18 Miler Thru SF

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The Chicago Marathon is coming up in less than a month.  I ended up doing a 18 mile run by myself today and decided that I want to go to Ocean Beach and get some sea breeze.  I think I forget sometimes that San Francisco is a seaside town.  On a clear day, Ocean Beach is really quite beautiful.  There are tons of surfers braving the cold waves in wetsuits along stretches of the beach.  As you get farther south, Great Highway is closed down and there are just rugged rocks and eroded ground next to the beach.  At one point, I saw a black roundish figure popping out of the water, I followed it as it surfaced a second time, but couldn't make out whether it is a seal, sea lion, or a dolphin.  On my way back, I came across a very strange looking tree.  Not sure why it decided to grow sideways.  Running in San Francisco is pretty amazing.

The strangeness that is America

My cousin from China has been visiting with us this week, a few observations that he made of America include:

1. American are lazy - the boy can't conceive of any reason why one cannot wash his own dishes.
2. Americans live with a lot of technology - from Roomba, to Litter Robot, to 12MB downloads and 3G networks that common households can afford, everything is amazing.
3. American cities are empty - we walked on Mission Street in SF, he says it reminds him of Pengzhou, a small provincial town in China with a population of 700,000.
4. American theme parks are not as amazing as they sound - all the food that we can find there are deep fried and extremely expensive, and the long lines are no fun.
5. Americans are fat - 'nuf said.
6. American girls are hot - those who are not fat, that is.
7. (Some) Americans have crazy healthy lifestyles - he's never heard of anyone who voluntarily runs for 10 miles or ride for 60 miles in hills in China. 
8. Americans buy authentic movies and software - to his knowledge, no one has ever done that in China.