Much Adventuring

Well, since my last post about MOONFEST, I have read a few more books, made a day trip to San Francisco, volunteered on the USS Hornet during Splashdown 09, made a skirt, baked some delicious garlic-onion-cheese bread, created a poster and worked on my paper some more. And now I have a moment to sit outside, enjoy the weather, and write a bit.

Last weekend was super busy, probably the most so since my first weekend here. Fortunately, I did not have to drive in SF, Mrs. Sayre did all the driving. Since Daniel was out backpacking, we made it a girls day out. First up was a trip to Oakland to the closest Essential Baking Co., as well as to go to Berkley, to check out the campus and a used bookstore the Sayres had heard about.





The bookstore was great, but there was also a high ratio of bookstores to other stores in Berkley. Surprisingly, I walked in and out with zero books in my hand. While in the area, on our way up to campus, we encountered a street fair of sorts, where there were tables lining the sidewalks for a few blocks before hitting the actual school grounds, and people were selling their wares, everything from jewelery to tie-dye tee-shirts to hand thrown pots.











The Berkley grounds themselves were nice, and included an assortement of building styles. There was some very colonial style halls, as well as very 50's ish buildings. Also, they had this prospective students campaign set up, which consisted of a wall of headshots of students, some with a quote written on them. And the campus is HUGE! There is no way I'd be able to walk to all of my classes if I attended there. We did, however, find this nice gate in the picture, so we stood in front of it as proof that we were there. There was also a group of people swing dancing in the middle of walkway, which was fun to watch.







After driving around the perimeter of the campus, we traveled over the bay bridge, paying our toll, and saw Alcatraz along the way. Though we did not go this time to the island, the Sayres have gone in the past and said it is worth a visit. But our real reason for this outing was to go to Japantown!! I had mentioned that I wanted to go, so go we did. It was really just two malls of sorts, but super fun.











On our way through SF to Japantown, we witnessed a rally, protesting the Iran vote.












When we got to Japantown, there was a store full of pottery, one full of kimonos and other Japanese clothing, lots of restaurants, and this fantastic bookstore where I could have spent all day, even though most of the words were all in Japanese.













One thing I noticed about the texts, is that the spines tended to be white backgrounds with vibrant/neon colored titles. Almost everything was neon pink or green or yellow - it was quite a change from the bookstore we visited in Berkley.














Also in the bookstore, we saw this shirt that captured the essence of SF in the summer in graphic form.

Somehow, though I can't read the Japanese signs, I ended up on the one isle that had pattern books. It seems that at least here, you buy a book with one pattern in the back, but with different variation instructions, complete with great pictures of finished garments. It was quite different from the patterns I buy from JoAnn's. Also, they had a Daiso in the mall, but it was newly opened, and only about one-third the size of the one in Seattle, so I passed by the $1.50 teacups and decided to go when I got back to Seattle.






And then, since it was 3 pm and we hadn't had lunch, we found a spot across from the malls and had some Japanese food for lunch. Though I did not go to far out of my comfort zone, I did try new things. I tried the mizo soup I was served, because I don't think I tried it when our exchange students made it for us (it had green seaweed flakes dancing on top of it), but I like this one, though the meal had a tendency to separate from the broth. :( I did not eat the tofu chunks. And I tried the salad that came with it, as hitherto I had always ignored it or asked for no dressing when my family eats a the Ginkgo Tree in Ellensburg. It also wasn't to terrible, though I could only tolerate bites with light dressing. I also tried the udon soup Mrs. Sayre ordered, but the seaweed flavor was too strong for me. And the tea we were served with our meal was just too green, it tasted a bit like grass. I definitely prefer the Chinese restaurant oolong tea. But my actual meal was fantastic!! It was really good beef teriyaki with sticky rice. There were some other things on my plate, and while I tasted most of them, I didn't eat them completely. But that beef was so delicious! It was flavorful, and filling, and tasty, and not overcooked - just plain delightful.

After we realized how long we'd spent eating, we had to change our plans for the rest of the day. We were going to hit Lombard (that super windy street) and then drive through Chinatown so I could see it and take pictures for my mom, and then go to the garment district, but with the time crunch, we vetoed the former and only traveled to the garment district. However, when we found the address we had gotten from online, the building was just an empty warehouse, newly built, and looking for leasees. So, we ambled down 3rd ave in our car, but upon finding no desirable stores, I looked up Fabric Discounters on my phone, found an adress nearby, and we decided to go there.

Wow. Fabric Discounters had rows upon stacks upon isles of fabric! And while most of it was great fabric and lovely to look at, it was all a bit out of my price range, though discounted it may be. I found some neat yellow and blue fabric in the remnant pile, however, so I did snatch that up, and I am still dreaming up a use for it. I think I'll stick to JoAnn's for now, espically when I have 40% off coupons....

Then we hit 101 and traveled back to San Jose, though we did have to stop at NASA so I could turn the heat off on one of my experiments. It was a super fun day, and someday I will get back to SF to see more of it, but also really want to go back to Japantown!

And all that was just Saturday...check back soon for a post about my fun afloat on the USS Hornet!