A gay, female, Scottish, Buddhist Monk

Or...my love is like a red, red rose....(we'll get to that later)

Another voice to be heard from and this is Max(ine), the female side of the Tucker contingent. Notice that the change in font and color reflects the womanly necessity for visual and tactile embellishment. (Also evidenced by too many paranthetical asides) This will be your clue as to which Tucker is speaking to you today. An interesting experiment in the way in which the sexes view the same scenario. But I digress.

San Francisco is a box of chocolate cremes....you don't know what you are going to find until you squeeze the outside a little. The variety of experiences to be had in this city is immense and delicious. Our first full day in San Fran was a gluttonous event. After the painful need to be patient in the Airport Zone, we were anxious to get out and walk the streets and just let things happen. Here's a quick overview.

Walk to Japantown from the Queen Anne hotel and stroll through the Japan City Mall. It was too early for the shops to be open, but then again we were functioning on East coast time and couldn't wait any longer. ("Jet-lag-space-cadets" will be a recurring theme on this trip around the globe) How wonderful to feel like one is in Tokyo again. All the restaurants display the plastic food version of their menus in a case outside their entrance. Each one is small piece of artwork, though not very palatable looking. Still they try for honesty and full disclosure! The Japanese sense of design and balance is attempted everywhere. The tables at the food court/coffee/tea shop area seem to be arranged by some kind of fen shui agreement that one could only enter the area safely in a path far away from the counter, approaching it from a circuitous route. We choose to come back later for Shrimp Tempura and a Sakora beer.

We walk about fifteen blocks of Filmore. It takes us two blocks to realize that there are brass stars imbedded in the sidewalks denoting the famous musicians and promoters of the "Bop" era during the heyday of the nightclubs and halls in this part of town. Very cool. (Al Jarreau was there.) This is apparently a street to avoid in the wee hours of the morning, but at 9 a.m. it is a palette of characters from every nation, every class and every dress code.

Take Grove up to Alamo Square. Voila, the Seven Sisters that are famous for being in every travel ad for the city. The birthday cake contest of house painting begins here. Perched at 45 degree angles to the "valley", these Victorian homes are a seemingly endless parade of the need to flaunt as may bright colors as their gingerbread architecture can handle. I want to know how it feels to live in a home that is five stories high on one end and three on the other. Escher would have a field day with that floor plan!

Another four or five blocks gets us to Haight, home of the hippy generation. The shops are as eclectic and alternative as you would expect and it is obvious that the neighborhood is hanging on to its history as the Psychodelic Rapture. Walls adorned with murals in primary colors, head shops, sex toys and the music stores. It's a long and interesting walk to Golden Gate Park. And an even longer walk through the park to get to the Japanese Tea Garden. (it didn't look that far on the map!)

The Japanese Tea Garden is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. It rivals the Chinese garden in Vancouver's Chinatown. This is not a large area by most standards, but that is what makes it such a treat. You are not feeling hurried to get it all in and so you take the time to relish the gorgeous design and balance in this work of art and love. Take tea. Stop and smell the junipers. Notice that alot of what makes this design "work" is the painting of different types of stone and mulch underneath and between the plants. Pretend that you are floating among the rhododendrens in a kimono. Or maybe not.

Walk out of the park and calculate that you have just about clocked your 7 mile mark. Take a cab back to Japantown for that well earned lunch. Everything is abuzz at the mall now! It is always enjoyable for me to be in a situation where I am definitely the minority unit. If one feels safe, it is interesting to be stared at as the exotic feature in the landscape. You get to feeling like you are really an interesting person! This is mere practice for India and Morocco.

It is early evening by the time we return to the hotel. What to do. What to do. Well, it makes perfect sense to celebrate Robbie Burns Night at the Edinburgh Pub in the Vietnamese district of town. This is the Scottish tradition of "blessing the Haggis" and reading Robert Burns poems in public. We arrive at seven, an hour early, in order to get a pub dinner. This is the menu: 3 pieces of fish and chips, 2 pieces of fish and chips, 1 piece of fish and chips, and just chips. We select our favorite and enjoy it, delivered in a wrap of newspaper, at the bar. It is a dark and seedy Scottish style pub. Men in kilts arrive. Some of them are young and upwardly mobile, while other are bearded, sotted and on a downward trend. The owner of the pub gets up and says a few words in a Glaswegian accent that would have been impossible to understand if I hadn't had the practice of listening to Tucker's family. We are treated to a little bagpipe music. Then the star of the evening is introduced. She is an old friend of the pub crowd that has returned for just this special evening and will be reading the final words. She had a shaved head and has been spending her time in a monastery becoming a Buddhist monk. And she is obviously gay. And she has a thick Scottish brogue. This is the nougat with a cherry in the middle and coated in semi-sweet chocolate.