She's my daughter! She's my sister!
Oh yeah, I'm not done with this, am I?
Monday, March 24
On Monday, Cari took the day off work and we went to Chinatown. We went on a tour where the group was made up of us, a mother-daughter pair, and a half a billion German high school students and teachers. So there was this weird Chinese-American-German amalgamation as the Germans translated things for each other. The tour took us around Chinatown and taught us a bit about the history of Chinatown and the people there, especially focusing on our guide's own family and experiences growing up in Chinatown. It ended with a lovely dim sum lunch where the founder of the tour company came and ate with us, and she and Cari became BFF when they shared their favorite Bay Area eateries.
After lunch, we explored Chinatown on our own, tasting different teas in tea shops (this one had a great lychee tea that I bought), and locating the Best Egg Custards in Chinatown (I had never had one before, and now I am ruined for All Other Egg Custards). When we went to the bakery, they were all out of egg custards and told us to come back in 45 minutes, but we left a name with them so that we wouldn't have to wait in line when we came back. It was AWESOME being able to jump past the huge line to pick up our assigned pastries.
While we waited for the egg custards, we had some bubble tea, took some pictures around the area, walked up and down some hills, and Cari used clever subterfuge to find us a bathroom to use. That is a problem in Chinatown: not a whole lot in the way of public restrooms.
Cari took my picture (see right) next to the Grant Avenue sign, which holds special significance for me due to the fact that my family constantly mocks my terrible singing and dancing to the song "Grant Avenue" from the musical Flower Drum Song. In their defense, I'm sure it is a pretty terrifying sight to see. I am fortunate in never really getting to see/hear myself do it. Everyone else in the world just has to live in terror that they will run into me and I will inflict that on them. Ha ha!
After we got our egg custards, we hopped on a trolley, got yelled at by the scary trolley driver that we couldn't bring food or drinks on board, hid them, and got on and off without paying. I'm not sure when/how we were supposed to have paid and I was too afraid of him to ask. The trolley ride was sort of terrifying because you're pretty much hanging off the side of the trolley while going up and down the giant hills. It's sort of like a roller coaster ride.
We got down to the shopping area, did some window shopping at Tiffany's, smelled the wares at Lush and browsed at H&M, then we went to Santa Ramen for my first Real Live Ramen experience (as opposed to the instant, packaged, 49-cent stuff). It was very good, although I was pretty full from all of the other delicious things we'd eaten that day and I didn't make it that far into my giant bowl of noodles, broth, pork, mushrooms, bean sprouts and all kinds of other delicious soup ingredients.
Cari and I called it an early night, picked up some ice cream to take home (I had Sideways, which was a vanilla ice cream with a cabernet-flavored ribbon and chocolate chunks, and kulfi, which was like the Indian dessert), and uploaded pictures while watching Pretty in Pink.
srah - Saturday, 19 April 2008 - 11:32 AM
Tags: california, chinatown, food, san francisco, travel
