San Francisco is not just delicious, it is humorous -2

I mentioned about San Francisco fog in my previous post. Fog makes difference in many ways. In hot summer days, hanging out late and see fog formed can be romantic. But at the same time, it will chill you. If you and your accompany were wearing T-shirts and Short Pants, you will be shivering. If you decided to drive back, fog in high height highway will scare you. One of the problem is that local people do not go slow even in the fog. Actually main highways such as i280, US-1, etc.. get very foggy quite often. Please take my advice. If you drive and find thick fog, slow down. If the visibility is bad, pull down and wait for visibility gets better.

Pacific Ocean in Pacifica

Still fog is what San Francisco is famous for. It is spectacular when fog is gradually fading and Golden Gate Bridge appears from the fog. When I was a writer in Japanese multi-writer blog, editors sometimes asked me if I can send them very good "fog" pictures. I am sure that scenery in their mind is something like I mentioned, Golden Gate Bridge appearing from fog. But the fact of matter is that it is not easy to take picture like that. Here is what I sent to my Japanese editor when asked for "fog" picture. The picture was not taken exactly in San Francisco City, it was taken in Pacifica, South West of San Francisco.

Down below is another picture taken in Pacifica. I was stunned, so I took several pictures. I see the owners passion on the car and cartoon characters, and sense of humor.

Related Post:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-is-not-just-delicious-it.html

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San Francisco is not just delicious, it is humorous -1

It was 1985 when I first visited San Francisco. I was staying in a hotel near Union Square. I woke up next morning and felt thirsty. It was August I was wearing T-shirt and Short Pants and went out to buy a coke. I remember it was before 8:00am. As soon as I stepped out of my hotel, I was shocked that it was cold outside. It was foggy and temperature was inconsiderably low in comparison to Tokyo in same season. Fog is one of the San Francisco's noted for.

In the same trip, I stopped at souvenir shop, whereas I found a post card with its back side totally white. I flipped it over to take a look at remark. Its remark said "Foggy San Francisco". People in San Francisco are open minded, friendly, and humorous. We love not to be too serious in serious matters. It shows in many ways. I bought a Crazy T-shirts with printing of a cat using computer mouse and staring into PC Screen. I wore it in anywhere and worn out so that I could not wear it any more. So, I feel so unfortunate that I cannot show the picture of the T-shirt here. But it was so funny.

Almost every weekend in Union Square, there are art show and sale in the afternoon. You find upper left was the picture taken in the art show. I like to wonder around in the picture sales booths when I do not have any particular plan. In addition to you being able to find some humorous paintings, sometimes you can find some humor in the square itself. It was last summer striding around the painting exhibition, I found something strange on the square ground.

It was showing damage on the square ground from past earthquakes. Please refer to the picture below. I thought it was with full of wit showing it in the square in the weekend. But the way it showed was not serious but even humorous and it was obviously a part of weekend enjoyment for the people.


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San Francisco is not just romantic, it is delicious -4

I am not a gourmet, restaurant critics, or food critics. Especially when young, being a martial arts person, who trained myself 2-3 hours a day at least, I would rather have ignored tastes but have put emphasis on how much I could eat. In traveling all over the world for business in my former occupation, I started to form my own taste of what I like or what I do not like. I would not go back to restaurants where I did not like their cooking. My wife is more acute on taste. Living in San Francisco, traveling to Japan and China, I have heard her say "this is not a Chinese food", so many times.

As I mentioned in Part -1, it looks like website ratings on this restaurant is not very good. But this is the restaurant my wife and I enjoyed eating out several times. We took my wife's mother there some times, if not eating out there months, we start to talk about Buffet in Beijing Buffet. Yes, rating site is one reference. Maybe your preference is different story.

We like cost-performance of this Beijing Buffet. $9.00 for lunch and $12.00 for dinner are fixed price. It includes Crabs, Lobsters and BBQ service. I would definitely go back to this Buffet taking my wife and my mother in law. And I know they will enjoy the Buffet other than my wife may keep complaining it is against her diet.

Today I uploaded pictures of our dishes to give you some idea. The restaurant contact is as follows:

Beijing Buffet
245 S Airport Blvd
South San Francisco, CA 94080
(650) 837-9068

Related Posts:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-is-not-just-romantic-it_18.html (Part-3)
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-is-not-just-romantic-it_17.html (Part-2)
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/03/san-francisco-is-not-just-romantic-it.html (Part-1)

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Shaw Funami
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San Francisco is not just romantic, it is delicious -3

There are restaurants who runs regular menu in addition to Buffet. But, this Beijing Buffet has "BBQ Counter Service" as a part of their Buffet Service. By the way, this Beijing Buffet does not have any other menu than just Buffet. Lunch or Dinner does not matter. My wife is not so excited about BBQ, but I loved it. It is just like ordering Omelet to your taste in hotel breakfast. There are choices of beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, fish, vegetables, tomatoes, bean sprouts, etc...

You also can ask to make your dish spicier, sweeter, salter, etc.. by just asking. Mr. Choi who works in BBQ section became my friend because I am the one who asks more choices than any other, according to Mr. Choi. If you like grilled fish or giant shrimp, you can ask skewer. If you feel eating Chinese Bun, Pao, he can grill it for you. He has Pork only Pao, Pork and Vegetable Pao, and Vegetable only Pao, Sweet Pao, etc...

Finally you can order Chinese Egg Noodle grilled with your choice of meet, seafood, vegetables or all of them. You can choose thick egg noodle, thin egg noodle, or rice noodle. You can eat it grilled warm in this restaurant.

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San Francisco is not just romantic, it is delicious -2

One of the reasons my wife and I like this place is size of Buffet and variety of foods we can choose from. There are 5 large Buffet Tables where foods are kept warm. The wall side of square restaurant space is occupied counters for Sushi, Sashimi, shrimp, crab, mostly fresh seafood. The other counter carries warm and cold Asian and European deserts. At the end of the desert counter, there are ice cream self-dispensers. They have choices of vanilla, or chocolate, or mixture of both.

Each Buffet Table has its own food categories, such as 1) warm vegetables and salads, 2) fish and seafood, 3) Chinese and American style poultry's, 4) fried rice + noodles + rice soup..., 5) steamed, fried, or boiled pot stickers + Chinese style meat bum.

In addition, they have BBQ station where you can select ingredients and ask a real person to cook to your order. In next post, I will explain this BBQ station a little more.

I have seen a buffet style restaurant who does not have Lobsters or Crabs in lunch time, but this place carries all foods for both lunch and dinner.

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San Francisco is not just romantic, it is delicious -1

It was a while ago when I posted an article about San Francisco's Crab dish and Clam Chowder Soup. Please refer to "Delicacies in Fisherman's Wharf". It is not just Crab. It is not just in Fisherman's Wharf where you can enjoy taste of San Francisco. It does not have to be in San Francisco City.

Picture of Entrance, below. Nothing is Fancy
The variety of foods we can enjoy is very wide in San Francisco. Italian, Mid-eastern, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, etc... I cannot list them all. Even comparing to New York, San Francisco's variation of food does not lose its excellence.

In addition, the cost for enjoying excellent foods is amazingly reasonable. When I say cost effective restaurant, I always think about "Buffet Style". It was about 1 year ago, we found very good Asian Cuisine "Buffet Style" restaurant close to San Francisco Airport. It's name is "Beijing Buffet". I referred to some rating sites before I started to write this article. The ratings vary from person to person. General rating may be average, I would say. Still my own experience has been good and my wife and my mother in law love it. I would like to introduce the contents in following several articles.

I cannot forget to add that my wife is China born Chinese American, and her sense of taste on Chinese foods are trust-worthy.

Below - Right inside of Entrance
Interiors are interesting.
They keep some turtles in the
artificial pond in the center.
Turtles are symbol of Good Luck
in many Asian Cultures
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San Francisco is Romantic Place

Since I have been writing Multi-writer Japanese Blogs for about 2 years, I kept taking San Francisco Photographs during that time. Some of them are famous sightseeing places such as Golden Gate Bridge, or Fisherman's Wharf, etc...

The title back picture I use for this blog is also the picture I took from Presidio Park. Left one is another. In Presidio Park and just east outside of Presideo Park entrance, there are lots of good places to take Golden Gate Bridge.

Many of them are just cut out of 1 scenery of San Francisco. Some times I stay in the car waiting for appointment time, or just killing time. I took pictures from inside of my car.

I like town scenery type of pictures myself. It may be nothing unique or interesting for the people who want to take famous places pictures, but they remind me the time of myself when I took those pictures. Left tin horse was taken on Sutter Street when I took my wife and my mother in law for Thai, Singapore, Malaysia Style restaurant in Downtown. It is just a Art Gallery Show Window. I felt so funny I could find this horse around 8:00pm after our dinner is finished.

Some times I can find a city ordinary scene type of view in the sightseeing type of places. The below are taken on Powell Street, in the place people waiting for riding Cable Car which was turned on turn table to change direction.

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... and the soul afraid of dying ...

Do you like movies? I love movies. I watch all the kind of movies, but I like some historical movies, science fictions, police movies, etc... When I first lived in US log term base in 1985 in New York. I loved HBO. I watched at least 2 movies a day. They were my live English materials and I learned a lot of English expressions from them.

In addition to English learning effect, movies could teach me a whole lot more things about lives. Many of them made me think about the meaning of life, encouraged me to make decisions when I was wondering, taught me how I can conduct in difficult times.

Today, I was listening to my favorite radio station when driving and the station was playing one of my music I like. It is "The Rose" by Bette Midler. This song is from the movie with the same name "The Rose", the story of a singer lived and died in entertainment world. She fulfilled her life singing and dyeing in her stage.

The movie impressed me so that the theme song stayed in my memory. It is beautiful song with melodious line. I also liked its lyric.

Starting the phrase "Some said love, it is the river ...", I liked many phrase in the song. It says "I say love, it is the flower, and you, its only seed." It continues "... the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance" "... the dream afraid of waking, never takes the chance." My most favorite part of the song which has encouraged me in many ways goes "... and the soul afraid of dying, never learns to live."

Whenever I needed to make difficult and painful decisions in life, I remembered this phrase and song in my mind so many times. I would not be afraid of dyeing if I could learn how to live. How about you?

"... far beneath the bitter snows, lies the seed, with the sun's love, in the spring, it becomes the rose ..."


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Tokyo becomes just like heaven in spring

Japan is a beautiful country in many ways. Japan islands are surrounded by ocean. 60% of her land is covered by mountains. There are many historical places. Unfortunately, Tokyo, her capital is concrete jungle and not so pretty usually. However, there is one time entire Japan including even Tokyo becomes like part of heaven.

It is spring time end of March and early April when Cherry trees become full blossom. Wherever you go in Japan, you cannot even avoid to see Chery Flowers. All the flowers are pretty, but Cherry Flowers are special. Cherry Flowers are all light pink color almost white. When they become full blossom, trees have just flowers, no leaves. There are some famous places for Cherry Flowers full Blossoms.

My mother lives in western outskirt of Tokyo, the town called Fuchu-shi. The city is full of Cherry Flowers in spring. There is a street both side were lined up with Cherry Trees. These cherry trees in the season of full blossom form tunnel of Cherry Flowers.

This is the time only in a year, when even Tokyo becomes like heaven in Japan.

-Image Below-
Cherry Trees in San Francisco Airport Area
Cherries in San Francisco become full blossom
early, like end-February or early-March.
These Cherry Flowers reminds me Japan.
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His Vision was "Change" in 16th Century Japan

When I wrote about "Kenshin Uesugi", (Please refer to my post,"Gi" was this local king's driving force) I might have given you an impression about "Nobunaga Oda" being a bad guy in comparison with Kenshin. It is true that he is famous and infamous same time. He burned down one of oldest temple because temple had too much power to influence in politics. He attacked and killed almost everybody in Ninja Hometown, Iga and Koga. But, still he was revolutionary hero who Japanese history gave birth to in 16th Century.

Like today, Nobunaga Oda's vision was "Change". For his revolutionary "Change", he needed to destroy old regime. But at the same time, he did a lot of "Construction". His vision and work can be found in his city development planning and construction. "Gifu" is one of the cities in West Japan. He built almost modern city which is equipped with Sewage System. The other city system he built was "Free Market". Lewis Froys, Portugal Priest who visited Nobunaga describes the prosperity of Nobunaga's City, "Gifu", to be comparable to "Babylonia".

Portrait of Nobunaga Oda
Image in Public Domain
He had "Public Guest House" like we have today in White House or Tokyo Palace and entertained his guests. It is said that he liked guests from foreign countries or other part of Japan. He did change all the ancient regime and built the base of modern Japan.

Now thinking about Kenshin Uesugi and Nobunaga Oda, both of them had clear vision what they believed, and moved strongly ahead for the sake of their vision.

It appears to be what is most important is not contents of vision, but our belief or faith in the vision and continuous effort to promote it. It was not if Kenshin was right or Nobunaga was wrong, but they had different visions and they had lived and died for their vision. Can we?

Related post:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/02/fight-of-kenshin-uesugi-battle-of_28.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/02/fight-of-kenshin-uesugi-battle-of.html
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/02/gi-was-this-local-kings-driving-force.html

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http://vur.me/shawfunami/SF
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Shaw Funami
Fill the Missing Link