"It" being not taking my tripod to the parade.
Shawn is working in San Francisco for a while, affording me many more opportunities to see him, at least on some weekends. In early February Shawn's mom and her boyfriend traveled down from Oregon and we all met for the weekend of the Chinese New Year parade. I like San Francisco because, even though it's a big city, it doesn't make me feel rushed like other big cities normally do. There is so much to see there! This post could go on and on, but I will try to keep it limited to the subject and come back to the other items in another post.
We started our Saturday by heading into Chinatown for dim sum. This is nothing like what many people think of as "Chinese" food - including myself, at least until now. The restaurant was packed, but soon we had a table and the feasting began. Dim sum is similar to tapas in Spain - not a huge meal, but two or three morsels of something delicious to share. We spend a leisurely two hours or so enjoying the food and the company, then we hit the streets to take in as much of the excitement as we could before the parade that night. I had to remind myself over and over that I would be back and could return to see all of the fascinating shops.
Then there was the parade. The clothing, the elaborate floats and of course the dragons! There were countless dragons! And of course at the very end the biggest dragon of them all - the Golden Dragon, whose year this is, and who announced his coming with many firecrackers and lots of smoke, but who despite his fierce appearance hopefully breathed his "auspiciousness" on all in his path for the coming year.
