Meeting My American Parents (2005-11-11)
Sunday morning, I saw a sea lion dipping its head in and out the water near the shore right across our room as I looked out the window. How many times do you see a marine mammal so close from your hotel window? It was surely a treat for us.
KL and I waited eagerly for my American parents in the lobby around
11 am. KL spotted my dad first and I went to surprise him as he
was making a call from the hotel phone to my room. My dad turned
around, saw me and immediately gave me a big warm hug. He wore
the widest grin on his face I had ever seen, it was a touching
moment. As we walked over to the lounge where KL was sitting, my
mom, their daughter, Carolynn and my mom's sister from Alaska, Patrice,
whom I met for the
first time that day joined us. My parents like to talk about the
past and that's exactly what they did standing around the sofa for the
next 20 minutes before realizing it was time to leave the hotel.
My dad asked us what we wanted to do or where we wanted to go.
We'd been to San Francisco many times, there's no place we hadn't
seen. Besides, the purpose of that day was to see them, not
sightsee, so we just let them take us anywhere they wanted. But
KL did want to try the clam chowder in Fisherman's
Wharf that we passed up on Friday with Rick and Shirley because we were
too full from lunch. So we all hopped into Carolynn's big van and
headed
toward the famous pier. Dad
parked the van while mom, KL and I ran to get bowls of clam chowder for
everyone. We ate it in the van and it was good stuff
indeed. KL was impressed.
Then we were off to more sightseeing. Dad drove us around
Presidio, stopped at an abandoned military base and a cemetery.
He explained to us the history of various San Francisco
landmarks. This man had amassed so much information in his head
it was
scary. About 2 pm we stopped at the top of a hill and had
ourselves a picnic lunch prepared by mom. It was mostly healthy
food and quite delicious. All the drinks in the ice box were diet
too. Californians!
After lunch, dad resumed driving and stopped along the way to take
pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge at vantage points. In late
afternoon, dad took us to the top of Twin Peaks, the same spot he took
me in 1983 after picking me up from the hotel as their first Chinese
exchange student. This time KL was standing beside me, dad had a
lot more gray hair, mom was skinnier, Carolynn was a mother of two
and Patrice was with us. Same place, same people (plus a few
more), and each would have a couple more stories to tell after
today.
At about 6 pm we were back to our hotel. It was time to say
goodbye
and it was hard. The hours spent with them went in a blink, we
must have had fun. After they left, KL and I took a stroll on the
jogging path before
heading back to our room. We were going to order room service for
dinner but we came across a restaurant during our walk which looked
pretty appealing, so we decided to eat there.
A great meal (although KL would
dispute that) finished off a great day. Tomorrow we would go to
Birmingham to
visit KL's "American parents". The first leg of our journey was
all but over.
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