Saturday, November 17, 2007

San Francisco Airport, however

SFO is a haven of fun and food. My terminal had a great variety of tasty treats (more than decent looking and smelling dim sum, soup, sushi, noodle bowls, wood-fired pizza, pastries, and on and on) and two See's candy booths, as well as an entire See's store. Because I was on the hunt for caramels and there was no caramel-specific gift box at the booths, I hoofed it over to CA's premier touristy candy store and made my own selection of fresh, sugary goodies (receiving a free sample in the process - ummmm).

There were quite a few stores worth browsing in (jewelry, knick-knacks, clothing), but I spent most of my layover in a Brookstone. Originally, I'd wondered what I would do with a 3-hour morning layover. In fact, a) I believed that I'd use every minute of it on fog delays, which, thankfully, did not happen, b) found that, besides random potential Xmas gifts, there are a LOT of models of massage chairs to try at Brookstone, and c) discovered, happily, that in the early morning, not that many people are fighting to use them. Thus, the hours passed very quickly and pleasantly...

(There are chairs with areas for strapping in and massaging/squeezing your arms and feet! Heavenly!)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

See's is touristy?!

Tumbleweed said...

Is it not? When my parents went to Cali when I was young, they were all about lugging home the See's. Plus, there are booths EVERYWHERE in the airport. Doesn't that make it touristy?

Anonymous said...

I guess I don't consider it touristy because *everyone* buys them.

I figured there were so many See's booths in airports for all the California ex-pats who have to live in See's-less places, like Virginia.

One year, See's opened up a temporary shop in... that Fairfax mall with Todai in it (I forget the name) for the holiday season. I don't think they ever did it again, but it was nice to get a quick See's fix.

Now I want to go buy some See's.

Tumbleweed said...

But if everybody buys then when they come to Cali, and you can mostly only get them in Cali, and, most telling, they market it aggressively at the airport, doesn't that MAKE it a touristy thing?

BTW, I got to go to a factory where they make some of the See's chocolate...

Anonymous said...

Well, when I said "everyone," I meant Californians. I don't recall anyone ever eating any other kind of boxed chocolates outside of See's *ever*.

It was actually a bit of a shock to discover that See's is mainly limited to the West Coast (and California in particular). The rest of the country doesn't know what it's missing!

It's kind of like Spam and Hawaiians. Except that See's candies are universally good and are recognized as such :)

Tumbleweed said...

Ah, I see where we are at cross-purposes. I meant See's is a touristy thing in a good way - as in, it's a commodity that mostly only Californians have access to that the rest of the world, upon finding out about said treasure, also wants to experience. Like Belgian or Swiss chocolate. Hence massive marketing @ the airport.

Anonymous said...

Ah, okay. I get it.