YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A CHICKEN BUN

Up Sacramento Street to Jones, then left and over to Jackson across the crest of the hill. Down Jackson to Taylor, then left again, past Pacific, to Broadway. I had filled my pipe with matured Virginia at Jones and Jackson as a cablecar rolled by. It was singing by the time I hit Broadway.

While nevertheless aware of my surroundings I couldn't get the Chinese girl with the elegant head and fluttery little hands out of my mind. I had seen her earlier, and other than her youth what had particularly struck me was the intelligence in her face. Here was a person whose mind, one knew, just had to be utterly alive.

Some people even when fully awake look wide asleep, and others have an air of good-natured blitheriness about them. This girl, however, probably solved complex problems while slumbering, and no doubt had interesting dreams. Not a classically beautiful face, but one that radiated gorgeous brilliance. Small, delicate, and still so young. A teenager.

Precisely the kind of person one would wish for a daughter.
Her parents must know that she is precious.
And neat-o to her friends.


EIGHT CABLECARS

After pausing for a while on the steps of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, which is near the Lady Shaw Senior Center (邵逸夫爵士夫人耆英中心) at Broadway and Mason, I headed over to Jackson Street and waited for a cablecar back across the hill. I had finished my pipe by that time, and was no longer abstracted. On a pleasant Spring day, this city is truly gorgeous. All the colours and hues are at their modulated best, and the humidity intensifies the painterliness of the visuals in the middle distance.

Tourists have no clue how to move, and occupy more space than natives. No doubt they come from somewhere wide open, with miles upon miles of Kansas veld between them and other humans. Either that or the vast empty steppes of Hungary and Bohemia; everything is their personal space.
I got off at Leavenworth, just to get away from them.

It's a very pleasant stroll down to Hyde, up past a building on the corner of Washington where two vehicles were being towed ("no parking between 7 A.M and 7 P.M" - for the benefit of a moving van which had reserved the street side), then crossing to the First Chinese Southern Baptist Church (第一華人美南浸信會) at Clay, and down to Sacramento again.


Totally forgot to have lunch! Which was the point of the entire exercise.
Maybe I need to load up another pipe and head back.

Let me think about that for a while.


Noodles. Or a chicken bun.
河粉湯，或者一箇雞飽。



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