Ari's Planet

My US tour concludes soon with my stay in sunny California. A visit with my cousin in San Francisco included a stop by the waterfront, the buffalo in Golden Gate Park, and a walk up and down Telegraph Hill where we saw the famous Parrots of Telegraph Hill. These are a noisy bunch who fly around the beautifully maintained gardens, accompanied by dragonflies, each of whose four wings glowed in the high sunlight. My time in SF included picking up a Japan Rail Pass exchange order for two weeks for $381 at the Jalpak office on Market Street, as well as visits to Costco pharmacy for prescriptions and a hunt for a place that could make new lenses over the weekend for my main glasses. While several places had to send out, the Lens Crafters on Martket knew of a guy down the road on Mason St. who often can meet a tigt deadline. Sure, enough, he was able to make lenses by Monday. On the way, I was distracted by a Mexican burrito joint where I was brave and ordered the spicy chicken burrito. Not a good idea. The burrito was fine, I just couldn't handle the hot chicken. REI was great and took back my tagless 60L Osprey Eather that I swapped for the slightly larger and heavier 70L version.

Next, I went on to see my good friends in Hayward. We caught Stardust, a nice fairytale, if underacted by the two leads, whats his name and the somewhat vapid Clare Danes. Robert Deniro is just so much better, and Michelle Pfeifer is always fun. Had some good Indian food to boot. Did I mention we have had great weather all around? Next night we caught the entertaining Rush Hour 3 at this really neat classic old theater, after having a good tapas dinner at a neat Cuban place down the street.

For the last leg of my US visit I'm staying with my cousins in Berkeley. They have the most awesome home and a really sweet terrier named Hazel and their cool people to boot.

Found a couple of good outdoors stores, Mel Cotton's in San Jose where I picked up a down jacket, and another place near 15th and Bryant whose name escapes me, something like Sports Basement, where I found my hiking boots. Got evacuation insurance by joining Medic Alert for $40/yr and adding their travelplus insurance for $100/yr. Also booked a hotel for the first two nights in Tokyo for $126 including taxes, which I found using mobissimo, my favorite travel search engine. Just need to pick up some things in SF on Monday and then I'm ready to leave this fair land Tuesday.

Now, for the real point. My damn backpack, while being really good, is TOO DAMNED HEAVY! Geesh. But I can't seem to reduce it and still have my camera gear. Damn load of heavy rocks on my back. Argh.