Fast Friday

Okay, so this is did not happen on a weekend...

The San Jose Grand Prix gave away free tickets to the Grand Prix on Friday. I am not a race fan, but had always wanted to experience race day for myself.

I had printed out the coupon online the day before and went to the ticket booth in downtown San Jose at 8am to exchange coupon for tickets.

After getting the free tickets, I went to work. Drove back downtown at about noon for the actual race. When we enter the race track, the stock car race was going on. Our entrance was near San Pedro square and that part of the circuit was particularly tricky. There was a U-turn in the track and we could clearly hear all the cars jamming on their brake to make the turn, then stepping on the gas to gain speed.

We walked from the entrance to the grand stand. Along the way, the organizers have put up billboard to discourage people from standing around and block the view of most people. However, it was still possible to get a glimpse of the action from nearby office building parking lot/lawn area.

The stock car time trial ended rather uneventfully. After a brief track clean up, where a truck carrying a giant leaf blower type device blew dust into the pedestrian, we were treated to the Indy car time trial.

Watching a race in person was definitely quite different from watching it on TV. There were time where no car was in sight and the only action was on the big screen TV setup for the grand stand audience. Personally, I always felt auto racing is boring until some car crashes and watching the race live helped enhance that perception. However, when the cars came roaring in front of us, the loud noise made the event strangely exciting. We saw 2 passes, but no a lot of the fighting for position that I was expecting.

After about 20mins of time trial, we saw a minor collision between a car's front wheel and another car's back wheel. The red flags were out and we moved around the grand stand to see if we could spot the crash. It was at this moment the checker flag came out and the race was over. A somewhat let down to the event.

I must admit I am still not interested in auto racing, but at least now I know what it is like to be at race day:)

MLB All Star Fan Fest, Golden Era

Won 2 tickets from a local radio station for the Major League Baseball All Star Fan Festival. I am not a big baseball fan, but free is free:) Besides, given the face value of the Festival ticket, I don't think I can make a killing on Craigslist:(

The event is held in Mascone Center in San Francisco. By the time we reach the city, there was a fairly long line waiting to get in. Luckily for us, the line moved fairly quickly. Good job of crowd control:)

The fan festival occupied all 3 levels of Mascone Center. The first floor was mainly exhibitions on historical baseball figures, leagues from the past and the likes. I am not familiar with baseball history, so it was not too interesting to me. My friend A is more into baseball, so he enjoyed himself more.

The second floor has what I think is the highlight of the show: pitching cave and batting cage. The pitching cave is pretty cool. We were given 4 balls, and could choose the hitter we want to face. Then an image of the hitter is shown on screen, in his swinging motion, complete with catcher and empire. We threw towards the image and the computer determine if it is a ball or strike, or if the hitter hit it out of the park:) The computer will also display speed of the ball after each pitch.

I chose to pitch against A-Rod, because he is the only hitter that came to mind. My first ball hit off the cross bar on top of the cage:( Guess that's what you call a wild pitch! My other pitches were therefore more control and slower. According to the computer, my fastest pitch was 75mph. Personally, I have some doubt, but, I am not going to complain. I threw 4 balls and A-Rod walked. A went against Barry. He has a pretty good pitch, but on his sole thrown strike, Barry hit it out of the park. I wonder who did better:)

There are 2 batting cage. The first one is quite cool. Again, a life size MLB pitcher's image is projected on a screen. The image would go through its pitching action and then a out of a small opening on the screen where his hand was, a ball would come flying toward the batter. Very realistic, though I am sure the ball is not quite at the speed of a MLB pitcher. There was a long line for that batting cage, so we went to the more traditional one.

We chose a traditional batting cage, pitching about 30-40mph balls. I went 0-10:( Quite frustrated, even though baseball is not my sport. BTW, if anyone knows of a batting cage in the Bay area, please let me know. I like to work on my swing. A did better, going 4-10.

There was a small, straight race track on the second floor for people to sprint and compete speed. We did not participate in that event.

On the third floor is a large, almost life size field where some of the legends of the game was suppose to give lessons. When we went, the event had just concluded, so we did not see any action. There was also an area for fielding fly ball. Given the line, we decide to skip. One more traditional batting cage, which, given my previous failure, did not want to participate in:)

Dotted around the major exhibits are photo booths where one can don baseball uniforms of present and yester-years. Also background where one can be seen shagging fly balls, or cut outs where one can adopt the body of famous baseball players. There are also many stores selling sports memorabilia, baseball cards, uniforms, caps, posters etc.

There was also a few live broadcasting booth where there was audience participation. Audience were invited to ask question and get free t-shirt in return. Also Will Clark made a guest appearance. A was quite excited and took several picture of Clark:)

We spent a total of about 5 hours in Mascone center. As usual, we had dinner with S who stays in the city. Dinner is at Golden Era Vegetarian Restaurant. Not quite the traditional Chinese vegetarian restaurant since this restaurant does use garlic and onion in their dishes! We ordered pot stickers, drumsticks, spinach tofu soup, caramelized chicken and lemon grass tofu. See my review at Yelp! for details.

Had a fairly good time with the exception of being disappointed at going 0-10 in the batting cage.

Carnival, French Jewelry Exhibit at Legion of Honor

After some bargaining, K and I decided to go to San Francisco for Carnival and the French Jewelry exhibit at the Legion of Honor. I get to see scantily clad women, and she gets to see jewelry...something for everyone!

We were join by K's sister and cousin. Carpooled to the Mission, where crowd had already gathered. We squeeze our way between the people, got watch the parade from there.

This parade is a celebration of various Latin culture. I saw dancers in colorful Brazilian carnival costumes, doing the samba, people performing capoeira, Caribbean steel drum bands and several Mexican dance. The weather on this Memorial Day was too cold for the costumes many of the dancers were wearing, but they marched on bravely.

From Mission, we stopped for lunch at San Tung #2 in the Sunset district. K had invited a few more friends and we all enjoy a good lunch. See my review on Yelp for more details.

After lunch, the guys decided to check out a bar, while me and the ladies went to the Jewelery exhibition. I am not too familiar with jewelry as an art form, but the exhibits were very beautiful. There were some jewelry, clearly of the Art Nouveau style with its organic forms and the more stylistic art deco styles. The ladies were discussing what it would take for the significant others to buy them jewelry, while I wisely stayed out of those conversations:)

The ladies and me in the Legion of Honor museum ground. Sorry boys, all these fine ladies are taken!

Dinner was at Kan Zaman Cafe for Middle Eastern food with Belly Dancing. Check out my review on Yelp for more details.

An enjoyable Memorial day!

Kayak Elkhorn Slough

After the mis-adventure from last week, I decided to take another chance and kayak again...this time the relative calm water of Elkhorn Slough.

I got a single kayak this time and paddle along the slough. We were going toward the sea, so during low tide, the water helped the kayaks moved along. I had not adjusted my foot pedal well and after about 30mins in my kayak, my legs were falling asleep.

There was no wave at all and we were able to take our time observing the wild life: beautiful birds and sea otters. The surrounding was quite beautiful, with patches of greens and puddles of water. Paddling in this condition always made me feel very peaceful.

The Slough is a fair popular spot for kayaking. Besides our group, we saw at least 3 other groups kayaking. There is also a natural boat tour for those who is looking for a more relax experience.

We paddle for about 2 hours to the mouth of the river where we stopped for lunch on a beach. The morning chill was gone and the sun was shinning. I took a quick nap on the beach and woke up refresh!

I took the opportunity to adjust my foot pedals before starting on my way back. Half way back, I needed to use the bath room very badly. I had to paddle fast back to the dock. As such, I was not able to enjoy the trip back as much.

I met Amy, our assistant tour guide from the whale watching trip last week, at the dock. She was helping with another group. We chatted a little and found out Dave sometimes ask people who had trained with him to be guides. That sounds like a very sweet gig!

Definitely was rushed a little at the end, due mainly to my own doing. However, the condition at Elkhorn Slough was great and the surround was beautiful. This is probably a location I will come again and in my opinion, is great for beginners.

Kayak whale watching

I was searching online for kayaking trip when I found a story of whale watching on kayak. I research further and discovered such trips are available in Santa Cruz!

On this morning, I left for Santa Cruz. From Santa Cruz, we took a van ride to Davenport and launch our kayaks on the shores there. Dave, our tour guide, had a person stationed on shore to help spot whales while we paddle in the ocean, looking for the animal.

The day was quite sunny, but the winds were strong. I could see white peaks on the wave. According to Dave, it was going to make whale spotting more difficult, as the whale's spouting was going to be obscure by the white peaks of waves breaking.

We paddle south for about 2 hours. Along the way, Dave had us fan out to increase our chances of spotting whales. But nothing...I was quite disappointed.

Then came a call that one kayak saw a whale spout. We tried to kayak to its location, but the wave was strong and we were not making good progress. Given the condition, Dave decided to bring everyone back to shore.

We were about the 3rd kayak back to shore. Then we waited and waited...no signs of other kayaks joining us! Our spotter on shore told us that one of the kayak had flipped. They were rescued, but the paddlers were feeling tired. Dave decided to bring them to another beach.

Turns out, that other beach was surrounded by steep cliff. There was no way of carrying the sea kayaks (which are generally more heavy) from the beach back onto the road. Dave had to instruct the rest of the kayak to make another short trip, onto a beach which the kayaks can scale more easily.

By now, it was almost 1pm and the winds had really picked up. Dave's experience really shows. He would observe the wave and had the kayaks come in right at the same time as the wave was coming in, using the wave to help the kayak come ashore. All the kayaks came in fine, until Amy, our assistant tour guide came in. She was in a single kayak, which is more unstable. A side current came when she was trying to shore and flipped her over:(

I was glad our kayak did not flip over, but was a little disappointed since we did not see any whales.

Friend from Singapore

Got an email from TS about a month ago. He is visiting from Singapore!

TS is a old friend from my Army days. Him, me and another guy use to hang out together a lot, complaining about our superiors. I last met him about 2 years ago.

Anyway, his wife was in town for a conference and he tagged along. We met up for dinner in Fremont at Salang Pass. Unfortunately, I had a fever that night and was not able to do too much with him.

Still it was great seeing a friend from long ago and seeing how much had change between him and me. The youthful, wide eye lads of yester-years are now older:)

People Paddle 2007

First, a big Thank You for all your support to make my paddling at this year's People Paddle event possible. I have raised a total of $270 for Project Open Hand.

This morning, I got to SF at 8:15am. I was forced to drive as both Bart and Caltrain do not have service that can get me to Pier 40 at 8am. Found a free parking spot across from Delancey Street restaurant, so the day is off to a great start!

I signed in, grab a little breakfast, got my PFD (personal floatation device, not PDF:), listen to last minute paddle and safety instructions and was in the water at about 9:30am.

I had asked for a sit on top kayak, but regret a little this morning. Having taken a self rescue class, I am fully qualified to use a sit inside kayak, which is faster and more manuervable.

We were in formed of a course change due to weather and instead of going from Pier 40 to the Bow and Arrow, we went south toward China Basin (that's where Barry Bonds hits those home run:) and went up the mission creek.

Before the kayak race officially started, we were blessed by the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence". The sisters are 5 drag queens, which definitely gave the whole event a San Francisco feel:)

A funny thing happened on my kayak back from China Basin to Pier 40. A couple in 2 person kayak ran into my kayak twice. The husband, paddling in the front apologise profusedly, saying "We're sorry, but I am not the one steering". That statement did not sit very well with his wife, paddling in the back.

During our trainig, the instructor had specifically told couples in double kayaks to take it easy, saying double kayaks are nicknamed "Divorce boats" for a reason. I hope those 2 make it:)

The entire trip took 2 hours, but with the relatively calm bay water, gorgeous weather, sun shine and cool breeze, it went by very quickly.

I docked at about 12:20pm, had a quick snack, then sat and enjoyed free music outside Java House. There was an award ceremony to honor the person who raise the most funds and the fastest kayaker, presented by the above mentioned "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence".

The entire event ended at about 1pm. Definitely a pleasant way to spend a beautiful spring Sunday morning.

For people whose interest in kayaking are piqued by my description, City Kayak offers this same kayaking trip, plus Bow and Arrow for ~$70.

Here is the SF Sentinel blog posting on the event. I am in the last picture, wearing a blue baseball cap.