Shopping and presents.
These are a few of the things I got while in San francisco... which I either bought or got as presents.

Osamut Tezuka @ Asian Art Museum t- shirt

Back.... and front.

They had this cool other shirt with an Atom hologram on it, but it costed 60 dollars and honestly i wasn't sure how to wash it... so I settled for this one which shall always remind me of the nice show as well.
Then i turn around and see tons of bags with the holograms... but I don't like the art... until I see this one.

Which is just my type of bag.... with an hologram!!!


As you can see, depending on how you look at it you manage to see the inside body parts of Atom.




it's awesome!

The bag is pretty big too. I used it to carry the rest of the presents back home as carry on luggage.


Catalog!

My friend Maurizio decided to buy me the catalogue to the art show... as a Birthday present. It was very nice of him... a poster of the exhibit came with this catalog as well.
It is a very nice book, actually, not only contains reproduction of about 80% of the art seen in the museum but it was filled with quotations of Tezuka's thoughts about his works and nice essays about his manga and his works.





I am very well known for my love and adoration for Goofy.
So since I manifested the intention to go toy shopping and before I could even think "kyaah goofy!" my friend Nat had already bought this nice figure from Kingdom Hearts I (I think) of Goofy for me.


It is the biggest toy I got in this trip. I love the square enix look about him.




Then on saturday I finally decided to go toy shopping and did not resist the allure of Clement street and his little asian shops.
In my favorite store "the super hero" store...
I found these guys waiting for me.

I love this store because it has very unusual toys, including the Mimo or the Jimmy Liao ones... tons of rements and other godzilla and giant robots ones... not to mention bruce lee!

They're as cute as a button.


They did cost about 16 dollars each!!!

Totally worth it though. We are talking about Shiro Nakano's design for Tezuka Moderno!

It's a gorgeous looking line of products.



C & C Central

Is a big comicbook store on Geary blvd and 18th ave.

This is where I found my nephew's present... an Astroboy figure which I hope he will cherish....
and this one here.
I just loved his face.

He looked adorable and smells like nice pvc rubber too.
Like those rubber ducks you use to take a bath.

It had to be mine.






At the same store, where I could not find any interesting gashapon... I did find pinkys. One is a sitting yuakata repaint... the other one is Caine, one of the range murata designs for this series of dolls.

It must be the eyepatch that got me.


back on clerment street we went to Genki, which is a candy store so... it has to sell candy toys.... and got this nice Astroboy keychain.... look carefully, it turns on and off.









the wallet is a present from my friend grace lelo!
It has a little coin purse inside that can be removed and be used as a separate item.
I spent like a little fortune in candies and cookies in there and bought a few "surprise" candy toys on which I am working right now (well some of 'em are danglers!^^")




Lastly we went also to Tokio

I had no idea what this was so I bought it.
It was only 5 bucks... there were others like Futur boy conan or other classics....


Haikarasan is THE best!
Turns out there's a mini disc inside... with a printed design like an old LP.
It's a cd with and old 70's melodramatic song that is actually Haikarasan ga tooru's original OP!
La sigla giapponeseee!
it's like a set of 12 cd's 2 of which are secrets!

Candy toys!!!

Mini rufy!











then I put this one together... just to realize... isn't she the same fase as the green robot girl I already own?
that is why I was drawn to it... XD













She was doing something "odd" with her arm (something vaguely nazi) so i decided to have her pet that little airplane thingy in front of her!

Then I placed her in a case with her green sister.











I also got a girl form the girls in uniform serie... she is exactly the one i wanted but when I opened the box... to my surprise I got some sort of special figure... of which i wasn't too happy about??? Oh noooo, she is supposed to wear a skirt!!! why is she wearing pants!!!!

Deda in San Francisco - ultimo giorno (il giorno piu' lungo)

High-tea for Two!

I stayed over at K-chan's from the b-day party. She had a nice futon in her little living room where her interior design rommate re-arranged the furniture as you see it.

We got ready and drove to Noe Valley following google maps direction that didn't make much sense. Luckily I remember where it was... sort of... we reached Diamond Heights and drove down till we reached Church street.
So Noe valley is in between the castro and the mission, huh!
We got there and the tea house wasn't opened yet. She opened right in front of our eyes and when we went in she couldn't find our reservation.

Ebbene... dopo aver passato la notte da K-chan viene fuori che la tizia della casa da te' non trovava la nostra prenotazione per le 11. Non aveva capito il suo nome e quindi aveva prenotato con il numero di telefono. Cerca e cerca... fa sedere quelli senza prenotazione O_O e ci dice... di tornare dopo un'ora e ci avrebbe offerto un set.

So she admitted she had already seated the walk-ins and that she couldn't find the reservation K-chan had made over a month ago. maybe diana was too hard to get... but Lee? I was grumpy and grumbling went to wait outside. The owner of the shop came to us and apologized and told us to be back in an hour where complementary service would await us.
After buying some genmai cha we walk to the closest west fargo to withdraw money. We saw a wet market and stopped by.... here Kachan tried some yellow watermelon. It tasted like the regular one, except it was yellow.

Ci avviamo quindi prima a comperare del te', poi a cercare un bancomat li' vicino e troviamo un mercatino di frutta e verdura organici tra i quli spicca un'anguria gialla. Sapeva di anguria ma era gialla.
un'ora passa velocemente e torniamo alla sala da te', dove ci siedono ad un tavolino per due, riservato "per la regina" XD.

We finally make it back after one hour and find our table ready, next to the window, reservation "Reserved for the queen" (now all tables say that).


We happily seat at our table and order some tea.
I get black tea with roses. Kchan gets a blood orange infusion.
We also order a set called "tea for two" which includes as set of four sandwiches, two scones with cream and strawberry jam, a coleslaw salada, an arugola salad with mandarin orange, two pieces of shortbread.


Ci sediamo ed ordiniamo tranquillamente del te'. Io prendo un te' nero alle rose e Kchan un'infuso alle arance rosse. Prendiamo anche un set "te' per due" che comprende 4 sandwich, due scones con crema e marmellata di fragole, insalata di rucola e mandarini, una coleslaw, e due pezzi di shortbread.


Il te' alle arance ha un colore magnifico ma anche il mio non e' male. la prima tazza la bevo com'e' mi riservo di aggiungere latte e zucchero al momento del dolce.
I 4 sandwiches sono vegetariani: formaggio stilton (gorgonzola) e pere, hummus e carciofini, tapenade di olive e fichi, cetrioli e formaggio spalmabile.


L'insalata ha un condimento tipo francese, con un po' di senape.


The orange infusion has a beautiful color, but so does my tea... which I drink as is, eventually leaving a cup to be drank with milk and sugar by the end of the meal when I get to the sweets.
The four sandwiches consists of: stilton cheese and pear, hummus and artichokes, olive and fiques tapenade, cucumber and cream cheese. The salad comes with a French dressing.










The scones they make... I love them! But overall I love this place! How they serve food on these cute trays... and all the china is mismatching for tradition! It's a post war tradition.... coming from the fact that people started making china sets from the china they would find amongst the rubbles after the bombings.

Il tutto viene servito su questi piatti a due piani, davvero carini, e' un pasto completo, non troppo abbondante, ben bilanciato e delizioso. Il servizio da te' e' tutto scombinato, la tazza e' diversa dalla tazzina, dalla teiera e anche tutte le posate sono diverse... e' una tradizione da post guerra mondiale... quando la gente in Inghilterra si ricreava i servizi con i pochi pezzi di porcellana che trovava tra le macerie dei bombardamenti.

Creations' Dessert

How do we end up here? well after shopping on Clerment and Geary... toy shopping of course, well no... there's also a levi's store nearby where this Sirian lady is really awesome at selling and not only she finds the right jeans for me... but gets me curderoy as well!!!!

In the end i manage to get toys, pants... all i wanted... therefore I can relax for the rest of the day, until i get to karaoke.


Dopo il te' passiamo con Kchan e la sua bellissima Mini cooper blue, a fare shopping a Clerment e Geary.

La prima si presta per il mio shopping di giocattoli... di cui parlero' successivamente in un post apposito.... su geary trovo un negozio levi's dove questa signora Siriana, parlandomi in spagnolo tutto il tempo e con grande pazienza, cosa che non hanno i venditori nei grandi negozi, riesce non solo a trovarmi un paio di jeans ma anche dei pantaloni di velluto a costine marroni della lee.

We end up at Creation another famouse Chinese dessert spot and here we wait for Arturo to join us and we get.... mango!!!! mango tastes so much better in the Us. But other than that, I order my Mango filled Mochi, with coconout on the outside.

Finiamo da creazioni, dove ci raggiunge arturo per fare merenda, dove ordino mango avvolto in mochi e farina di cocco.

Kchan also orders gyoza.

Kchan ordina anche dei gyoza... dei ravioli al vapore con dentro carne.









She also decides to get a mango icecream ball in mango juice with pieces of mango and mochi.

Ordina anche un dessert fresco da condividere con me.... gelato al mango in succo di mango con pezzi di mango e mochi.

Ci piace il mango non si era capito? XD





Unfortunately we have to split. I bid my farewell to Kchan then Art and I go to Nat's house for a while. We chat a bit, then Art leaves too and Nat and I wait for jeremy to go to Korean Dinner.

Saluto kchan che deve andare a cena dai suoi genitori, io ed Art andiamo due minuti da nat, poi anche lui va via e restiamo io e Nat da soli in attesa di jeremy per andare a cenare al ristorante coreano.

My Tofu House (Korean Dinner)

My tofu house... here's the place my friend love cuz it gives you a full fish as one of the little entrees.

Questo e' il posto adorato dai miei amici perche' come antipasto c'e' un pesce intero.




I order the usual bibimbab with roaste tofu. it comes in a sizzling bowl, the rice gets all crunchy. I wait a whil before I stir it, i want the rice to get crunchier....
under the nice seaweeds there's the egg... hiding.... waiting for me to stir it...
it's a huge bowl but it looks very good, and pretty... so I have to take pictures of it.

Ordino Bibimbab con tofu alla piastra. Viene in una bella ciotola ancora rovente. Sotto le alghe si nasconde l'uovo... il tutto attende di essere mescolato. Aspetto perche' voglio che il riso nel fondo della ciotola diventi croccante... e' un bel piattone: gli scatto una foto.

And there's me taking the picture of it.


Eccomi che scatto le foto... questo da' anche l'idea della dimensione di questo piatto.






Jeremy has ordered some spicy pork. He likes meat, as all good filipino guys i guess! He was trying to get a bibimbab too but then the meat called him.

Jeremy prende del maiale piccante.







We eat quickly as we think people might be waiting for us at 9 pm in front of DOREMI.
Mangiamo velocemente perche' ci stanno aspettando davanti a doremi alle 21.

Karaoke @ DO RE MI

When we get to DOREMI, none of the people supposed to come is there....

Except for Dan and Suey. We book a small room for 9:30 then. Since nobody shows up... we go in and sing to our hearts' content for the next hour.




Giunti davanti a doremi solo Dan e Suey si presentano all'appuntamento... e gli altri ci hanno dato buca. Prenotiamo una stanzetta per 9:30 e siccome non viene nessuno ci infiliamo nella stanza e cantiamo per l'ora successiva fino a sgolarci.









I don't know any of the songs these guys picked. Luckily for me, Doremi has a huge selection of Japanese songs I can sing... so I get to pick some gackt songs and Misia and of course my favorite U2 song. jeremy supports me for To Feel the Fire, nat for Everything. I get interrupted by the karaoke guy at my final note... i hate him... he ruined it for me!
Non conosco le canzoni scelte dai ragazzi ma doremi ha una grande selezione di musica nipponica tra le altre cose.... riesco a trovare diverse canzoni di Gackt, una degli U2 e una di Misia... (quella di Misia, nat mi fa da corista).
Il tizio del karaoke mi interrompe sull'acuto finale.... lo guardo e non rispondo e continuo per gli ultimi secondi... pero' che peccato... il mio slancioooo!
jeremy mi fa da support per Feel the fire.

Deda'svPlaylist:
Kimi ni aiutakute (gackt)
kimi no tameni dekiru koto (gackt)
To feel the fire (gackt)
12gatsu no love song (gackt)
Stuck in a moment you can get out (U2)
Everything (misia)

THE GROVE

And who do we find outside of Doremi? It's Yunmi! She proposes we go get coffee together... let's go to the Grove on FIllmore. That place is awesome.

Incontriamo Yunmi fuori da Doremi e decidiamo di andarci a prendere un bel caffettino da Grove.



Dan is hungry so he gets some food and a beer. Nat gets a rootbeer.
Jeremy gets a beer too and after that, seeing nat, gets a rootbeer too. Me, it takes me a while to see that that's a rootbeer so I ask "who's driving who?" silly question! XD

Dan ha un po' di fame e prende da mangiare e una birra, anche jeremy ne prende una... ma vedendo che Nat prende una rootbeer si associa.
Io prendo il solito Chai... ma questa volta e' troppo dolce! Chiacchieriamo e scattiamo foto per il resto della serata.

My Chai tea is too sweet this time around... we just talk for the rest of the evening.



























On our way home.... a funny face on a door makes me smile.
I guess that's the expression this trip also paints on my face.
And there we stand, two smiling faces, grinning at each other.


Tomorrow I leave.

Bye bye!