This post puts the HELLA in HELLA ANGELENO

My graduation ceremony was on Sunday, so I got to spend a couple days in the city with Ray and Vy this week. Half off pizza night at Pizza Orgasmica and dim sum at Golden River were on the top of my to-do list.

Counterclockwise from top left: ha gow (shrimp dumplings), chive dumplings (on Vy's plate; they are very garlicky and my new favorite dim sum dish), chashu bao, noh mai gai (lotus leaf-wrapped sticky rice with chicken and Chinese sausage), hahm seui go (the dish that unfortunately has no English name, so they'll call it "meat dumpling" or "meat turnover" but then half the time you order the meat dumpling and it's a DIFFERENT meat dumpling and then you're like DAMMIT I WANTED CRISPY GOOEY GOODNESS), and... a different kind of shrimp dumpling, can't remember what it was called. The ones in the middle are yet another shrimp dumpling. Apparently Ryan asked a friend of ours who lives in LA Chinatown where to get good dim sum and he said there wasn't any (!!!), so I had to stuff myself in preparation for my return to the godless south.

After lunch we headed to Vital Tea Leaf in Chinatown to be screamed at and served tea by Uncle Gee (no relation to the other Gee we all know and love). As we approached the store he was busy trying to convince some tourists that his tea would make them sexy, so I walked up and said "We don't NEED to be any sexier, but can we have some tea?" which I'm pretty sure made me a prime target for his teasing the rest of the time we were there since I eventually ended up in a chokehold. This time there were some elderly tourists from Arkansas next to us, and seeing him play to them kind of ruined the effect, like when you're taken in by a magic trick but then the magician shows the trick to someone else and you see right through it. But I'd still recommend this place to anyone hitting up Chinatown--it's a comedy routine that comes with a sampler of 10-12 gourmet teas, free of charge.

(A note on photo quality: As we strolled around taking pictures Ray said he was thinking of buying a real camera so he wouldn't have to use his cell phone, and asked how many megapixels mine was. I looked at the sticker on the camera and said "Uh, 2.0?" He laughed and said his PHONE was 8 megapixels. I got this camera for my 17th birthday. I have no plans to upgrade. Deal with it.)

One of my favorite things about San Francisco is the views down side streets--everything is so packed together that there are unexpected glimpses of things wherever you go. Sometimes it's the Bay Bridge:

Other times the Transamerica Building or the Ferry Building:

One of the dangers of living in a place like this is that you start to think you're the center of the world. Even when I lived four blocks from the Pacific Ocean and would walk down there every day to bask in its immensity, I still knew that the city was at my back, beautiful and funky and free and alive at all hours of the day and night. I can't even begin to explain it--I was a little person in a big city, but I was so connected to it that I felt like I was the city, and nothing outside of it mattered. (Ever seen this New Yorker cover?) But I'm moving on again, and this time I want to feel small.