#007 12/04/1999
For Your Eyes Only
This story is "For Your Eyes Only"!
The name is Woo...Stephen Woo.
This is a story that I wanted to write in order to use the title from the latest James
Bond movie "The World Is Not Enough." ( www.jamesbond.com/bond19/home.html )
Since Theresa did not want me to get a "License to Kill"
by going to a pistol shooting range, instead we had a fun time visiting some friends and
did some Christmas shopping. It was 12-hours of mission impossible of navigating through
traffic, finding the right places, finding parking, locating the right items to buy,
finding salesmen and cashiers to help us, etc. Instead of a martini--shaken and not
stirred--read the story to find out what we drank :-)
We first met Mary and Craig for lunch at a restaurant in Palo Alto. I
don't usually come to Palo Alto, but this was the third consecutive day that I came to
Palo Alto since the last two evenings I went to two great Stanford Women Volleyball Games
(Click here for the previous story). At St. Michael's Alley
(806 Emerson St, Palo Alto, CA 94301 (605) 326-2530), I had a great Florentine spinach egg
dish and a nice pot of hot tea--I figure tea is very appropriate for a British secret
agent :-). Here is a photo collage.
We then went to Stanford Shopping Mall, which is one of our favorites. The
crowd was amazing. It took us a while to find a parking space. There were a number of
shops that we like around here. One is particular is Smith and Hawken ( http://www.smith-hawken.com/home.jhtml
). There was an exotic array of items. Theresa was especially impressed by their bulb
collection and also their orchid collection.
Later when I was buying a Christmas gift,
"Q" even handed me a small secret wooden box and told me to be careful with it.
:-) (Of course I cannot reveal the content in case Theresa is reading this WEB page--click
on the image to find out what's inside!)
Don't tell Rondo about this.
We did not bring him to Bloomingdale to meet Santa Paws for a Christmas picture. It was a
mad house seeing all those dogs waiting their photo to be taken. I don't think any of
those dogs understand why they have to put on these stupid pairs of antlers!
Theresa and I wondered if it was possible to fit a 30-feet tall tree in
our house :-) There was so many shops. However, I resisted the temptation of going into
Tiffany and Co. I just know that Theresa likes diamond because "Diamonds
are Forever"!
Look at the collection of
gigantic "Thunderball" Christmas
decoration.
Here was a piece of chocolate
fudge cake. It was very tempting and difficult to resist. Even though I was "On
Her Majesty's Secret Service", I would have spilled my guts
in order to eat this. You have heard of the slow Chinese water torture, maybe this is the
decadent Palo Alto chocolate torture.
No, it's not a dog on the right-hand side sitting on a chair. It was
actually a Russian spy dog that was waiting for a secret document to be dropped off. :-)
Look at that loving look he has in his eyes. He was truly "From
Russia with Love"!
You know 007 James Bond always gets his girl. Theresa is "The
Spy who Loves Me"!
After narrowly escaping the crowd at Stanford Shopping Mall, we hopped into our car.
Much to Theresa's dismay, we did not get into a brand-new, fully equipped Z3--Q said
something about he needed to rotate the tires and did not trust Theresa with his new
invention anyway. Look at the traffic we had to endure--I knew if we were driving the real
James Bond's car, Theresa would have launched a few rockets to clear the commute lane. At
the very least she would have fired the turbo booster rocket! The way she drives, she
would have scared "The Living Daylights"
out of me!
We first visited Union
Square. All the holiday decorations looked so pretty. However, there were so many tourists
with so many cars trying to get from one place to the next. We were surprised that we did
not have "A View to a Kill" of a pedestrian
by a crazed San Francisco taxi cab driver!
We parked right in the garage
in the front of the newly open Metreon. It was a pity that we did not have time to visit.
Since "You Only Live Twice", we figure that
we will come here next time.
Instead we went to FAO Schwarz ( www.faoschwarz.com/
). We heard they had a lot of fun toys, such as a "Moonraker." Theresa
was really tempted to get this big stuffed elephant. However, I had to be "Dr.
No" and said that we are here to buy toys for our God-daughter
Natalie and not for ourselves. :-(
FAO Schwarz has a very impressive collection of Barbie dolls. Reminded me
of "Octopussy."
Lisa recommended that we have dinner at Le Charm French Bistro (315 Fifth
Street, San Francisco, California 94107; 415 546-6128). Originally I was going to order
something light and vegetarian. However, I figured "Live and Let
Die" and chose something delicious and decadent. James Bond
always eats well, why not me? :-) We had a delicious escargot in pesto sauce as appetizer.
I had the most fabulous duck with crispy potatoes. Delicious.
Here is a photo collage of our evening with Lisa and Allen. Lisa could not resist and
dipped her "Goldfinger" in the orange creme
brulee! We had a nice conversation with Lisa and Allen. Allen is not "The
Man with the Golden Gun" but is the man who married the girl who
has "GoldenEye"!
Unlike the other James Bond, we did not go to any casino for high rollers. Instead, we
had fun playing Mah-Jong until late in the evening while sipping Graham's 1985 vintage
port. No martini for us tonight.
We probably could have played all night until "Tomorrow Never
Dies". All night Lisa and Theresa kept winning all the hands.
Finally Allen and I each just won one hand. Fortunately my winning hand was worth
three-doubles, which propelled me into second place at the end of the evening. However,
that was certainly not enough for me. I vowed that I will soon return for a re-match.
"The World Is Not Enough"!
(I'm glad that there are only 19 official James Bond movies; I don't think I can think
of any more activities to use all the titles :-)
