King's Cross & Serramonte

CNY i have been told is much more gay and celebrated in San Francisco than in New Orleans for instance, where there is no real chinatown and the asian community is dispersed. Thats because of the large Asian population, Chinese, Vietnamese in San Francisco. Plus not to mention the 2 Chinatowns that this city has. No other city in the States have a CNY parade which is on the last day of CNY, which i will be missing becos then i will be at the airport heading home. Slept well and got up invigorated. Funny, when you have been to a particular place or city many times, you smell again the familiar distinct air and instinctively when you arrive and you know you are home. Thats exactly what i felt like yesterday. Had breakfast, and then started to watch all the programs on TV..so much advertising plus specific channels for TV shopping. No wonder they say the States is the biggest retail marketing gimmicky place in the world. And the close followup of any news break..you hear the infor repeated, updated and repeated until you are utterly sick of it. I think sometimes the Americans love to over dramatise everything. Then we went to lunch at King's Cross, nope its not anywhere related to the red light district of similiar name in another city, its a typical suburban retail shops serving the local community place. i have forgotten the serving size here and becos its cold and i was hungry, i ordered a bowl of sha su ramen for myself. It came steaming hot, with generous serving size of 3 pieces of sha su, vegetables and half egg plus ramen. And then i swopped with my friend her selection of kimchi ramen and after a couple of bites, though its very yummy, i felt stuffed and cld eat no more. Off we went to go and get some cham liu for the party at a friends house. Since it was pretty early, we picked up only the siew yok and then started looking to get a prepaid subscription for myself. A couple of frustrating stops at the shops, we finally found one which could understand what i wanted and finally after waiting to be served, i got subscribed. Then next door to get the mani and pedi done. Interesting place, and those Vietnamese ladies did a french mani in just under half an hour, compared to back home, where they take at least an hour to get it done. After a cuppa of latte, we went to Serramonte Mall where i started on my first leg of retail therapy in San Francisco.