Monday night I was sitting on a Boeing 737 bound for Baltimore. In the seat next to me was a cute girl playing Sudoku and listening to Elliot Smith. And yet, I was still bitter. Because I was leaving behind a week spent in one of my favorite Imperial cities: San Francisco. At least, that’s what Jack London called it after the 1906 earthquake. Needless to say, the idea of returning to the provincial stretch of land betwixt the District and Baltimore was not very appealing.
Two Saturdays ago, the tenth, saw me heading west in the company of my younger brother. His madness ever deepening, we probably conversed about Roman history. What else was there to speak of? We also listened to the Flaming Lips album “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” which has this great song, “Do you realize??” Upon arrival at SFO, we caught a shuttle to the Sunset, which would normally not be worth mentioning, except that we had a crazed Russian at the wheel, pulling in front of trucks barreling down the street. When it came time to pay, it looked as if he were going to knife us if we didn’t pay up. Trust me, this guy was all kinds of crazy. After dropping our luggage off at my older brother’s abode, we made our way down to the Mission for libations. This naturally led to drunken shenanigans and many an interesting picture. Quite an arrival.
The next day took us down to some out of the way movie theater to see 300, which was very disappointing. Having read the graphic novel, I felt the movie betrayed its essence, tacking on the lame political wrangling. So, how better to get over disappointment than to eat an Italian sausage sub from The Yellow Submarine and playing frisbee golf? The sub was excellent, but the frisbee golf not so much. Golden Gate Park has a nice course, but it wasn’t set up at the time, so we were throwing aimlessly at colored stacks in the ground. One of the guys there claimed that course would be set up in two weeks. I suppose I’ll have to go back and find out for myself. 
Monday my younger brother and I were on our own. We trekked down to Chinatown, taking in the sights and doing a little shopping. I picked up a xiangqi board, which I have been wanting to get for a while. Now if only I had someone to play with… Chinatown in San Francisco is quite nice. It blows the one in D.C. out of the water, mostly because the one in D.C. is less of a town and more of a block. The Chinatown in S.F. covers several square blocks, with shops ranging from generally tacky tourist crap on Grant Avenue to more authentic Chinese grocery stores on Stockton Street. There was also a healthy mix of PRC and Taiwanese flags, I’m not really sure what was up with that. Chinatown is full of interesting juxtapositions. At one point my brother and I took a break at this park on the edge of Chinatown, in the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid. Every time I have passed this park it is full of old Chinese men playing xiangqi, and this time was no exception. The rest was well deserved, since I am sure I walked more in the past week than I have in the past few months. San Francisco is a city made for walking, which appeals to me greatly.
Tuesday saw the arrival of my eldest brother and a thick fog. After breakfast we walked to the beach, taking in the Pacific ocean and watching wisps of fog slink past our feet. It was surreal looking around me, the entire city vanished. The fog creates an interesting situation, where you are forced to focus entirely on your immediate surroundings and in a way yourself. To overcome any philosophical ponderings, my brothers and I made our way to the San Francisco zoo, watching the monkeys play, the penguins eat, and the tigers prowl. I also got to see my older brother argue bitterly with the lady who sold the tickets, since SF residents get a two dollar discount, but he didn’t have any ID. She finally relented and gave him a dollar off. Beyond that incident, the zoo is quite pleasant. During the afternoon the clouds finally broke, giving us our first glimpse of the sun for the day. After the zoo, we made our way to a fantastic German restaurant, which required a very long walk, but it was well worth it. After a serving of jagerschnitzel and three pints of pilsner, all was right with the world, and we headed back to the Sunset.
The next day saw a return to Chinatown so that my eldest brother could take a look-see. Ironically, the Chinese restaurant we ate in was pretty crappy. I had been wanting some char siu bao since I arrived, but they did not serve it. This was disappointing and a little strange, since it seemed like every Chinese restaurant in the Sunset served it. And here we were, in Chinatown, and not a pork bun in sight. The remainder of the day was spent walking around San Francisco and listening to my eldest brother complain about it. I take it he doesn’t do much walking in Indiana… At one point we happened upon a protest taking place, so we purposefully crossed the street to see what it was all about. Turns out the picketing was being done to protest the transfer of an employee to another branch. What? San Francisco seems to be a city that loves to demonstrate. Before I left Maryland I heard that there were going to be anti-war protests in D.C., so I was hoping we wouldn’t meet any in S.F, which we did not. After resting in a nice little park in the shadow of the Moscone Center, we headed to J-Town to meet up with our parents to shop for Japanese knick-knacks and eat some damn good Japanese food. I haven’t had katsuka-re that good in a long while. Also, the place had Kirin on tap, so of course I was an instant fan. I would say it was a good day.
On Thursday my little brother and I were on our own.
We headed down to 9th and Irving for a little Naan-n-Curry, an excellent Indian restaurant. I ordered the chicken Tikka-Masala with a side of rice and naan and a mango lassi to drink. Satiated, we met our older brother and kept him company while he ate lunch (we probably should have organized that better). He had to return to work, so my little brother and I made our way to Golden Gate Park to enjoy the beautiful scenery and check out the de Young museum. The de Young has a fantastic collection of Mayan art which is well worth seeing. However, I wasn’t very impressed with the other collections there. The American modernist art collection was rather, well, blah. Still, the Mayan art was great, so I did not feel gypped for the visit. That night saw another sojourn to the Mission, where I consumed the finest burrito crafted by the hand of man. Damn was it good. Of course, you can’t go to San Francisco and not get a San Francisco style burrito. ’tis a sin if you don’t. Verily, ’twas the keystone of the day. Also, that day I took pictures of the Sutro Tower, which always looks to me like some alien robot come to destroy San Francisco. Maybe I’ve been watching too much anime…
On Friday my brothers and I hiked out to Berkeley for our traditional pilgrimage to this one really cool T-shirt store. I picked up two awesome shirts, one with an Amish robot on it. I also snagged a poster with a reproduction of an old-timey tourist promotion for Japan. It is a great store for more eccentric shirts, and has yet to disappoint me. My brothers and I also skimmed the edges of UC Berkeley campus, ogling the fine co-eds. I think I might have to seriously consider it for graduate school. I mean, there is the little point about it being one of the top universities in the country in just about everything. But who cares about that?
That final weekend I went with my family down to Monterey for my cousin’s wedding. Monterey is a nice little town and a great place to get married, given the number of other weddings going on. Unfortunately it is not the ideal location to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, which was the Saturday we were down there. I suppose there is always next year. The trip did afford me the chance to see the California countryside again, which is splendiferous. I do love the mountains.
Monday morning I got up uber early with my remaining brothers (the younger one left Sunday night) to drive up to SFO for my flight back. We passed through Silicon Valley, and I got to see the offices of a number of tech luminaries. So I know there is no lack of tech jobs there. But if the week out there showed me anything, it is that I want to live in San Francisco. So, that is my goal for the year. I am really hopin’ I can achieve it.
Somehow, during the mayhem that accompanies any move away from one’s final college abode, I ended up in possession of that sacred relic of anime related gaming, Azumanga Donjara Taiou. All I can say is, I know what I’m going to be playing over the next few days… I just wish I understood what was going on. I remember from back in the day that the object of the game was to match up the tiles into sundry combinations. Sure, there must be some on-line resource to describe optimal combinations. But I should be able to harness the power of my awesome Japanese skills to deduce the answer myself, right? Ha ha! Oh, good times.
