The Fat Kiwi is blue.... and Chinatown contains strange things

Today we finished painting the last of the Fat Kiwi, just before the last cans of spraypaint ran out.

Here we are:




So now the doors are on, the door handles are on, and the doors and the rest of the cabin are painted. Happiness.

We also visited Chinatown this morning, so I could buy cherries (currently in seaon and the focus of some sort of frenzy every day at the grocery stores in Chinatown. At 59-89c per pound, compared to the usual price of $2-$4 per pound in the supermarkets, I guess I can see why). The shopkeeper at each store (usually an old lady) stands, unpeturbed, in the middle of the mass of hands grabbing at cherries, dealing out large handfuls into a bag for you. She will never let you pick your own; possibly to avoid all the old ladies "cherry-picking" the best ones only. I see them doing it. Or possibly just since I'm an intruder in this strange world, and apparently she thinks I don't know any better.



We visited lots of really interesting shops. I got yelled at by the shopkeepers in most of them for taking pictures of the live and not-so-live animals.... I am so glad I'm a vegetarian, it still makes me sad to see it all.



This was a very angry turtle. It had a strange pointed snout, webbed feet and large claws. It looked up at me both entreatingly and menacing as it tried to climb out of its bucket.



The fish on the far right, closest to the man's gloved hand, was just out of the water. It flapped around. People were choosing which one they wanted.





Brendan bought eggs at a small shop called "Neverending Quail" behind the fish shop. It mostly consisted of a whole lot of chickens and quail in cages in a small room, with a tiny area for the shopkeeper to stand in front to sell the eggs, and enough space for two people to stand in line. The room also included a very angry, quacking duck in a small cage.

The chickens looked curiously at me. The quail were unimpressed, mostly since I stuck a bright camera flash in their faces. Sorry, little quail.





I think these ones were Californian female quail.

As we were leaving, I found the frogs (and was severely yelled at, but not in English - maybe they thought I was from PETA):



Yesterday and today the North Beach Festival has been pumping out loud music and loud drunk boys, essentially a wine and food festival. Apparently it's the oldest street festival in the US, and includes pizza tossing.

I checked out the aftermath last night in North Beach, but there wasn't really much to see beside drunk yuppies, girls in tiny dresses and heels on a freezing cold day, and empty white tents along the street. The traffic was atrocious though, worse than Monday-morning levels! I walked home from North Beach rather than endure bumper-to-bumper traffic on the bus for the length of Chinatown.



Today we watched many people try to park in the too-small parking space in front of the Fat Kiwi. (We did tell them not to park there - we're not sadistic.) Yesterday Brendan saw two tickets and one tow happen on that spot!