I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

The thing I like about San Francisco
is how you can take photos of stuff and it always looks better than pictures of home. I can’t explain it.

We spent the first couple of days here really just vacationing. We went to the zoo, went shopping, went visiting, had pho, had more pho, ate a lot, and took a whole load of pictures.

I had fun at Macy’s yesterday – had the nicest comestic counter lady do the most fascinating things with the least number of brush strokes! Anyway, a tinted moisturiser, eyeliner and a brush later, I walk away from the Laura Mercier counter feeling like a million bucks, and grinning like an idiot. We then went to Old Navy, where a store employee stops to chat with us and we find out that he went to Singapore last August and found himself a wife.

It was the weirdest thing.

Next on our to-do list: I’ve a kids’ birthday photography gig on Friday morning, an Asian Food fare to attend the same evening, San Diego and Legoland next week, a few dinner appointments with friends, and a couple of trips (more) to Fry’s, Walgreens and maybe Gilroy.

Stay tuned.

Meant to put this up before I left, but here I am, at the destination telling you I’m going on vacation.

Be back in two weeks, when I’ve had enough of the really sunny yet un-humid weather, the blue skies and crisp air.

It was a couple of good days

My cousin Clint who lives in the UK was also vacationing in SF. So yesterday we met up for some good old hanging out. He and his wife were out here for two weeks already – they did some travelling around to Vegas and Yosemite, so they were just slowing down when we got here.

We headed off to Sausalito, for some slow, quaint waterfront life. I like Sausalito, although I don’t think I can exactly live there. It’s a mix of country and waterfront, with little signs of tech (which is a little alarming) – even though Lucasfilm is kinda tucked away in neighbouring Marin County.

We had lunch with Clint and Marsha again today, at Fook Yuen (which incidentally, we can get in Singapore. I didn’t pick the place). Lunch was dim sum, the updated traditional way, where they come to you holding trays laden with the steamed foods, rather than push around trolleys. They wouldn’t go away though, KF and I couldn’t sit there for five minutes without dimsum ladies coming over to us. In droves. Scary.

After lunch we made a quick trip to the Golden Gate Bridge, where my cousins did the touristy thing and took a few photos. I am amazed at how few photos they took. Maybe 3. I took more photos of them than they did themselves.

We split, because we had to run off to meet AL and RM, who were going to buy a new car today. AL lured me with the prospect of dinner at Tanto, so we were out there like a bat out of hell.

I’ll let it just speak for itself.

Ya… ya… Yaki Onigiri!

I guess the biggest difference between the Sydney office and our office
Is the engineers don’t seem to eat 3 meals while at the office (roughly every 4 hours). They’re like normal people. They don’t go around harrassing or making fun of producers. So much more respectful.

Hee.

Well, yesterday was a normal work day. A whole day at the office, and then I went to dinner with V near the hotel. Crowded. Japanese. Sushi on a conveyor belt. Didn’t know what the fuss was about.

Today was a terribly long day, but at least I didn’t
1. walk the wrong way to the train station
2. forget to take my return ticket from the station gantry

In fact, today I found my way fine, and took my return ticket, and after dinner took a cab home . Crap.

Do you speak Arabic?
I had an interesting day today. It is my first trip for work where no one was going to meet me on the other end. In fact, it was my first trip to the Southern Hemisphere.

I took a Gulf Air flight, and I suppose I kind of expected what I saw in those Emirates advertisements, which is so unfair – since it’s a different airline, to begin with. But Gulf Air plane turned out to be like the old Northwest planes before their upgrade. Kind of old, and had crappy toilets (no soap! gross!). And there were no movies on demand. They just ran and you either caught them or not. While I napped someone knicked my earphones and blanket so by the time I got replacements 3/4 of “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” was past and I caught the end. It looked good, but odd. And since I saw the rest of the movies, I switched to the TV channels and caught Biography instead. More fuel for the useless information fire.

But back to the odd question. I take my seat in the not very full flight, and after I stuff my luggage in the overhead compartment (always an experience!), I head to the loo. When I get back, these 2 middle eastern teenage girls are trying to get their luggage in the overhead compartment in the seats in front of me. 2 early twentysomething British girls are sitting behind me, chatting to themselves. I sit down, and the middle eastern girls smile. I smile back, and they ask me what I thought at the time was the weirdest thing I’d heard.

“You speak Arabic?”

“Er, no?”

They turn to the British girls behind me, who are obviously watching this spectacle, and ask them the same thing. The British lasses giggle and reply in the negative as well, and the middle eastern teenagers look disappointed.

One of them looks at me and says, “We, er. Our English..” and she makes a hand gesture – a small space between her thumb and her forefinger. “.. very little.”

I was so amused. I replied “My Arabic…” and make a gesture back – of a zero with my thumb against the rest of my fingertips. They laugh. I decide that I wasn’t in the talking mood, and tried to get comfortable to sleep.

Soon after, the stewardesses try to serve brunch. Sounded good, chicken or shepards’ pie. So I ask, what’s in the shepards’ pie?

“Meat” came the hasty reply.

“Beef or lamb?” I press the irritated Filipina serving me.

“Beef – it’s meat!”

Gee, last I checked, it was meat! So was lamb and chicken for that matter! But beef, so I chose the shepards’ pie.

One bite into the pie, and I realise it was lamb. Well, no wonder she said meat! I ask a second stewardess for a change, and she was like, “Oh she told you it was beef? Oh sorry, it’s lamb. It’s actually meat.”

Same thing at dinner. Mixed grill or fish with rice? I dared to venture what went into the mixed grill.

“Oh, you know. It’s chicken, and *meat*”

Enough with the meat already!

Ni hui jiang guo yu ma?
You wouldn’t have guessed, but I was elated to get off the plane. I packed light, so I wouldn’t have to wait at baggage claim for my stuff. I was a little disappointed to get to immigration and see the throngs of people waiting in front of me. All in all, I think I spent 45 minutes clearing immigration and customs. And another 10 minutes at the taxi stand where the taxi line co-ordinator didn’t seem to know what he was doing. Anyway, I got into a taxi driven by a Shanghai native. After I told him where I wanted to go, he asked where I was from. When I said Singapore, he switched to Mandarin and asked if I spoke the language of the (main)land – guo yu. You’d be pleased to know I had a fairly decent conversation in Mandarin with a mainlander! Of course there were terms I had to say in English, but we managed to talk about the weather, the area, the Chinese people for a good 15 minutes without me saying something ridiculous like with the Taiwanese visitors the last time. I was so proud of myself, I got to the hotel, took a nice hot shower, and ordered in a nice mushroom soup and a glass of OJ for dinner. No meat.

And now, I’m going to head to sleep, since it’s about 1am. Will be doing the tourist thing tomorrow, am looking forward to that. More later!

Hi hoe, hi hoe, it’s off to Lake Tahoe
Had a fantastic time at Lake Tahoe. It was a really pretty cabin, and lots of snow, and it was just a beautiful place to be. KF and I didn’t go skiing or snowboarding like we wanted, but we went tubing instead!

So what happens is you rent a rubber tire and slide down a slope with it. It was so much fun, although KF had a little accident and flipped his tire while sliding down with his niece.

Sunset by the Lake

Well there we go, another great week in California. Almost worth sitting through a total of 37 hours of airplane food, whining kids, the smallest toilets on earth and uncomfortable sleep.

Name that tune!
So anyway, today was another rainy day. It rained all day and temperatures dipped to around 10 degrees celsius. Brrr!

We drove down to Sunnyvale and had lunch with Auntie since we needed to pick up that camera strap for CL. Rain, rain, rain! Crappy choice of lunch location – some Gumba’s Pizzaria @ downtown Sunnyvale. It wasn’t very good. I wouldn’t recommend it.

After lunch, it was still wet, and we made our miserable way to Gilroy, which was about another forty five minutes away. Wet, rainy and spots of bad traffic made the ride there pretty long and uneventful. By the time we got there, we only had an hour and a bit more to spare before we had to head up to miss the northbound commuters heading home on the 101. It was enough time though, to get KF a couple pairs of Dockers pants (very nice, and almost half price), and get some shoes exchanged.

On the way up, the weather cleared somewhat, and we managed to catch a rainbow! And saw both ends!

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies were overcast

There was no pot of gold, no leprechauns, no fantastic land of a zillion rainbow coloured flowers, nothing! Just farms. Another myth debunked.

And sadly enough, the highlight of my day was naming the tunes the American Idol contestants sang before KF’s cousin did. Woo hoo. That really kicked my geek index up another few notches, but of course, mentioning that it was William Shatner’s birthday today (22 Mar) took the cake.

Weather for tomorrow: should clear up somewhat, but generally overcast. Ok, I think I can deal with that. More later, be good!

Today: Whoever said it doesn’t rain in California has to have his head examined
It’s been raining like days in a row. It’s supposed to be like 15 degrees Celsius outside, but it’s more like freezing. Thankfully, I had those 2 cheapo cold weather thingeys from John Little’s before I left, and some cardigans I shipped with KF’s stuff arrived the day before I landed. So I’m sufficiently warm, thanks.

Today was mostly spent downtown. We went to Macy’s at Union Square because I thought they had a flower exhibition. Something Gardens of the Dragon, Union Square, sounds good right? Man, first it was raining. Second, it wasn’t at Union Square, it was inside Macy’s at Union Square. Ugh! The highlight of our trip was going to the basement of Macy’s and having lunch at Wolfgang Puck Express. We had a small 8″ pizza for US$5.75 (pepperoni and mushroom – fantastic). Ok, fun stuff below.

Yesterday: Freeze!
Had a lovely breakfast. Pancake, scrambled eggs and bacon for US$5.50. Good breakfast for 2! We went kiting! Not before running into several hitches, literally. We drove to Crissy Field, and were diverted along the way at the Presidio because there was this marathon or cross country event going on. Undaunted, KF tried his bestest to get to Crissy Field, but in the end, we went all the way back the way we came. Finally, I convinced him to park at Golden Gate Bridge Park, and we decided to walk across the bridge.

View from The Bridge
On the right foreground, where the pier and a small building is – that’s part of The Presidio. That’s where they filmed some bits of The Presidio (starring Sean Connery, Meg Ryan, Mark Harmon and featuring a bit part by KF’s cousin Alice). It’s basically a big camp, and now the buildings that used to be military buildings are taken over by post offices, banks, day care centres, museums. Some people live there, and it’s kind of like the houses at Seletar Camp. Old and quaint, it feels somewhat surreal. Built by people long gone, and overgrown with wild flowers and lilies it’s quite a pleasant experience driving through.

In the background you can see (though not clearly) the financial district, and maybe you can make out the shape of the Transamerica Pyramid. It’s the triangular thing. The orange dome is the Palace of Fine Arts, where they filmed parts of The Rock (again starring Sean Connery, but this time with Nic Cage).

Man was it cold! It was already kinda chilly, cos it rained the previous day – but out on the bridge, you can literally freeze your ass off. It was frigid! I was wrapped out pretty good, but still was chillin’ my butt off! My fingers went numb after 2 minutes and my feet shrunk about a size and a half smaller. We didn’t walk the length of the bridge and back. We went maybe a third of the way and headed back to warmer temperatures and a nice Ham and Cheese sandwich.

After our nice bridge not so long walk, we headed back to the general direction of Crissy Field again, hoping to avoid the detours and joggers. KF was excited to fly his Dragon Kite.

View of The Bridge
It wasn’t as windy as we’d have hoped, but I guess it was enough to get the kite off the ground. And we managed to get some exercise from the running and all.

Sailboats floating across towards Alcatraz
The weather didn’t quite clear up from there, it was generally overcast, but luckily it didn’t rain.

Tomorrow
Forecast for tomorrow: more driving, Southward bound. Meeting chums for lunch, and then over to my favourite place in Sunnyvale, Fry’s.

I’m back! From outer space…

The view from the departure lounge at Narita Airport

I’ll not go into the gory details of the flight back. Suffice to say I’m not travelling Northwest anytime unless I get enough miles for a business class upgrade.

We stopped over in Tokyo for about 2.5 hours – it was fun. We checked out the massage chairs in the public lounge, and had a bowl of soba (the stores accept and give change US currency). There are also internet kiosks, computer stations and shower rooms. But the cheapos that we were, we went for the free massage.

It was a good vacation in all. Weather was good (a little hot), the car worked (without getting hauled to the dealership for a new battery) and the company was really most hospitable.

Still, it’s good to be back where food is good and cheap, and public transport is a breeze.

Conservatory Of Flowers

I really love these dahlias

Yesterday I went nuts at the Conservatory of Flowers. Not that we even went inside. We got out so late, it was closed by the time we got to SF. So I entertained myself taking photos outside, where there were tons of hydrangea, irises, and a great collection of dahlias. The dahlias were really really really nice.

For the first time in the history of my 1gb compact flash card, I filled it. I didn’t clear it out the night before, and so at the conservatory, 130 shots later, my camera beeped. I was going to start yelling for new batteries, when I realised that the message on the screen said “Memory card full”. ERGH!

My miserable 32mb CF only lasted me 16 shots.

We went back again today, and this time we headed for the Rose Garden. It was beautiful. The funny thing about SF weather is that it could be sunny one moment but 30 minutes later – bam! – the fog sets in!

These roses are so huge! It’s like a pie.