Tag Archives: street scenes

2015

SFO TO San Diego by Amtrak

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I am traveling today via Amtrak to San Diego. I will be meeting hubby Gee Kin tomorrow, who is flying in from SFO. This is a free trip for me, inspired by expired Amtrak points that were recovered. This “special” allows passengers to go from San Francisco to LA or San Diego area for 1500 points each way. Normally the minimum number of points is 10,000 for any free trip, so this was a bargain for those who have time.

The first leg is via what is known as a Thruway Bus, or by bus from SFO to Santa Barbara. It takes about 7.5 hours. After that, passengers transfer to the Pacific Surfliner from SB to LA or San Diego. The train arrives around 8pm, or in another 6 hours.

Obviously flying is far more efficient, but for me, why not? Free is free, but not faster. I managed to entertain myself on the bus with music, snoozing, and people watching. It was very comfortable and relaxing, far easier than my usual mode of driving.

The weekend will be capped by a visit to friends of ours, who live an hour outside SD. Since GK doesn’t have the time to travel by train, I plan to meet him at the airport tomorrow morning. After Gee Kin’s work-related portion of the trip, we will rent a car and drive to our friend’s place. We will do the reverse at the end of the trip, with Gee Kin flying back on Saturday, and then I will be taking the train on my own on Sunday.

This was initially a little complicated and confusing, but after I worked out the logistics it was quite simple. I discovered that I can wrap train travel around someone else’s busy schedule. By using Amtrak, I can enjoy some personal time and share time together. This works great for me, and is consistent with traveling with myself and others. If you hadn’t thought about this option before, you might consider this creative method of travel. It gives greater flexibility to accommodate different schedules for two people.

So far the bus ride following Hwy. 101 was uneventful, with stops in San Jose, Salinas, King City, San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles. The last two locations looked inviting, in between traversing many vineyards. And despite the drought, the Salinas Valley crops still looked well watered (pun intended).

From Santa Barbara to Ventura, the views along the Pacific Ocean have been spectacular, with tracks paralleling the surf! There are a string of small towns from Santa Barbara to LA such as Carpenteria and Oxnard. Alert your overseas friends and visitors (and a reminder to yourselves) that this portion of the route allows you to see the California coast and beaches ringside from the train during the day–which obviously now is the train’s featured namesake.

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Here’s one additional bonus: free wifi on the train! I can write this and send it to you real time!

Stay tuned for the weekend’s activities coming up.

2015

Vague on Vogue in Prague

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Dear Friends and Fellow Travelers:

As this very short sojourn to Prague, Weimar, and Dresden draws to an end, I hope you have enjoyed reading my daily posts as I have had experiencing these memorable cities.

I close with a couple of irresistible shots from Prague for you to ponder whether these are hot, cool, or neither.

Look for the second grand 80 days-around-the-world tour in reverse that includes Beijing, the Trans-Siberian Express, more of German-speaking Europe, and U.S. cross-country beginning at the end of July.

Auf Wiedershen Liebe Freunde!

This shop sells Russian dolls with all football and national teams all oVer the world, including the Giants (with Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford among others)
This shop sells Russian dolls with all football and national teams from all over the world, including the Giants (with Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford among others)

image YUCK!!!

2015

Prague Perspectives

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Here’s a potpourri of architecture, art, and street scenes from today’s walks to the National Gallery and along the Charles River:

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire Dancing Building
crossing the Charles River
Elegant Witches Caps

1. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Dancing Building by Frank Gehry
2. Optional transportation across the Charles River
3. Elegant Witches’ Caps

Architectural Models by Loos and others (for the architects in the room)

Portraits by Rousseau, Matisse, and Picasso; Sculpture by Degas and Rodin

A moving tribute to a 22-year old artist


1. En Plein Air
2. Czech Donut Making


3. Witches and Goblins and Ghosts–Oh My! are everywhere in Prague (we just missed April 30, when everyone dresses up as a witch throughout the city)
4. Second Effigy in Two Days–a whimsical or warped obsession?

Note: Click on photos before for better viewing.

I’ll be on the road to Weimar tomorrow, so next post may be delayed. See you soon!

2015

Prague Architecture & Promos

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Like Dresden, Prague has a Disneyland-ish quality to it. We think of the SoCal American counterpart as fantastical, whimsical, and totally pedestrianized, and this city seems to match those descriptions. Like Disneyland, it also has hoards of tourists. For this city’s economy, tourists are no plague for Prague.

The buildings are impeccably maintained as are the streets (at least in the old town–I haven’t seen the real world by daylight anywhere yet!). It’s best to succumb to the lovely lures of the inner city and not overly scrutinize what may be beyond just yet.

Photos, from top left, counter-clockwise:
1. Tattooed Building
2. Baroque Beauty
3. Another Baroque Beauty outside hotel
4. Town Hall and Astronomical Clock in city center
5. Stone Relief on side of building
6. Effigy decorates confluence of crooked streets; impressions of Prague in 3GS: gruesome, gnarly, and Gothic.

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Jewish Synagogue (above)

As for Prague being a musical city, it definitely is well endowed, with a twist. Tourists must run the gauntlet of mass advertising for concerts and performances held at virtually every available venue. Catholic and Protestant churches competed in the past for parishioners and compete today for music patronage. Like canned tours, it is impossible to avoid the bombardment of flyers and hawkers (not for sex, but…music???). I felt a bit sorry for those disinterested in music, like the feeling you get when you’re not a sports fan and everyone around you is a fanatic. What’s all the fuss about?!? It’s a different world.

Fortunately for us, I was a bit unprepared and the readily at-hand research saved my ogling-going on Google. Instead, we physically stumbled into an ideal performance at the Municipal Hall. Dvorak’s New World Symphony will be performed with 60 local musicians of the Czech orchestra for around 40 euros each. (Quantity, not quality matters here) It’s also easy to compare choices when ads are at every street corner.

We are about to go to a Prague State Opera performance of “Nabucco” tonight. Keep your fingers crossed. Although I bought tickets online, I wonder how many tourists got coerced into going to something at the last minute that they really didn’t want to see. As for performances in Dresden and Leipzig, they haven’t capitalized on music or pandered to tourists to the extent done here (unless I missed something before). Maybe by choice, or less desperation. Stay tuned….

Update: the Prague Opera did not disappoint…in fact, it fully redeemed my faith in coming here. The performers were stellar, the staging straightforward, and the kudos were appropriate to the performance (not overinflated as they are in the U.S. with standing ovations the norm rather than the exception).

*I couldn’t help but add a panoramic of the interior of the beautiful opera house here. The acoustics were the best of any house I have visited. It’s small, intimate, and perfectly balanced. Maybe it was sitting in dead center of the parterre that did it, but for $55 for best seats in the house it beats the Met hands down on acoustical quality and value.

imagePrague State Operahouse interior

2015

LA Downtown and Loca-MOCA

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(The panorama above is taken in Palmdale, on the edge of the Mojave Desert. We spent the last couple of days comparing this high and dry area to that of Dunhuang and Turpan, our prior travels last September. Very similar in the moon-like landscapes and austere surroundings.)

Disney Hall by Gehry
Disney Hall by Gehry
Entrance to Gehry Hall

Back to civilization…one of the signature buildings in LA is the Disney Hall, designed by Frank Gehry. It’s located on the corner of the LA Civic Center. While controversioal at the time it was built like all Gehry buildings, this fanciful building seems strangely apropos for LA.

Millenium Biltmore
Contradiction

Down the street, one of the grand old buildings preserved in its splendor is the Millenium Biltmore. This was the location of the hotel where “Pretty Woman” was filmed. An ironic building sign at a service entrance wasn’t able to practice what it preached.

Downtown HIgh Rises
Broad Contemporary Under Construction
MOCA exhibition on Compton

More downtown hi-rises, along with the  $140 Million Broad Contemporary Art Museum under construction by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. (to read more: see http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/los-angeles/the-broad-contemporary-art-museum-downtown-los-angeles-photos.html).

A dual screen presentation on Compton, CA, inside the Museum of Contemporary Art showed daily life and unfortunate realities of death and dying in the city since the Rodney King beating.

2015

Random Acts of Mindfulness

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Take a look at some amusing signs I discovered on my brisk three mile walk this morning from Midtown to Nolita.

This shop caught my eye with a rare “full figure” mannequin next to a normal one. The detailed explanation earnestly states that a popular bra size is an H cup, the largest up to Size 56 with an N cup! (It’s worth tapping the photo to get a full screen reading of this public display). Amazing what you can learn on a morning stroll.

image I thought it was admirable for this supermarket to openly share their mission and core values with their customers, but I’m not sure how many have read it.

imageIn contending with this morning’s thaw, I thought it was ironic that this company couldn’t do much for improving the 25 degree (below zero in degrees Celsius) weather, even though they must be fine technicians.

2015

Holita Nolita

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I was up early today, and had a light breakfast in the hotel. The Cafe serves pastries and bagels from Balthazar and Ess-a-Bagels, both famous institutions in themselves, so I am in breakfast heaven (ironically I ordered steel cut oats!).

I headed down to Le Labo in Nolita for custom mixed fragrances from Grasse (the home of French perfumes) and ordered two scented candles and a musky flavored spray.

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Next I managed to get a seat at Balthazar for a bar lunch of scrambled eggs and mushrooms in a puff pastry and a glass of champagne.

Cafe Balthazar

I ripped back up to the Theater District to catch “the Heidi Chronicles”, then returned by subway with relative ease to the Ramen Lab for a quick dinner. After waiting outside in line for over an hour, I finally was able to get a seat at the bar at the Ramen Lab (what’s with these “labs”?). It was worth the wait, since I wasn’t dying to get home or go anywhere else. The noodles were decent but the miso soup and the pork belly were superb. The seat at the bar was moot, as the restaurant is so small. All 10 seats are “at the bar”, with no chairs, no stools, nada.

When the chef heard I was from San Francisco, he asked me if I had heard of the Ramen Shop in Oakland. He had worked there last summer for three weeks. The hostess told me she loves Tartine and Bi-Rite. She goes there every time she’s in SF. I was tempted to ask her if she had imported the idea of long lines from there to create hype for this place.

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People in photo above showing the noodle bar appear to be seated, but in fact they are standing. The bowl of noodles looks innocuous, but was delicious, particularly after waiting in the cold outside for so long. A guaranteed thumbs up no matter what the food tastes like, eh? All of these food and mood shops are within walking distance of the Spring Street Station Number 6 line near NY Chinatown.

My last destination, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, was no where to be found. In its place, I discovered a spanking new building just before hitting Nolita. It looked a little out of place among the old brick warehouses along the Bowery. It turned out to be the new campus of the Cooper Union.

I ventured inside and asked whether anyone knew who the architect was. The guard and a student shrugged their shoulders and one finally out of desperation uttered that they thought it was some blankety blank architect from CALIFORNIA. The style and design looked familiar, but the name danced on the tip of my tongue. When I found out later who it was, it seemed obvious. Anyone willing to guess?!? (Hint: we have a building in San Francisco by this well-known architect).

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Photos above: exterior and interior of the Cooper Union, by___.

Footnote: the Heidi Chronicles started out on a light note, but ended up being emotionally draining for me. In that respect I enjoyed it. It’s a boomer story of a woman who studied art history at Vassar (hmm…). After recounting each decade of her life with familiar friends, the lead character tries to make sense of being a woman in a male-dominated world. Maybe not for all, but I could relate to this story.

On the menu tomorrow: “It’s Only a Play” with Martin Short” and Blue Hill with Rik

2015

100 Hours in San Francisco

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Those of you who have been checking my blog might be noticing a dry spell. I am planning a few upcoming trips this year, but I thought I would share a few recent activities with you. This weekend, we hosted some very good friends from Vancouver. Bennett and Colleen were arriving with some very serious dining plans that included Delfina, Mourad (the new Moroccan restaurant where Melissa works) and Nopa. We were to fill in the gaps between dinners, with epic walks, sights, and activities to justify the indulging among San Francisco’s best eateries.

The long weekend began on Thursday am, with a pickup at the airport. If you are coming from Canada like our BC friends, beware of the confusion between domestic and international airport locations. Customs and immigration might occur in Canada, but the airlines might still arrive in international or domestic, depending on the airline.

After hugs and greetings, we eventually set off on a specific shopping pursuit. At Bennett’s request, we ventured to Noe Valley to the Union Made store where Bennett and Gee Kin have bought elegant and hip men’s clothing. It didn’t hurt to have a 40% off January sale. Gee Kin likes to shop there (on Bennett’s recommendation) to keep up with the techie world, even if the prices are a bit steep. He found a great jacket there with super long arms that suited his proportions and was flattering for his next step out into Techie SF.

After this purely hedonistic venture, we recovered at Kasa on Eighteenth Street. Regarded as one of the best meals in town under $15, the home headquarters version on the food truck, this spartan shop eventually served a line out the door after we purviewed the menu of Indian specialties and ordered.  Three of us ordered a “Thali” lunch special of pork or lamb and three sides for $11.50.  I had the “Kati” roll with lamb. You can check out the menu at http://www.kasaindian.com/indianrestaurantsf/kasa-menu/.

We drove our guests home via the upper Market area and made a quick stop at Twin Peaks for a view of the city. Being a perfect day of 65 degrees, we had no problem with the usual windy bluff it normally is at the top. To top it off, it was reasonably clear and we could see Mt. Diablo in the East Bay, 50 miles away.

After a nap back at the ranch, we headed back to the same neighborhood in Noe Valley for dinner at Delfina.  We enjoyed the banter with the waiter over the descriptions of wine and food we eventually ordered, and the meal was predictably delicious.
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Day 2 started off with a morning walk down through the Inner Sunset to the DeYoung Museum to see the Keith Haring exhibit. While not particularly my thing, Haring had a following in New York and used spontaneous, street art to make his political statements. He covered many contemporary issues, including the Aids Crisis, racism, and world hunger.

We brought a picnic lunch to enjoy in Golden Gate Park in the unseasonably warm January weather. In the backs of our minds were the worries about the lack of rain that gives us beautiful guilt-ridden days of summer in the middle of winter. We skipped the wine but toasted our friendship on tofu and cloud’s ears, an ethnic dish, beet salad, sauteed kale, and fresh bread from Tartine (earned the night before).

After breezing past the adjacent Academy of Sciences, we headed over to Green Apple Books in the Richmond District. Another venerable local institution, this bookstore has expanded its footprint to the Inner Sunset where it shares space with LeVideo. It helped to bail out another well-loved service that has seen better days from a bygone era of VCRs and DVDs. I bought another used copy of “The Orientalist”, one of my favorite books, and a signed copy of a dessert book by the pastry chef at Chez Panisse for Melissa.

Our dinner that evening was a stunning introduction to Mourad. This new restaurant by Mourad Lahlou at 140 New Montgomery in the renovated AT&T building, is where Melissa works as pastry chef. We were lavished with new menu items produced by Mourad’s new Chef de Cuisine, Chris Kajioka, and our own Melissa. After being warmly greeted by Mourad, we were treated to a back-of-the-house tour of the kitchen. It was exciting to see this new venture long in the planning stages come to fruition, and we are so proud of Melissa’s dedication and success to her craft.

Day Three on Saturday was occupied by a walk from home to the North Side of the city to Chestnut Street. Gee Kin led our guests through Golden Gate Park. By pure accident, they found the sculptured heart painted by their friend Hung Liu perched along the Broderick steps leading to the Marina. You’ll hear more about this artist momentarily.

We regrouped just before dinner to drive over to the East Bay via the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. We could still see the remnants of the former Bay Bridge alongside the spanking new version, to explain the reason for another bridge. Being seismically compromised, SF Bay Area residents recognized the importance of sustaining this vital transportation link between two major cities in California. While it was originally estimated at $1 Billion, it ended up costing $6.4 Billion and several years longer than anticipated.  Oh well, a bit off.

Our dinner with Hung Liu, a Chinese artist living in Oakland, was very illuminating. She and her husband Jeff shared with us their experience doing and selling art in the US. She is an accomplished artist and was teaching at Mills College until recently. You can see a sample of her work here, that represents a young Chinese bride with a bird in a cage superimposed on the image. We visited her studio in East Oakland after a classic meal at the Bay Wolf Restaurant on Piedmont Avenue.

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Day Four started with an early morning tour of Alcatraz Island, with a featured exhibition of Ai Wei-wei’s work. While the location may have been perplexing to many, it was a fitting venue for highlighting the issue of political dissidents and the importance of activism. Ai Wei-Wei used his expertise and talents as an artist to convey this message to many who would not otherwise attend an art museum nor a prison. He cleverly and adeptly combined the two experiences into one to convey an important message. Below is a picture of the kitchen at Alcatraz.

The kitchen at Alcatraz

Believe it or not, this day was capped by SuperBowl Sunday! No, we were not above succumbing to social influence. After lunch at Nopa on Divisadero and a quick tour of the neighborhood market, we hunkered down for the afternoon and pigged out on beer, guacamole and chips, finger food, and split pea soup. What more could you ask for on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

Our final day of the endless weekend was topped by a final walk from home to Hayes Valley via Upper Market. We shot past UCSF at Parnassus to Seventeenth Street, and then down the hill. Bennett and Colleen did some serious shopping on Hayes Street. I managed to get them to the Glen Park Station to head to the airport at the end of the day just in time for my final German conversation class on time!
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A few notes:

Urban walking is one of my passions! You can find out more about 5 day sagas from San Francisco to Napa or San Jose and more at http://www.crazyladywalks.com

You can see some of Melissa’s amazing desserts on Instagram at _melissachou.

For followers: Look for new postings in Early March for a week in New York City visiting museums and the New York Metropolitan Opera (Carmen, Don Giovanni and Manon). Another trip to Germany for the Dresdenmusikfestspiele in May is upcoming, and another world trip is in the works for late Summer. Stay tuned!

Segment V

Day 78+2: Summary of Segment IV: China

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Segment IV, while a continuation of China, was the Non-Silk Road portion of the trip. Gee Kin and I stayed in Szechuan 5 days with an overnight in Emei Shan. Gee Kin returned to the US after that, and I traveled solo overnight on a rail journey from Chengdu to Guangzhou. After that, my final destination was Hong Kong before heading back to San Francisco via Vancouver.

The photos are in triplets, three for each city. Most of our earlier trips to China focused on the heavily populated cities of the East Coast, namely Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao. It was a completely different experience visiting Western China, where the food, character of the people, dialects, and temperament were distinctive.

The rapid growth of Chengdu and Guangzhou were astounding. I felt as if portions of Putong District in Shanghai were airlifted there. The noticeable presence of cranes was unavoidable, and I felt a bit like a country bumpkin trying to navigate around big complexes, malls, and huge underground systems.

Hong Kong had always had this buzz, but relative to these other cities it too felt behind in some respects. There are fewer sites to develop so the other cities appeared to be amassing more square foot on a pure volume basis. But clearly in the lapse since I had last been there (a span of perhaps 3-5 years), there had already been extensive infill projects, more electronic advertising on sides of buildings, and several new mass transit lines added.

Going back to Chengdu, it’s clearly a city on the rise. People seemed to be excited that this inland city was getting its share of development. The malls were filled with local tourists who worked hard so they could spend money. There were very few foreigners in this part of China. Even atop Emei Shan there were only a handful of foreigners among the scant groupings of local Chinese tourists. For that, it made going up the mountain a worthwhile adventure.

Guangzhou shot me into the twenty-first century. The cultural buildings near my hotel in Tian He were impressive in size and scale, but the design and quality were questionable. These buildings completed in the last few years included the Library by Japanese architects Nikken Sekkei, the Guangzhou Provincial Museum by Rocco Designs from Hong Kong, and the Guangzhou Opera House by Zaha Hadid. Clearly Guangzhou’s Bureau of Architecture was intent on putting the city on the world map and has managed to do so virtually overnight.

Taking from the concept of two pebbles, the Opera House has sweeping angles and swoops to make the spaces in between buildings dynamic. But the building already looked prematurely worn and wrinkled. The museum was a vacuous building that didn’t seem to have enough material on display and lacked any kind of soul due to its monumental size. Materials were poorly assembled and chosen. The exterior of the building, with a wavy podium ramp to the side, did not make any sense supporting a very rectilinear box with slits and window cut outs. The library seemed to have the most promise, but I was not able to spend any time inside.

At last, arriving in Hong Kong felt a bit like a Homecoming. Three sets of friends from my earlier days working in Hong Kong kept me informed and entertained during my five day visit. The protests against the government were unsettling but did not occur until the day after I left. A good proportion of the Hong Kong people felt betrayed by the British government and by the Chinese, who promised to allow free elections for leaders chosen by the people. The complaint is that the Chinese government changed the terms of the agreement.

Food of course dominated my attention in Hong Kong. Food continues to maintain a very high standard and the innovative touch was evident. While I can’t speak for HK stocks or property speculating, this is one place to bet your money. It’s a winner every time, despite everything else around you never staying the same.

I’ll leave here to allow time for you to ponder my comments. In the next couple of days, I will close out my blog. As mentioned previously, I’d be happy to hear from you and provide details of each segment if you are interested.