Out and About

Tim and I finally got out of our neighborhood and went into downtown San Francisco and Walnut Creek this past weekend. Saturday night was out on the town with a friend of Tim’s, Suguru, and his girlfriend Rieko. Had a nice Japanese dinner and then saw Ratatouille. I always find it amazing that when I’m around Japanese I start to become more Japanese, i.e., polite. It’s a scary incarnation but I am Japanese American and apparently my time in Japan has scarred me forever to be super polite whenever encountering people from my homeland.




We saw Ratatouille at the Metreon, which is in the SOMA neighborhood (right side of the map), I think that’s right. It’s in the shopping heart of San Francisco. If Lara is reading this – they even had a Beard Papa’s! If you all have never heard of Beard Papa it’s a cream puff dessert shop. It’s onolicious. Onolicious is today’s pidgin word.

Onolicious adj. highly pleasing to the senses, esp. to taste: an onolicious dinner.

But we didn’t go for dessert because Tim and I need to shed some pounds before we go and binge eat on the Alaskan cruise we’re going on next week with his parents and because the movie ended around 11:00 p.m. and that is way too late for Wendy and Tim to be out so we said our good-byes and made it back home to Little Chinatown.

On Sunday we went really far out to see my friend Andrew in Walnut Creek (map to the left and remember, we have to cross the Bay Bridge to get over to East Bay - that's far man!) As we were driving out and going from freeway to freeway, Tim noticed that the landscape changed from our lush cold foggy coastal scenery to rolling dry hills. Andrew later pointed out that we were in a “desert” and we realized that we were in California and then I realized that I wrote yet another really long run-on sentence. Living in the city one can sometimes forget that there is a whole other world out beyond the city limits.

We went to see Andrew to see Mt Diablo and the view. Before going up the mountain we filled our bellies at an Indian buffet where I overate so badly that I couldn’t eat anything for the rest of the day. But I digress, on the drive up I realized again – we were in a desert! It’s so different from the green and wet mountains of Washington. As we meandered up passing crazy cyclists (I mean those awesome cyclists – I mean no disrespect Tod and Troy L.), the elevation was getting to me. I apparently have something wrong with my sinuses so when I get up to about 2500 feet (yes, I have noted the exact elevation when this happens) I get some horrible sinus pressure and my hearing goes and the pressure is quite uncomfortable.

The view was great, we got to see a whole other part of Northern California, and Andrew took some pictures that we’ll put up soon. After our trip to Mt. Diablo we went to see movie #2 of the weekend Evan All Mighty. It was 4:00 p.m. on the weekend that the movie opened and there were maybe 10 people counting the three of us. Doesn’t bode well for the movie.

Movie Review
Ratatouille was awesome. It made me laugh made me tear (not cry) a little and best of all made me love rats. Go see it, it’s worth it.

Evan All Mighty was not so awesome. It’s a summer fluff movie and was entertaining but not worth going to the movies for. This is a rental for Steve Carell fans. If you’re not a fan don’t even bother.

Thanks Suguru and Andrew for getting us out! Next week is the Alaskan cruise. Should be fun – wish us luck with the weather.