Thursday 2/7/09 (Day 8)
We drove to the Vacaville Premium Outlet (known as Direct Factory Outlet in Australia) in the afternoon. What supposed to be an hour drive took over two hours because of this one minor accident on highway 80. I spent most of my time in the Coach store and walked out with two coach bags. Things were so cheap! Couldn't help it. J waits patiently for me for over an hour till the last 10 minutes when he said, "Can we enter other stores now?” We entered Polo Ralph Lauren where we picked up three polo Ts for him. I thought the shirts look good on him because the shirts were custom-fitted. Also, the inside of the shirt collars were of a different colour to the shirt, making the shirts look unique and expensive.
Before leaving the premium outlet, he buys a Coach clutch for me ☺
We then headed back to San Francisco. Had dinner at a Thai restaurant and then called it a night.
Friday 3/7/09 (Day 9)
We headed to Chinatown to have dim sum at Hang Ah Tea Room. That restaurant established itself as the oldest dim sum restaurant in San Francisco. The dim sum was quite delicious – particularly the har kau (prawn dumpling) and the fried bean curd. However, the service was atrocious. I noticed a couple on the adjacent table complaining a couple of times to the waitress.
I then strolled around Chinatown by myself as J headed back to do some work.
Here's an interesting bit of information. Many Chinese people first migrated over to San Francisco in search of gold. They couldn't really find any but were instead met with hostility from the locals. In order to protect themselves, they had to build their own community. As such, San Francisco Chinatown is very self-sufficient. They have their own doctors, pharmacists, school, bank etc. Also, you'll notice lots of family associations in Chinatown. Each family had to protect themselves during the earlier years of harsh adversity and hostility.
A family association
Murals along Ross Alley that depicts the everyday life of the Chinese American community. Ross Alley is the oldest alley in Chinatown and was known for housing brothels and gambling joints.
Today, Ross Alley is home to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. Did you know that fortune cookies did not originate from China? Most people living in China do not even recognise fortune cookies. Some entrepreneur probably invented this cookie and tried to pass this cookie off as a traditional Chinese cookie to make it seem more...exotic? Some argues that the fortune cookie was invented in California. Anyhoo, this factory is always packed to the brim with tourists. It's a very small factory, housed in a tiny shop lot. Initially, there were only two female workers making the cookies but I think they have expanded over time because I saw four people making the cookies when I visited the place.
Fire escapes serve as clothes lines.
J and I met up a couple of hours later and headed to Japantown. Japantown comprises of about six square city blocks in the Western Addition of San Francisco. The area is home to a large number of Japanese restaurants, supermarkets, indoor shopping malls, other shops and more. Japantown is definitely worth a visit if you're traveling to San Francisco.
Photo stickers!!! They bring back sweet memories. I took lots of photo stickers when I went on a student exchange to Japan many years ago. My host sisters and I took photo stickers almost every other day. Photo sticker centers were really popular in Japan at that time but the craze has since that down.
I always loved these nicely packed Japanese desserts. The packaging always look so pretty that I always want to leave the goodies intact as long as I possibly can (that is till I succumb to temptation of stuffing my face with the sinful delights)
Celebrating the Tanabata Fesitaval. Love or wish poems are written down on colourful strips of paper and then hung onto bamboo trees.
After a quick stroll around Japantown, we settled at a Shabu Shabu restaurant for sukiyaki. There are a couple of huge Shabu Shabu restaurants in this area. We just settled on one. We ordered suki yaki and oh boy, it definitely satisfied my taste buds.
I surprised J with a gift for our anniversary. I'm usually very good with surprises as I can put on a poker face pretty well. Unfortunately for me, when we arrived at Japantown, I zipped open my bag to take my camera out and totally forgot about the present. Immediately he saw the mysterious wrapped item and queried, "What's that? Is it for me?"
The waitress explained to us that in Japan, they break raw eggs into a bowl and use the eggs as a dipping sauce. I wasn't used to the idea of dipping my noodles and meat in just cold raw egg, so i mixed some soup with the egg.
We experienced three false fire alarms three weeks in a row. Twice was early in the morning. Once, at 3 am! During the 3rd time (at 3 am), I couldn't be stuffed going down anymore. I told J, "You go. I'll go down if I smell smoke." Mentally, I pictured an escape plan in my head. We were staying on the second floor. I did a rough mental calculation and concluded that I probably could escape the fire (if there was one) since I was only 2 floors up. Worst case scenario, I will jump out of the window and break a leg. J told me not to be silly and sternly forced me to get up. Lesson learnt: I'm not rational and 100 times lazier when I'm sleepy.
My only consolation. Having a picture taken (albeit, a bad one) with the firemen. Men in uniforms. Mmmm...(okay, maybe not this set of firemen. I like my men a bit younger.)
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