Return to the Bay Area

Fifteen years ago my family moved from a cozy neighborhood on the San Francisco coast to my grandma's house in Honolulu. I had spent eight wonderful years growing up in the Bay Area.

In San Francisco, my family lived in a neighborhood called Seacliff where the majority of kids were Jewish. We played warball and rode BMX bikes up and down the block. During the holidays I sang the Dreidel Song and added "menorah" to my wish list for Santa.

I was kind of an odd child. I used to wear Converse sneakers -- one pink shoe and one blue shoe, both with green shoelaces. I was also a Girl Scout. Some of my most memorable (and mortifying) memories are from Troop 214:

1) The night I dressed up as a cowgirl and line danced to Elvira with my friend Karen.
2) The field trip to Angel Island when I dismissed warning signs and crept along the concrete perimeter of the island only to walk into a protruding pole, cut my head, and fall into the ocean.
3) The Halloween I got Poison Oak all over my skin, and my mom sent me to school dressed as "oatmeal." (If I was punny back then, I was have called myself "Oakmeal.")

All of these memories gently resurfaced on our recent family trip to San Francisco. I could go on forever with childhood nostalgia, but really, there's a lengthy queue of pictures to slog through. Enjoy!

Instead of a hotel, my family opted for a week-long house rental across of Golden Gate Park. We stayed in a creeky, 102-year-old Victorian-style house, which seemed spooky and dilapidated on first impression, but truly grew on me during our stay.

Memory lane starts here:

I spent K-5 at Alamo Elementary School.

Our first home on 31st Ave, in front of which I learned to ride a bike.

Our second home on 32nd Ave, which looks NOTHING like we left it. (New owners over the years added shingles, removed the stairs leading up to the front door and remodeled the cellar, where I used to imagine gold miners bunked.)

Walking to "Land's End," a scenic viewpoint a block away from our old house.

At "Land's End," a trail overlooking Baker and China Beach, with scenic views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

China Beach, where I used to pluck seaweed pods from the sand and whip them back into the ocean like boomerangs.

At Cliff House, overlooking a rock patrolled by seagulls.

My parents used to buy all of our family's birthday cakes at Schubert's Bakery on Clement Street. (The shop is exactly as I remember it, although I think I see it from a slightly taller angle now.)

My parents are book worms, so we spent a lot of time at Green Apple Book Store, where my book of choice used to be The Bernstein Bears. (I read the entire series.)

Toy Boat Dessert Cafe! I don't remember anything but its name.

[David and I after a few glasses of wine, and on our way to Mel's Diner.]

We used to go to Mel's pretty often. I still love the Juke box!

The following sequence of pics are not part of my nostalgic trip down memory lane; however, they fall within my "fun signs in Chinatown" collection.

On our last day in S.F., we went to the new (at least to us) Farmers Market in Embarcadero. After a few days of fog and gray skies, we finally saw sun! It was a gorgeous day!

The famous "painted ladies" on Fulton Street. (Recognize it from the Full House title sequence?)

For the full album, check out my Picasa web album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lizfong/SanFrancisco

New York City and Fong Family Fun

My New York trip was a combination of business and pleasure. I worked for a few days, then spent a few days frolicking in Fong Family Fun!

Thanks to work, my family and I stayed at Le Parker Meridien, which was much too posh for the Fantastically Frugal Fong Family. Lined with ceiling-high mirrors, the walls of the lobby reflected a seemingly spacious area. Unfortunately, the grandeur of the space proved more maze-like than a-mazing, as both my mom and I walked into a mirror merely trying to maneuver toward the elevator. Tricky, tricky, these posh hotels....

This year, I was fortunate enough to invite my family to the NBA Draft. My dad and brother are Frothing Fong Sports Fanatics, so it was rewarding to share the experience with them.




For those of you who've watched an NBA Draft on television, you know how slow and monotonous it can be. The highlight for most folks is the first few picks, or their team's picks. What you may not necessarily see or appreciate on TV is the behind-the-scenes action -- the inebriated riff raff in the audience screaming profanity with each trade as half-masticated beef hangs from their mouths, the crazy ladies stuffed into prom dresses waving their arms and jiggling their junk as they try to get on camera, ESPN broadcaster Stewart Scott snacking on a Subway sandwich in between his live interviews with the Draftees then sneaking it under his desk as soon as the camera turns on, Charles Barkley rolling his eyes and yawning as he slouches in his TNT seat next to Kenny, Ernie and Magic. To me, these were the highlights. Everything else I could have caught on Sports Center the next day.

[Commissioner Stern with Kevin Durant.]

After the Draft, David and I said goodbye to our parents and headed out for dinner/dancing with some of my coworkers. We went to Son Cubano in the meat-packing district to eat some Cuban food, drink mojitos and salsa dance! (It was here where I learned that my brother can absolutely NOT dance. BUT he tried very hard, so I was quite proud of him.) :)

[ Jocelyn and Denise trying to coach my brother on how to move his feet.]

[Another fun drunk picture in the elevator. (This is right before we tiptoed into the suite where our parents were sound asleep.)]

The next day, I checked out of Le Parker Meridien since the Draft was over and my meetings were done. We then caught a Crazy Taxi across town to Soho, where the Fantastically Frugal Fong Family checked into a hotel that was more our style....The Holiday Inn - Chinatown!

For dessert we went to a fantastic place in Greenwich Village with my calabash aunt and uncle, Barb and Arthur (grad school buddy of my dad's).

[Breakfast soufle at some yummy French place.]

[Italian ice in Little Italy.]

Here starts my sequence of Chinatown pictures. Don't ask me why, but I have a special and unique liking to all things Chinatown, no matter how meaningless and odd. Maybe it's because everyone feels like family, or because I appreciate the art of bargaining down street vendors, or maybe just because there's a greater chance of seeing "FONG" wherever I go. Whatever the reason, Chinatown piqued my photography senses, as you can tell from the number of ridiculous, random pictures I took.

My lovable Bostonian dad wearing a "Ho Da Choke" t-shirt. The day he can pull off saying "Ho da choke," in a true pidgin accent will be the day I stop making fun of Chinese signs.
NEVER!!!

For more Fong Family Fun pics, check out my Picasa web album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lizfong/NewYorkCity

NBA All-Star 2007 - Las Vegas

Imagine nine days in Las Vegas. Bright lights, big city. Now throw in a few hundred skantily clad girls and basketball players, and you've got NBA All-Star 2007.

It's difficult to describe the NBA All-Star experience in the city of sin. Forgive me if I piggyback off the words of another All-Star survivor, but I'm still speechless.

Bill Simmons sums it up well:

"LAS VEGAS -- Remember those parties in college when a drunk guy inadvertently kicked over the host's bong and spilled bong water onto the rug, only he never cleaned up the resulting mess, so the skunky water festered while the host of the party was passed out? And then, the following morning, the host awakened to a room that smelled like a cross between a stale bong and the seventh circle of hell?

That's what downtown Las Vegas smelled like on Sunday night. After four nights of what will eventually be remembered as the Hip-Hop Woodstock, the atrociously sloppy NBA All-Star Game made complete sense. You can't blame the groggy players for shattering the record of "Most Botched Alley-Oop Passes in a Single Exhibition Game." They were still battling a severe retroactive contact high. Hell, I'm battling it right now. The original text of the previous sentence looked like this: "Wrhrhrh jdkdlehj fgfjslelfhfhf sgfhgfkdldhjsd fjg agshshsk ahdjdkdksh Contact High."

What a strange weekend. There was gambling and partying and Vegas and basketball -- four of my favorite things -- with a fashion convention and Chinese New Year happening as well, which meant Vegas was throwing three blockbuster weekends at once. There were so many big-time celebrities in town, a rumored Michael Jackson cameo came and went without a single shrug. So many parties happened that it was impossible to keep track of everything. Unfortunately, the stifling gridlock made it impossible to hit multiple events in one night unless you could afford a limo or helicopter (or were robbing someone who could afford a limo or helicopter). So many gangbangers and troublemakers flooded the Strip that late-night gamblers willingly chose 75-minute cab lines over a 15-minute walk to their next casino. So many wild stories floated around about shootings, robberies and everything else that we never knew what to believe; still, every tale seemed reasonable because there were no cops to be seen. On Saturday night, one of my friends even joked that the city might have to declare martial law, only none of us laughed because we didn't realize he was joking.

I'm telling you, this was a f***ing free-for-all. This was every man for himself. This was Hunter S. Thompson's dream sports weekend. This was Vegas on steroids. This was Vegas' impression of Barry Bonds during spring training in 1998, only if he reeked like stale bong water. And now that it's over, I'm relieved that we finished the weekend without a single riot, that I made it home alive, that I'm still married, that I still have my wallet, that I spent 15 hours playing blackjack in each of four consecutive days and escaped dead-even, that I'm coherent enough to write with the stale smell of weed still trapped in my nostril hairs and my body battling the effects of 72 hours without a single REM cycle. Say what you want about the Hip-Hop Woodstock, but it was definitely memorable. Then again, so is an appendectomy."

For the full article: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070220




At the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge & Youth Jam where we brought in 6,000 kids to watch the game from the best seats in the house.

At the Mind of D-Wade, T-Mobile's acticvation space at NBA Jam Session.

The largest sports wallscape ever.

These few pics don't do the nine days I spent in Las Vegas justice. I went to more dinners and war rooms and games and events and parties and clubs than I care to remember. I averaged 4-5 hours of sleep each night, mainly because I worked 16 hour days, then blew off steam by staying out all night. I've never had more hotel food or coffee in my life. This was worse than cramming for that make-or-break final exam in college, worse than those all-nighters writing papers; this was a marathon exercise in endurance and will-power, and it was memorable to say the least.

That is, of course, except for the NBA All-Star game. I couldn't tell you what I thought of the All-Star game, because I was lulled into slumber by the dull sighs of the hungover crowd and lackluster showcase of athleticism...(those fumbling, tripping fools...). Another sportswriter summed up the All Star game as, "Finally a reason for the weary city to yawn." HEAR HEAR!

Hopefully these small specks of detail I'm flicking your way help paint the full picture of how truly f-ed up the entire city got during this long weekend. I'm purposely leaving out the pictures of those sleepless, stressful days and nights. No one wants to see a cranky, overworked, partied out team of disgruntled, exhausted, All-Star survivors. Besides.....what happens at NBA All-Star in Las Vegas, stays at NBA All-Star in Las Vegas.

GO BIG OR GO HOME!