Sunday was New Year’s Eve day. Alex, James, Diamond, Dr. Kim (Diamond’s dad) and I took the bus down to Chinatown, and that was interesting. San Francisco’s Chinatown is very old and sprawling. From the age and density of everything, I felt like I was in Hong Kong, even though I don’t know what Hong Kong is really like. I need to do something about that, but I digress. I talked to Dr. Kim about various Chinese and Vietnamese foods. I picked up ingredients for making the famous Thom family dumplings, my treat to the group for hosting us in San Francisco.

We walked from Chinatown to Union Square, which is a kind of touristy shopping district in the centre of town.

Incidentally, I saw that car a few days later, also in Union Square. I guess if you have a great car, the best thing to do is to drive laps around Union Square to make sure every tourist has a photo of it.

For dinner I made a pot of osso bucco, which is an Italian veal shank recipe served over egg noodles. For some reason I don’t have a picture.

New Year’s Eve was pretty subdued, actually. We took the bus to a party, which turned out to be kind of quiet, and then took a bus back to Alex and Diamond’s. We were actually on the bus when the clock struck midnight. When we got back, we celebrated by drinking champagne and eating BBQ pork, chicken, and duck that I’d picked up in Chinatown earlier in the day.