Gearing Up for the City

In order to begin acclimating to metropolitan life we decided to take a preliminary jaunt to Japan - Japan Town in SF.  We checked into our Japanese style high-rise accommodations and enjoyed a complimentary pot of Dream Mountain White Cloud tea while viewing the cityscape from our balcony.  

As everyone knows, an all important part of gearing up for travel to a new locale

 is tempering one's taste buds to a wider variety of flavor sensations.  In anticipation of the east coast palate we obligated ourselves to an outstanding meal at the french california fusion restaurant, bushi-tei.  We "fork sliced"

our way through seared tuna with rock shrimp risotto and authentic, Japanese kobe beef, then polished off the evening with my new favorite dessert, black sesame blancmange' with a coconut reduction.  A truly succulent, earthy-sweet delight.      

Breakfast followed suit with taiyaki - fish shaped waffles filled with red bean 

paste.

 

After a morning of tanking up and chowing down, we put the pedal to the metal and headed over for a  blissfully scenic hike in Muir Woods, to keep our inner Country Mice happy.