San Francisco Day 2: Staying Alive
September 8, 2015 § 5 Comments
I spent most of my second day convalescing in Kaiti’s bed while she was at work. #Mondayblues
In the morning, I managed to walk around the corner for some breakfast (and to buy three more boxes of tissues at CVS).
Flour & Co was a cute little bakery where I ordered a bowl of oatmeal, which I figured was good sick-person food. It was humongous. I also grabbed a lemon olive oil biscuit to nibble on throughout the day.
For dinner, Kaiti and I went to Palm House in the Marina neighborhood. At 5:30 p.m., the place was practically empty. The decor was super cute, with colorful birdcages hanging from the windowed ceiling. If I had a house with a sunroom, I’d totally decorate it like this!
Smiling through the sickness
San Francisco Day 1: The Agony & the Ecstasy
September 5, 2015 § 5 Comments
I was SO excited for my trip to San Francisco last week…until I started feeling sick the night before. By the morning of my departure, my sore/scratchy throat had developed into a full-blown cold, complete with aches and congestion. Great.
At least I had Departures to keep me company. (The website is lame but the print magazine is superb.)
Normally when I fly, I prefer to sit by the window because I don’t use the bathroom often, but I had booked my flight on Expedia and they didn’t allow me to choose my own seat. At the airport, the guy at the counter said the only available window seat was all the way in the back, so I decided not to move.
Luckily for me, by the time everyone was on the plane, the two seats next to me were miraculously empty despite the rest of the flight being full!
YAAAAAAAAAAAS
One straggler came aboard at the last minute, stopped by my row, checked his ticket and kept on walking. I cheered silently and envisioned lying down to sleep peacefully…until the flight attendants decided to move the guy back to my row for whatever reason!
So much for my idyllic plans. Without a window to lean my head against, I barely slept at all. It was my first time flying Virgin economy, and I was astonished to discover that they weren’t going to feed us at all on the six-hour flight. Not even peanuts! Food was for purchase only. That just seems inhumane?? And certainly makes first class look extra enviable…
After a sleepless flight of endless shifting and nose-blowing — I wasn’t sure if my sore butt was from being sick or being old — I took a taxi to Kaiti’s place downtown. I noticed that the door of the car had a little mirror, which I assumed was to prevent passengers from hitting cyclists on the way out? Pretty cool. Never seen it in NYC before. We just get a sticker that says “Look before you exit.”
Canadian Sugar Mama (Day 2)
June 22, 2014 § Leave a comment
Carpool selfie! (cr: Xixi)
According to Chen, Seattle is boring and can be toured in about a day, so we somewhat hastily planned a visit Vancouver. (I use the word “planned” lightly as we were all too busy/lazy to figure out an itinerary until the last minute. We might not even have ended up going if I hadn’t booked a hotel??)
The four of us (minus Shirley) left the morning of the second day. The two-and-a-half hour drive passed by relatively quickly, probably because I was sleeping in the backseat, hehe. (Thanks for driving, Chen and Lucy!)
Backseat buddies!
It was kind of scary having to turn off all our mobile services after crossing the border simply because we were so unprepared. On the way, we furiously Yelped a few places to eat while Lucy took screenshots of all the maps we’d need.
We were so preoccupied with simply having our passports (I might’ve threatened to maim anyone who forgot hers…only because I had a previous time-wasting experience of a friend forgetting his!) that we forgot one major detail: None of us had any Canadian money, and we had no idea where to find currency exchanges. And it turned out that I was the only one with a credit card that had no foreign transaction fees.
Conclusion: I became a sugar mama for 24 hours.
Everything from parking to souvenirs to meals were billed to me. (Give me all the points!) It was actually kind of fun? But only because I knew they would pay me back later! And it certainly made things easier not struggling to split the check at the table. (I kept all my receipts and spent some time with Excel upon returning to Chicago.) « Read the rest of this entry »
Singapore, Pt. IV
July 27, 2012 § 1 Comment
This post is three and a half months late, but I’m determined to crank it out, so here goes! (Click for parts I, II and III)
On my third (and final) day in Singapore, I was slated to meet up with Benny, a mutual friend of me and CK that I had also met while studying abroad in Hong Kong in 2010. I was actually a bit nervous about it because I had only met Benny briefly at a house party and hadn’t really spent time with him after that, so I hoped that the day wouldn’t bee too awkward or a waste of his Sunday. (I’m sure he felt the same way, haha). Thankfully, we ended up getting along quite well, and I’m very thankful for his hospitality!
We planned to spend most of the day at Sentosa, an island resort on the south coast of Singapore. I got dropped off at the MRT station in the morning, where I mustered up some intrepidity and took the subway by myself to the Sentosa station to convene with Benny. For lunch, we dined at Toast Box on some traditional Singaporean grub:
Kaya toast
auradis 