Sanfrancisco day 6

The Sanfrancisco Zoo and the Hang Ah tea room.

Day 6 of our adventure saw us heading to the zoo. I had high hopes for it since SF is such a large city and the bigger cities usually have the better zoos. Well, it turned out to be less than stellar. It wasn’t really much better than any other zoo I had ever been to. I’ll post a few pictures just for fun anyway. On the way there, I started to get a little cocky with the transit system and nearly had us going in the opposite direction that we should have gone. Lucky for me, we were saved by yet another local resident who pointed us in the right direction. I just love those locals. They have got to be the friendliest people on the planet. The zoo is a long ride from where we were staying so we got to see quite a few sites on the way to it. Mostly, it was “how the other half lived”. We went thru a few areas that looked pretty grim. I was glad the train didn’t stop at any of the scary places.

As I said, there isn’t much to report about the zoo. The pictures tell the story well enough. When we got back to our room I wanted to take another crack at Chinatown and specifically, the Hang Ah tea room. I told Kathy I wanted to head over there to get some dim sum since the last time we were there all we had was tea. While there, another local mentioned to us that the Hang ah had the very best dim sum in all of Chinatown. A pretty big boast since there had to be at least 500 Chinese restaurants in the city but I had started to put a lot of trust in the locals and if he said it was the best, then that was good enough for me. We headed out with my assurance that we wouldn’t have to do a lot of walking since we were both tired from hoofing it around all day at the zoo. My perceived familiarality of the MUNI transit system was faulty again. The street I wanted to go up didn’t have the street car line I thought it did so I told her we would just have to walk a little bit to the next bus stop. Trouble was there wasn’t a next bus stop. We got to within eyesight of the Chinatown gate and I said we might just as well walk it in. The road was steep and we had already gone many blocks and Kathy was winded. Then something else hit me. Just where had I seen this place? I wasn’t sure. We walked around while I tried to find a landmark to get my bearings but it wasn’t happening. Further and further and no dim sum. It was very late on Sunday afternoon and I was getting worried that they would shut Chinatown down on us before we had a chance to eat. I was getting pretty worried about Kathy so I resorted to leaving her in one spot where she could rest while I ran up ahead and scouted around for our destination. I eventually found it and dragged her up one last steep hill before we got to the alley where it was located. In we went, panting and red-faced, for the prize at the end of the line.

The Hang Ah isn’t known for its décor. Inside it is all plastic dinnerware and colors. The white walls are trimmed in green and orange. By green and orange I mean bright, plastic green and bright, plastic orange. It is tiny. The dining room couldn’t have been much bigger than two typical bedrooms. We got the same waitress as last time and she was really happy to see us. A Chinese girl (imagine that in Chinatown), and had come over from China to get work. She was from Guangdong, I think. We chatted with her the entire time we were there. She had no concept of America from a geographical standpoint. She didn’t know where Alabama was and I don’t believe she had ever looked at an atlas of the country. I guess I am just more interested in geography than the average bear. I encountered the same thing with a guy I met on the wine tour who was from South Africa. He didn’t know anything geographic about the United States. He didn’t even know where Florida was and this guy was studying to get his PHD. Heck, at least a hick like me knows where Cape Town is.

Dim sum at the Hang Ah is a little different that what is considered traditional. You order what you want, and then they bring it to you instead of wheeling it up on a cart and tossing it out at you. Everything we tried was fantastic. The rabbit shaped dumplings were the best. They looked just like little bunnies right down to the ears and tiny eyes. Almost too good to eat. I had read that this place was the first dim sum house in Chinatown and had been in existence since the 20’s, I think. There were even pictures of Chinatown beauty pageants from years ago hung on the walls. I was disappointed in the tea. It was served in that all too familiar, stainless steel pot that is the epitome of Chinese restaurant tea. I have eaten in hundreds of Chinese places, from crummy, run-down hole in the walls, to really fancy ones and except for one place, they all have that same sad looking disgrace of a tea pot. Lucky for me that my favorite place back home serves me tea on a nice ceramic one like God and Buddha intended. We stuffed ourselves then said goodbye to the waitress. If I ever get back to Sanfrancisco, I believe this place will be my first stop.

For the ride home, we caught what appeared to be the last street car out of Chinatown. It was getting late and they were starting to roll up the sidewalks. I finally got my directions right and found the original car line I had wanted to use so the walk was quite short. It was barely 6:30 in the evening and Chinatown was getting very quite and dark. Kind of fitting to see it this way since we would not be coming back for the rest of our stay.