North America | Fotoeins Fotografie

San Francisco: Sam Wo tradition near the close

(Chinatown)

If a place provides repeatedly good reminders of personal cultural heritage through food, my expectation is one of a long-standing nature to the point of being eternal. But human beings are temporal and ephemeral, and this fact of nature must unfortunately extend to human institutions.

At address 713 Clay (near Kearny), Sam Wo (三和)* is a restaurant in San Francisco, operating as one of the oldest restaurants in the city’s Chinatown. The present owners have retired, their adult children are moving on, and the new ownership has put the future of the restaurant in question. The final day of operations is 27 January 2025, only a handful of days before Chinese New Year. Perhaps it’ll be a pause. And perhaps it’ll be gone.

I’d done my research prior to arrival, only to discover within weeks the restaurant would soon be closed. In the remaining weeks surrounding the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, I promised myself at least one visit to Sam Wo each week until the end: that their excellent “wok6 hei3” (鑊氣) is no hindrance but an encouragement. The quality of their “stir fry essence” means every meal is delicious, with every bite and flavour pointing directly to memories of an upbringing raised by immigrant parents from China’s southern province of Canton and a big chunk of time spent walking and eating within Vancouver’s Chinatown in the 1970s and 80s.

I haven’t been here in the Bay Area very long, but in Sam Wo, I found a place a little like home, where I could also polish my rust in Cantonese (廣東話) and Toisan/Hoisan (台山語). I’ll be sad to see them go, and melt away into the annals of San Francisco’s much-storied Chinatown.

* The full name for Sam Wo is 三和粥粉麵, (read here left to right) whose first 2 characters represent “three harmonies” for congee (粥), broad flat rice noodles (粉), and thin egg noodles (麵). Historically, Chinese was written right to left.

The place, the food …

2025 postscript: there are new owners, and the new re-opening is Friday, September 5.

24 for 24: Foto(ein)s in 2024

Above/featured: “Hashtag Wienliebe” (Vienna love), Rathauspark. Photo, 15 Jul 2024 (P15).

2024 has been an interesting year of personal challenge and discovery. A conclusion for the family house provided fresh impetus to inhabit (in the short term) new spaces and places to improve overall health and happiness. In Vienna, I spent a full month for the third consecutive summer. Yes, it was continent hot, but time in the Austrian capital was both glorious and productive as expected. In Calgary is a city I hadn’t visited in many decades, and I witnessed a very happy aunt surrounded by many family members on her centenary year. In California’s Bay Area is a place where I hadn’t set foot in over ten years, but whose daily temperatures and chances of consistent sun offer a higher level of content.

( Click here for images and more )

The strange and familiar (BA11)

(nerding out at SETI)

I hadn’t seen J and J in almost 13 years.

The last time took place in La Serena, Chile at the end of 2011. Not only was it goodbye to Gemini South and Chile after 5 years, I said farewell to astronomy after almost 20 years.

But time is a tricky thing, and the moment had arrived: I had another promise to keep.

Fast forward to 2024, and I’m in the Bay Area. After reaching out a number of weeks ago, it’s wonderful to see them again after many years. They’ve kindly invited me to the SETI Institute where they work. I split from day-to-day science, but science never left, because I’m nerding out in a big way at the home of a big scientific effort: the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

*Cozy wide-open space, to house a number of multidisciplinary scientists to explore and study SETI themes.*

*J&J, whom I met at Gemini, moved onto SOFIA: Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, fitted into a modified Boeing 747SP.*

*Dr. Frank Drake: 1st pres., SETI trustees board.*

*I’m nerding out in a big way: Leonhard Euler, and the famous Euler identity: e^(i•pi) = -1.*

1593: Giordano Bruno suggests possibility of life on other planets; tried & executed for heresy. 1610: Galileo Galilei discovers 4 moons orbiting Jupiter, evidence against geocentric universe; convicted of heresy & sentenced to house arrest.

I have fond memories of seeing this on the big screen. 1997: the movie “Contact” is released with Jodie Foster in the lead role as Dr. Ellie Arroway, based loosely on SETI Institute co-founder Dr. Jill Tarter.

*“To the SETI Institute gang, all my best! Jodie Foster.” (Arecibo)*

*“To the SETI Institute: live long and prosper! Leonard Nimoy.” (Celebrating 40 Years of the Drake Equation)*

*2020: COSMIC SETI installed at the VLA in New Mexico. 2022:* 🇨🇦 *CHIME in operation at SETI Institute’s HCRO in northern California.*

*Model of a segment for the 6.5-metre (21.3-foot) primary mirror of the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope).*

*Meeting room with SETI timeline on the wall.*

*Dr. Frank Drake and his equation to estimate the number of civilizations in our Galaxy.*

I made all photos above with an iPhone15 on 8 Nov 2024 (travel day 11 in the Bay Area). This post composed with Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

Drumheller AB: badlands, dinosaurs, oh my!

(Relatively short drive from Calgary)

In south-central Alberta, a leisurely 1.5 to 2 hour drive northeast from Calgary takes me past trucks, farm equipment, drilling rigs; through undulating hills and open fields of grain.

Population at a touch under 9-thousand, the city straddles the gentle flow of the Red Deer River. I’m led here by the notable attractions, and integrated over a couple of days here, they do not disappoint.