| | Work has definitely steadied out; there's still the occasional drama between group members, but that happens anywhere you go. Still though, it's tough to get caught in between and have to listen to both sides, particularly when neither side is right OR wrong. But, that's human nature.
Thursday I arranged for a very gooky kind of event; I rounded up my Korean friends Kelley and Steve (yes, another Korean named Steve) and headed to the Asian Art Museum in downtown. The exhibits were pretty cool, and it was amazing to see how some of the pieces still looked well-preserved after almost 2,000 years! The sad part, however, was the Korean exhibition, with very primitive-looking pottery and very recently-made hamboks. Interestingly, a large gap existed from around 1600-1900 for all the collections, regardless of country.
After the show we decided to go to a Thai restaurant for dinner. The place looked like one of those froo-froo shi-shi places that I hate with all the neon lighting, all-black modern (and uncomfortable) furniture, square plates, and thumping house music. We ordered four dishes and surprisingly, all four were very good. In particular, the chicken tom yum and the bean paste noodles were excellent. I'd definitely hit that place up again.
Friday after work I came home pretty beat. Throughout the day, however, I had sent out emails, voicemails, and txt messages to the various friends I had, hoping to get some hangout time somewhere in the city. At some point I'm going to create a graph and figure out how I met all these people. As it turned out, however, I didn't get any holla backs from any of the lady friends I had tried to contact: Kelley, Mina, Katie, Rachel, and Angella. I was batting 0-5 and it was looking grim. The night turned out to be pretty chill; my roommate Ryan and I went down to our local pub and sucked down a few beers at The Bitter End while conversing over life's mysteries. We then headed over to The 540 Club, another local dive bar across the street. It's a pretty cool and chill place with a very hot bartender! The clientele, though ... well, you've heard my rants about the city.
Saturday was full of excitement. One of my soccer teams had the end-of-the-season playoff tournament at 1:30. My team finished 2nd overall, so we played the 3rd place team while the 1st and 4th place teams clashed. We handled the 3rd place team with surprising ease, sending them packing with a 5-2 win. The 4th place team, however, defeated the 1st place team, but the 1st place team continually complained to the referee about their overly physical play. Well, they were right; when we played them we noticed they were extremely physical, to the point of being dirty. They had several fouls called on them and even had a player yellow-carded. Through sheer luck they managed to go up 2-0 on 2 straight own goal deflections off of free kicks. Well, we fought back and eventually were only down 3-2 at the half. Unfortunately, the second half brought more of the same as they scored on yet ANOTHER own goal deflection, putting us down 4-2 with about 15 minutes remaining. We scrapped and scrapped and eventually pulled level with about 4 minutes left. They were getting tired, and we used that to our advantage when we sprung a counterattack on them with our two speediest players working a beautiful give-and-go. One of our better players, Andy, got the return ball and about 25 yards out faced a 1-v-1 with the opposing keeper. He feinted one way and the keeper fell for it - literally! With the keeper on the ground Andy fired home the winner to put us up 5-4. We struggled mightily with their desperate attempts to equalize, but time finally expired and we were crowned champions!
Around 5 I got a message from Angella, who said she was free to hang out. I knew Kent and some of his friends were going to a Jazz club called Shanghai 1930 so I invited her out. Around 10pm Kent and I picked her up from her place in Nob Hill and headed to the club. Inside we met up with a few of Kent's friends, this guy Kenny, his gf, and two of her female friends. We chatted for a bit, and since everyone there was Chinese but me I had to resort to my faux-Chinese in order to stay in the conversation. Angella actually remarked that she was scared that I actually spoke some decent Chinese. Hao-le!
After sitting down at a table Kenny's boss from work came up and bought us two bottles of champagne. Then he asked us to their special cigar room where he shared two Cuban cigars and a bottle of single malt, 18 year-old McCallum scotch. He really knew how to take care of people, and believe it or not, he didn't ask for a dime in return. He just said, "Hey, are you having a good time? Good." I guess it's good to have money. Lots of money, considering the Cuban cigars were $150 each and the scotch was a couple hundred bucks!
We left the Shanghai and headed towards the Mission. We ended up at a really crammed dive called "Beauty Bar" whose claim to fame was an on-site manicurist. I guess it's important to get your nails done while you're getting sloshed. The place was tiny and absolutely packed, so after a round we decided to head to my favorite place, Medjool. We got there right as they were kicking people out, but somehow Kenny convinced the bouncer to let us in. Afterwards we headed to Taqueria Cancun for Mexican food. All in all a pretty good night.
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| | Posted 8/27/2006 10:54 PM - 25 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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