Jean's Weblog

1.
The weekend started off nicely with a gorgeous sunny day in San Fran on Saturday (what a rarity in summer!) when Alice arrived. I finally made it out of the house and visited the Farmer’s Market on Alemany Saturday morning. How wonderful it was to be finally out and about.

Noah happened to born into the most gloomy month of the City – July. We were lucky to be treated to a couple of sunny ones when he was discharged from the hospital. But ever since, we have been mostly sitting in the glooms.

But since autumn just started yesterday, we seem to have entered the real warm month of the city. Hoping to see more sunshine as well. fingers crossed.

2.
Suddenly I’m following three TV series: Mad Men, Rubicon, and Sherlock by BBC.

Mad Men season four has been a huge disappointment to me so far. I think i finally figured out why. There hasn’t been enough advertising cases in the show! There used to be at least one advertising case study in each episode, and turned out that’s one of the major reason drew me to the show.

In the first three episodes of the new season, there has hardly been any advertising case at all! it is all about the melodrama of Don’s life, which i only care as a side show. :-/

Rubicon is a bit slow after the more engaging/thrilling first episode, but I’m giving it some benefit of doubt and hoping it will get more interesting soon.

The New Sherlock from BBC, where Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were placed in today’s London has been spectacular! Episode one especially, episode three was wonderful too. episode two is a bore. I guess the script writer really matters for a TV show, like the director to a movie.

3.
I’ve heard so many great reviews of Inception, the movie, that I came to the theatre with high expectations.

I was disappointed.

It is intricately built. It is clever. But it is soulless. There is nothing human about the story, nothing connects me with the characters. It is a show, in which i have no part of. I feel sympathy for no one in the movie. I couldn’t care less whether any of them made it out of their self-built maze.

Many has compared Inception to the Matrix. I try to remember why i enjoyed the Matrix so much. ZM thinks it is because the Matrix has simplicity, audience could actually enjoy the entertainment. Inception is too exhausting, and at the end, all that mental effort produces very little reward. What’s the point of it all?

Loved this “counter-inception” via Twitter today.

Went to see “Birth of Impressionism” @ de Young with Gui since she has a membership at the museum and offered to bring me in for free! We were hoping today being a weekday we might be able to see the exhibit without the crowd.

How wrong we were! It was totally “people mountain people sea”!

Luckily the exhibit itself is really good! Both the quantity and quality of paintings are not to disappoint. Quite a lot of them were new to me even though i’ve been to d’Orsay a number of times before. Made us looking forward to the next installment in late September: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay.

Sisley and Cezanne are still my favorite. I also enjoyed quite a few Manet (e.g. The Fife Player), The Magpie by Claude Monet (1868), American expatriate Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray and Black, known to many as “Whistler’s Mother.” The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)…

San Francisco is not so bad after all. Gui and I were content as we walked out into the dismal summer afternoon of SF: cold, windy, and cloudy.

The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)

The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873–1876)

The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)

Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother by James McNeill Whistler(1871)

When Gui and M used to live in Toronto, every summer they could watch firework competition on the lake Ontario right from their living room. I watched it once with them when i was visiting. It was lovely!

While we were living on Cole street, I noticed that one weekend in May, there were fireworks display above Embarcadero in the evening. We could watch it from our roof, or just walk uphill half a block to watch it on the sidewalk of Fulton street.

Later i learned it was sponsored by a local radio station KFOG, called KFOG Kaboom Festival. They put up a concert on the piers in the late afternoon and end the party with half an hour fireworks starting sometime after 9pm.

It was probably the best firework we get to watch in San Francisco every year. July 4th fireworks is impossible because of the hellish parking situation around fishermen’s wharf. New Year’s Eve fireworks is easier because i could time it such that to drive north on 280 then Embarcadero Blvd a little before mid-night. and just park on the stopped traffic right below the Bay Bridge and watch. But it was usually cold and sometimes rainy.

Last night Gui called me to give me an unbelievable good news, this year’s KFog Kaboom festival will be at Candlestick Park. It means we could watch the firework right from Gui’s balcony!

So i went over to Gui’s place last night to watch the fireworks, like the good old days in Toronto. I checked out the event information page before i went, and noticed the fireworks barge was positioned directly in front of Gui’s balcony on the bay!

It turned out to be the best fireworks “seat” i’ve ever had. We were so close to the show and with a non-obstructed view! We could also hear the music that was to go with the fireworks directly from the stage. The weather was perfect as well, no fog, and not windy either.

Here is a video clip I recorded using my phone. Of course it doesn’t do justice to the dream like quality of any fireworks, or how close we were to the grand display! I hope they would keep this location from now on.

It has been almost two years since Jennie recommended this little hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurant in Daly City to us.  We finally made it in on Friday for lunch and we loved it!

I had chicken teriyaki and tempura combo. ZM had Unagi Donburi.  He said it is the first Unagi Don he had in the bay area that actually cooked the Unagi in open fire. On my end, I’ve never seen chicken teriyaki cooked this way before. It was boiled with lots of ingredients, so it was like a stew but minus the soupy part. The meat was very well cooked that they fell out of the bones. Yum. I liked their tempura too.

Next time maybe i will try their “Japanese Beef Hamburger” or teriyaki beef. We saw them on other customers’ plates, and they look yummy!

Very reasonable priced, and huge portion!

Oh and it is run by Japanese.

Tani’s Kitchen

32 Park Plaza Drive

Daly City, CA 94015-1301

Gloomy Sunday morning, browsing web in bed using my SIM-less iPhone, kept on coming up with new ideas for the on-going renovation.

As I am typing this, the promised rain has started, soft but insistant pattering on the skylights, like little feet.

After a couple of months on nexus one,I am delighted to find out that typing on iPhone is actually not so bad, almost acceptable! What does that say about N1?

Waiting for ZM to wake up so we can go for brunch in the mission…

1.
It is drizzling. The ground was barely wet. The drizzle was so soft that even our cat Mars didn’t mind when i let him out to the backyard this morning. As i was walking to the shuttle stop, i was trying to think of a word to describe the drizzle. In Chinese it would be called “Smoke Rain”, means the rain is so light that it resembles a film of smoke floating about. Then i realized it didn’t quite work in English. Not for me at least. Because the word “Smoke” in English is heavily tinted with the smell of smoke. While the word “Smoke” in Chinese, when used as an adjective, means merely the visual representation of the smoke that you see from far away, no smell is associated with it. In Chinese, the twisting shape smoke(either from a cigarette or a fire) resembles as it travels slowly about sometimes was used to describe a beautiful woman’s walking style, mysterious, seductive even.

2.
The weekend was glorious in the City. We went to Golden Gate Park on Sunday, I to botanic garden area to check out the cherry blossom(it seems we were a little late, the blossom has passed its prime), ZM to hippie hill to check out his old stumping ground for photos. Later we met in de Young’s Cafe for a bite and realized the price there has doubled since our last visit!! Does that imply inflation?!

But the sun light was so lovely, i was almost giddy. I love San Francisco in the sun, so pretty, so pretty. Best season of the City. No Fog, no wind, all that blossoms dotted the landscape, pastel colored houses lined the streets, all were sparkling in the sun.

*
Wake up to a rainy morning, soft warm rain. Forecast is promising many sunny days after this rain cloud passes. Shuttle driver is joking about reindeer. happy morning.

**
Turned out it was only raining in the City. It was dry when i got off the shuttle and promptly forgot my umbrella on the shuttle.

***
My small “London Fog” fold up umbrella with black, white, blue and pink cats. I’ve had it for over four years. It went with me to Paris and Pompeii.

As I walked over to our evening shuttle stop and wondering whether i should call ZM to come and pick me up when i got home since it is raining in the city again. I saw the shuttle driver from my morning bus, he was walking into the “Lost and Found” office, with my umbrella!

All is well ends well.