my first time really looking at san francisco in a long time.
i’m watching… machuca (spanish film).
it’s funny when you live somewhere for too long — you seem to think it’s not important. that it’s the same as everywhere else. i never really paid much attention to san francisco because well, i figured, i lived there. i live in pleasanton. pleasanton sucks balls. therefore, san francisco probably sucks balls as well, even if it sucks less balls. well… truth of the matter is, san francisco has some rather cool qualities. by the way, i notice this in lenny too, because he thinks seattle is so ugly and boring compared to everywhere else… that nature is so far away when in fact that’s the thing i like best about seattle — that nature is so close. but seeing as he grew up here and has not been to too many places outside of here, he thinks seattle is ugly… when the first time i saw seattle from the airplane, i thought it was absolutely gorgeous. one of the most gorgeous places i could remember ever being at that point in time.
anyway, lenny and i went back to san francisco bay area for the first time i’ve been there in about a year. weeee. excursions. i felt this huge need to show him as many things as possible because well, technically it’s my home. so… i should?!!
friday, january 18th, 2008.
arrival in oak-town. oakland definitely in the house!
saturday, january 19th, 2008.
san francisco, bright and early. wake at 7:30, leave, leave, leave!!! pretty much this was the schedule this entire weekend — sleep @ 12am, wake at 7:30am. HARDCORE! EXTREME!!!!
started off by going to alcatraz cruise area at pier 33, but it was SOLD OUT!! sold out all the way until the next day, which we already had plans for! craziness. anyway, so we decided to walk up to fisherman’s wharf and do whatever. bummed around, saw the seals, saw lots of tourists… ate some crabcakes that were kind of subpar… hmmm yeah yeah yeah. fisherman’s wharf was fine fine fine!
* musee mecanique *
this is a museum on fisherman’s wharf that features old penny, nickel, dime, quarter machines of all kinds. very interesting. not limited to arcade games, and you will soon see! i love love LOVE this museum!!!
this is a little boxing game. lenny was on the left and i was on the right. his guy wouldn’t stand up! ARRR!! waste of money T__T
did you know rosie the riveter was this buff? I SURE DI’INT.
as we were leaving fisherman’s wharf, we saw that holy shit! there was a pro-life parade. SUCK. they had these signs saying “women deserve better than abortion.” i didn’t know it was a pro-life parade initially since there were pro-choice people mixed in there as well, so i was like, “what does your sign mean? can someone please explain to me? what does your sign mean?!” and no one said shit. they just stared at me. half those people were like, under 16. ghetto as fuck. they are not even old enough to decide what they would want to do in such a situation. way too young. give them a couple years and they’ll be whoring it up, i bet. anyway. i took a lotta pics.
unfortunately for the pro-choicers, the number of pro-choicers that showed up was merely a handful, and naturally, it was the more militant types of people, since more passive people would not bother to show up and protest in a pro-life rally. so… therefore, all the pro-choice people at this rally were either butch dykes, crossdressing men, or just women who were shouting really angrily and loudly… while the pro-life people were, i hate to say it, calm and relatively normal. but i attribute that to the sheer number. unfortunately, i think that perhaps the media would not attribute that to sheer numbers, although i didn’t really get a chance to see coverage of that parade or anything. but yeah, a lot of them were representing some catholic station, 1610 am, and soon i discovered that fucking station had billboards EVERYWHERE in san francisco. it was fucking ridonkulous. +__+
* chinatown *
chinatown was a bitch. i hadn’t really been there and i regret wasting time going there, because it was thoroughly unexciting. T__T there were soooo many people. i had a map with bike parking lots on it, but i forgot to consult it before we got into chinatown. by the time we got into chinatown, though, it was ridiculously crowded and navigating around was much too difficult. >__> it was difficult while riding a bike, but just as difficult when we got off and WALKED with our bikes. it was truly “ren shan ren hai” — truly ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and as far as excitement goes, there really wasn’t much exciting, other than well, live chickens that they would slaughter for you. poor little chickens, they were completely cooped up in their cages.
* italiantown *
if you can really call it that…
* golden gate *
were going to bike on it, but like, not enough time and stuff. and the roads were confusing.
terrible pic, but you know, whatever.
* japantown *
i bought this hat for roxanne, although i pretty much wanted it really badly. 
sunday, january 20th, 2008.
hiking in mt. diablo with xinlei, matt, lenny, and sherry. never really been before!
cool ground ^_^
this tree was a toilet… it had a big hole underneath my ass here.
the view! this was on our way up the waterfalls… hahaha “waterfalls.” but uh january was not the best time to go see the waterfalls, and they were practically just minor trickles. we weren’t the only ones, though… people coming up asked us how the waterfalls were and we gave them an honest answer (”sub-par”).
xinlei had massive problems making it down the hill. more than once ;D i have a video. that’s definitely better.
after this (around 1pm) we went to the new ufert’s center and had dinner with my parents. sherry came too. we had ramen. it was rather good, actually!!! weird having an asian center in dublin, though.
after that, i took lenny to amador. oh, how it has changed!! eeeek. it’s so kind of weird. here are some differences. this is my first time back since i don’t know… 2003?
these things are the same.
these things are different.
last time i came back, this place had run out of $$ on the top floor and was empty or something, lol.
since when did the don look like a crazy mexican!?!!
that night, my godparents came over and we like, had a fucking feast. MMM FOOD. and then i was reminded that i hate family conversations as they are all about money and stocks and bullshit i soooo do nooooot careeeee aboooooooouuuut. so boring. lo lordy.
i pulled out my old videos and had lenny watch some of the er, terrible home videos. i used to be a fucking spaz. nancy [yu] used to be even MORE spazzy but that doesn’t mean i wasn’t. haha. oh man. good videos. and very painful to watch too. i will never be able to live down singing whitney houston’s “greatest love of all.” X__>
monday, january 21st, 2008.
ferry to alcatraz! because it was full the other day. 
ahhh so *this* is what agave is!
after that was home time (seattle)… well, my license was expired, so i had to go through special security. it was like i was a criminal! certainly much easier in washington than in california. but yeah. things were fines. but i think this image is interesting as each separate pen mark basically represents a different check.