Day 1 in San Francisco

Exhausted.

After roughly 20 long hours of plane ride (including transit), We've finally arrived in San Francisco International Airport at almost 9pm, 7/8/2011. China Airlines was good, in terms of service and entertainment. Touch screen tv with a good selection of movies and music. However, the food was.... they have a great space for improvement. =) Had a few hiccups at the airport, but all was good. Immigration officers here are so much more professional and serious about their job than..... I think.

Stepping out of the airport into the cool breeze of the night feels great, reminds me of Melbourne. Then entering into town, meeting English sign boards and trams, brings back even more memories. At the hotel, we had another hiccup where the room that we booked was not available! @_@ They were fully booked and had gone a little "kelam-kabut", I'd say, over their bookings and administration. Oh well, at least they still had a room for us to stay in. It wasn't that ideal though. We had to squeeze 2 rollover beds into the room and there was hardly any space left to walk after we did that. But we survived. So all's good, though mom wasn't happy. =(
Bed time at 2 something am.

By 6.30am in the morning, the whole family was already wide awake. Mom didn't even sleep much throughout the night, jetlag I guess, which resulted in my disturbed sleep 'cause I was on the same bed.. =s Ah~ It really feels good waking up to cool weather and being able to wear my jacket, scarf and my favourite pair of boots! =D The streets of San Francisco South of Market looks old. The buildings are old too. We looked for a cafe to have breakfast, and on the way I saw this:

(picture to come soon)

=) God must have known that I was missing someone. =))

We had breakfast at a small breakfast cafe, which mom had.. I'd say one of her worst breakfasts ever. No, she wasn't happy at all. I thought it was pretty funny though. Reason was, she ordered a pork chop, (already that order itself was weird), and it turned out hard as a rock and mom broke her knife trying to cut it. Hahaha... Really, literally, she broke her knife. The owner got her another one, and she tried to cut the pork again, but it wasn't good at all. According to her, it was dry and hard. I didn't try, but I poked it with my fork and confirmed it was too hard for me. XD She asked if she could change the pork to sausage but the owner said no and insisted that that was how Americans (or, at least people in San Francisco) like their pork being done. She got so angry she almost burst out scolding them. Good thing she didn't, but she sweared that she'd never go back there again. hahaha....

Then, we started our hunt for sim cards, adapters and bro's apartment. Got our sim cards without any problems. Then when we started to look for adapters, that's when the nightmare started. We needed to get an adapter with a transformer in it, but those that we found on the streets were too expensive. So dad decided that we should try Chinatown. But due to our unfamiliarity of the place, we had no idea where to look. We just walked around on the streets in Chinatown looking everywhere for an electrical shop. Mom got so frustrated. But we found what we needed anyways, then headed back to the hotel.

After resting for a while and confirming the places we need to go for our apartment hunt, we started our loong hunt. Our times got messed up a little and bro apparently wanted to look at a few places where he did not even have their exact address. So we ended up walking a lot but not much result. 到处碰钉子，还找不到地方，也走了一些冤枉路。Mom was so angry! >.< In the morning she expressed her dissatisfaction about not having a decent meal for 2 days, then had a long day walking, with arguments with dad and bro because of not being sure of where we're walking and walking to walk so far. Must have been a tough couple of days for her! Some time during our search I saw another one!

(picture to come soon)

=) Makes me smile. When I think of you, situations around don't seem that bad anymore.

And...

(picture to come soon)

I guess God does have some really interesting ways of cheering people up. hehee....

We came back after being unsuccessful in finding any apartment and changed our strategy. As soon as we returned to our room, mom dozed off almost right away. Now we're extending our stay in another hotel and continue searching for apartments tomorrow. But! God is so good at about 4pm bro found 3 apartment units that are quite reasonable in their pricing and are at better locations than the ones we looked before. So he grabbed the opportunity and booked down one of them that he had had a look at. Then later in the night, bro and dad went to the other ones that they didn't get the chance to look at during the day, to survey the surrounding area and found that it was even better and the price was cheaper! So we're gonna go there first thing in the morning tomorrow to have a look and start applying. God please give us the best one! =)

Oh, and the hotel gave us our room that we originally booked, so now we're in a much comfortable room. =) And we managed to book our stay in another hotel for the next 2 days, so everything seems fine now, despite a pretty exhausting day. =))

Another small funny thing, mom needed to use the toilet when dad was using. Was so funny to see her knocking on the door asking dad to hurry up while holding in her.... hehee... (i'm evil...) =p Day started off well, ended well. Though in between was pretty tough, but we made it through. And hey, we're still one happy family. =)


*All the other 3 of the family had just done their big business in the same bathroom, and now i'm about to have my shower in the same bathroom. Hmm........... >.< (thank God for ventilators =p)