Bay Area | November, 2023
Welcome to my November recap! We start with a wonderful Office of Accountability meeting.
My brother-in-law’s birthday! And a check-in with Tiffany.
Visited the Hoover Institute at Stanford for a special screening of Invisible Nation, an insightful and heartfelt documentary about Taiwan.
Taiwanese America unite! (Photo from Ho Chie).
This was a month of multiple concerts! Beginning with the San Francisco Symphony, which had special exhibits on display in honor of Dia de los Muertos.
And they also had a special gallery for the night’s concert, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition arranged by Ravel. The piece was inspired by Mussorgsky attending a friend’s art exhibit, and in turn, the SF Symphony commissioned local artists to make art inspired by the music. Art inspired by music inspired by art.
At work in Oakland! Thank you to my past clients Patty and David for referring me this wedding! So lovely to see past clients again and again. And then I got to meet up with Alex and Cindy for dinner at Soba Ichi afterwards.
Meeting up with Vince at Sports Basement’s Snowfest and then eating too much at Supreme Pot hotpot afterwards.
Our second time at SFMOMA for Yayoi Kusama’s exhibit! Alex had some meetings right up until our ticketed time, so he took them from the lobby.
Really lovely full-room, almost immersive experience on the sixth floor of SFMOMA: Ragnar Kjartansson’s “The Visitors.” A big group of musician friends perform in a big historic mansion in Upstate New York, and it’s somehow incredibly mesmerizing for the whole hour it takes up. Really loved it, would highly recommend.
Then it was time for our two minutes per room in the Kusama Infinite Love rooms. We got to go in wthout anyone else, which was fun!
Running amok in this strange and wonderful world.
We got to host our friends Jon & Pei for a couple days! I took them to Cafe Okawari, my favorite katsu place. But I got a fruit sando, haha.
Sisters Pei-Chee & Pei-Lynn!
Friends for 20-some years, we are old.
Dinner at a Mano.
Examining Pei’s tiny water bottle, holds only a cup of water, haha. And Jon and Pei’s custom-designed hotpot rings! Incredible.
Afterwards, Alex and I went to The National’s concert at the Bill Graham Auditorium. I realized I don’t know any of their songs… I only know the one record that I own, haha, sad.
Oh yes, the strangest week of the month? Year? We were dog sitting for our friends, so we had this very cute and very sweet Shiba Inu for a week, and it also happened to be APEC, the week half of San Francisco completely shut down in order to host a bunch of world leaders. And as mentioned, we were hosting friends from LA as well. All a strange and interesting confluence of unusual events.
We invited a bunch of our TAF friends to meet up at Benchmark Climbing in Berkeley, which is co-owned by TAFers and their friends. The majority of this group is actually visiting from LA, and us Bay Area folks are in the minority, haha.
Cheeseboard AND Chinese delivery? It’s a feast.
More friends! So wonderful to see everyone.
Back with our dog-for-the-week!
I provided this eclectic tea & snacks spread for breakfast.
Lunch at Gott’s in the Ferry Building.
And a walk over to Andytown in Salesforce Park. Most underrated park in San Francisco!
And then we wandered into these barricades being erected for APEC. So, so strange. They shut down a lot of SOMA and downtown for the whole week.
Fried chicken with a side of strange police state vibes.
Mahjong, always!
Of course we had to get hotpot at some point with these two!
Venturing in to downtown with our temporary dog. The lights show was for APEC too.
Trying new sourdough donuts, and bringing the pup back to visit his actual dad!
Check in with the girls.
A bread project and a croissant-dog.
Made some black sesame buns and milk bread rolls based on Kristina Cho’s recipes from Mooncakes and Milk Bread.
For Friendsgiving!
So lovely to celebrate the holidays with our growing accountability family.
Behind the scenes of the previous photo, haha.
Secret Santa!
I got Cassie this panda bag…
…containing the tiiiiiniest mahjong set inside, hahaha.
Ms. Lauryn Hill & The Fugees at Chase Center! 25 years since the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and 27 since The Score by the Fugees. Legend.
Much had been written about Lauryn Hill’s unreliability showing up for concerts on tour… either 4 hours late or sometimes with last-minute cancellations. I’m happy to report that she showed up to ours!! And gave us an incredible show. Truly unforgettable.
25 years since the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. And such a treat to watch these three reunite, with Wyclef and Pras’ singles thrown in there too, Gone til November; Ghetto Superstar. What a show. Grateful to have seen it. (And the rest of the tour got cancelled too, so seems like we were extra lucky).
Wedding day! Behind the scenes with my team drying off my freshly foraged flowers from outside in the rain. And with my wonderful couple!
And then we were honeymoon-bound! Funny scoop-shaped utensils and mediocre airplane meals…
and a layover in Germany, and were off on our travels for the rest of the month!
Coming up next: honeymoon adventures!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
