The Chow Family's "All Things Chinese" Day

Waiting along the Olympic Torch Route on the Embarcadero

Today was a fun-filled day of unusual events for the Chow Family.

I met my parents and my sister at the Embarcadero at 1:00 to wait and watch for the Olympic Torch to run by. As expected, there were thousands of people lined up waiting to get a glimpse of the torch, and protesting along the route. Christopher actually saw my last blog post right after I had posted it, and came out from his office to join us.

I had my iPhone with me, so I regularly checked the internet to see what the latest news was on the torch. It came as no surprise when we found out that the route had been rerouted, and that the torch was being brought to another part of the city.

Oh well. Not a surprise at all, and it was kind of interesting just being there, and watching all of the hoopla anyway.

After we left the Embarcadero, we made our way towards Chinatown. My parents had a gift certificate that they had bid on at an auction last year for a tea tasting at a tea shop on Grant Ave.

Along the way, we decided to make a detour to North Beach. My sister was raving about an Italian bakery that she had found there, and she claimed that they had the best éclairs she had ever had. Never one to turn down a snack, we all decided to make an Eclair-Detour. (It was very good).

We finally made our way to Vital Tea Leaf on Grant Ave for a tea tasting. They actually regularly offer free tea tastings which we really enjoyed and that I would highly recommend. We tasted 9 different teas, and learned a lot along the way. The gentleman who gave us our tea tasting was very knowledgeable and friendly, and honored our gift certificate with whichever tea we wished to purchase.

After tea, we decided to have an early dinner and walked to my old neighborhood of Nob Hill to our favorite Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, U-Lee. Potstickers, fried Chicken Wings, Tomato-Beef Curry Chow Mein, and Green Beans. It doesn't get better then that!

After dinner, we decided to walk a bit longer - a good idea considering how much we ate and drank all day! We walked down to Union Square and went to visit Graham at the Post Street Theater. After a quick visit, we all walked back down to Powell Street @ Market to BART/MUNI.

A lot of Chow Fun, and a lot of Chinese. All wrapped into one fun day. :)

I just plugged our walking route into Gmaps Pedometer. Looks like we walked about 3.5 miles. Not Bad!