To China, Japan, Vietnam and back... Well Almost :)

For our last assignment in eths 210 we were told to go visit three Asian American destinations. We were told that we could go to restaurants, shops, museums, and what not. We decided we would visit all of the little versions of Asian countries that we could find in the city: Chinatown, Japan town, and Little Saigon.

We first arrived at Chinatown. Me, Amanda, and Kim checked out some shops while we waited for the rest of our group. Once we all got together we walked around a bit more looking at all the restaurants and shops. although i've never been outside of this country before, Chinatown gives you a feel of what the real china would feel like, even how crowded it can get. You get a sense of Chinese culture when you’re there, although I know that for those who have been to china, they’ll probably say it’s nothing like that.

Our next destination was japan town. Japan town was much more quiet and not as crowded as Chinatown. Once again we walked around looking at all the shops and all of the cute trinkets in the stores. Me and kim got crepes. Japantown gives you a sense of modernization. Everything is very clean and simple. Me, Julie, Dolly, and Angel went to Sanrio. sanrio is like a link from the asian world to the American world. Hello kitty has become an icon in America for most young American girls asian or not. We all walked around a bit and went into different stores. We walked into this one place that had all of these picture booths. Japan has a niche for coming up with cute things.

Our final destination was little Saigon. We didn’t spend too much time there because lots of us needed to go somewhere after our little outing. We ended up at lee’s sandwich shop where dolly and josh got food. We took a couple of pictures but little Saigon wasn’t as extravagant as Chinatown or japantown. It almost looked like just a block with lots of Vietnamese restaurants.

Out of all of these venues, I would have to say I enjoyed japantown the most. And although our adventure into the city was to visit these little versions of asian countries, living in daly city makes me feel like I’m in one of those already. Afterall, a lot of people say that daly city is a little manila. Or maybe it’s just a little asia. Although our outing was a bit short, I had some fun. It was a good day.

-Donna