On Monday we went into Chronicle Books. I am a fan of their books, stationary, and journals so it was a thrill to see where they are made (our baby book came from them and we adore it so).
We met with the lovely Melissa Manlove, who chatted with us about upcoming projects and gave us a tour of the incredible offices there (Melissa and Grace below).
The first floor has several retail spaces where you can check out their new titles (that is me trying to restrain myself from buying mountains of books for Tilly).
I wish I got a picture of the clever way they displayed many of the books... they used reclaimed wood beams that looked like they were from nearby piers, turned on their ends, with books set on top. Maybe Grace got a picture? So cool. The offices were so modern and hip, it looked like a really fun place to go to work every day. They actually had a construction room with a sewing machine and other tools... it was sort of like an art school studio.
There were also celebrities just hanging out in some of the editor's cubes (can you spot Johnny Depp below?).
Then we packed up the baby and headed to Chinatown.
We wandered through alleyways looking for a fortune cookie factory Grace read about (she'll have better pictures here too).
After a lovely lunch (not just fortune cookies, though they were delicious), we meandered into an amazing tea shop, filled floor to ceiling with a million kinds of tea.
We sat at the bar and were treated to samples of many exotic flavors by our host, who seemed to know everything there is to know about every tea in existence. We tried Chrysanthemum seed, Lychee, Jasmine Pearl, Ginseng, Coconut, and a sweet buttery tea that smelled like popcorn.
They even had a rose tea brewed using the entire blossom.
Though the fanciest of all was called Cloudy Mist Iron Goddess, it was $800 a pound! Personally I liked the Lychee better. But then I know nothing about tea.
Once we were nice and caffeinated, we headed over to the Embarcadero to the TCHO Chocolate factory. There we tried a "chocolate shot", it is something like drinking chocolate lava. YUM.
All in all a lovely, rejuvenating visit. Every time we have a new guest we get to be tourists in this town we've been staying in and see something new.
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