LOVE IN TOKYO

Ok so it's just San Francisco

Kontri People! It seems like I have been to Asia and back in less than 24 hours. This weekend I drove up to San Francisco to meet up with my friend Ndidi and her fellow psychology PhD folks at some conference. They we're staying at Paris Hilton's house, you know the down town Hilton. Before I get to my gist, I have to complain first. Why the heck did it take me one whole hour to find my way to the hotel after exiting off the highway. That journey was only supposed to take 5 minutes. I mena I know my sense of direction is highly lacking, but seriously dudes, driving in San Francisco is no cake walk. Let me not even start talking about the buses with wire cables pulling them. As if the tires and the driver cannot take the buses to their various destinations. No they need o show off their hi tech sense. And not to mention the roads. I mean the only place that I've seen roads with such high inclines is in my village. Picture a truck trying to make it up or down the hill. Usually on roads like that you have to have someone come out of the car armed with one cement block or a good log so that the car does not roll too fast. Any how, this was what was going through my mind as I was driving up and down the roads. In my many years of driving in new cities, this is the one time that I did not try to go cheap and insist in metered parking. Actually we could not find any but the parking garage was not that expensive.
So as we were journeying in the car we arrived in Tokyo, Japan. I mean I was confused for a brief moment. I guess that's why it's called China Town. I even had to think for a moment, and out loud, that the mayor would probably be chinese too. Ndidi had to remind me that it's not really a town. But assuming it were, it'ld have a chinese-american mayor.
We managed to make our way out of the very stinky garage. I guess some people ease them selves and probably shower in the elevator. Probably the meth and cracked out homeless people. Speaking of those, they are every where and also aggressive here that you don't even pity them. I mean it's not by force to give panhandlers money but in this California, even if it a quarter is the last penny you have, you better part with it because that homeless person might just not like the way you looked at him and could follow you home. Now I understand how some of these Hollywood peeps feel.

Anyways back to my story. So we found our way to this supposedly famous restaurant on 'Kearny' and 'Columbus' called 'House of Nanking' right across the street from 'Neo-something-baum Copolla' (notice how i'm being very descriptive). The food was good. I have never had 'southern chinese' but trust yours truly to ask for 'crispy seasame beef' (bojangles/kfc style). It was really good. I can just taste the mushroom juice gushing onto my tongue as I bit into it and proceeded to masticate it in my buccal cavity.
Then Ndidi's uncle, whom she was meeting for the first time picked us up from there and took us sightseeing. Not sure how much we saw considering it was night. But he took us to the Golden Gate bridge, which by the way is red. Somebody must have been color blind. The bridge was well lit and beautiful, we could see the surf and smell the fish in the water. In fact if the moonshine was out we could have seen Japan in the water. See what I mean in this picture.



It was a bit cold so we took some quick pictures and got back in the car. Uncle DC then took us to the 'Gay Capital of the World', this strip called Castro. (Warning to Nigerian men, most of whom are highly homophobic, you don't wanna go there by mistake because you will be traumatized, probably have a heart attack and get CPR from the nearest doctor who'll probably be gay too. I am pained on your behalf thinking of that scenario alone). It was indeed a different culture there with rainbow flags flying and rainbow neon lights flashing. I knew they weren't refering to litereature when we drove past a restaurant-like place called 'Moby Dick'.
We drove past the 'hippie' end of town with people sitting on the side walk playing guitars and singing kumbayah. You could tell they were probably all vegeterian and yoga-holics. We ended up going to the Italian district where we had 'real italian desserts'. I had something called 'Tiramisu' (sp). Till today I have no clue what was in that stuff but it tasted really good. Not much sugar and icing, just the way I like it.
Ndidi's uncle wanted to take us to a bar to hang out but we were too tired, plus they had an early flight and I had a 3 and half hour drive ahead. SO we retired and that was the end of our trip to the Bay. Gosh I had been hearing about this Bay FOREVER. I mean, left and right, 'De bay, De bay'. I have finally come to 'De Bay' and 'De Bay is on point.'
I think I've fallen in love with San FRANCO already. At least I prefer it to New York. Not much traffic, not that many people, not as dirty or noisy and everyone is really chilled out. So far I think I'm definitely going to love California. 'Benjamin' needs to hurry up and come so that we can be living it up.

Meanwhile here are some ANTM commentaries

So Tyra decided to make Nnenna bald to make the quest more challenging. In my own words, that and this shoot were not fair. How are you going to put an african in igloo and ice-block and say you are taking their picture. I mean dawg wassup. Anyways Nne girl won the challenge by giving us the new african queen. And upon the unnaturalness of the set she melted that ice with her picture. Now that's a model.

Hmh...this picture on the other hand is not my fave. My sister looks like 'Willie Willie' going to kill 'Nchele'. They were supposed to be making her the princess from the fairy tale, 'The Princess and the Frog' but they were not successful. The stylist missed the mark. Anyways, this one was a fluke, still she looks good. I am sure next weeks picture will be better and we'll get to hear and see more of Nnenna on the show. I know she's the quiet strength and all, but i am tired of hearing Jade and Gina's dramatics. And OMG..would ya'll wear a 'roach broach'? That is sooo hella nasty. As in I wanted to use my 'silpas' (slippers) to smash the 'coke-roach' off the tv screen.