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
The Unpretty
Kenny Loh
23
Formerly from Dunman High, VJC and formerly a proud member of the 2SIR 11th mono Alpha Company Apache warriors.
Currenly a 3rd year student at the Singapore Management University.
I'm into books, pool, soccer & conversation (by day), justice, honour & vengeance (by night).
Constantly on the lookout for crimelords, deformed megalomaniacs and women.