Always great to be back in San Francisco, which I have loved since my mother took me here for my 16th birthday (awhile ago). Newer reason to love it — my friend Susan has been here for decades. Her neighborhood, the Sunset, was hopping last night as we walked past Asian shops to a great neighborhood Chinese restaurant San Tung packed with big families and smaller clusters of young people lucky enough to live in this gorgeous city.
I grew up with Chinese food but rarely find it now, especially good Chinese food. My kids’ version of Chinese food is Thai or Vietnamese. This was very good Chinese good – crispy fried chicken wings (who knew?), fresh mu shu pork (which I haven’t had in years) and perfectly stir fried green beans) The place is also known for it fresh noodles, (next time)
I am sorry I can’t post photos (technical difficulties) especially of all the lush green vegetation and colorful flowers – purple, orange, red – here and there. Welcome change from brown muddy Iowa.
We stopped in at the neighborhood marijuana dispensary— the smell of pot lingers on the sidewalks , here and there. It’s very clinical looking, more like a sleek pharmacy then a head shop. Samples in antiseptic jars on shiny white counters and iPads with interactive displays that showcase products with cold soulless names. This is not your grandma’s Mary Jane, weed, pot. Kind of sucks the hippie character out of the act of getting high. Guess that’s the point. Make it professional, medicinal, acceptable.
I also was blown away by the new Harvey Milk Terminal that I stepped into after deplaning. Awe-inspiring, bright, airy, sleek, white, trendy furniture, bold art work and wall installation with what looks like wood bits of old barn, a poignant display of photos and texts about Harvey Milk, whose 1978 assignation I remember hearing on the news in college.
Sunday we went to a farmers market full of gorgeous fruit and veg and flowers. Discovery: tiny kishu mandarin oranges smaller than a satsuma and even sweeter.
We hiked along the coast on a spectacular afternoon with lush vegetation and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, thru the fancy sea cliff neighborhood, stopping to tour a $12 million house for sale (it was an open house so we walked right in…) we walked past baker beach and into the presidio and Richmond areas. A six mile walk, as it turns out.
There’s a very cool new protruding ramp known as “the EMC overlook” at MacRae Park on Des Moines’s south side offering dazzling views of downtown. We also took in some new views from the new Chris Coleman bridge in Gray’s Lake Park. Looking good Des Moines.
We arrived to blue skies and brisk temperatures in Albuquerque this afternoon and were whisked off to some excellent New Mexican food at Cocina Azul, near old town by our relatives here, Leah and Wellington. The brisket and carne adovada were highlights. I would have tried the flan if I had an room left in my stomach. This evening, after visiting dirck’s mother, we stopped at one of the many brewpubs in town, High and dry, for some beer and, in my case, cider.
I bought some excellent Thai food at a food truck and ate in the Pearl Street Triangle picnic area, carved out of a patch of street beside the massive Manhattan Bridge, with the subway rumbling by high above.. Another cool picnic area nearby is the Archway Under Manhattan Bridge.
Overwhelming and disorienting and showy and unnecessary are the words that came to mind. (Here’s a promo blurb: Hudson Yards is unlike anything ever built before — a living, breathing neighborhood that champions first-to-New York experiences. Climb Vessel, the interactive centerpiece of Hudson Yards. Visit The Shed, a new center for art and inspiration. Or take in the scene from thrilling new heights on Edge — an outdoor space a thousand feet in the air.)
TakeBetsywithyou 