San Francisco -- All Performers on Stage @ Asia SF

After our interesting introduction to local history on February 23, 2008, we had to switch hotels for one night and grabbed our overnight bags to move to The Handlery in downtown Geary Street, just next to Union Square. Composed of two earlier hotels, The Handlery today is an upscale hotel that is located right in the heart of San Francisco, just steps away from the cable cars, the theatres, the Museum of Modern Art, the Financial District and the Moscone Convention Center. Leisure and business travelers alike appreciate the location and amenities of this central hotel.

Our evening was promising a lot of excitement: we were planning to visit Asia SF, a restaurant/ night club that is a popular venue for birthday celebrations and bachelorette parties. This restaurant features upscale Cal Asian cuisine and a prize-winning wine list. What makes Asia SF unique is its catwalk, the domain of the beautiful and talented Ladies of Asia SF, all world famous gender illusionists.

Skip Young, one of the co-owners gave us an overview of this unique entertainment venue and indicated that several more locations are planned throughout North America, including Hollywood and Toronto. The Ladies graced us with stunning lip-synching and dance performances on the catwalk bar and I had a chance to interview several of them.

What stunned me the most was the diverse backgrounds of these talented performers: the Ladies hail from places such as the Philipines, Mexico, Peru and many others. Two of the performers I interviewed were students who work at Asia SF part-time, while another one works full-time for a local non-profit agency and another one is employed as a nurse as a local hospital. The Ladies are not only beautiful and intelligent, but they are also gracious and welcoming. They serve drinks to the audience and love to interact with the crowd and get their pictures taken. For the finale, six Ladies of Asia SF got up on the catwalk and surprised the enthusiastic crowd with a final performance of the day.