My sister the MD is in town with her family; they're staying over at _____'s temporary apartment near the SF airport. I went over there and arrived a little before noon. I spotted my brother-in-law taking niece #1 for a walk to see the pool. Niece #1 was happy to see me--that's always heart-warming, to see that someone misses you. So of course I spent a lot of time playing with her today. Alas, no chance to take her to the park to go on the slide.
My sister had expressed her wish to get dim sum for lunch--she mentioned Koi Palace, but I told her that the wait might be 2 or 3 hours and she decided it wasn't worth it. We decided to try Fook Yuen in Millbrae instead. KCC's husband also mentioned Koi Palace and Zen Peninsula after the MD's husband asked him for recommendations. We passed by Zen Peninsula on the way to Fook Yuen--the parking lot looked full. I don't know if Zen Peninsula is better than Fook Yuen; I didn't look at the reviews over at Yelp carefully, but my impression was that Fook Yuen is better than Zen Peninsula.
What did I think of Fook Yuen? It's probably better than a lot of dim sum restaurants in the South Bay, especially Milpitas, which has been disappointing as of late. My brother-in-law liked the sai gwai dou and something else... I can't remember which dish. Oh, I think it was the fish dish--not really salt & spicy, since it wasn't spicy... but still decent. The ha gow and siu mai were good, and the gau choi gow were warm. The ladies bringing the food and hot water couldn't help but look at and play with niece #2. Lot of compliments for her nice big eyes, of course. If KK and her husband move to the area (which seems unlikely, because of how high the rent is), no doubt they will be sampling all of the local dim sum restaurants.
They had planned to take niece #1 swimming at the conference center pool. Unfortunately they couldn't get into the pool area, but I don't think the niece missed swimming today. Instead, we were going to walk around at the nearby mall. But my sister had a craving for Krispy Kreme, so we went to the nearest one, which was in Daly City. Alas, they were behind schedule, so there were no original glazed donuts. My sister was thinking of waiting there for a bit, but 15 minutes had elapsed, and still no original glazed donuts--they were still making the filled ones. So she got some of those instead, and whatever else to make a dozen. My sister bought one for me and I'm eating it right now. It's not filled with anything--I'm not sure what it is, since that isn't listed on the menu. Maybe they decided to forgo the filling since so many customers were waiting for fresh donuts. I'm eating that plus drinking cherry Coke. The calories!
By the time we were done with Krispy Kreme, it was dinner time for niece #1, so we went to Red Robin in San Bruno. I ordered a monster burger with a salad instead of the steak fries. The burger was all right... but it's not really worth $10. I think I'd rather go to Taxi's Hamburgers again, instead of In and Out. Still haven't tried Kirk's...
There was a Chuck E. Cheese next door to the Red Robin, but we didn't go there--too busy. We just took a walk over at Tanforan. There's a store there selling discounted Disney items no longer being sold at the Disney stores, but my sister said there was nothing good there, just cheap cr*p. We ended up spending a lot of time at the Target, where they were shopping for toys for the nieces.
How much longer will Americans be able to buy toys made in China from places like WalMart and Target? And how many toys are really necessary? Especially "learning" toys? I don't think children really need "learning" toys, if there is someone at home to spend some time making sure they are learning enough. They won't fall behind without the toys if this is the case at home. The rudiments of learning and literacy are important, but I do think that children should learn at their own pace and according to their talents. A child who can't do much more than read, spell, write, and do basic math at the age of 9 or 10 isn't behind, in my opinion--everything else is just indoctrination through memorization. Many parents evaluate their children's intelligence according to standardized tests and their grades... without questioning what the purpose of an education is. (Asians tend to think that it is whatever allows them to be successful in the world--there's not much of a notion of a liberal education for them.)
What sort of toys do the Amish have? And is the American economy really consumer-driven? What would really happen if Americans started spending less, beyond the numbers? How many people would lose their jobs, and what sort of jobs would be impacted?
Sigh. Gas prices are really high... and I don't think they will be going below $3/gallon any time soon. Driving up to San Bruno and back has been a sacrifice. I did hear some complaints about El Jefe today, and that's understandable.
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