True Tales of San Fransisco

After hanging out with Rick for a week I headed to the next city to see a few more friends I made in Tokyo who coincidentally all happen to live in San Fransisco. Gen a guy I worked with, Ishmael a guy I lived with and Yoni a guy I met through couchsurfing. I stayed with Yoni at his place in the Noe Valley which is a particularly nice area of town. You can tell its an area with money by the ladies at the park with their immaculate dogs as opposed to "Mexicans with pitbulls" as Yoni put it. He swiftly took me out to a house party in another part of the Bay Area which was being thrown by a plastic surgeon. It must have been interesting for him to see his own work on a girls chest walking around his party. Everyone was super nice and I got some dancing tips from a big group of Latino ladies who liked to party.

The next morning we headed out with Yonis girlfriend for some genuine San Fran Yum Cha! Man I was pumped, I figured that if great dim sum was to be found in the world it would be in Hong Kong or San Fransisco due to the giant Chinese population. It was all I hoped for as we hit up all the classics like the Sieu Mae, Cha Siew Bao and Fried Calamari and tried some new things too. I put it up there on par with Sydney. I have had better in Sydney but I only sampled one restaurant out of the literally hundreds that are available in San Fran. I must remember to move here one day. Later I caught up with Gen to hang out at the Mission District to check out the great street art, eat cheap Mexican and drink beer with all the trendy kids at Dolores Park. Then we went to a gallery opening for free booze and then met up with Ishmael when he finished work for a beer.

During the day when people were working or at school I did the tourist stuff, like see the sea lions, do a bay cruise past Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge and see the great neighbourhoods like the hippy mecca Haight street and one of the biggest Chinatowns in the world. But it was the evenings that provided the most entertainment. On Monday we headed to a screening of the Daft Punk film "Electroma"/Bang Gang party which would have been great except for the fact we couldnt get into the screening and the Bang Gang guys didnt play. Riot in Belgium played a great set of more or less the same thing but I got pretty drunk in preparation for a big night then they pulled the plug abruptly forcing me & Gen to go to Broadway (the strip club street) for lack of anything else to do.

On the Tuesday night we went to a $2 Mexican beer & tapas at a pretty funky bar in Soma. Then on Yoni's brothers recommendation, me & Gen took his Japanese friend Shoko to a gay bar called the Tranny Shck for a trans-gender show which was very entertaining. The show was a tribute to the 30's so a big group of she-males got dressed up in elaborate costumes & make up, then put on a performance (dancing & miming) to old showtunes. There was only one real woman who actually sang and her name was "Alotta Bootay" who more than lived up to her names image. Shoko had never seen a show like this before and loved it, I was happy to hang out with a real Japanese person since its been such a long time.

On Wednesday, my last night Yoni drove us down to Oakland to a legendary jazz club/Japanese restaurant called Yoshis to see a Blue Note artist whose name I forget (shame on me). He was a brilliant piano player accompanied by a drummer and bassist. His improvisation was brilliant as he mingled some classic tunes like "Everything in its right place" by Radiohead in amongst his own stuff. His drummer threatened to steal the show with his multiple solos and crazy symbol work but I think he over did it a bit always going nuts behind even the quietest of songs. It was a great show though, I have to remember to catch more jazz shows, especially from younger dudes who are influenced by hip hop.

So that was that, I had a great time in the great city. Even just hanging out in the neighbourhoods walking the dogs was pretty fun. As far as citys go this one is way up there. I cant be bothered doing anymore collages right now so for photos head to my flickr sets.