Saturday, October 02, 2004
Californimania
I'm falling in love with this place inna hurry...
Things I forgot to mention... last night was spent wandering down union street (pretty, shopping district) and then popping into a theatre to catch The Forgotten. I almost... forgot about that one. heh heh. Twas good.
After that I called one of my old best buddies from yesteryear only to discover he was in boston, and I'd rung him at 0130 hours. whoops.
Anyway.
Today was simply amazing. I am quite simply having one of the best times of my life ever.
I don't remember much about it now, having just eaten some of the best sushi I've ever had (and some of the tackiest, mixed ride) at a restaurant called Kabuto that's so far west in SF it's practically on the pacific ocean. Seeing as I couldn't walk another step after dinner and there's CHEAP INTERNET here (yessssssssss!) I flopped down for a bit of blogtime. Hey, don't knock it, I'm practising my digestive processes.
I thought I'd eaten my way well into the hundreds as well, but the bill came and was a pleasant surprise for once. Just under fifty, which for a not-quite reformed ex-Brit Singaporean like myself, still feels cheap (thirtysomething quid! for all that!!! wow.)
Right now I'm feeling sorry for myself since my abdomen feels rather uncomfortably like it's going to explode, but I'm sure that will pass...
Right, so the rest of today was spent walking down market street (long) and marvelling at how it went from posh to seedy to really seedy (naked girls! more naked guurls! sex shops! Tera Patrick one day special! more naked girls!) to dodgy (homeless people clustered around the UN, that last bastion of.. insignificance, in this nation. Long as it's under Bush, anyhow) to posh again.
Eventually, I reached the mission Dolores, and was dumbstruck by its beauty, history and air of sheer solitude and tranquility. And then I broke their tape recording thingie, and the nice lady gave me a new one to continue my audio tour. I can imagine that happening in the UK... I'm sorry you have to pay two hundred pounds to repair it. But it's a walkman from the fifties! three hundred pound please...
Quick trip to Japantown en route to St Dominic's (was toying with the idea of attending evening mass) when the Urge hit me, and I had to stop for a bite. sashimi. yum.
After that I wandered around in circles for a while on my fast ailing feet (too much walking in the last twelve days) trying to figure out how to reach the golden gate bridge (apparently there's nude sunbathing on baker beach too. cough. well, my guidebook says so anyhow.) before another nice lady let me tag around with her since she was going that way. Americans are such nice people. This warm fuzzy glow around me is beginning to give me a headache.
Spectacular views of the bay... much too full to describe the magnificence of it all, so photographs will have to do when I finally upload them. Caught the sun setting on the horizon (a first for me) which took my breath away, and discovered that if you have enough expanse of sky to stare at, just before the sun vanishes over the horizon (which happens surprisingly quickly. it's like an exponential effect... the nearer it gets to the skyline the faster it plunges) the sky on the other side of the horizon, furthest from the sun turns into a strange, strange colour. If there was a colour for the the colour of magic (Pratchett calls it Octarine) I'd have figured that that was it. A wonderful band of colour appears in the sky... it's not a rainbow, it's not a series of bands of colour. It's an indistinct blend of colours fading smoothly and imperceptibly into the next and then the next, spanning all the colours of the rainbow yet... not... which you can't exactly SEE but you can feel. It appears at the edge of vision, and seems to shimmer out of sight when you concentrate on it... but you know it's there. Magic.
And then the sun vanished and I near froze to death (good thing I wore my overcoat today. Forward planning genius, that's me. Not. I've been getting funny stares all night, since I'm probably the only person in the country wearing an overcoat off the movie sets right now) and hobbled my way over to Kabuki restaurant where I stuffed my face on exotic sushi selections, and almost died and went to heaven when I tried the sunset rolls. Many of their assorted rolls are excellent, and some aren't (the lobster main was awful) and some are rather too exotically weird to be nice. Flavour explosions... but meaningless explosions. Not quite artfully blended. But most of the classic things were perfect - so, so so fresh. And the green tea mochi was a perfect end to the day.
And now I have to get my lazy arse up to go back to my hotel. whine.
It's a wonder I'm not built like a tub the way I go at it sometimes. My dad assures me that will come with age, but looking at his he-man figure I have to wonder. Of course, my dad also does incredibly stupid things like run ten kilometres a day, which I, naturally, possessed of far more common sense and pragmatism am disinclined to adopt the practice of. Yes, that sentence was unnecessarily convoluted and far too long, and it was a pleasure crafting it to infuriate you. heh heh.
Okay so. Good night out there. More people to eat tomorrow, more things to meet... err wait I think I meant that the other way around.
Things I forgot to mention... last night was spent wandering down union street (pretty, shopping district) and then popping into a theatre to catch The Forgotten. I almost... forgot about that one. heh heh. Twas good.
After that I called one of my old best buddies from yesteryear only to discover he was in boston, and I'd rung him at 0130 hours. whoops.
Anyway.
Today was simply amazing. I am quite simply having one of the best times of my life ever.
I don't remember much about it now, having just eaten some of the best sushi I've ever had (and some of the tackiest, mixed ride) at a restaurant called Kabuto that's so far west in SF it's practically on the pacific ocean. Seeing as I couldn't walk another step after dinner and there's CHEAP INTERNET here (yessssssssss!) I flopped down for a bit of blogtime. Hey, don't knock it, I'm practising my digestive processes.
I thought I'd eaten my way well into the hundreds as well, but the bill came and was a pleasant surprise for once. Just under fifty, which for a not-quite reformed ex-Brit Singaporean like myself, still feels cheap (thirtysomething quid! for all that!!! wow.)
Right now I'm feeling sorry for myself since my abdomen feels rather uncomfortably like it's going to explode, but I'm sure that will pass...
Right, so the rest of today was spent walking down market street (long) and marvelling at how it went from posh to seedy to really seedy (naked girls! more naked guurls! sex shops! Tera Patrick one day special! more naked girls!) to dodgy (homeless people clustered around the UN, that last bastion of.. insignificance, in this nation. Long as it's under Bush, anyhow) to posh again.
Eventually, I reached the mission Dolores, and was dumbstruck by its beauty, history and air of sheer solitude and tranquility. And then I broke their tape recording thingie, and the nice lady gave me a new one to continue my audio tour. I can imagine that happening in the UK... I'm sorry you have to pay two hundred pounds to repair it. But it's a walkman from the fifties! three hundred pound please...
Quick trip to Japantown en route to St Dominic's (was toying with the idea of attending evening mass) when the Urge hit me, and I had to stop for a bite. sashimi. yum.
After that I wandered around in circles for a while on my fast ailing feet (too much walking in the last twelve days) trying to figure out how to reach the golden gate bridge (apparently there's nude sunbathing on baker beach too. cough. well, my guidebook says so anyhow.) before another nice lady let me tag around with her since she was going that way. Americans are such nice people. This warm fuzzy glow around me is beginning to give me a headache.
Spectacular views of the bay... much too full to describe the magnificence of it all, so photographs will have to do when I finally upload them. Caught the sun setting on the horizon (a first for me) which took my breath away, and discovered that if you have enough expanse of sky to stare at, just before the sun vanishes over the horizon (which happens surprisingly quickly. it's like an exponential effect... the nearer it gets to the skyline the faster it plunges) the sky on the other side of the horizon, furthest from the sun turns into a strange, strange colour. If there was a colour for the the colour of magic (Pratchett calls it Octarine) I'd have figured that that was it. A wonderful band of colour appears in the sky... it's not a rainbow, it's not a series of bands of colour. It's an indistinct blend of colours fading smoothly and imperceptibly into the next and then the next, spanning all the colours of the rainbow yet... not... which you can't exactly SEE but you can feel. It appears at the edge of vision, and seems to shimmer out of sight when you concentrate on it... but you know it's there. Magic.
And then the sun vanished and I near froze to death (good thing I wore my overcoat today. Forward planning genius, that's me. Not. I've been getting funny stares all night, since I'm probably the only person in the country wearing an overcoat off the movie sets right now) and hobbled my way over to Kabuki restaurant where I stuffed my face on exotic sushi selections, and almost died and went to heaven when I tried the sunset rolls. Many of their assorted rolls are excellent, and some aren't (the lobster main was awful) and some are rather too exotically weird to be nice. Flavour explosions... but meaningless explosions. Not quite artfully blended. But most of the classic things were perfect - so, so so fresh. And the green tea mochi was a perfect end to the day.
And now I have to get my lazy arse up to go back to my hotel. whine.
It's a wonder I'm not built like a tub the way I go at it sometimes. My dad assures me that will come with age, but looking at his he-man figure I have to wonder. Of course, my dad also does incredibly stupid things like run ten kilometres a day, which I, naturally, possessed of far more common sense and pragmatism am disinclined to adopt the practice of. Yes, that sentence was unnecessarily convoluted and far too long, and it was a pleasure crafting it to infuriate you. heh heh.
Okay so. Good night out there. More people to eat tomorrow, more things to meet... err wait I think I meant that the other way around.
