further fun in SF

[jinian]

Friday: Took a slow bus ride to Haight-Ashbury, where we looked in lots of shops at (C: "totally undesirable") rather nice hippie-flavored clothes, found fun fabrics at the discount place, and ate a fine Ethiopian lunch at a place whose name I cannot now find.

Walked from there to Golden Gate Park, only since we've been getting rather slow starts every day it was latish afternoon. We did not succeed in reaching the Pacific before nightfall. Actually, we didn't succeed in escaping the Botanical Garden -- which I had nothing to do with our going into! -- before it shut at something absurd like 4pm, so we had to backtrack landward a fair bit to the place we came in and then try to find the after-hours exit, which is not at the large gate through which we entered. I did get to see the Primitive Plant Garden, but it lacked Illicium. (Actually it didn't have Nymphaea either, so I wonder if they aren't operating on an older idea of "primitive".)

Miscommunication led to much waiting around the Music Concourse (near the new, ugly De Young museum) as night fell. The sky was clear, and the earthglow on the new moon was much more visible than usual. We chased around in the dark, eventually finding M, and went home. W and C ventured forth to gather food, and returned heroic, and there was dinner and a movie.

Saturday: Slept poorly and woke early, so I was really antsy by the time we left for the Ferry Building. Walked over through the Embarcadero pedestrian walkway, which was very well designed and strangely empty of people. Some few samples were found and eaten in the Ferry Building, but it was pretty crammed with people watching admittedly lovely young carolers. Got lime-ginger-kiwi preserves and tried them on a croissant -- yum! Some NoCal characteristic honeys for the dork family member who has sent out no list but likes to cook. (We all like sugar, right?)

Also bought a Sierra Beauty apple. Light red streaking on yellow-green ground. Granny-Smith tart but more complex, with some sweeter notes and almost a berry finish. Crisp and very good.

Back to the apartment to drop off goodies including a pumpkin and really good oranges, then off to the nearby anime shop, where spoils included FMA keychain Ed looking totally mad and an FMA t-shirt, which they actually had in XL, in shades of hot pink on black.

Chinatown library has giant shelf of manga: ch-ching! All is in Chinese: woe! There was some not, but it wasn't a giant wall.

W and I broke off to go to Borderlands, which turns out to be a very good SF bookshop. Large new section, large used section, a little YA, rather a lot of zines and chapbooks, movies, selected comics. (They had one manga: Read or Die. Appropriate, but the manga character designs make my eyes hurt.) We sought the pirate store but did not find it, so came home. [ETA: Food was found at a Mexican-and-Salvadorean? place just outside the 24th/Mission BART station. Much meat. Very tasty.]

I am goofing off, W is chopping apples, M is goofing off, C is making pie crust. My knees hurt from overuse, but this has been a lot of fun.

Comments

[rubricity.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you've had lots of grand adventures (as well as the fun)! Very glad for you.