11am, SFO
I missed my 1030 flight today.
So i thought i was gonna be fine for the plane. Leaving at 8, getting on BART at 815, getting to SFO at 9 for my 1030 flight. awesome, i thought. Just nice.
So then I went to whip out my ATM card to pay for my BART ticket. $8.10. Cringing at how expensive it is just for such a short ride.
I reached for the card. Wasn’t there!
So, naturally the first thing you’d do is panic. You dont have half an hour to spare looking for it, you need to get on the train NOW, and nobody around is willing to help you. what do you do?
First up : Lady at MUNI information desk. Utterly dumb, in the stereotypical American blue collared fashion. God, talking to her is even more monotonous than talking to an answering machine.
“You’re going to the airport right?”
“Yes but I really just need someone to look after my bag because the hostel is 5 blocks up and im not gonna make it if I drag it all the way back”
“SO, you’re going to the airport, right?”
“Yes, but –”
“Well this is MUNI. that’s BART.”
“Yeah well I really just need someone to look after my bag more tha—”
“Go to the other counter, airport, BART, this is MUNI”
“Well i just need someone to look after this huge—”
“BART’s on the other counter, we dont do airport, we dont do BART”
I was ready for some violence on the scale of being in breach of federal law, but oh well. This huge bag was still with me.
next up : BART information counter
“(Repeats Said Story)”
“Well you could leave it here but if I get called around there’s no telling what could happen”
“Could you leave it in the booth?”
“No sir, im sorry. but you can leave it anywhere you want.”
Fair enough. By this time desperate and desperately short of breath, I considered other options. local coffee joint – too busy. Visitor’s center? Wrong stop. …..
I went to just some random pass selling counter. Bunch of pinoys aunties at the counter. Good Lord, if they dont help me, noone’s gonna help me.
“(Repeats Said Story, 2 words at a time. More gasping for breath than talking)”
“Well you could leave it here but if i get busy there’s no guarantee”
“well can i leave it in the booth, then?”
“(after much discussion and trying to understand my gasping) HURRY BACK!”
WOOTS. paydirt. sprinted the way back to the hostel, where i remembered a guy saying that there was an extra ATM card that he forgot to return. 10 mins later, we found it. Rushed back to the BART station and hopped on the train station to the airport. it was already 9. I didnt think that I could get to the airport on time.
so i didnt. still. I’ll never forget how retarded some counter staff are, and how some go out of their way to help you.
it cost me 75 bucks to get onto the next flight. 75 bucks of my parents’ hard earned money. i feel really bad about it, but what good is hindsight and retrospect when it’s already over? from 1030am to 2pm. 3 hours that wouldnt have really made too much difference in the grand scheme of things. but still.
coming from an aerospace engineer, it must quite ironic for me to say that my favourite mode of transport is still the train. checking in is not such a pain in the ass, security isnt so tough, you dont smell like kerosene after being cramped for 2 decades in economy class with recycled air and a fat bloke beside you. when you arrive on a plane, you want a bed. when you arrive on a train, you want to go shopping.
of course, when you compare the F35 JSF to a bullet train, that’s a completely different story altogether.
i just dont like how even 2 hour flights take up to 4 or 5 hours in total. I fly in the states because it’s so big. in Europe, i’d gladly train around the place.
i dont particularly like trains, im not the sort to collect them or read about them. i just find them alot alot more practical as a mode of transport.
----------------
forgot to blog about the exciting happenings of yesterday, according to vika. so we were up at twin peaks, and we got stuck and couldnt find a way down. the girls charmed their way (and mine, thankfully) up a turkish tourbus full of middle aged people. it was honestly pretty funny… there was aleks the german/polish, vika the ukranian, sophie the french and the “whore from singapore”. we had a short conversation with the tour guide and he was translating it into turkish blow by blow for the tourists. lol.
the driver was kind enough to drop us off at forest hills MUNI, our ticket back to civilisation. what a ride… lol.
we bid a fond farewell to dear sophie who as usual is extremely reluctant to say goodbyes. lol. well sophie, if you’re reading this, im happy you wont walk in to my room while im sleeping anymore. hahaha.. jk. well, i kinda miss everyone now, i’ll visit everywhere again someday just so that i can meet everyone again. :)
next up, i led vika and aleks to chinatown in search of some good dinner. it was pretty stressful for me, actually. after travelling alone for awhile, i kinda got used to my screw ups affecting myself. not liking the idea that i might lead my friends up the wrong road, or to a bad restaurant where our money would get wasted.
thankfully, i eventually settled on something decent. we went down takeout street, which means not much in the way of restaurants for the 2 tired girls. when in doubt, just go with the tried and true method of the test of a chinese restaurant : look at the number of old chinese couples in it. if it’s stuffed with caucasians, you probably shouldnt bother. if you only see a bunch of cantonese and you dont know what’s going on in a busy shop, you’re probably at the right place.
i ordered 3 dishes (for 20 bucks) : kung pao chicken, jiang cong niu rou (spring onion and ginger beef), sweet and sour pork. with a cup of bubble tea to boot. it was thoroughly… cantonese. lol. so we had a good time with me explaining food to them, and giving them tips on how to not hold chopsticks like a caucasian. it wasnt exactly a taste of home, just cause i seldom eat at cantonese restaurants. but definitely a good chinese meal. it’s been what, 6 months? i’d almost forgotten what it tastes like.
after the happy chinese meal we went up to little italy for coffee. and goodness, that’s some good coffee. cafe trieste, if anyone’s heading down anytime soon. americans dont really know their coffee well, it’s hard to get good beans even in a country like the US. so it was such a revelation that there were people that knew how to do espresso properly, to finish the drink before the crema goes off. 2 coffee-starved europeans and an ex-barista sure know how to be picky about coffee, but it was so good. a good chat about life and that was about it, i guess.
i-housers. there’s never a boring day with them around.
i bid the 2 girls a fond goodbye on the way back… i was just glad i got to meet some friends over on the west coast.
----
now, to kill another hour before my flight takes off… =/
No comments:
Post a Comment