Thursday, June 14, 2007
I took today and tomorrow off so that I could spend time with Chris and Nate on their first days living in San Francisco. They'll probably sleep in at least somewhat this morning—it's 8:46 AM as I write this, which is 5:46 AM Honolulu time. I have plenty of things I can do besides. Showered. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Met Chris and Nate at Powell and Market where they had just bought Muni passes and browsed at Westfield and San Francisco Centre. Patrick didn't go—he had things to do. I had neglected to remind Chris and Nate to wear shorts today—it was already 80 degrees at 9:30 AM—so we returned to the chateau so they could change. Back out again, we walked up and down streets in Nob Hill and Union Square and parts of the Financial District and Theatre District mostly just giving them an idea of what's where. They learned that Walgreen's is somewhat analagous to Honolulu's ABC Store (in that they both are relatively numerous) and that the Ferry Building is somewhat analagous to Honolulu's Aloha Tower (in that they're both prominent towers next to shipyards). We did some shopping: Paul Frank, H&M, didn't buy anything. We ate lunch at Crowne Plaza Union Square: turkey, ham, and bbq chicken sandwiches on dutch crunch roll, pasta salad, water and juice. According to my receipt, our server's name was Brunella. More walking around. We stopped in a number of neat places I had never been in before: the lobby of Hotel Nikko, San Francisco Museum of Craft & Design. We stopped in various amazing and elegant hotel and bank lobbies. We tried visiting BK at his office, but I must have remembered his address incorrectly—I thought it was 500 Montgomery, but that turned out to be some architecture firm. Took the cable car back to the chateau from the financial district. This was Chris's first San Francisco cable car ride ever, and I think Nate said he had ridden it once before. Patrick met us at the chateau. Chris, Nate, and I each changed into long pants. Walked and then took the cable car down to Market Street. Switched to BART. Took BART to 24th and Mission. Walked over to Valencia and walked Valencia back toward Market Street. The four of us ate dinner at Maharaja Indian Cuisine (415-532-7901, 525 Valencia Street): mix (illegible receipt - nate, what was this?), chicken korma, chicken tikka masala, albo gobhi, vegetable biryani, garlic naan, k. naan (nate - what was this?), raita, mango lassi, lassi, plain naan, o.k. (nate - what was this?). The food was delicious. We ordered "not spicy" but the food was still too spicy for my ultrasensitive palate—I have come to expect this as unfixable when it happens. Our server was annoyingly neglectful. For example, we had requested our check and we got acknowlegement from him that he understood and then we waited perhaps 10 minutes before we decided someone needed to get up and go find out what had happened to him. Afterwards we ate ice cream at Bombay. Strangely enough, there was no server at all behind the counter for about 5 minutes with 3 customers ahead of us. Patrick had saffron and pistachio ice cream, Nate had cardamom, Chris had cardamom rose. I didn't have any—too full. BART then Muni home. Patrick went to bed. Backfilled journal entries from the Hawaii trip. Weight training: advanced plank, dumbbell bench press, crunch, dumbbell squat, shoulder shrug, calf raise. Right knee hurts a little. No more squats, I guess. A very fine day. Late meal: leftover char siu, chicken and pasta soup. Bed.