Even More About Friday

As promised, here's the continuation to this post and this post - but first I'd like to answer a question in one of the comments on my posts.

Chowder is a seafood-based soup, and the seafood is almost always clams. There are two types of clam chowder, New England clam chowder ( a cream-based soup ) and Manhattan clam chowder ( a tomato-based soup ). The chowder I had in in San Fran was New England style ( I also had New England style chowder in San Fran when I visited in 2001. ). The "ch" in "chowder" is pronounced like the "ch" in "chair", and "chowder" rhymes with "powder". However, in New England, they actually pronounce "chowder" chow-dah. If somebody in New England drove their automobile a long distance to a pub, they might say, "I drove my cah real fah to the bah.".

OK, back to Friday. Let's skip forward to when we arrived in Chinatown. We met Ruth's family there at about 4 PM, but we had some time to kill, because we had to wait for Orion to get out of work. So, we spent a little time shopping - or rather Ruth spent some time shopping while I spent most of my time watching the boys like a hawk.

Michael was pretty good in the store, but Peter was grabbing a bunch of things he really shouldn't have been grabbing. I decided it would be best if I took a little walk with Peter. So I left Michael with Grandpa and coaxed Peter out of the store by asking him if he wanted to get something to drink. As we were walking down the street I noticed something about San Francisco's Chinatown. San Francisco's Chinatown is a lot more tourist-y than New York's Chinatown. I actually had to walk about a block and a half before we could find a little shop ( It was a fish shop with a little fridge of drinks in the back ) where we could buy a drink. However, I passed plenty of places where you could buy little souvenirs like post-cards and magnets. I've spent a lot a time in New York's Chinatown, and I never got that tourist-y feel there. Maybe it's because I'm not a tourist when I'm in New York and I'm not looking for tourist stuff there, but somehow New York's Chinatown feels a lot more lived-in than San Francisco's Chinatown. New York's Chinatown has plenty of shops that sell food on every block, and it seems like there's at least one Chinese bakery on every block ( I walked a few blocks looking for one later than day ( more on that later ) but I couldn't seem to find one ). I also couldn't help but notice the difference in the smell. For better or worse, New York's Chinatown is really smelly. There's always a lot of garbage out in front of the restaurants and shops, and from the smell of it, it seems like the garbage consists primarily of rotting fish. As a native New Yorker, I kinda missed the New York Chinatown smell when I walked around Chinatown in San Fran. The bottom line is, New York's Chinatown feels like a neighborhood, while San Fran's Chinatown just feels like a place with a bunch of Chinese shops. Of course, I may be passing judgment too quickly on the San Fran Chinatown ( I've only seen it twice - once in 2001 and once on Friday ), but I honestly think it pales in comparison to New York's version ( Of, course we arrogant New Yorkers ( no matter how long I live in New Jersey, I'll always be a New Yorker ) always think we have the best of everything. ( Well not weather - our weather in the winter really blows! )).

So anyway, eventually Peter and I found a place to buy a bottle of orange juice. Peter was chewing some gum so I asked him to take the gum out of his mouth. As I was fishing for a paper to wrap it in, he promptly took the gum out of his mouth and threw it on the floor. I told him to pick it back up ( also reminding him that he should NOT put the gum back into his mouth ) and put it in a garbage can. Unfortunately, the closest garbage can was about a block away. He insisted on holding the gum in his hands until we got to the garbage can, and by the time we got to the garbage can, his hands were really sticky. Of course, I neede to hold his hand as we walked down the crowded streets, so by the time we got back to the store Ruth was shopping in, my hand were also pretty sticky. :P

Eventually, Debby got a call from Orion indicating he was on his way, and we all made our way to the restaurant ( Actually, I forget to mention something when I initially wrote this paragraph, so I'm going to jam it in between these two sentences. The walk to the restaurant was not an easy one. I won't go into details except to say that Peter got a little bratty about a toy he wanted. Ruth had already gotten Peter one toy ( to distract him at the restaurant ), and considering that he had been kinda a bad boy that day, we did NOT want to send the wrong message by caving into his demands for another toy. Thus, I had to carry Peter out of the little toy store against his will. Just like he had earlier in the day, he fought me all the way from the toy store to the restaurant. Not fun. ). It was a little restaurant that Ruth's Dad found in a guide book, a real hole-in-wall type of place that was supposed to have really good food. The front door of the place actually led into the kitchen ( There were actually a few pigeons running around the kitchen - a bit unsanitary perhaps, but as somebody who is used to the filth of New York's Chinatown, it made me fell right at home ), and there was a narrow staircase that led to a small seating area upstairs. I thought I was about to have a really tasty meal, but then I noticed that Michael was holding his nose.

When I saw him holding his nose, I knew exactly what was going on. I'd seen this before. It happens almost every time we go to an authentic Asian restaurant, and I was kicking myself for not realizing that it was going to happen again that night ( It had happened that Monday, when we were waiting for a take-out order a a Vietnamese place ). Michael unfortunately has an olfactory sensitivity that no person with Asian blood should be cursed with. He has an extreme sensitivity to the vinegar smell that emanates from the kitchens of many asian restaurants. Ruth tells me it has something to do with the way the rice is made. Frankly, I never noticed this smell before, but Ruth said that her sister Debby used to be sensitive to that smell when she was a kid ( she eventually outgrew it ). So ironically enough, it seems that Michael has inrehited the I-don't-like-the-smell-of-Asian-kitchens gene from the Asian side of his family. In any case, his sensitivity means he can't stand to spend more than 5 minutes in an authentic Asian restaurant ( He's been fine at bunch of Asian banquets we've taken him to ( usually for one-month and 100-day celebrations for the baby's of friends ), but I guess the dining room is far enough away from the kitchen in those places ).

So, what did this all mean? It meant I was going to have to take a walk again.

Geez - it's already 11:36 PM. I was hoping to finish this "little" story tonight, but I guess that's not going to happen. I'm not even sure what I'm going to name the next part, but I assure you that there will be a next part soon.

Rich