Sukiyaki wa oishi desu nee

I know I've said it before, and rest assured that I'll say it again, but I love San Francisco!

My friend Carol-Anne showed up at the studio right as my ballet rehearsal ended yesterday. "Hey Meg! Do you want to go to dinner in San Francisco?" she asked. My only too predictable response: "YEAH!"

Carol-Anne's brother Clifford is a PhD student in the Physics department at Stanford, so we met him and his friend Walter in the City. Clifford is totally into Japanese culture. He's pretty fluent and has spent some time in Japan, so naturally, we went to the Japan-town part of SF. I'd never been to Japan-town before, so it was an adventure for me! I love going on adventures!! Obviously, we ate at a Japanese restaurant. I decided to get sukiyaki, mostly because I've heard the term bandied around a lot, but I'd never had it before. When I took Japanese my sophomore year, it was one of the frequently used examples when on the subject of food. I definitely remember Busbin-sensei asking "Sukiyaki wa oishi desu ka" or "Sukiyaki wa suki desu ka". Having never had it before, and really with no clue as to what it actually was, I'd have to hesitantly answer "Hai, oishi desu". But now I can confidently say "Oishi desu nee"! The cups they served our tea in were decorated with a Japanese text. Fortunately we had Clifford along to act as translator. (He knows about 1500 kanji) It turns out they were expounding safe driving techniques. Nobody else's mugs at tables around ours had calligraphy on them. I guess they figured us whities wouldn't know the difference =).

After dinner, we wandered around looking for somewhere new to hang out. We couldn't tramp too far, however, since poor Carol-Anne is still on crutches with a stress fracture she got at a summer ballet program. We ended up choosing a Japanese karaoke lounge. (Of course I got carded, and of course I was the only one, despite the fact that Carol-Anne is actually 2 months younger than I am =P.) It was awesome! And very appropriate that my first real karaoke experience should be Japanese. It was a very small room, and only one other group was present. They were pretty good singers too! And it was very interesting to watch the karaoke monitor display the words in kana and kanji. They also had songs in English, and Clifford and Walter dazzled us with their rendition of Hotel California. They kept trying to convince Carol-Anne and I to sing, but we were not to be swayed. Would've taken more sake ;-).

Socks du jour!! Sky blue crew socks with happy, orange crabs.

Yesterday's socks!! Light blue crew socks with black toes and heels and a purple kangaroo on the top of the foot.