harryfat1

I know you are thinking, dude, this is very ordinary. What's so weird about this? How about a whole bowl of chicken feet? Beef tripe (cow stomach) Baby Octopus and seaweed

Enough talking, food picture time Eggplant: Buns with pork inside Dumplings The table is starting to look like this as more and more food arriving

As we were amongst the early arrivers, I had extra time to take pictures of the regular menu: I have a fish soup story related to the Princess cruise that I will talk about tomorrow

This is the dim sum menu. You select whatever dish you want from it by putting a number next to each picture and they will bring your order to you.

OK, long wait outside the place at noon as everyone else is trying to get a table Inside the restaurant Our table - 1 of 4. The "lazy susan" in the middle turns as Chinse eats family style, All the food is in the middle and you turn the thing in the middle to get your food. In a Chinese family, you NEVER EVER lift the plate of food from the middle to serve yourself and pass it to the person next to you as Americans do - Uncle Bob, can you pass the chicken? And Uncle Bob takes the plate of chicken and hands it to you. If any Chinese kids do that at home, their hands would be smacked by their parents so hard they wouldn't dare to do it again. Do not lift food in the middle unless it's almost done and you are the last one to get it before the waiters take it away. Instead, turn the thing in the middle until the food is in front of you. Oh, yeah, no forks. Chopsticks only.

As promised, I am uploading some pictures from today’s family lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant in Daly City (a neighboring city to San Francisco). It was from my wife’s side of the family of a total of 40+ people in 4 large round tables. The lunch was a mixture of traditional Chinese lunch with dim sum. For those unaware, dim sum is a Cantonese-style lunch where you pick and choose various types of small items, similar to selecting sushi from Japanese restaurants except these are all cooked. These types of restaurants are mostly seen in the big cities in the US only. You won’t find these in the smaller towns where they served more of the Americanized lunches as a good dim sum chef/setup is not easy to do on a small scale. The restaurant seats probably close to 200 people and I would say 90+ percent are Chinese speakers. Some of the food will be weird if you have never eaten them before as this is about as authentic Chinese food as you are going to get without flying to Asia for it.

Hi, Thanks for the compliment. Yeah, RaeRae explained the native language as part of the overview of the island. I’m sure he told us the meaning of Bon Bini but my old man's fuzzy memory faded away in the humidity of the day. Feel free to chime in on the rest of the walking tour as after almost 2 months since the cruise, sometimes I have to stare at a picture for 5 seconds and ask, "What was I doing to want to take this picture?"

Oh, yeah, it wouldn’t be a cheapo dad trip report without my favorite rap song. I already have a perfect picture to go with the song later in the report.

Yeah, I guess if you could do it to your house, it would be an easy direction for friends visiting the first time or any delivery people: My house is the yellow house with a dancer mural. Can’t miss it…

Yes, this tour took us to places I doubt most cruisers will find as it’s away from the main path of Rif Fort to the bridge. As part of the research, I realized there are many free walking tours in other cities. We are looking to visit NYC this summer (yeah I know it’s hot and humid but I have no choice given my kids' school schedule) and will be looking to book a couple of free walking tours as well. I prefer tours as I have no idea where is what and I rather have someone tell me.

So as mentioned, it was a hot morning and after walking around, we all needed a break RaeRae took us to some open-air bar/restaurant area and we essentially took over the place for the next 20 minutes. I assume he's friends with the owner to allow the tour guests to sit and rest in the shade. Even the front entrance has mural artwork. I didn't use the bathroom here but I wonder if that has artwork there as well? Water break time as everyone needed to rest for a while. Then it's off to the main street where we see the Holland America ship docked from the previous picture along the waterfront

Not sure. I assume they don't have a fireplace to burn the wood. My best guess is there's a BBQ-looking grill next to it so maybe they use it as fuel to grill the food at the restaurant as there are tables outside. This was the day after Christmas and not many places were opened away from the main drag at 10 AM so not sure but the blue building next to it could be a boutique hotel where they have a restaurant downstairs.

Imagine your house with this artwork

If you like artwork and colorful buildings, Curaaco is definitely for you

Always good to be in the shade Remember I said our side where the cruise ships are docked is called Otrobanda (the other side)

OK, I have never been to Curacao so I don't know what passes for normal but I recall seeing many YouTube videos showing a fair amount of wind. There was no wind to speak of that day. I just looked up the weather for the day and it was 86 degrees.

Mural inside of an open-air restaurant Little shops

The whole area is called Bon Bini

Curacao must have a lot of artists/muralists as almost every block has some mural painting. Either the building has bright colorful paint or it’s part of the mural. Even the parking lot backdrop is worthy of a photo Follow the leader as even regular pharmacy has a bright code of blue Street of Curaaco

As it was a very hot day (is there a cold day in Curacao?), we sat underneath the shaded bench area while RaeRae explained the island info to us. The dude in the blue with a GoPro is a YouTuber as he was recording the majority of the walk. I saw his channel name advertised on his and his wife's shirts. Curacao was part of the Dutch colony but even after they became independent, people born in Curacao were considered part of the EU so they could fly to Europe and work as their passports were recognized by the EU as being able to work there. Dude’s Uniform is an advertisement for the free tour platform

There's a large square area near the bridge and it's all decorated for the Holidays. It looks better later at night

Smaller cruise ships like Holland America's ship in the background can dock closer to the center of town as it's smaller since the pier can't accommodate large-sized cruise ships. So the ship's passengers have a lot less walking than RCI and AIDA passengers

After a brief introduction, we are off. He asked everyone to give their name where they’re from and what they like to do. Here is the Google Maps once more to show where we are and where are are headed so people will have an idea of the bearing. We are at the red arrow area at the start of the tour and we will spend half of the time on the left side of the map and then walk across the pedestrian bridge to the other side. Well, to use local lingo, the side where the cruise ship is docked is called Otrabanda (the other side), and the side across from us is the Punda side.

Here’s our guide in the yellow shirt – his name is RaeRae. After you sign up for the tour online, you get an immediate email verification that you are part of the tour and that’s all you get. As it’s a free tour, you don’t have much administrative support/communication. If you are late for the tour, you won’t be able to find the tour. So, try to get there before 9:30 as he starts pretty much at 9:30 with these pictures' time stamps at 9:31 AM.

Few pictures of the waterfront area as we wait for the tour to start