Responses to Walk to Work Blog, Chinatown Fire Department, Imperial Tea House


Letters to Editor
Today’s post is dedicated to offline comments I’ve received on my blog.

“Blogs should be like yours. Focussed on things that are specific, that aren’t just rambling narratives about their opinions or life.” ed. Well mine are as well, and I try not to be myopic and self-navel-gazing.

“I saw something off of banane blog. It was Union Square workers repainting the Macy’s windows regular white, and taking the trimmings off of the huge trea in Union Square.” ed. I hope I recall this correctly!

person 1:”I taught school in California and we never had to read that Mission book.”
me: “Yeah it must have been knee-jerk 70s stuff and feeling guilty about native americans, not that missions represent native americans.”
person 1: “The questions are just really specific and detailed.”
person 2: “I didn’t get any of those questions right.”
me: “…and you grew up in San Leandro!”
ed. thus disproving that Calif schooled kids knew the answers to that quiz!

Chinatown Fire Department
So I have a photo somewhere I will upload later. I witnessed the fire truck backing into the fire station on Mason, around Pacific, and it was truly The Art of Driving. picture: crowded evening rush hour in Chinatown, which is usually massively packed, and a long articulated fire engine does a three point turn on one of those tiny roads, into the station door, that is narrow, without any one helping him, and he does it very quickly. Amazing. I have to say the photos don’t do it justice.

Imperial Tea House
So I bought some tea here, and while it was completely full of howlies, I am super glad that they spoke English and I could get a lot of questions answered. I got exploding flower tea, well real name is “fortune” tea, with flowers woven together, that expands when water is added. I also got red-envelope tea, which had a strong rose/hibiscus and clove taste. The porcelain at this shop is really extensive and there are beautiful glazed cups and tepots. Note: the owner is not the woman who plays the teacher in the movie Iron and Silk. It’s said that she owns a tea house, and I thought this was it, but I was wrong.