I spent a chilly New Year’s Eve at the San Francisco Zoo We were greeted by polar bears and snowmen at the entrance.
I saw a lot of free range peacock leisurely roaming around the park. This one was strutting around the reindeer pen. The reindeer must still be exhausted from their Christmas Eve deliveries because they just sat on the ground. I saw absolutely no reindeer games.
Didn’t see any lions at the Lion House. I did see two tigers circling around in their pens. The Lion House is a great place to warm up. Nice and toasty inside.
The cold weather did not bother the penguins. They were frolicking around in their pond.
This tapir was one of the more active animals. The tapir pen is next to the rhino pen. In cartoons, rhinos are often portrayed as bullies or foot soldiers, but the one we saw seemed quite docile as it busily munched away at a lunch of lettuce and celery. The missing horn also made the rhino look less intimidating.
Four dollars buys two spins around the track of the Little Puffer steam train.
The San Francisco Zoo features a lot of bronze animals just waiting for children to climb on top.
I spotted a pink color bear. I think the polar bears got dyed for the holidays.
At the South American Tropical Forest exhibit, I spotted a pair of macaws engaging in some tomfoolery.
Kangaroos! Last of the fun animal exhibits.
The Simply Ming cookbook features recipes from Season 1 of the Simply Ming television series. Since Chef Ming Tsai has all the recipes (and video!) from Season 1 on his website, you can test out the recipes online first to see if the ingredients or dishes are to your liking.
The basic premise is that the home cook can prepare a large batch of a master sauce, which then can be used to create different flavorful dishes throughout the week. I couldn’t figure out the Soy-Lime Leaf Syrup. I tried it a few times, but the sauce always came out extremely salty. And, I don’t know if there is some secret about the kecap manis, but that sauce is difficult to pour. I just noticed in Ming’s video that he already had the kecap manis out in a bowl. From my experience, the sauce is so thick that it drips slowly out of the bottle. I might have to give it another try once I can get some kaffir lime leaves again at the farmer’s market.
The one recipe that worked really well for me is the Blue Ginger Cracker Dough, which I’ve used to make scallion pancakes. This version, with bread flour and yeast, ends up thicker than the traditional green onion pancakes, but just as good. In addition to the scallion pancakes, I have also used the dough to create red bean pancakes. Instead of the sesame oil, salt, and green onions, I use Morinaga Ogura-An Sweetened Red Beans as the filling and prepare the pancakes in the same way.
Google Books Ngram Viewer is an interesting application for looking up the frequency of phrases in books over time. For example, I recently ran a search from 1800-2000 for the different spellings of 北京: Peking, Beijing, Peiping and Beiping.
As expected, Peking is the dominant English name for 北京. Peiping appeared at some point in the mid-1920s, but that spelling has since disappeared. Interestingly, the rise of Beijing coincides not with the founding of the PRC in 1949 but with the normalization of US-China relations in the mid-1970s. Beijing finally eclipsed Peking in the late 1980s.
Last Sunday, I attended the Great Dickens Christmas Fair & Victorian Holiday Party at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Having never been to the Cow Palace or a Dickens Fair, I was not sure what exactly to expect.
The Dickens Fair was a magical experience. At the entrance, we were transported to Fezziwig’s Warehouse for a holiday party complete with talented musicians and dancers. Actually, it was hard to tell who was a performer and who was a guest because many guests had dressed up for the occasion. Not sure where everyone is stashing their Georgian costumes.
While the Dickens Fair is at the Cow Palace, it was really located at a series of low-slung buildings next to the cavernous arena. Nevertheless, the Dickens Fair includes more than enough space to replicate an English town. Next to Fezziwig’s Warehouse is the Victoria & Albert Bijou Music Hall, which featured a fusion fairy tale performance: Aladdin & Cinderella Meet the Monkey King. As if those three are not enough, the big bad wolf also features prominently in the cast of characters.
Actually, the fair contains numerous stages featuring ongoing performances throughout the day. I found this band while waiting for a juggling performance to begin.
The highlight of the excursion was the Wild Safari merry go round. I had never seen a hand-powered merry go round before. That’s truly keeping in the spirit of the times.
I recently visited the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose. I had expected a dedicated, attached parking structure to easily shuttle the kids in and out. However, after a quick trip around the block, I ended up at a fixed fee $5.00 parking lot on Auzerais Avenue tucked under Guadalupe Parkway/87. From the parking lot, the path to the museum is just a short, manageable walk.
If you are interested in arriving by public transit, the VTA Light Rail has a Children’s Discovery Museum station on the Alum Rock / Santa Teresa Line.
Bob the Builder really gets around. I saw him at Legoland and the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana during the past year or so.
The Bob the Builder activity room featured an impressive collection of Bob the Builder characters and construction vehicles. I loved the plumbing challenge where your junior plumber could attempt to reassemble the pipes under a play sink. Of course, the endless Bob the Builder video playing back on the television proved to be the true kid magnet.
The bubble room was also a popular destination. The museum featured a number of bubble tables with rings and other frames for creating bubbles of all sizes. A lot of fun for kids and adults alike.
Upstairs, the museum had a few craft rooms for some hands-on projects. During our visit, we were interrupted by a piercing alarm and a compulsory building evacuation. That decommissioned fire truck at the museum entrance proved no match for the flood of fire trucks that quickly surrounding the premises.
If you are going, bring your own food. I think I may have had the world’s worst teriyaki chicken bowl at the Kids’ Cafe. The sauce did not taste like teriyaki and the raw, baby carrots seemed out of place. I love my veggies, but I have never been to a Japanese restaurant where teriyaki chicken came with raw carrots.
Two months ago, I had ordered the Nikon D7000 shortly after it was announced. After a long wait, it finally arrived today, but only for a short visit. I was upgrading from a Nikon D50, so I was already familiar with Nikon DSLRs. The D7000 felt comfortable in my hands, much like the soon-to-be-retired Nikon D50. I had considered moving to FX and picking up a D700 instead, but I just couldn’t get past the increased weight.
Anyways, after I browsed through the manual to configure the camera and started shooting, I discovered a problem. Even though the camera and lens were set to auto-focus, the camera would switch to manual focus on its own. I tried the D7000 with several other lenses and still came across the same issue. Sometimes it occurred while shooting. Other times after I played back my most recent shots. If I really wanted to shoot manually, I would have opted for a Leica
. 
So, I’m feeling like a beta tester right now. I was really liking the D7000 up to that point. So, the camera goes back to Nikon for service. I doubt if I will be getting back the D7000 in time for Thanksgiving. The D50 is happy. It’ll be getting a few more weeks of attention and use now.
The Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden Center offers an enchanting garden for young children to explore. Located in Palo Alto, the 2.5 acre garden showcases a delightful collection of brilliant flowers, soaring trees and a tantalizing fruit and vegetable garden. The grounds feature water fountains to discover and rows up rows of color-packed flowers in the spring and summer. Best of all, access to the garden is free.
Located in Danville, the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site features the Tao House, the former home of Nobel Prize winning playwright Eugene O’Neill. The Tao House is located at the end of a private street, which is inaccessible to the general public. To visit the Tao House, you must first call in for reservations. You will then be directed to an off-site parking lot to catch a shuttle bus to the house.
The Tao House features a fusion of Chinese and Spanish styles. The main gate displays the four Chinese characters 大道别墅 out-of-order, which roughly translates to the big path to the villa.
Once inside the main gate, you will notice a crooked pathway that leads to the house. The zigzag design was adopted to deter evil spirits who could only travel in straight paths. In the same motif, the front of the house also features false entrances to mislead the spirits.
The inside of the house also carries a lot of meaning with blue ceilings and brown flooring symbolizing the heavens and earth. Another interesting detail is the three colored mirrors. The green mirror is located by the front door, the blue mirror appears in the living room and the black mirror stands in bedroom of Eugene O’Neill.
While the Tao House does include some Chinese influences, it is definitely not a Chinese house and those seeking more insight into Chinese architecture or artwork would be better served visiting a local museum. Instead, the Tao House is a wonderful place to learn more about this Nobel Prize winning playwright and to enjoy a spectacular view of the surrounding San Ramon valley.
Additional Resources:
- Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site From the National Park Service. Features information on visiting the Tao House.
- Eugene Gladstone O’Neill From The Nobel Foundation. Features an autobiography, the presentation speech and the Nobel banquet speech.
- eOneill.com The official web site of the Eugene O’Neill Society. Includes online texts and other information.
Last month, I visited Legoland in Carlsbad, California for the first time. Having never visited this amusement park before, I wanted to see how it measured up to the incomparable Disneyland. I had already heard about the models of international destinations rendered in Lego. I was quite impressed with the Lego version of the San Francisco cityscape, though I don’t know that the kids were similarly amazed.
Besides the Lego models, Legoland also offers an assortment of fun boat and airplane rides. I enjoyed a good laugh at the Splash Battle in Pirate Shores. As I rode the ship, I thought the ride was about soaking the patrons in the other ships with my water cannon. However, I was greatly mistaken.
Here’s how the ride really goes. My water cannon had a limited targeting range. Along the edge of the track, people on land have access to water cannons that can really soak those aboard the ships. And, I could not target my water cannon to fire back. Just completely defenseless. If anyone is manning the land-based water cannons, riders aboard the ships will get soaked.
The other attraction worth noting is the Fun Town Fire Academy, where your group races a manually-powered fire truck across a track, “put out” a fire using a manual pump, and then race the fire truck back to the starting block. These interactive, competitive attractions really stood out and made Legoland fun for the adults too.
