Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Life in San Francisco ...

So a couple more weeks since my last update and a few more comments and random thoughts about life in San Francisco compared to life in Nelson

  • Getting into a regular routine has been quite good. We dont spend a lot of time on the road on the weekdays, the backroads to the kids school is surprisingly fast (approx 15 mins commute, similar to our tahuna -> richmond commute). Also found a great coffee shop with internet access on the way (in Glen Park, Cafe Bello). I think the coffee there is even better than Ritual. Does give a pretty good buzz :)
  • Our favorite restaurants still rock :) So if you are in San Francisco for an extended period of time make sure you eat at Shalimar for north indian food, Vik's Chaat Corner for indian chaat (snacks), Sketch ice cream (any flavor, any time), Lime Tree for malaysian / singaporean food and Spices for sichuan chinese food, La Corneta Taqueria for mexican food.
  • We've been pretty good with eating most meals at home including lunches. Mari's food club is working great. Last week we got chicken cacciatore from jill. Jill got mari's famous vegetable dahl (the greens book recipe). This week we've got home made pasta sauce from Lisa and Vegetable ghoulash from jill. We combined the vegetable goulash with some dosa mix from viks to have an excellent meal of uttapam and yoghurt for dinner tonite
  • Mari and her brothers (benj and benny) along with brian (nephew) and brenda (niece) did the half dome hike this weekend (its a 17 mile roundtrip with approx 4000 ft elevation). I took care of the kids and we had a great time in the valley. Did a few short hikes and a lot of bike rides. We also went for a junior ranger talk / hike at happy isles nature center. Yosemite does have a fair amount of stuff to offer for kids. The waterfalls were non-existent / down to a trickle, so did miss that part of yosemite. On Sunday we took the kids on a fairly long bike ride (2 hours or so). I suspect the kids biked 5-7 miles that day. At the end of the ride, PJ looks at us and whispers that her legs cannot move any more.very cute :). The drive to yosemite on friday evening was quite awful. Took us close to 5 hours to get there. Luckily we did not get stuck in too bad traffic, but it was bad none the less.
  • Getting my ACL surgery done this thursday. Hopefully i'll be back up and be able to do short walks etc in 3-4 weeks. Mentally i'm quite ready for this and will try to do fairly intensive physical therapy. In the meantime i'm trying to bike as much as possible and do my favorite bike rides (ocean beach/zoo/lake merced, GG Bridge and Sausalito). Biking in the city feels like playing a video game, although the consequences are a bit more severe. Significantly different than biking in Nelson
  • Found a good public swimming pool for the kids, Martin Luther King Pool in Bayview. Recreation time is typically after school hours (3:00 pm or 3:30 pm) and they reserve a fairly decent section of the pool for families. Last Tuesday we were the only family in there and it was great. Today it was a wee bit more crowded, but still ample space for everyone. The showers are nice and super hot also. Definitely a good surprise. Richmond Aquatic Center still has a significant edge though :)
  • The kids are doing good in school. Maya has warmed up to the teachers already, and the teachers have already noticed PJ's masti streak. The school is quite good and we are trying to get involved with as many things as we can. There are quite a few evening meetings and educational things for parents on an ongoing basis. Will definitely keep the kids and us busy this year. They have a cool program called WOW (walk on wednesdays). We drive close to school and then join the "walking school bus". There are bagels and milk at the end of the walk.
Pictures and some indepth blog posts on other facets coming soon ..

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