July 25, 2006

San Francisco, July 22-23, 2006

So my friend Regina thought that she had decided on UC Hastings over UC Davis for law school. Today, she has made her final decision. And Davis is the winner. But what had been the last minute Hastings decision, which turned out not to be the last decision at all, meant that she urgently needed to go up to San Francisco to secure herself a place to live for the imminent school year. She was going to make the 6-hour drive there and back just to sign a lease, and I couldn't let her go alone. And so, we left a little earlier than planned to allow time to frolic, printed out a plethora of maps that just weren't enough, and embarked on our life-altering (maybe a tiny bit) and self-affirming (we were pretty full of ourselves this weekend) journey, which just happened to fall on the two hottest days California has seen all year.

We arrived in SF and headed immediately over to secure the apartment. After following googlemap directions, we got lost. But, we were amazing and were able to find our way. It would not be the only time during the weekend that our awesomeness in navigation would come into use, of course. 

As we were delighted in being complete tourists, I took about 150 photos. I promise not to post them all, but I'll tell of our journey with a few... 

Post-lease-signing, we headed to Pier 39 to visit the SEA LIONS. They were adorable and lazy. Adorably lazy.

At night, we made an ill-advised decision to check out a bar in the Fairmont hotel called the Tonga Room. As Jay said, "The Fairmont Hotel is the classiest hotel in San Francisco." Apparently too classy for us.

 

 

 

 

The next day, we spent a lovely (and scorching hot) morning in Chinatown, where more Chinese people reside than any other place in the world, other than China.

 

We got invited into this super cute tea shop by this cute Tea Lady.  She spoke to us in accented English as we walked in and when we told her that we spoke some Mandarin, she said, tai hao luh! "That's too great!"  When she found out our parents were from Taiwan, she began talking to us like we were family, as she served us so many varieties of delicious tea and fed us complimentary tea eggs.

There were old Chinese men in the park gathered around a game of Chinese Chess. Check out the bearded man, the Chinese Chess Master. 

In front of a giant map of San Francisco in the Chinatown Hilton, Reg studied the city that she thought she would soon be calling home.

And then, since I was up north, I just had to meet up with Cyrus. Or, rather, I just had to make Cyrus drive from Berkeley to SF to pick us up and take us to lunch. We're being Asian in New Chinatown. Yeah, we went from Chinatown straight to New Chinatown. Lame, I know. 

And after lunch, we headed home. On the way back, we passed by pastureland...

      

                  ... and cropland...

              ...and fires. Plural.

And did I mention it was hot? So unbelievably hot. 

The second fire caused an hour-long detour for us, which was actually not something to complain about, considering the fact that the unfortunate northbound travellers had it quite literally ten times worse than we did. All in all, the San Francisco trip was a great adventure, during which Reg and I learned a great deal about each other, about human nature, and about ourselves. Woot! NorCal!

 

July 21, 2006

New Readings

I spent $30 at Borders yesterday. The way I justified it was the Borders Rewards Card. You spend lots of money and they give you a tiny amount back to spend for the holidays. It's so ingenius.

My purchases: Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Dave Eggers's collection of short stories How We are Hungry. Okay, I'd say worth the $30. Of course I'd say that. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought them. But, I could have gotten those two books used online and paid half that amount, shipping included. Or something like that. All I know is, my savings would have been a helluva lot more than whatever number of cents I "earned" on my Borders Rewards Card. But, I don't know. I didn't want to wait? I don't know why I didn't want to wait, I could have gotten along fine waiting. I'm in the middle of another book right now and I have a queue of other books that I've promised myself I'd get to eventually. I certainly could have waited. But they just looked so crisp and exciting and new. So I bought them.

I think I'm up to almost $8.00 on my Holiday Rewards. I can get someone half a book for Christmas!

 

July 17, 2006 

When Everything Is Illuminated...

I have been 23 now for a week and am still trying to figure out my next step in life. I am feeling more at peace with my position now, however uncertain I am. And as frightening as it is to be blind as to where to put my foot down, it's a comfort to know that wherever I do put it down, it'll lead to some marvelous adventure.

Life is currently filled with peaceful and contemplative days. I am getting more time to myself, and I am appreciating it so much more than I have in a long time. And I am also feeling that much more appreciative of the time I have with others. 

I just finished a book. It was the second time I read it. It was great the first time, but reading it again made me Think and Feel in new ways. It warmed my heart as it broke it. It made me feel that things will be alright. And it made me feel that to have one's heart broken is not such a bad thing, as long as it makes you think and learn and feel and grow. And this puts me at ease a great deal. It makes me want to face all the things that I fear and to say to them all, I am not afraid. Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated. It has made my list.

July 7, 2006

Fourth of July Weekend, 2006

Ralphs was selling corn for way cheap that weekend. Twelve ears of corn for $2.00. On Saturday, I bought a total of 36 ears of corn. The girls were having a barbeque on Sunday and I was in charge of bringing a vegetable to grill. I bought twelve at first, gave four of those to my dad, and went to the store later in the day to get some to bring back to the apartment. While at the store, I get a phone call from my dad, who had started cooking up a batch before I left. "It's soooo sweet! Get me twelve more!" So, there. Six bucks. And everyone's happy.

Headed up to Santa Barbara with the roommates on the fourth. Alex got to take a picture with the mate of recently deceased Sam, who was champion of the World's Ugliest Dog contest several times over. Tater, the wife, was kinda cute, in an ugly sort of way.

We hung out on the beach for a few hours and made a disgusting display of our poor football-throwing skills. Afterwards, we headed into town to get some food and alcohol in our systems before the 9pm fireworks show. One beer and two double Long Island iced teas later, Joy was gone. My roommate says I'm a cheap date. I remember having to pee after we left the bar/restaurant and the boys telling me to go into the store that sold the Adult items to see if they had a bathroom. They did not have a bathroom. Why would they have a bathroom? I still contend that they just wanted an excuse to hang around the place. I stumbled into the Q's next door to get that mission accomplished, and then, it was back to the beach for the show! We all had a grand time.

Yesterday, my dad calls me and says that over the weekend, he lived off of corn and popsicles. He had finished 24 ears of corn and two boxes of strawberry popsicles by himself. And he announced proudly that he was going to Ralphs that night to get more of each. Silly man.