Around the world with a Finn

This place sounded like a katiland-mustdo, a suspension bridge in the middle of nowhere, in a rain forest, with a treetop walk. We got the sea bus from the Waterfront and the 238 bus in North Vancouver to get to Capilano. It’s a 30dollar admission, way well worth it to me. The scene is fabulously beautiful – and it is Halloween time, so they had hundreds of carved pumpkins around the area. Very beautiful indeed. Makes me think that Finland is loosing out on the pumpkin fun, but I suppose that’s due to it always being too cold outside at this time of the year.

I took some photographs from the observation deck and we then passed the bridge to the other side to do the forest walks. I’ve never been to a rain forest before, let alone a Northern rain forest. It feels like the trees are weeping and there is huge amount of moisture in the air. It wasn’t raining while we were there, but it was pretty wet anyways. I am sure it’s like that all the time there. The Autumn colors are perhaps at their best currently, going on red, yellow and brown. I have seriously taken so many pictures of leaves on this trip that I might need to do a leaf show when I get home.

The trees in the Capilano rain forest are seriously old, but the oldest is Grandmother Capilano, — years old. They had had an accident of one of the huge trees falling on the bridge in a storm… Somehow the cables held its weight though, the bridge was unharmed. We walked on top of that tree, which seriously had been one of the big ones. It made you really trust the bridge not to fall down though. I am not scared of heights anyways, but I think my husband was having jitters.

It was also the day to help the breast cancer victims, which meant that they had decided to decorate the bridge with ropes of bras all over it. This told to us by the cash register woman: “Don’t be intimidated by the bras all over the bridge. ”

In the forest, there is a pedestal walk among the treetops, just like the villages you see in ‘Return of the Jedi’. And as I am a serious Star Wars fan, what better way to spend your day than to visit the Ewok way of living? It went very well with my theme visit of the film world, even if it wasn’t filmed here. However, it was filmed in Northern Vancouver, so there you go.

Last but not least we shopped with the incredibly tempting Haida art again, getting some more Christmas presents to the family. There was a soup and sandwich stand to enjoy before getting the bus, sea bus and sky train back to the Broadway. I was also determined to visit the local branch to do some Shorinji Kempo and learn about it in Northern Europe.

I made a call to the branch master Hajimoto sensei, who concurred that it was okay to visit. This branch had their spirits high and we trained together for almost two hours and then went for a pint and a pizza. It was Friday night, after all. I can recommend training in Vancouver: Excellent teaching and many high level sempais to practice with. Most of them were Japanese – But that can be expected as Vancouver is very popular destination for Japanese and Chinese immigrants. Of course to me, this seems like home. I wonder if I am going to feel weird about not being around Asians all the time…

This was the last full day in Vancouver, well spent again if I may say so myself.

Day 53

Welcome to Cylon-occupied Caprica city!

I am a slave of television. I am not shamed to admit it. If you currently ask me, what’s the best thing on television, ever – the answer is simple and bears three letters, two words: BSG – Battlestar Galactica. And of course I am talking about the new series, not the seventees flop. Battlestar was filmed in Vancouver and many of its shots are shot in downtown or the two university campus areas around here. It’s perfectly fair to say: This is Caprica city. Of course as a good fan, I did some of my own BSG tourism and visited some of the locations of my favorite show. There is a whole society of the BSG fans here in Vancouver, who have spotted many locations making this a very easy trip for me. Thanks a lot, the 13^th tribe. Also I found great help from the comparative location shots here. There was also an article in the Wire.com about Battlestar Galactica Tourism, which was my purpose of life today.

It was a very rainy day, but since the locations are mainly from Cylon-occupied Caprica after the holocaust – the rain was exactly the right weather. I wanted to make it relatively easy for me, so I mainly poked around downtown. The Opera house where Caprica Six and Balthar kidnap Hera is the interior of the Orpheum theatre. I was not expecting to get anything out of the Orpheum, mainly because there was nothing on and there is tours only on summertime. Never the less I walked past it and realized that there was couple of men cleaning it, so I could sneak the lobby picture. However, I didn’t get to the place where the actual shots were filmed – but close enough. The interior of the hall would have been the temple of the five cylons, but I didn’t want to push my luck, these men were kind enough to let me in for a minute.

The next stop is the Vancouver city library, which serves one of the locations that Sharon and Helo pass while they are running away from the cylons. There is two different views of that one. The building itself is very impressive, built like a Roman colosseum.

My Battlestar tourism continued by checking out the alleyway next to Pub 340, which Helo passes through. This happens when Helo is on his own in Litmus, being watched from above by Sharon, Six and Doral and he goes down a fire escape into a graffiti covered alleyway. There was so many homeless people on this area that I didn’t feel myself safe at all. Horrible place.

The roof that you see behind the cylons following Helo is one of the downtown buildings as well and I passed that one.

Near the harbor, there is The ramp where Six and Doral talk in ‘Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down.’ This ramp is unfortunately closed for walkers so I didn’t risk my life and only took the shot from above.

Quite by accident, we visited the rose garden of the University of British Columbia, because it’s close to the museum of Anthropology. I took a shot of it completely unaware that it was the same garden where the press is talking about the Vice President issue in ‘Colonial Day’.

Finally the Final scene of Galactica has been filmed in the corner of Hornby and Hastings – the one where Angels, Six and Balthar discuss the faith of the mankind. That was a good place to conclude the tour as it was.

We must have done something right when it was sunny two days in a row in Vancouver. Our quest of the day was to see the museum of Anthropology in the campus of the University of British Columbia. Luckily we got a straight bus there, which only left us with a short walk to the museum. This meant that we saw the rose garden and its beautiful view over the mountains. Little did I know that it was used as ‘Cloud Nine’ ship outdoors area in the first season of my favourite show Battlestar Galactica. Luckily, I take a lot of pictures so we didn’t need to do another trip.

The museum of Anthropology is still on its way and not completed, but it had a very impressive collection to show as it was. We saw a start of an exhibition thousands of hand-made baskets and cloths, which had been sent from all over the country to be kept in the museum. However, some of them had some ritual meaning to some tribes, so they had also come up with a room where you can go and perform your ritual with your item from time to time. This is the modern days of respect, British museum be ware!

We admired the totem poles and the canoes and of course the great, gigantic Bill Reid piece, Raven and the first men, which is just an astonishing piece of art. Unfortunately there was no small replicas of it on sale, I am guessing because of copyright issues… I would have bought this one for sure… It was made by Bill Reid to this museum particularly, so that they could keep the room that used to be an fortress.

After lunching at the cafeteria and shopping our credit cards to debt, we decided to catch a taxi and therefore buy more time in Stanley Park, as the afternoon was still looking gorgeously sunny. The taxi took us to the totem poles and we had a nice two hours until sunset which we spent rambling in the park. There is a ‘woman in a wetsuit’ statue, which looks remarkably like a replica of the little mermaid… There was also a seagull sitting on her head who would seriously not move whatever kind of noise I made.

Stanley Park is one of the most gorgeous ones that I have been to.  There was a sunset avenue of maples and of course tons and tons of leaves which had already fallen. I suppose you can imagine that as far as camera day goes, this one was a pretty good success.

We ended up to the harbor and ferry terminal by our walk and got the skytrain home. Our hotel’s street the West Broadway really has a good selection of restaurants, but as it was KG’s last night with us, we had a special treat of Malaysian cuisine of ‘Banana Leaf’. If you are ever in Vancouver, I recommend that it’s a great place to eat.

Once again, an excellent day in Vancouver. It’s truly a miraculously beautiful city. I see what the fuzz over it is all about. Very Finn-friendly:)

Day

After a full day of Piss down rain, we weren’t expecting much from Tuesday. It so happens that the Vancouver weather doesn’t exactly follow the forecasts, so we ended up having a sunny bright day of wonders. There is nothing like a miserable day to make you appreciate the joys of a great sunny day, that’s for sure.

We headed to the waterfront with the skytrain to sneak some pictures of the harbor. Since Vancouver is going to be the olympic city fairly soon, also the harbor was showing its very best side. The old area next to the harbor is called ‘Gas Town’, because it was the first to get gas on the area, to be lightened up by series of lightpoles. There is also the famous gastown clock, which is breathing smoke… It’s a great old piece, but hardly keeping the time now a days. Gastown is where you can find Vancouver’s most efficient (and cheap) tat shops.

We did our fair share of shopping and staring at art pieces out of our price range. The aboriginal art of this area seems to us perhaps even more appealing than the Asian art, and that’s saying a lot. So if we weren’t in debt yet, we sure are now… Canadian stuff is really cool. That’s the truth.

After wandering around the shops we stopped for an indian for lunch and then doodled towards the Chinatown. It too, had loads of shops. And if I hadn’t yet been to China and around three other Chinatowns, I would have probably been tempted by their cheap gowns and jackets. (None of which were as classy as the one I got from San Francisco Chinatown though…) We also observed that Chinatown is just around that area which has the least appeal in Vancouver. Lots of homeless people with their shopping trolleys.

We found a full on Chinese Garden on its Autumn blossom, accompanied by a lesbian wedding. We sneaked some pictures and I visited the 10dollars-visitor section, while my J and KG waited outside. No point in wasting money on what we already saw on the other side of the fence. The museum was of course closed – it was Monday.

On our walk back to the city central, we run into a road of white trucks. This means something was being filmed right there. The TV/Film fan of me decided to find out if I can telephoto some pictures and find out what the series was. Luckily my husband has the best memory in the world so he recognised it as the TV-series ‘Fringe’… We didn’t really last long after the pilot on that, so I had no clue who the Blond lead was. Vancouver being the major film city though, this is very normal.

We treated ourselves to a Chinese meal at the end of a good day of picture hunting and shopping. Sun makes all the difference when you are judging whether you like a city or not… Vancouver is looking pretty good to me.

One of the best parts of travelling around the world is that you get to meet the friends around the world that you never seriously meet. One of those people are our dear friend KG. She flew all the way from Houston to see us in Vancouver and told my husband straight off that if she ever were in Spain, she’d expect us to do the same. I am sure we would as well, because she’s all kinds of ace.

We reached KG reading on her Kimble, the electronic book, where you download the books you read and no longer do you need to feel the burden of carrying tons of books with you. As this is clearly the future of things, I agree… But there is something so poetic, harmonic, feel of goodness and back to nature, when one steps into a bookshop or even opens one to leaf through the pages. I don’t think I am ready to give up books just yet, perhaps ever. Not the least because I married an author which means that my house is generally wall-papered with books. I certainly don’t mind. They mere feeling of them around gives me a sense of my past, all those weeks at the summer cottage with my grandfather in the corner reading. Or sleeping in my Grandma’s library room. Books are my way.

For catching up the gossips and each others lives, we decided to walk downtown via the Grandville bridge. I think we were about half way over the bridge when it started to rain and the day turned into all kinds of Vancouver misery. Suddenly I was glad that I bought matching Star Trek fleeces with my friend Tero in San Francisco.

The Grandville street takes you all the way downtown, through plenty of shopping opportunities. We visited a couple of department stores and finally stumbled into the Gallery of Bill Reid, a man who has made a significant part of the aboriginal art in this area. His perhaps the most famous piece is the ‘Raven and the First Men’, which is a huge piece of a yellow cedar sculpture, which he made to the museum of Anthropology here in Vancouver. There was series of earlier versions of this piece in display in this gallery.

All three of us were very touched with the art of the native Americans. On this area the art focuses on masks, sculptures, clothes, capes, canoes, jewelry and of course the totem poles. I think my husband in particular was very impressed as he started to decorate our imaginary future house with stuff that he could have bought (with also imaginary funds). I thought the most impressive parts were the red and blue capes that were worn in the rituals of the area. Even if I fell asleep just a little during the 50-minute film about canoe art… The ravens, the bears, the foxes, the seals… This is all animals that I recognize, because they feel like the same animals back home. This is my kind of art, definitely. Makes me wonder why the Finnish natives didn’t come up with Totem poles.

The weather took a turn to much more cold as we left the Gallery and had a small lunch in town. Vancouver sure is an end to the Autumn. If it’s like this tomorrow, we’ll stay indoors. People always think that it’s wrong for Finns to be cold. What they don’t realize is that when Finns are cold, it’s not just a small drift of cold air. It means you might have only a few hours to live before you die of being too cold. So we have warming in the house. We have secured clothing that might make us look like pixies or Michelin men, but at least we are warm. There is no cold weather, there is only unefficient wardrobes.

In any case, we checked out the cinema of Vancouver, which would have provided entertainment, but only after an hour and a half wait, so we decided to get the skytrain back to West Broadway, where our hotel, the Park Inn is located. The Olympics are kicking in in Vancouver in February, which means that they’ve just completed a series of very impressive building processes in this city. One of those is the Canada line which connects the airport with the waterfront of downtown. Luckily our hotel is only 4 blocks away from one of the stops, so we had a really cheap way getting home.

Day 48/63

We reluctantly left the save haven that is our friend’s place in San Francisco and got a taxi to the airport. San Francisco has been much better than could be expected and certainly a place where we’ll return one day.

Today’s flight was the only one that we couldn’t do with One World tickets, so we got United Airlines cheap flight. This meant that we got surprised with another 40dollars to check in our bags. I have to say that the Around the world ticket is a pretty good deal: You don’t have to pay for everything else in the side… You get luggage for free and you also normally get served food and alcohol. Not with American Airlines though, so don’t be surprised. If they say they are selling ‘entrees’ on a 5 hour flight, what they mean is: Do buy food if you are hungry.

In any case, San Francisco airport had little shopping to do, so I continued to bury myself into the Twilight saga, which I am reading now, so that I don’t have to waste my time back home. It’s very addictive, even if it’s not all that good. I suppose Best Sellers are like that.

As we arrived to British Columbia, it was immediately like coming back home. It’s about as cold, I can imagine, and there seems to be plenty of water. The immigration’s decorations were filled with aboriginal cloths and poles, they made me feel like I will have a good time in this city. We got another taxi to our hotel, the Park Inn, right outside Downtown Vancouver.

The selection of restaurants around the hotel are various and promising. Three metres to a liquor shop and seven eleven, three Japanese restaurants in the same block and so on. We also have wireless internet in the room as well as my husband’s number one fantasy: A Coin Laundry inside the hotel as well. Oh, and did I mention the Post office five metres away? We clearly have picked the best position so far to be in.

We had a lovely Indian buffet for dinner, while watching the city lights. Our friend from Dallas is joining us for a few days, so we decided to leave sightseeing for tomorrow and the seven days we are spending here. It didn’t take me long to realize that this is the most promising city yet. Sure, it’s freezing outside, but that’s just like home: Just need to go shopping for some tights!

In the airport I realized that I will never move to the Southern Athmosphere, it’s just not my thing. I am a Northern girl.

Happy Halloween! Unfortunately this post is about a week late, so I won’t actually be writing about what we did on the Halloween night. This night we spent in the plane from Vancouver to New York.

Day 47.

By the crack of ten a clock, we met David and his car by the Asian Arts museum. He had very kindly promised to drive us around the bay area, which turned out to be an excellent idea. The day was particularly gorgeous – almost no clouds on the sky. We popped by to see a wall painting by Frida Kahlo’s husband, on our way to Lombart Street, the 45 degrees street which you can only drive down in zigzag.

David took us to see the telegraph hill with Coit tower, which now a days, it’s known for the wild Parrots that have taken residence in the trees of the hill… There is a statue of Columbus by the tower, looking at the sea. Of course Columbus never reached the West Coast, but who cares…

After a short trip to the harbor and a second-hand bookstore there, we popped into a Chinese Post Office. We somehow managed to spend an hour sending two boxes home, thanks to the fact that there had been a change of regulations, which meant that we needed a residential address in San Francisco to send out the package… And the woman needed to type everything up to her machine as well. The American post will change this regulation by Christmas or they’ll definitely just die in the holidays post.

David showed us the area of the Palace of Fine Arts which I had seen on Monday, but of course it was much more impressive now, when it wasn’t pouring down rain. We fed the ducks in the pond with some white bread, but didn’t see the swans again. David then drove us by the shore enough to sneak gorgeous pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, ending the tour to one of the three Chinatowns, behind the Golden Gate Park.

We had a whole Crab for lunch, from a local, Vietnamese restaurant. David said that when he was a boy (and crew up in the area), crabs could be fished by the bay area by children… he price of one was a dollar(!). Now a days the waters are too polluted, but you can get crabs outside the bay area apparently. This was a seriously good meal, all garlicy and wonderful. Certainly the best crab, I’ve ever eaten. Huge amounts of meat inside as well…

In the evening we had a date with our lovely hosts Fred and Fia, to see the Astroboy remake, which has just been out in the cinema. My husband is a Japanese Animation expert and so is Fred, so this was a must-see-film for the foursome of us. I haven’t actually seen the original one, I am shamed to admit – but that perhaps gave me the opportunity to look at this one objectively as a child of 2009. Of course I am 28 years old woman, which doesn’t exactly make me the target audience.

I thought that Astroboy was quite moving – specially the relationship with his father, who first makes him like Frankenstein, but then abandons him. However, I did think that for this piece being released this year – there has been a lot of competition in the animation lately… And Wall-E is not that different, but it is globally recognized as the cutest Anime that has been out lately… So the bar is high. Never the less, I was entertained – would I watch it again? Well, probably if I had kids who demanded it to be in the dvd player all the time. Certainly not voluntarily on my own.

After cinema, Fred and Fia took us to an amazing Chinese restaurant, which served the most incredible garlic beans as well as fried chicken that I have tasted. We were really lucky to get a table or to get served at all since they were just going to close the kitchen in the next two minutes. However, we were once again not home to mr. Cock-up and left happily with our stomachs filled with Chinese goodness. This was our last night in San Francisco as well, so we reluctantly said goodbyes to our wonderful friends. I will certainly be missing these two a lot.

Day 46

After hopping onto the tram from Carl Street to downtown, I decided it was a good idea to get coffee. We stopped at a takeaway shop in the tram tunnel of Embarcadero. This was probably the worst coffee experience I ever had. I ordered two regulars with milk, but never received them… After fifteen minutes of standing by, I went to ask for them and got a surprised woman, who had seen me stand there for fifteen minutes without the coffee which she happily had taken money from. The coffee tasted really awful and I spilled it when walking around the harbor. Not the best morning ever.

At Pier 33, I realized that our tickets were for Friday and not Thursday, which didn’t really improve my day. I was convinced that we couldn’t get on, since they seemed to be very strict that the next ferry free was the next day. However the woman at the counter was nice enough to change the tickets for a half-an-hour later than the one we should have taken, so we only missed a little time.

It was a great mist in the crispy California air that morning, even with a sun shining through it. Once we were on board the ferry, we couldn’t see infront of us… While we were on the ferry back, two hours later though, we had brilliant visibility. That’s San Francisco weather for you.

Alcatraz is an island that has a long history, but of course it’s most famous for the thirty or so years when it served as the maximum security prison. It was also the only one of its kind back then in the time of Gangsters – 30’s to 60’s. The prison was determined at 1963 for being too expensive.

Visiting the prison is a spooky, but great experience. They have come up with an award-winning audio tour, which includes inmates talking of the time they served in Alcatraz, and they demonstrate and visualize the places where the most famous events happened. They show you where the Battle of Alcatraz started – where the inmates killed the guards, where the marines came in with hand grandees (see the holes in the floors) and where the three inmates climbed through the ventilation pipes to freedom.

Of course you’ve seen bunch of the films about this place, and at least the Sean Connery one… It’s great to stand there and feel how it must have been for these men… Alcatraz clearly was no way the place where you wanted to be. It must have been constantly cold and damp, with wind blowing through the bars, without the possibility to ever be warm. The prison was also built in a way that the inmates could see the city from their outdoors area – perhaps even hear the voices of the city. It must have been so close, yet so far.

They believe that no one ever successfully escaped the Rock. 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and three were lost at sea and never found. So technically, three of them might have survived, but the chances are minimal. It’s not only that the water around is so cold that it kills your body temperature in only five minutes, but there is also loads of sharks, so the chances were very small indeed. But who knows, if you are an optimist, you can always think they did escape.

After reaching San Francisco again, we took the historic tram to Embarcadero and then went back to the corner of Carl & Cole, to look for a post office. We’ve now posted out so many packages from this trip, that we’ve lost the count of them. Some are on airmail, some on sea mail, some on surface. It’ll be a treat to get them while the long winter evenings start flying by in Finland. Our quest of the mail lead us to the hippie movement area, in Height Ashbury, which even by San Francisco standards, is a free and flower power area even now. There is plenty of small shops to buy clothes (the most weirdest clothes you might ever want), books, dvds and whatnot.

Halloween is coming and in America they take that very seriously. There is at least one costume shop in every block. There are areas to carv pumpkins in. All the weird inflatable witches that you’ve seen in the tv-series… well, they are all true. Halloween is at least a two week event for Americans… We think we’ve inherited it in Finland, but it’s no way near as mad as in here. I mean, our houses are not covered in spider webs three weeks before the actual date on the 31^st of October. Luckily my husband and I will spend that night in a plane from Vancouver to New York, so there is no trick-or-treating threat… Or is there?

We were early in Civic Centre, wouldn’t want to miss our appointment with our Asia specialist at ten. So I suggested we’ll have some coffee, which lead us into stumbling to him by the corner of the museum. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is opening a new exhibit today: The art of Siam and Burma. It all came from a private collection of Doris Day who had spent her honeymoon in that area, collecting artifacts that would have now been eaten by the climate had they been there… Instead she brought them to US and had an indoors tennis court filled with these wonderful and mystic things.

We went through the whole museum though, with our better than excellent guide. It starts off with India, Cambodia, and such and moves through China, eventually reaching Japan. Beautiful things, some of which I hadn’t seen anywhere else. For example the jug made of human skull was particularly appealing to me.

We then managed to somehow keep the interest of David, who took us for dim sum in Chinatown. This is where he crew up in, on the times when the Chinese wouldn’t be allowed to leave the area. San Francisco Chinatown is on a great place in the middle of downtown, placed on the up and down hills as can be expected. They had wanted their doors not to open to the big streets so there is a lot of alleyways, which no one cleans apparently. It was much more clean than I had ever seen in China though…

We visited a couple of temples and popped into a fortune cookie factory, in which I optimistically bought a bag of fortune cookies. The idea for those was invented in San Francisco, I bet you didn’t know that… Finally, the last item that David showed us was the god of Democracy.

China town is also filled with great shopping opportunities. My husband bought himself some t-shirts while I put my eye on a Chinese jacket, which they had in my size – this is America! I then had to drag my husband along lovely tat flee markets where I would have happily spent hours browsing all the weird and cheap stuff. The historic California line took us to Embarcadero, from where we then walked throughout the harbor area and its 50 piers.

Alcatraz cruises start from Pier 32, which is where we booked tickets for tomorrow. You can’t get them for the same day, not that I would have had any energy to go today anyways. Asian Art, Chinatown and shopping completely weared us both out and we decided to take sushi back to the flat for dinner. Sometimes it’s good to have a night in…

Day 44

We decided to check out the park next to our residence. Our friend told us that it’s a good ride if we want to experience some fun and exercise as well. It turned into a three hour walk in zig-zag. The Golden Gate park is not exactly small… It’s 20% larger than Central Park, but as you can imagine, it’s often used in similar purposes. My husband refused to go into the public toilet there… Perhaps that was for the best. We also stumbled on many needle sights as well as forests with good bushes for shagging, which clearly had taken place only hours before. Btw, those who think Golden Gate is the name of the bridge – think again, it was first the name of the whole bay…

We walked through a huge Children’s playground, a granny art house name ‘Sharon’, and came into a Shakespeare Garden. This particular part of the park was filled with benches dedicated to dead actresses. We fastly skipped the museum of Absolutely Everything, which had a Tuthankamun exhibition going on. We can see the mummies back home in London.

The park gave all kinds of experiences. There is a set of lakes with wild birds, including geese around. There is a water wall and a Japanese Tea Garden, which we also skipped because we’ve really been in Japan for almost a month and not into tea anyways. There is a huge area for Bisons, which we first thought had been taken away, but then spotted over the hill. Huge animals… There was a guy in Finland, who tried to have a Bison farm around where I used to live. I don’t think it did very well, even though the Bison can tolerate cold pretty well.

After we finally reached the Ocean Beach, we sat down to have a Thai Curry for lunch and got the tram back uphill to Carl Street. We had a dinner engagement with Fia, on the other side of the bay, which we got by taking a very exciting route with a tram and a bus over the Bay Bridge (not the Golden Gate) and its new and controversial S-curve. This bridge took something like three years to build, but they have realized that if there is an earthquake, like the 1906 anytime soon, only half of the bridge is going to survive. This means that they have a 30-year process of enforce it…

Fia and Fred have an incredible house on the other side of the bay. It’s very elegantly decorated with lovely Chinese things meeting the modern world. She had also cooked us a wonderful meal, completed with a home-made lemon jella. We also got to meet Linda and David, who are Chinese immigrants, but lived most of their lives in San Francisco. We had such fun together that David, who is now retired and one of the investors of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, promised to take us around it tomorrow. What luck we have with such amazing people!