In San Francisco

I arrived in Oakland International Airport this afternoon and took the AirBART shuttle to the Oakland Coliseum station in order to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train to the Powell Street Station. The train was definitely not as user friendly as the trains in Japan. For example, there are no screens in the cars to tell you what the next stop will be and the announcements are said too quickly with poor enunciation. Maybe it was because I got use to them, but the announcements on the trains and busses in Japan were much easier to understand.

The hotel I'm staying at is the Grand Hyatt San Francisco which is next to Union Square. It's a couple of blocks from the Powell Street BART station whose Stockton Street exit is right next to the Apple Store. It's also a couple of blocks from Chinatown.

After checking into the hotel, I walked about 1.25 miles to Nihonmachi (also known as Japantown). I found a Japanese sweets store which sold the exact same box of sweets which I brought back from Japan. It was a bit more expensive here ($14 vs 1000 yen). I ended up buying one box of green tea flavored assorted sweets (Ocha no Tsudoi) and another box of a single type of green tea flavored sweet (Maccha Komichi) which looked interesting since the outer shell is transparent. I also bought a DVD (Battle Royale 2). Since it was around dinner time, I decided to eat at one of the restaurants in the main mall. Just like in Japan, most of the restaurants had wax models in the windows. Upon entering you are greeted with the standard Japanese greeting (Irasshaimase!). Unlike in Japan, the waitresses obviously speak English as well. I ended up ordering some shabu-shabu since I did not get a chance to eat that in Japan.

On the way back to the hotel, I made a detour and walked around the financial district and a small bit of Chinatown.

BTW, internet in the room is $9.95 for 24 hours. Hopefully Vanderbilt will reimburse me for it.