Grandma's Apartment

So I will be really honest here (I can be honest on my own blog right?), my grandma's apartment is kind of.... Boring. I feel like a reverse hermit, stealing away to the Atrium to get on the wifi to check my email and cruise the Internet and make phone calls to a certain Someone... ;) I spend a lot of time here. In fact, I am here right now!

So I've found myself with a lot of time to kill. And it is during these times that I find myself doing strange goofy things. Like snapping pictures of myself (not my most favorite thing- makes me feel ridiculous and yet, as any self respecting teenager would do, I do it anyways.) wearing big sunglasses .

Or writing poems about Flower people:

"A row of Terra Cotta houses,
Made of small flower pots,
Where the flower people,
Sing their songs,
And their music is not sung with words,
But with water,
In a never ending liquid dance,
Of sound from their throats."

And pillaging things from the FREE TABLE!!! There is so much to say about the free table. It is quite a novelty . You just add things you don't want and take things you do. People just come and go. There is always a few items there. (Except now, because the room is being occupied by a group of coupon clipping ladies.)

I like cruising by it, just for kicks. And Free is the best price anyways. (Even better than thrifting!) The other day, I was doing laundry and as I passed by, I saw a beautiful black skirt with white embroidery and beading on it... I snatched it up!

And then, I pulled out mom's sewing machine and I made a few snips here and sewed a few lines there and in thirty minutes, I had myself a dress!! I'll post the before and after pictures from my camera once I get home. It looks great!

For now, I have provided a cellphone picture that makes it look purple.

 BEFORE:

 AFTER:

 Gotta Love DIYs! I did this from a tutorial:

from this blog

Unfortunately, I cannot take any credit for the genius idea. But I loved the way it turned out!!

Pier 39 and Being a Bus Noob

Post-surgery, the week has rapidly progressed while the inverse has occurred on my blog. But that will change thanks to automated posting! But here are the pictures from when me and mom hiked from our hotel, through Ghiradelli Square, and all the way to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39.

It was such a beautiful day, that I didn't even take a sweater with me!

One thing about San Francisco, is that those little crosswalk lights aren't fooling around. (Real quick on the subject of crosswalk lights we invented names for each sign: "green man of joy/life," "blinking hand of [imminent] doom," and "the red hand of death." just thought that might interest you.) If you want to cross the street, you'd better book it! So me and mom are running across Lombard street and her ankle pops! Oh no! What do we do now?

She took an Advil and roughed it out while on the wharf. But there was no way we were going to make it up that hill. So what did we do? San Francisco Public Transit System to the rescue!! That's right, folks. We took the bus.

Rumor has it, that my grandma didn't even get her license until well after she turned sixteen (her age shall not be disclosed here.), simply because the public transit in San Francisco was so amazingly GREAT that she didn't need her own car! Talk about being economical.

So we got our own taste of wonders of the San Francisco bus system. And I must say, it was exciting! I believe this was my first time ever riding a public bus that was not on its way to or from an airport. At first, I was quite self conscious about this, because I was quite obviously, a Bus Noob. Even Mim got a little confused as to which stop(s) to get off at. But nice ladies who rode the bus helped us out.

So we bought our tickets for two dollars each (only to find out I only costed 75 cents) and then, we got a ninety minute free transfer ride. (I am certain it was called something much cooler than that.) but what all this fancy schmancy stuff means (for you other Bus Noobs out there) is that for 90 minutes (or an hour and a half) after you purchase your ticket, you can get on any bus you want. After that, you have to pay another fare. But our bus driver was super duper nice and gave us two extra hours!!! So we ended up taking the bus and transferring three times (which inly would've been possible with the little Chinese lady who showed us which stop to get off at and which bus to transfer to next.) to the hospital where Grandma was. (I shall refrain from sharing details of the surgery and outcome here on my blog, but if you have any questions, comments, concerns, condolences, spare candy wrappers you don't want...whatever it is you have for me, you can talk to me in person, by phone, text, and/or email.)

The bus ride was a little hectic, not knowing what to do, but altogether a fun experience! I am now a bus advocate for life. Yay bus rides!

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.

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.

San Francisco!

So the trip to San Francisco was pretty fun! A little bittersweet because of the circumstances, but still a fun trip.


The first day, we spent most of the day in the city. To kill time until the Wake, we went to Golden Gate Park!

Flute Man I thought was interesting!

We visited the Japanese Tea Garden.

Nick and I at the top of a tall bridge. It was quite difficult to get down.

a fountain

 

And there's that gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge!

Despite the bitterness of the funeral, it was a fun trip! We got a lot of business taken care of, saw a lot of people (as much as can fit in four days, which isn't very much when you consider that our entire lives are there...)

So much happened, and it was so long ago (like a month) that I don't know how to capture it all. But I'm going to write an essay of the experience (idea courtesy of Aunt Colleen) and it will be called, "Flowers for Grandfather." See? Doesn't that sound good already? And I haven't even begun to write it yet! It's amazing what a title can do.