It's impossible to be married for almost nineteen years and not have the occasional, ah, altercation with your beloved spouse. Yesterday Marc and I had a doozy, and because I was entirely in the right (!) I would share the details with you, but that's not good spousing and I would very much like to be a good spouse.
Anyway, we made up. Because we always make up. Marc and I are totally co-dependant; we can't stay mad for long or we both forget how to breathe. So, today I decided to surprise him by going into the city for lunch...which brings me to what this post is actually about. 
I love Chinatown in San Francisco! It is so entirely awesome. It's like a perfect little trip out of the country. Ever since I was a little girl growing up in the bay area I've been fascinated with the otherness of Chinatown. I read Fifth Chinese Daughter when I was maybe ten years old, then when we would drive through Chinatown I would stare out my car window and wonder if life inside those apartments was really so different from my own (of course I didn't realize that the book was written in the 1940's so it wasn't that different).
Later, in college, I read The Joy Luck Club and fell even more in love.
What is going on in there, I wonder as we walked from our parking garage to the restaurant and I peer into each shop and market. I love to see laundry hanging out of the windows because it means someone really does live there. So to quick wrap up all my thoughts and put a bow around it... I am always seduced by novels with an Asian element, (any Amy Tan, The Samurai's Garden, Snowflower and the Secret Fan, Memoirs of a Geisha, Dreaming Water, The Legend of Fire horse Woman and so many more) PLUS I lurv good Chinese food like we had today at House of Nanking, and finally, as Marc and I try to plan for our 20th anniversary trip next year, should we go to China?
Oh, I have to add this, Marc ordered blooming tea for me. Isn't it beautiful?
It starts out in your cup as a tight pod, and then "blooms" into this. Mine actually had a little trouble completely blooming. I stealthily poked it with my chop stick when the server wasn't looking, but I had to settle for admiring my neighbors full blossom. I think it's because I eat too fast.
