here there be dragons

I had a wonderfully raucous night with Skot and Coco for Friday night happy hour last week, which left Saturday morning feeling a little slow. What I really needed to do was the deep hands-and-knees and on-ladders clean of the kitchen, which resulted in some pretty epic procrastinating. I enjoyed a home breakfast and "my stories" from the week and lounged inside. It was s sunny day and I felt the itch for a nice long walk, and also felt that I had become too comfortable in my favorite places and never explore the City or far flung neighborhoods anymore. I decided to muni downtown and then walk out to and around North Beach. I haven't done that in years and years. I packed my cap, headphones, and good book in a bag, with a happy destination of Caffe Trieste in mind.

On the muni ride down I though, maybe I'll walk through Chinatown to North Beach. I haven't done that in a decade either. I was getting excited, despite only the hour or two of daylight I had left (like I said, epic procrastinating).

I disembarked at the Montgomery Street Station into an absolute sea of people. I thought it was a crazy amount of tourists on a A Sunday but not too atypical...until I came above ground into the starting line of the Chinese New Year's Day Parade. The crowd wasn't as big as Pride, but close, and more spread out. As I walked toward the Ferry building I found myself in the staging area where floats and contingents waited their turns to process. I have never been to this parade (Shame, I know) and didn't realize it was an evening thing—the dragons and floats were all illuminated. And the kids were adorable. And lots and lots of snakes Year of and all of that.

And lots and lots of dragons. nephew Leland, he's just turned six, is really into dragons now. He would have gone bonkers. I was iMessaging my mother and sister-in-law pics and video clips of the afternoon.

Here are scenes my surprise fun time at the Chinese New Year's Parade:



The street fair food was of course all Asian and pretty awesome. I resisted, until I made my way towards home and by then I was craving sushi, so stopped to eat at the counter at the sushi boat place on Church Street.

And continued to send clips from my phone to theirs.



Leland would have gone nuts over the octopus!



I love SF.