Kennyster

Monday, August 28, 2006

Besides Vancouver, no other city got under our skin quite like San Francisco. There's so much to love about this city. The cooling weather, heart-stopping views of the many majestic bridges, dainty Victorian houses, little cable cars ascending impossibly steep hills, its unhesitant embrace of all things eccentric, astounding array of restaurants, bars and nightclubs, and of course the shopping!

Every major brand has a megastore here and it took a full day to kinda explore and splurge on the summer sale.

(You definitely need a map to plan your shopping route!)

(The uber-big Niketown)

One of the most prominent features of San Francisco is it's incredibly symmetrical road systems.

(Did they use Sim City to build SF?)

It seemed like such an efficient road system to us but it wasn't until the 5th day when we rented a car that we realised that it was quite the contrary. SF is pretty much made up of single-lane, no left turns, no right turns and as such, it practically made many parts of SF virtually impenetrable as one would have to make a ridiculous big loop just to get to the adjacent street.

(The Bay Cruise)

Can the world be any smaller? First, we met Leonard, our dearest orientation group buddy in the streets of Las Vegas and now on the bay cruise, we bumped into the pioneer batch of NTU students that were doing their summer studies in SF.

Clouds seem to hover pretty low in San Francisco. We couldn't see the Golden Gate Bridge till we were just about underneath it. I was thinking how dangerous and impossible it would be for the cars on the bridge to drive through the clouds on an expressway.

The most infamous prison in the United States, supposedly escape-proof and home to such notorious convicts as Al Capone and Robert Stroud. It was definitely quite an experience on Alcatraz island. The audio tour was really good, with first hand narrations from past inmates and wardens that really brought the old walls and bars back to life.

But I thought it was a tad too packed with tourists, the many people shuffling around and snapping photos made the experience alot less realistic and eerie. But nonetheless, the 10 dollars was pretty well spent as it made a compelling deterence for those who like myself, are considering a life of crime to support our everyday lives.

***

North Beach, or Little Italy, was a great place to hang out, with some of the most impressive churches that I have ever seen.

Apparently, the Pope was here too!

Americans really appreciate the summer weather. People lie on grass just about everywhere. Notwithstanding the Indians at Little India and the Filipinos at Orchard MRT, it's such a pity Singapore doesn't have such a culture here despite its all-year sunny weather

(Lin likes summer for other obvious reasons.)

North Beach was also the place to be on 11 July, as it burst into a party frenzy after the infamous World Cup Final, and traffic came to a standstill.

***

Car Rental No.3! Luck was with us when we went really early to collect our rental car- We got a brand new Daimler Chrysler PT Cruiser, which was really retro and fun to drive. And we only paid for a compact car!

It was certainly liberating to go 130km/h for 2 hrs on the highway to Gilroy, where the factory outlets were. It kinda recreated the exhilarating feeling when I first drove 90km/h after passing my driving test. And when Paris Hilton's Stars are Blind (Sadly but true, this is our UBC gang's anthem!haha) played on the radio, it really stuck me how wonderful and carefree summer can be.

Gilroy has a really good selection of factory outlets stores-- Levis, Nike, Birkenstock, Quiksilver, Guess, Polo Ralph etc.... Got a really nice $20 Levis Jeans, a $15 Guess sunglasses, a $30 Guess wallet for mum and some Banana Republic officewear for dad and myself. =) I say money well spent!

Lastly, we drove back to SF to catch sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge, which was bee-you-tee-full!

(And late-night supper at IHOP!)

Kennyster @ 9:18 PM

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

San Francisco 6/7 - 12/7

San Francisco's USA Hostel (Sutter St) was the place that we arranged to meet with some of our friends from UBC. Beforehand, Cornelius & Caroline went to Washington, New York then to SF while Kenneth, Clara, Weiyi & Jolene went to the Rockies, the other Washington, Reno & finally SF.

Embarrassingly, we almost didn't make it to San Francisco because we quite spectacularly missed our flight from San Diego. It was one of those Amazing Race-sque disaster segments where the cab driver that we called stood us up, waited 40mins & no cab in sight.. I tried calling again & got the "Thank you for calling, all our operators are busy, so please hold while we play you some irritating music"... When we finally found a cab we went to the wrong terminal because of the stupid confirmation letter. It said in font size 30 with colour, "Alaska Airlines", so we went to Terminal One and the porter kindly pointed out the font size 10 "operated by American Eagle" & said we were in the wrong terminal. We grabbed our bags and ran like crazy, caught the shuttle and arrived at T2 and even more unbelievably, were told that we were STILL in the wrong terminal.

It turns out that besides having 2 terminals, San Diego also has a COMMUTER terminal. (At this time, cue for some dramatic music, camera to zoom on me looking haplessly at my watch, turning to Lin & utter "We are not going to make it"..)

But the lady at the counter was really nice about it. She got us free-of-charge onto the next flight which was just half an hour later and it was kinda of a blessing in disguise as it was a practically empty flight with just 7 people (including us) on it.

And so we finally made it to the SF. The next day, we squeezed into Cornie's rental car & made our 4hr drive to Yosemite, the "incomparable valley". Initially, I thought that was quite a bold claim since I have been to the Canadian Rockies & the Grand Canyon, but Yosemite's lush meadows, waterfalls & tumbling rivers were really a sight to behold.

Yosemite National Park is home to 3 of the world's 10 tallest waterfalls.

This is a very sly squirrel! When it realised that people were approaching it, rather than running away, it stood up and struck a pose, probably realising that it would capture our attention to it. What a tourist trap!

(Its antics earned it some food)

(And even a spouse?)

(Lin thinks she looks like a squirrel)

***

Chinatown!

San Francisco probably has the largest and most authentic Chinatown in the States. Lots of Hong Kong eateries and the dim sums here are the best that I have ever eaten.

( Is that SM Lee in the picture?? haha)

Chinatown in SF is such a wonderful place to hang out. Tradition runs deep here, you can hear women mixing mahjong tiles in their houses & men gambling openly in the heart of the neighbourhood.

Kennyster @ 11:39 PM

Thursday, August 10, 2006

I'm not sure what Lin thinks, but I thought Seaworld, together with Honolulu, were the favorite moments of our vacation.

Seaworld was super-duper fun. Great rides, gorgeous sea creatures and these animals really reminded me of Madagascar. Not in terms of resemblance, but in terms of their actions. They must have known that they were the celebrities of the park, and they really hammed it up for the cameras and crowds at their enclosures.

Either that or their park keepers have been injecting caffeine into them.

We paid alittle bit more to get the behind-the-scenes tour which we got to see the labs for these animals, baby sharks and incubated shark eggs and manatees suntanning...

More importantly, we got priority seatings for the Shamu shows, which were the killer whales performances. The dolphin and seals shows were great, but the Shamu shows are THE shows to catch at Seaworld.

I'm still clueless about how they teach the whales to perform backflips and somersaults to U2's Vertigo but that was the last thing on my mind as me and Lin were cheering and clapping with everyone in the crowd, doing the Shamu hand signals to urge the whales to splash gallons of icy salt water into our faces.

We sat in the soak zones which were so so much fun. And its amazing because its actually 15 rows of seats... THAT'S the force of water that a whale can splash at you.

I'm having some problems loading my videos onto YouTube so I'm just going to leach one and post it here.. =)

Lin loved Shamu so much that she wanted to buy the soft toy home. I told her to think about it since we were only halfway through our US trip and it would be quite troublesome to bring it with us. And you know women, emotions come before logic, and she went to buy the soft toy. And it was yours truly who carried it for her from San Diego to San Francisco to Hawaii and back to Singapore. Grrrr.

***

During our stay in San Diego, we also did a day trip to Tijuana Mexico, which was a mere 40min train ride from Downtown. Getting into Mexico is really freakin easy. Neither passports or any IDs are required. You just need to have enough strength to push the gate.

I didnt really like Tijuana. Pretty run-down and there were lots of child beggars around, which made it hard for me to take pictures. There's nothing much to do there since the shops are mainly taco restaurants and pharmacies that sells Viagra at 4 for $16.

Kennyster @ 1:17 AM

Saturday, August 05, 2006

It has always been a childhood dream of mine to visit the San Diego Zoo. Ever since my Primary School days when you buy an IPC or Acer computer and they bundled it with 30 free games...

One of these free games was an interactive "San Diego Zoo" disc, which fascinated me with 5x5cm short clips of animals roaming in the zoo. I remembered myself wanting so so much to go there and 10 years later, i really did!

San Diego Zoo was a great day for us. A huge zoo well run by animal-loving employees made this place extra awesome. =)

Lin & our panda cup!

Grizzly bear going for a swim

Like Lin, black bears love to sleep

Mini king kong

I couldn't resist striking this pose.. haha

The panda's called Hua-Mei... which I believe means "American-borned Chinese" in English? haha

I think I know why the pandas are close to extinction. They eat and sleep all day!

***

Balboa Park, which is just beside the zoo, is a a wonderful place to spend a day in. The density of museums (about 13 of them) in the park is really quite amazing and I wished I had more time there.

***
The evening of 4th of July was spent at the pier, where there was a 3-bay simultaneous fireworks display.

The Star of India, the oldest active ship in the world!

***
Did anyone watch Wednesday's Rockstar Supernova?

Ryan Star's performance was totally awesome!

And it was really funny watching the rest of the contestants give the "Why you spoil market" look.

Kennyster @ 3:10 PM