Just finished 3 glorious days in San Fran - we started off with probably the worst jet lag we have ever had as a family- arriving at 1pm on August 3rd, grabbed a bite at Boulevard and then proceeded to crash from 2pm til 8pm. We were supposed to hook up with our friends Anna and Alex, but had to put the kibosh on that plan. However, we did manage to go to our favorite Greek restaurant Kokkari (http://www.kokkari.com/) and partake of probably the best lamb chops that we've chowed on in quite some time-aside from my signature rack of lamb of course(honey, u got my back on that one right?). Anyway, we get back to the hotel and finally fell asleep around midnite. Oh did I forget to mention that the flight (9 hrs and 40 minutes on ANA) was the most pain-free flight we have experienced as a family-( big shout out to Camilo and Paul(my brother) for raising our awareness on the existence of netbooks. Why? Well Zach sat still glued to his netbook watching 3 pixar movies for the first part of the voyage and slept for the rest...talk about having the ultimate high tech babysitter.
8/4 : We got up around 10am. I had a mad hankering for a breakfast (burritoeggs/salsa/cheese/chorizo - muy good muchachos) and a triple grande lowfat mocha. Marie shared the burrito, but didn't seem to the have same revelatory sensation that yours truly did.
Zach finally awoke (always in the best mood of course!) and we got outside for some exercise around 1pm or so. Met up with Dawson and son(Shiloh) at Chrissy Field( was an old air strip dating back to the days when the Presidio area was a military installation). Good catching up with Dawson and family- Tiida was taking care of Sakura(their 2 yr-old daughter) back at the homestead.
Unfortunately, we couldn't hang out that long, but did get to see some sea lions and crabs running around. Weather was fantastic(sunny and a high of 70 degrees-balmy Indian summer by San Fran standards. After saying goodbye to Dawson and Shiloh, the Turry Family Trio wandered over to the newly renovated area of the Presidio where George Lucas of Star Wars fame had invested about 100 million dollars to set up Lucas Arts/Films/etc and a beautiful garden and restaurant. Not to nitpick, but a nice museum with a bunch of movie paraphernalia from all the George Lucas movies(American Graffiti, Raiders of the Lost Ark etc.) would have made the area a perfect tourist destination. After chilling at the Palace of Fine arts-went to our favorite Vietnamese crab restaurant, Crustacean to partake of the requisite garlic noodles and roast crab with our friends the Seto's(Matt and Jessica). It was great hooking up with them(hadn't seen them since we left San Francisco 4 and a half yrs ago, so it was high time). They caught us up in their lives and vice versa..Zach managed to behave rather well throughout! After dinner, Marie and Zach headed back to the hotel and I went with Matt and Jess to a local card house in Berkele. Lets just say that I made enough playing poker that nite to cover lunch and dinner for the day.
8/5 Will keep it short for brevity's sake. Woke up at 10 am and went out again for the fantastic breakfast burrito that I can never find in Tokyo- the rest of the crew finally roused from their slumber around 10:45.Again, fantastic weather-the kind of weather you want to bottle up and sell to the rest of the world-type weather. Met up with our neighbors/friends from our time living in San Fran, Chieko and Mike(Chieko is a part-time nurse/Mike - IT software programmer). They were kind enough to shlep all of us out to the Mission district for some delicious Vietnamese. Afterwards, Mike and Chieko took Marie and Zach to a local park while I ran some errands.
In the evening we were invited to Anna and Alex's for a BBQ. The sausages/corn /salad and Pinot was superb-and Zach had a fun playmate in Rachel to hang out with in their beautiful townhome(would be an ideal place for us to live when we come back from Tokyo).
Thanks again Anna Alex and Rachel for the homespun hospitality.
8/6
Woke up around 9'ish and finally got going around 11 am to the Farmer's market to find a place to eat before our 3pm flight. Found a nice restaurant called Planet Organic(?) for a great salad/pizza etc.
I was jonesing for In and Out burger so I left Marie and Zach and cabbed it to Fisherman's Wharf to get my "Animal Style" on- needless to say I was in Hamburger Nirvana post the sojourn to my favorite Burger joint on the west coast.
- Flight was uneventful to Seattle- arrived at the Hotel 1000 and proceeded to our urban aesthetically designed mod room for some needed R&R.
-Ventured out for a late dinner and SAM(Seattle Art Museum) cafe that was shockingly good-
Marie's Cod and my scallops rocked.
Our hotel is located right downtown near a lot of touristy things which I can elaborate on in the next email
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