Japantown, The Wines of California and Random People Again

Day 6: 21st December

I wanted to bike that day, but I woke up pretty tired and wanting to just chill out. So I picked up my guide and checked out what's next.

I saw that there is this Pacific Heights neighbourhood which is full of vistas, and Japantown, close to that. Since I sometime dig Japanese stuff, I thought that would be interesting. Packed my bag, I started walking towards the Sun.

But first, I wanted to chill out in a Starbucks, as usual.

On Google Maps I see that there's a pretty decent Starbucks in the neighbourhood I wanted to visit, it took me something like 30 minutes to get there, up and down, in the hilly San Francisco.

Arrived to the coffee shop, I saw a familiar face.

"What are you doing here?"

"Yesterday night, after the Olympics, we went to a club in Mission Street. I ended up with a girl that lives in this neighbourhood, do you know how to get back to the hostel?"

"Oh, that's cool dude! Well, that street is Broadway, just walk forever to the left and you'll be back to the hostel."

He was one of the guys in Team D (need memory refresh?). You know, what was the probability to meet the guy that slept with a girl in a neighbourhood and he decided to go exactly in that Starbucks? Life never stop to surprise me.

Anyway, I didn't want to talk to the guy so I fell back to frozen yogurt, and a pretty amazing one. Like, good shit.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking, shit flavour.

I spent the rest of the morning wandering around the neighbourhood, it was pretty quiet. It reminded me walking in Vancouver on a sunny day, except for the fact that since this neighbourhood is pretty elevated,  every crossroad was a vista. Everyone was chilling over there.

Japantown is a very small neighbourhood, there's a big mall with all the Japanese products, and a shit-ton of restaurants. Too bad I was there at 3:00 pm, I really wanted to eat some decent ramen.

I bought a ramen t-shirt, and kept walking up to a nice staircase I saw on my guide. It was steep and I sweated a lot, because I didn't bring a light jacked (tip: do yourself a favour and bring with you a light jacket to San Francisco).

There was a nice vista up there, so I sat and chilled out for a while, watching all the people running up and down the stairs, six or seven times, to exercise. I wrote my journal, to relax and think about the misteries of life.

Still not satisfied with the massive amount of (uphill) walking, I returned all the way back to the hostel and collapsed on the bed for a couple of hours. Clothes on and everything (ok I took off my shoes off...) I didn't feel like moving at all.

The ramen craving was still alive, so I decided to go to this very small place, Katana-Ya. I waited about half an hour to get a spot, and I saw a family pretend they were someone else to skip the line. We do that all the time at the post office in Italy. Anyway, the ramen was awesome.

Too bad they were playing this music. Caramelldansen. Please, why?

Day 7: 22nd December

Grape Juicing

Let's make a bit of a premise. I was supposed to go with this company Incredible Adventures, full of happy young people, to do a California wine tour. Those guys called me when I was enjoying my ramen.
"Ehy dude, it's not like we're going to take you with us. Too few spots to fill our shitey van, so you either go on Christmas' Eve or we'd rather sell you to another company."
I replied:
"Alright dude, that sucks but we all know that life sucks sometime. Let's tempt my fate: sell me to the other company, no overcharge please."
"That's awesome man. All set, you go with Green Dreams tour, same time, same place. We cool?"

They came to pick me up at the hostel, I felt a like a little young lady. It was a nice and unpretentious van. I walk in, "Hi, Gabriel~." Adam, the bearded guide, said to me.

There were 8 other people over there.
8, an even number.
Which divided by 2 gives 4.
Married. Couples.

"Well, that's cool," I thought. It's not like I'm scared or uncomfortable, what the hell. But yeah I actually felt a little be awkward for a moment.

We visited 2 wineries in the morning, the trip was smooth and the guy was saying a lot of bullshit (like, interesting stuff) regarding wine and the zone. He really was knowledgeable about it.

Our first (five) samples came at 10:30 am.  Yes, that thing hit my head pretty badly, the Chardonnay had this awesome smell of melon. That impressed me among other wines.

Peter Cellars winery, they also bought the original Pink Panther typeface. I mean, we should make a winery too.

The guys were extremely friendly with me, I had the impression that they felt some sort of compassion, like "What the hell is this idiot doing in this wine tasting by himself." That's cool dudes, it's just that I love wine, plain and simple.

We went to another winery and got more drunk, the taste of those wines were a little bit stronger. And they sold also this wine-chocolate syrup which I wanted to buy, if only it was allowed on the plane...

We also visited Sonoma, a small town full of shops that let you taste stuff for free (chocolate, cheese and whatever). I had enough alcohol/food in the morning and I only craved for a coffee in solitude. Delight.

We ended the trip with more wine tastings. I got to taste a German Riesling, something between syrup and tea. I bet that if you overdo it, you'll get a serious drunk-headache.

Overall, it was a nice experience. I admit I felt a little bit lonely, most of the other guests were people from a different word (or stage in life). But, I got to taste some pretty good wines, ncie and relaxed. So I'd say a +1 for me.

Dinner Crawl

The hostel organized another event for that night. The name was something on the lines of "Awesome Foursome" and consisted in switching between four restaurants, one course each. That joke costed me 16 bucks.

We gathered in front of the hostel when I hear  "I ...blahblahblah.... Vancouver."
I obviously took the chance and said to the guy. "DUDE! I live in Vancouver too!"

His name was N. and he used to live in Van for a few months, but he actually lives in Waterloo. He later confessed he was drunk.

We started our crawl to get a Thai salad and noodles. Oh my God, that food was junk. For real... abysmal.

Huge mix of people, some of them were from the hostel, but for the most part they were random. I later discovered that the event was a meetup.

Seats shuffled every time, so I had the chance to talk to many different people. First I was close to Jack Sparrow, an oldish interesting lady from South Africa, a Polish girl, and a guy from Alabama. It was so interesting observing the different accents.

Then we moved to other places for... please don't make me remember that junk I ate. But I got to know this food journalist that is specialized in cultures eating insects. Which, is interesting. Rest of people were Software Engineers or close enough.

I talked again to N. and we planned a bike ride together with H, a young brazilian. Not happy enough, we also decided to stare at the sunrise the next morning. In San Francisco, during winter, the Sun rises at 7:22, by the way.

Apart from the crappy, crappy food, the dinner was a nice people-meeting event. When you're a lone traveller, you survive on this one-shot never-meet-again things. It's also a chance to hone your conversation skills as well. Believe me it's handy.