Wasabi and Ginger Sushi

In my previous post, I mentioned that me and Mom ate sushi for dinner, so here is an obligatory post about it.

This was the first time, mom and I had ever walked away from a sushi restaurant slightly hungry- even after we'd ordered an extra roll. (This was probably due in part to walking all over China town all afternoon.)

Despite this, the sushi was amazing! We wanted to order salt and pepper squid and it was on the menu, however the waitress said it was discontinued because it was not ordered enough.

We ordered a California roll (spicy tuna roll with avacado on top), the Super Dynamite roll (a spicy tuna roll lightly fried, coated in eel sauce with fish eggs and a line of chile paste across the top.), and some maguro nagiri. The super dynamite roll was the best. It was so spicy, my lips were tingling for a while afterward.

After we'd finished that, we ordered a wasabi ginger martini roll. It was an all fish roll, lightly fried and served in a martini glass. It was a rather anticlimactic end to the meal as there's was no spice and the waitress had taken away the wasabi.

However, I was able to eavesdrop on a riveting conversation at the table behind us. A woman was telling the story of her sister (in law?) announcing her pregnancy on Facebook around April Fool's Day. "We've told the grandparents and now it's time to tell the rest of you..." No one believed it was legit. And all the signs said it wasn't. The woman refused to congratulate her sister because she didn't want to be fooled and even if it was legit, she was upset that it went out over Facebook instead of personally. It made her feel like the rest of the family that wasn't the parents was chopped liver. Poor gal. I don't blame her. She was still animatedly telling her story as we left the restaurant so I never found out if the announcement was legit or not. But lesson learned- it is better to send personal notes to close friends and family before broadcasting.

I am starting to get very good at judging people's relations to one another by how they interact with each other and talk to/about people.

Chinatown and Beyond!

Our first morning in NorCal, mom and I hit a thrift store! (So the monster emerges!) We are only there for a few minutes as I needed a new purse (the strap on my other one was breaking), but mom promised we would go back- later.

So we're driving towards the Golden gate bridge and parts of it are shrouded in fog. I am now concerned about my wardrobe choices for the weekend. However, it seems to have worked out, as the weather man reported San Francisco to be quite warm. Yay! Concerns abated.

Grandma couldn't eat after noon, so went straight to our favorite Dim Sum house- called Banquet. It was crammed full of Chinese people all talking at once. The only table that opened up right away was a big round table that seated eight, but the server directed us there, so our little party of three sat down and began to order.

About fifteen minutes into the meal, another party of three joined our table! A little Asian family: a mother, father, and teenage daughter. And I thought to myself, "this is going to be interesting." As I watched our food mix together on the lazy Susan. They kept to themselves, speaking to one another in their native tongue. The girl kept getting worked up over one thing or another, laughing one moment and indignantly tittering in the next. It was rather intimidating with them sitting right there. I could just imagine them laughing at my poor attempts to use those chopsticks and chuckling at our "safe" orders.

We were the only white people in the whole restaurant. It was interesting. The nonsensical Chinese chatter was strangely comforting, but I also felt like an alien in that place. Outsider. Foreigner. White-y. As if my tiny 25% Chinese heritage meant nothing because my skin is not dark.

It is a very humbling feeling.

After we ate, we checked into the hotel. Grandma wanted to lay down and take a nap, so mom and I went on an adventure.

She took me to Chinatown! ^-^ It was incredible! The pictures of the tall buildings are in the financial district which we passed through on our way to Chinatown.

In Chinatown proper, there were so many neat shops! It's the year of the dragon, so the vendors pulled out the stops on everything. We went from shop to shop, looking at all the trinkets, buying some, passing over many more. As I ran my fingers through silky fabrics, I debated whether or not I could get away with wearing a Chinese dress without looking costume-y. I regretfully decided that I couldn't pull off the look. (the employees trying to sell the dresses were disappointed also.) But I did buy a beautiful summer scarf with blue flowers on it. It was a steal for four bucks.

We walked up and down the street, stepping into souvenir shops, and wok shops, and kite shops. The place was so exotic and alive with color and sound- dragon murals, the tones of Chinese employees talking to one another, and the rustle of people along the street. We passed a park where small groups of old men were playing games at tables and yelling in their familiar yet unrecognizable dialects.

Mom and I had a great time. And it was totally worth the sky-high parking fees and less than stellar (bad) boba tea we got. The sushi we got for dinner also helped the boba tea. But we've taken so many food pictures already, they deserve their own post.

Sunny Sunday Morning!

The chill of Saturday had thankfully warmed up by Sunday morning. We showed mr. Sun our gratitude by chillin on the beach all day.

The boys were busy jumping in the surf, finding cool seashells, and digging their hole to china. The adults hung out and talked and I floated in between. I flew a kite for a little while. Tried to bribe one of the boys to find me a sand dollar once Dylan found one; it didn't work.

Uncle Brian, Dad and I ended up people watching the boardwalk and eating chips and guacamole for most of the afternoon. It was nice.

And I can't forget the squid fries. These wonderful things were the ones that started them all. (Maybe you remember when I wrote about squid fries a year or so ago. These were even better!)

 And just for kicks, the three of us had to try on the teeniest pair of sunglasses in the house. (They were Jack"s.) I ended up borrowing them for people watching.

 All in all, the trip was purdy nice. Maybe a little short, but it just gives us all the more reason to go back again someday.

Drunk on the Beach

 This is a funny story. And if you know my dad, he is probably the best storyteller in the family and listening to him tell it just does not compare to any way in which I would be able to tell the story. So, I recorded him telling the story to my mom on the phone and that is my skeleton for the following story.

So we went out to dinner with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Brian and the kids. Nice place in old town San Diego. And we decided to hang out at their rental house for a little while afterward. Not being loaded down with three children (boys under twelve, no less.) We beat them to the house and were locked out. So me and Dad are hanging out on the boardwalk and Cam goes off on the beach, which was right there.

And he's sitting on the beach, lies down in the little hollow where the boys' big hole used to be (now filled in by the wind.) And he's just watchin' the stars and hanging out.

A little ways down, there were these college kids who were obviously drunk and one of them says, "Look! There's a dude on the beach!" and they're laughing and pointing at Cam and being drunk. They let well alone for a little while and then Cam gets up and he's packing the sand down to make the hollow space more comfortable. One of the guys shouts, "He's digging his own bed!" And they all laugh at him like he's some kind of fascinating zoo animal.

Eventually they see us and they ask, "Hey! Is that your buddy?"

Dad goes, "That's my son."

"hahahahaha. I remember my first time..."

Dad mutters "whatever" under his breath.

"...Except I was naked!"

We just kind of ignored the guys. But dad was like, "I love drunk people I don't know."

So they're hanging out and they start dragging out the bikes to go cruising down the boardwalk. They come rolling towards us and the one guy (I know I keep saying "one guy" but there were a lot of them and hard to distinguish.) and he says, "Is that really your son?"

Dad's all, "Yeah, that's my twelve year old son."

"He must be really drunk."

And very calmly dad says, "Um, no. My twelve year old son."

"Is he okay?"

Dad says, "Yeah, he's find. He's just doing what twelve year olds do."

The guy says "Alright man." And they go off on their wobbly bicycles, while me and dad sat there chuckling and Cam, still laying in the sand, had not a clue as to the conversation that took place.

The Zoo

This is probably one of those posts which I will return to, once home, and add a bunch of (better) pictures from the real camera. I left my phone in the car on accident and didn't realize it til we'd gotten inside the park, so these pictures are from my dad's phone.

But we had a fun time at the zoo. We ended up riding the trolley around the whole park and snapping pictures of the animals. It was rather fortunate that they let us stand up on the ride (we sat at the top of a double decker bus), as the boys would've been dreadfully disappointed at the number of things they would not have seen. As it was, Jack in front of me kept scaring me, he was so close to the rail! I kept sticking my hand out to steady him now and again.

The monkey exhibit(s) were, by far, the greatest and most exciting. Simply because they were the most active animals and entertaining to watch. (Plus they are my favorite animal.) Alas, we did not get many quality pictures of them. ("Quality" being the operative word here.)

Dad brought me and Cam back to the hotel after the zoo. (We were pretty much fried by the time we reached the monkey exhibit and I'd seen what I wanted to see, so there wasn't much point in staying longer. We'll just have to go back. Brian, Nancy, and the kids ended up staying a while longer). At the hotel, we lounged around, attempted cooking popcorn in the room's crappy microwave, watched the tail end of Indiana Jones (Temple of Doom, if I recall) on cable, and I blogged on Bernard about the road trip until we left for dinner. (which is why I am blogging now, late at night, with my eyes drooping. It's amazing I can focus at all right now.)

I will probably add a few more details regarding the exhibits (because the place was huge and this dinky little post does not do it justice in any sense of the word) when I add pictures. For now, this will do.

Enjoy some pictures:

The Boardwalk

There were lots of interesting things to see and do along the boardwalk and down the street from Uncle Brian and Aunt Nancy's rental house.

After visiting for a little while and letting the kids romp around in the sand for a little bit, we took a walk together.

We saw flowers that looked like birds, a motorized bicycle "gang," a Pomeranian that looked like it was attacked by a hair dryer... We looked into a few shops and saw all manner of dirty t shirts. We stopped to admire the wave house (they simulated waves to teach surfing) and a rollercoaster. And it was as we hiked back that we realized how far we'd really gone. It turned out to be quite far, and we probably walked about a mile and a half just this morning. Fun stuff.

Road Trip!!

So maybe a six hour drive to San Diego for a day and a half's worth of fun wasn't our greatest idea ever... But in my mind, the adventure is worth it.

Things I have learned:

-Cameron does not like his picture taken.

-However, you can snap a picture of him if you wait a sufficient amount of time until he is busy doing something else.

-how to drive at high speeds on a freeway in the wind. (and all this at night)

-"Party Rockers" and "I'm Sexy and I know it" are by the same band. (for some reason, I didn't know this)

The trip was pretty exciting. I drove for an hour and a half into Yuma. Cameron composed his own rendition of "I'm Sexy and I Know It" only it was the window washing edition. (Think, "ahh girl, look at this window...")

Coming from Yuma, we met up with some snow!! Dad said it was like the millennium falcon scene in Star Wars. (But please don't ask me which scene that is, because I honestly don't remember.)

And because I don't have a "real" computer for the weekend and Bernard does not have a memory card slot, I am resigned to posting crappy cellphone photos to document this experience. And the formatting is a little funky, but I can edit it when I get home. This is what I get for blogging on an iPhone app when I'm on an iPad. (Unfortunately, there is not an adequate app for blogging made for the iPad.)

Dark cellphone picture of dad giving me "the look" for snapping a photo.

Photo Vomit from the Golden State

They say a picture is worth a thousand words... 15,0000 words worth of pictures will suffice to describe the trip. I'm all tuckered out anyways.