Skip to main content

Fog City Strolls

This Mem Day we decided to chill in the hood - so to speak. From the far east bay we took our one source of reliable transit into SF.

It had been a while since the family hit the tracks to coast into town and take in the sights, sounds and food.

We enjoyed getting on the BART from a new infill station in the east bay - all shiny new fixtures unlike the grunge look that the rest of the system has developed over years of use and poorly guided funding spend.

Once we got into the city the presence of international hob nobble gobble surrounded us with different languages, styles and cultures making a fantastic ambience around the Ferry Building.

From admiring the amazing art that the locals produce using glass, copper, plastic, wood and canvas with oils we strolled our way to China Town. Using a locally grown technology called iphone we dug a place to chew for our little one - she had her mind set on crepes. Turned out YELP was HELPLESS than helpful - what was defined as OPEN turned out CLOSED. After encountering the same experience with a place that would other day serve great Mediterranean food (turned out to not want customers on SAT either) we gave up on the Yelping and focused on using our eyes and noses to track something down worth chewing.

Not sure what to make of this apathy the local merchants exhibit toward a city supposedly welcoming all from far and near to enjoy the variety of food available. Not when 90% of the businesses were closed. Sort of reminded us of Europe after 6 pm.

Ended up having some good calzones for the daughter and some Zagat rated Hunan near Montgomery for our souls.

Typically its hard to screw up Chinese food - although my experience - honest with anything Zagat - has been less than stellar. So was this joint. With mediocre service from wait staff that partially spoke the lingo; to blah to terrible tasting dishes we were not pleased with this take on the southeastern cuisine from the land of the Chinese.


Thence we migrated to do some casual shopping and headed back to the BART for our journey home.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...