only going to the well-developed areas and areas where there are many foreigners can you be guaranteed reliable internet access.

It was sorta weird getting on that flight heading back — to SFO eventually. Mixed bag of feelings… unfinished business but also new opportunities await. Will be missing B- a whole lot but I think this time, our separation will be shorter. Having successfully gotten her I-130 approved Monday we relaxed at the Pan Pacific Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. Now, it’s getting some affidavits signed, submitted and waiting for an interview date. Hopefully all will be completed in 10 weeks time. I mixed in some networking and work too as it just so happened that PMI-Malaysia was having their conference on “Managing for Success” which I attended and met some good people. This was the first time since 1994 that I’ve been away from the US for such a long time and made me realize again that America is not the center of the universe and that we all need to expand our horizons and challenge our biases. At the same point, despite all the stuff happening in the world, American professionals are still viewed respectfully and even highly desired. All in all, the trip was really great for so many reasons.

It was also great because of all the good food I had there. Before I left for my trip I worked for 3 months go lose 15lbs. This was a landmark event considering that in some 12+ yrs I’d never lost weight. It was just in time too for photoshoot and the wedding pics turned out great. B- and I opted for more of the traditional scenes and costumes. The only chinese costume we did was the Shanghai style which turned out well despite their suit being 1-2 sizes too small for me. Let me tell you, that photo shoot was really hard to do, from 9am to 6pm with a one hour lunch break. And I had the easy part! We did 6 costumes and the time spent to make up B- probably took 1/3 of the time. We ended up choosing 22 pics + 2 family pics of B-‘s family and me. The big bonus was getting the negatives for us to develop more. Most of the wedding photo places nowadays have gone all digital, using the Nikon as the standard. For portraits and such, I think digital is still lacking having seen a few samples. Of course, having an excellent Photoshop expert to clean up the pics is a big part of it. We used France-Taipei, which is one of many wedding photo chains. We should be getting back the pics end of April if not sooner. Our wedding day is August 31st and will be publishing more about it to our friends and family soon.

Long day ahead tomorrow as I begin my first day at Adecco with AJ. Should be fun :-).

=YC

I’m having a fine time in San Francisco. Saw Beach Blanket Bablyon yesterday — it was worth every penny. It’s the world’s longest running variety show. The official “plot” is Snow White searches around the world to find her Prince Charming, and encounters a variety of different celebrity impersonators. However, it’s more than that, in an incredibly inexplicable way. And it’s done with a lot of big hats, some going 3 or more stories in height. Afterwards, went to Sushi at North Beach. Katsu, the owner, served us the omakase, and scored like 4 major home runs with the dishes. The next day, we walked the Golden Gate Bridge, saw a series of Asian gay themed movie shorts at the Castro Theatre for the SFAAIFF (really interesting, beautiful theater), bought bento boxes (fantastic) and bought a dozen more of those dan tats to bring home.

The mixed review is Ton Kiang, the Hakka Chinese restaurant that I really wanted to go to. The Cantonese waiter kept pushing the tamer, expensive dishes, and I was insisting on having the real stuff. Didn’t turn out so good. Let me qualify that — it was excellent Chinese food, just it wasn’t authentic Hakka dishes. However, I made small talk with the manager, Richard, who was really cool, and he said that the people here don’t really want to try the real stuff, like stuffed bitter melon, stewed beef tripe or “steamed bacon with mustard greens”. He insisted that we try him again and he’ll make sure to get us the real stuff.

We’re flying out at 8 am; we’re going to take a taxi to SFO in a few hours because the BART doesn’t run in the morning. SSW, I have fresh dan tat’s waiting if you’re willing to come out on Sunday night!