Pics from San Francisco

Here are a few pics that show the view from the Hotel Nikko in downtown SF.



As you can see it was kinda rainy that day.

As you can see here it's a very busy city. It reminded me of being in Sao Paulo again, except with more Asians. Chinatown rocks! I definitely recommend it.

An Ode to Vienna Sausages

To me one of the most underrated foods that we have available to us today is Vienna sausages. I know what some of you are thinking: "Eww, those things are gross!" "I ate some and got sick one time." "What are those things even made of?"

I have to say that I love them. They are the perfect late-night-right-before-I-go-to-bed snack food. They are soft and pink, like little squishy fingers. They don't taste like fingers though. They really don't taste like anything that I can describe. Then again, I've never tasted fingers, so they could in all actuality taste just like fingers.

My favorite part about the Vienna sausage is the mystery. We don't know exactly what it's made of. It says on the can that it's made with chicken, beef, and pork, but they don't say what parts. I get a thrill each time I bite into a Vienna sausage and think to myself that I just could have eaten a chicken's foot mixed in with a cow's rectum and pig's tonsils. The possibilities are endless!

But seriously, why would you eat one type of meat, when you can have multiple types of meat together in perfect heart-stopping harmony? The Vienna sausage ranks right up there with bologna.

Mmmmmm.

And now a haiku about Vienna Sausages:

Soft and pink are we
Made of various weird parts
Ignorance is bliss!

Thank you.

Put Flowers in My Hair

This post is coming straight (yes straight) from San Francisco, home of Alcatraz, The Golden Gate Bridge, and Riceroni none of which, oddly enough, is on my to do list. Since I'm leaving tomorrow, I've done about everything I'm going to do.

I did hit Pier 39, Chinatown, and the BART, so it wasn't a total waste of my time. What am I doing here you might ask? Well, my lovely wife was lucky enough to have an Experimental Biology conference from Saturday to Tuesday. So, since she would have her own hotel room anyway, I decided to tag along.

We are staying in the Hotel Nikko, which is a Japanese themed hotel in the heart of downtown SF. We are a block away from the cable cars, Union Square, and a ton of other cool stuff. The Asian influence is great here, but that is one of the things that makes this part of town so interesting.

I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised with SF. There is a ton of stuff to do here. I didn't even get half of what I wanted to do done. I did get to get a little Buddha statue from Chinatown. He looks so fat and happy. It's wonderful. We also went to the aquarium at Pier 39 and saw some sharks and things. They had these weird rock fish, that just sit around and look like they're dead. Weird.

In Chinatown we did some shopping and had a lady on a street basically take us from the street all the way to a table in a Chinese restaurant where we ate. She was very excited when she talked to us, so we figured that the food was probably good. It was, fortunately. And of course, the fortune cookie was positive. Big surprise there.

The BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit which is a rail system that runs through the greater SF area. Today I went to visit my cousin who lives in Pleasant Hill, which is not too far from SF. The BART actually runs all the way out there and the station here is located a block from the hotel. I was reminded of being on the metro system in Sao Paulo.

So tomorrow I'll be flying back to SLC. It's been a fun trip.