“When your soul is filled with genuine wonderment,” he says, “it forms of the essence of your being.”
I’ve mused on these words thousands of times in the past nine years. Genuine bliss is different from fleeting happiness. It stays with you and never fades. There are many times I’ve wondered whether I’d ever feel that happy ever again. I was starting to think that it wasn’t possible – that it was the stuff of childhood and adolescence.
But this weekend, I remembered it. And not only did I remember it – I lived it out; those precious moments of bliss breathing life into my weary heart.
Those of you who’ve been following this blog for a while know that I’m a terrible travel planner. I kind of make things up as I go along.
And so for my last day in San Francisco, I decided to go to the California Academy of Sciences.
The California Academy of Sciences
First thing’s first – why the hell is entry $40? It’s a bit much, don’t you think? What on earth is on display there that justifies the steep price?
Well – there is an aquarium and a tropical rainforest thingy; but it’s not cool enough to justify the price. There’s also a gemstone exhibit. It wasn’t that nice – but the pictures are kind of cool. I’m sure the Instagram folks love it. Not that I’m one of them…
Anyways – truth be told, I wasn’t there for the exhibits anyway. I was there for the planetarium. It’s one of my favourite things to do in the world – to go to a planetarium and just lie there and gaze up (with mouth slightly open no less) at the artificial shooting stars and images of those galaxies both near by and far far away.
I’m one of the few people I know who enjoys this type of thing so I sneakily managed to get tickets for all three shows.
Hehehehe 🙂
The first show was about earthquakes – it was kind of cool, but not that amazing. The second show was called Dark Universe – which was about dark matter and dark energy. It was a bit technical and explored visualisations of invisible matter. I was enjoying it thoroughly when I realised that my friend Tiffany was sound asleep next to me.
I smiled. This is not the first time that someone has fallen asleep on me in a planetarium. Good thing I have friends who love me enough to indulge my inner geek. She was also kind enough to sit through the very last show with me.
This time she stayed awake…
Unlike the other two shows which were mainly movies with a bit of explanation – the last show is called Tour of the Universe which was a 30 minute lecture by a 4th grade teacher who is also a linguist. He made lots of geeky astronomy-related jokes that I deeply enjoyed.
I was one of the five people in the audience that was laughing. Please don’t tell anyone.
Burma Superstar
Burmese Cuisine is one of my favourite cuisines in the world. It’s a delectable fusion of Indian, Chinese and Southeast Asian food. The flavours and combinations are absolutely delightful and I highly recommend Burmese food to all hardcore foodies. I’m a little sad that it’s not that popular internationally and a little happy that I’m one of the few people who’s in the know about Asia’s hidden culinary treasure.
Thankfully, I’m not the only one who’s into Burmese food. My new friend Catherine told me about Burma Superstar – a popular restaurant in the Bay Area where the food is not new agey, like the Dosa I had in San Francisco the night before.
For dinner, we ate the fermented tea salad, samosas, mohinga (catfish soup) and khao soi. It’s the first time I’ve had a proper restaurant standard Burmese meal. Whenever I’ve eaten Burmese food, it’s always been at home or at one of those small mama run restaurants – so this was a nice change.
There was a long queue outside the door so it’s not exactly one of those places where you should hang around once you’re done eating. The service is friendly and hospitable, though. No complaints from me.
I enjoyed it very very much. I highly approve.
I’m about to board a flight back to Japan. Can’t say I’m particularly excited about it. But I have to get back to work… Yippie… LOL.
Till next time – stay happy :o)
The Mercantile 
Aw, you do have great friends!
I know I’ve said it before, but it always amazes me what passes for “authentic food from a certain country” in some places. Chinese food over here is undercooked rice (barely) salted, with some peas and carrots, lots of cabbage in strips, some broccoli, and some chicken in an undefinable “sauce.” As for the spring rolls, they look very suspiciously like a Hungarian specialty but are stuffed with cabbage. And so on and so forth.
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ahahaha… cultural appropriation at its worst…
I think just about every culture is guilty of it. But what scares me is when hipsters take staple inexpensive food, make it trendy and then drive up the prices like nobody’s business.
BLAH!
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Honestly, it’s more about “I really don’t give a damn.” Quite a few of those restaurants are either run by Chinese families who are disliked by Hungarians because, well, they’re not Hungarian (don’t even get me started), and the feeling is mutual. Or they’re co-run by these hipsters who think it’s cool to have a brown skinned friend / partner, and use the hipster philosophy. Or the Hungarian hipsters are hired, in which case they couldn’t care less. Customer service here is pretty much about “f*** you, and give me the money.”
I think we all do it on some level. But there’s a huge difference between “oh, I saw this in [insert place of choice], seems cool, and “Mine!”
White guys with dreads is my pet peeve. I get that you like reggae, and the – to you at least – easy philosophy behind it (we need to debate this some other time), but do you really know what this is about?
There are several specimen like that in Helsinki, one being a friend of a friend. I never talked to the wannabe, because every time he’d walk into the room I’d start rolling my eyes before I realized what I was doing.
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