Yahoo@Santa Clara
San Jose
San Jose
Yummy
Great America ParkThursday, November 24, 2005
Day 03: Prepping for the big day, moving to Santa Clara
Tuesday, Oct 11th 2005 Ah, we had been here for 2 nights. Time flies so fast when you are enjoying it, doesn't it? Today we woke up earlier so we could get the hotel's breakfast. Well, since it was just bread, we decided we wanted more :-). Hence we walked (btw, we didn't really take the suggested Google Map route because we weren't using car) again to the mall, and we again had Panda Express' delicious Oracle Flavored Chicken (ko lo kee). Tips: did you know that you could get a Satellite view if you click the above link, click "Satellite", and zoom it up to maximum?
Since arrived here, I had never been able to get any internet access. Yesterday I said that the hotel's receptionist didn't even have any computer. So whose website was this? Well, for sure, I asked the manager, and they claimed they didn't know. Funny, considering I booked from that website. Maybe I just had no idea how this travel agent thing worked. Anyway, on our way out of the mall, there was a big sign that there was a free hot spot inside the mall. Yay.
My big day would start the next day. It would be held in Marriott, Santa Clara. If I had a car, here's the route that I should take (Google maps is cool, isn't it?). Unfortunately I didn't, so I had to take Caltrain instead. The nearest Caltrain station in San Francisco was at 700 4th St San Francisco, CA 94107. You could see here that it was actually pretty close to our hotel, but I had no idea how to reach there with SF's public bus (MUNI).
Actually you could find and download MUNI's system map here. At some bus stations, you would also find this system map printed. We decided that we'd rather try to find our way first without carrying our luggage. So we checked-out and left our luggage at the receptionist. Riding MUNI was a very pleasant experience. It was pretty much like Singapore's bus system, but these buses were powered by some electric cables above it. Seniors and disabled people were given priority seats in the first few rows of the bus. Interestingly, the bus entry platform could be lowered (hydraulically?) to make it easy for seniors and disabled people to get into the bus. How nice. I was very surprised to learn this at first as I thought we had a flat tyre.
Drivers were also very polite that they would gladly answer any questions you had. I told the driver that I wanted to go to Caltrain station, and since I had no idea where to stop, he would gladly advise me when we had reached the station. Hm, actually this might be overstated. I actually later met one driver who was impolite and seemed angry, which I later found out that his shift had ended and he was mad that the next driver wasn't there to replace him.
Walking around downtown SF was very enjoyable too. Pedestrian definitely had a priority here. City weather was perfect for walking, we didn't feel sweaty walking all-around. Blocks were not too big, so you would enjoy walking. Many shops and tall buildings were all along the road, so pedestrian walks were pretty much covered from direct sun-light. When there was a construction, a temporary roof covering the ped walks would be built so that you didn't need to worry that something might fall off on your head. Oh, and we often heard trucks of the fire dept (mobil pemadam kebakaran) in the city, though we never saw any fire.
After we found our way to the station, we got back to the hotel, picked-up our luggage, and went back to the station. It was aroud 4PM already. Caltrain ran for every half an hour or so. The train was very clean and nice, it also had an upper floor. Oh, if you had a bike, you could bring your bike in. Actually this also applied for bus. Many buses (outside downtown SF) had a special rack in front of it to put a bike in (or you could bring it inside if space permitted).
About an hour later, we arrived at the nice, peaceful, and quiet Santa Clara station. Surprisingly, this was the heart of Silicon Valley, yet we didn't see any tall buildings or crowded traffic, like we imagined existed in big cities. From the station, we caught a bus to the hotel. Actually TC provided a hotel for me in Santa Clara, but I would be sharing the room with Ardian. So we booked the Vagabond hotel for our 5 nights stay in Santa Clara. Btw, you would get a cheaper price if you booked the room via this website. This hotel was definitely way much better than our hotel at SF, and cheaper as well. The room was very spacious and clean, the amenities were also better.
Unlike downtown SF, there were not much to see here. Our hotel was located right next to a big main road. Every few blocks there would be a space dedicated for stores and restaurants. We had pho for our dinner in the nearby Vietnamese restaurant. Somehow there were lots of Vietnamese in this area, even some signs in the bus were written in both English and Vietnamese.
I spent the rest of the night refreshing my memory with the component design that I was going to compete on the next day. I slept sometime around 2AM despite having to wake up early morning tomorrow for my big day. Oh, the hotel also had a free wireless internet so it was really great, the first time we could really go online with Yahoo Messenger and meet our Indonesian friend.
Since arrived here, I had never been able to get any internet access. Yesterday I said that the hotel's receptionist didn't even have any computer. So whose website was this? Well, for sure, I asked the manager, and they claimed they didn't know. Funny, considering I booked from that website. Maybe I just had no idea how this travel agent thing worked. Anyway, on our way out of the mall, there was a big sign that there was a free hot spot inside the mall. Yay.My big day would start the next day. It would be held in Marriott, Santa Clara. If I had a car, here's the route that I should take (Google maps is cool, isn't it?). Unfortunately I didn't, so I had to take Caltrain instead. The nearest Caltrain station in San Francisco was at 700 4th St San Francisco, CA 94107. You could see here that it was actually pretty close to our hotel, but I had no idea how to reach there with SF's public bus (MUNI).
Actually you could find and download MUNI's system map here. At some bus stations, you would also find this system map printed. We decided that we'd rather try to find our way first without carrying our luggage. So we checked-out and left our luggage at the receptionist. Riding MUNI was a very pleasant experience. It was pretty much like Singapore's bus system, but these buses were powered by some electric cables above it. Seniors and disabled people were given priority seats in the first few rows of the bus. Interestingly, the bus entry platform could be lowered (hydraulically?) to make it easy for seniors and disabled people to get into the bus. How nice. I was very surprised to learn this at first as I thought we had a flat tyre.
Drivers were also very polite that they would gladly answer any questions you had. I told the driver that I wanted to go to Caltrain station, and since I had no idea where to stop, he would gladly advise me when we had reached the station. Hm, actually this might be overstated. I actually later met one driver who was impolite and seemed angry, which I later found out that his shift had ended and he was mad that the next driver wasn't there to replace him.
Walking around downtown SF was very enjoyable too. Pedestrian definitely had a priority here. City weather was perfect for walking, we didn't feel sweaty walking all-around. Blocks were not too big, so you would enjoy walking. Many shops and tall buildings were all along the road, so pedestrian walks were pretty much covered from direct sun-light. When there was a construction, a temporary roof covering the ped walks would be built so that you didn't need to worry that something might fall off on your head. Oh, and we often heard trucks of the fire dept (mobil pemadam kebakaran) in the city, though we never saw any fire.
After we found our way to the station, we got back to the hotel, picked-up our luggage, and went back to the station. It was aroud 4PM already. Caltrain ran for every half an hour or so. The train was very clean and nice, it also had an upper floor. Oh, if you had a bike, you could bring your bike in. Actually this also applied for bus. Many buses (outside downtown SF) had a special rack in front of it to put a bike in (or you could bring it inside if space permitted).
About an hour later, we arrived at the nice, peaceful, and quiet Santa Clara station. Surprisingly, this was the heart of Silicon Valley, yet we didn't see any tall buildings or crowded traffic, like we imagined existed in big cities. From the station, we caught a bus to the hotel. Actually TC provided a hotel for me in Santa Clara, but I would be sharing the room with Ardian. So we booked the Vagabond hotel for our 5 nights stay in Santa Clara. Btw, you would get a cheaper price if you booked the room via this website. This hotel was definitely way much better than our hotel at SF, and cheaper as well. The room was very spacious and clean, the amenities were also better.
Unlike downtown SF, there were not much to see here. Our hotel was located right next to a big main road. Every few blocks there would be a space dedicated for stores and restaurants. We had pho for our dinner in the nearby Vietnamese restaurant. Somehow there were lots of Vietnamese in this area, even some signs in the bus were written in both English and Vietnamese.I spent the rest of the night refreshing my memory with the component design that I was going to compete on the next day. I slept sometime around 2AM despite having to wake up early morning tomorrow for my big day. Oh, the hotel also had a free wireless internet so it was really great, the first time we could really go online with Yahoo Messenger and meet our Indonesian friend.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Day 02: Tour around San Francisco
Oct 10th 2005. We probably woke-up around 9AM. Oh I forgot to comment on our hotel's room. It was a clean hotel, despite its old 'classic' furnitures. There was no internet at the hotel (actually, the receptionist didn't even use a computer). The breakfast provided was also just bread, coffee. But hey, all we need was just a place to sleep :-). Another surprising thing was we didn't really feel jet-lagged. Probably because we had lots of sleep while crossing the Pacific Ocean yesterday and also maybe because we were too excited with our new experiences.
After taking our shower, we walked to Union Square to find some breakfast. There were many restaurants serving breakfast packages. Seriously, we had to put in our mind that 1 US$ = Rp. 2.000 before all prices felt normal :-). There were Pizza, Mexican food (Burito, Taco), Thai food, Asian (Chinese) food, and various other breakfast that we had no idea what it was. We kept walking until we reached San Francisco Shopping Center, 1 block south of Union Square. The shopping center had an interesting curved-shaped elevator. We ended up taking our breakfast at Panda Express in the food court. It's a fast food of Chinese meal. Oh, we also got our first fortune cookie. Inside the cookie, you'd find a word-of-wisdom. I didn't remember what it was about, but it was something nice (well, customers wouldn't be back if they put something rude).
Around 12PM, I contacted Robert. Apparently he was already around the area. Due to my lack of knowledge, Robert had to actually go around the area several times before we finally met him :-). Our first destination then of course was the famous Golden Gate Bridge. There were lots of tourists. We also took lots of pictures here. We were really lucky because the weather was so good that we could get a clear view of the whole bridge. It was really cold and windy there, however the air felt so refreshing. The ocean was just so blue and crystal clear. It was simply a breathtaking view. Notice the hill behind the bridge in this picture, you should go there if you want the best view of the bridge. The bridge construction itself was also amazing. Did you believe that the cables are actually made from lots of smaller cables so that they could survive earthquake?
Satisfied, we proceeded crossing the bridge on Robert's car. At the end of the bridge, there was another stop point where you could get another view of the bridge. Here we also had a great view of downtown San Francisco and Alcatraz from here. You could also go further down to "Vista Point" get a view of the bridge from the bottom.
Our journey continued to some higher land to get just another view of the Golden Gate Bridge. And I have to tell you that you would get the best view from here. Not only that, you would also get an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean from here. City tour wouldn't normally take you to this spot, so there weren't as many tourists here as down there. Thanks to Robert, our "personal tour guide", we got this amazing opportunity.
OK, we were ready to get back to downtown SF. While we didn't need to pay to cross the bridge to the north, you had to pay for the southward direction into the city. But since there were 3 persons in the car, we got a free pass. Robert then took us to the Palace of Fine Arts. This place was very beatiful. It was like a heavenly palace with really huge structures. Well, imagine it like the place of god/goddess in Greek mythology. If you've seen The Rock, you'll remember the dome as the set where Sean Connery met his daughter and got caught by Nicholas Cage.
It was around 5 PM already, we then went to the most "weird" (crookedest) street in San Francisco, or maybe in the world, Lombard Street. The neighbourhood was just so creative that you actually had to do a zig-zag passing down the road. Unfortunately it was fall season so the flowers were not all blooming. Now just imagine the challenge faced by the owner of any of the house in this neighbourhood to park their car in their garage.
Our "tour" proceeded to the nearby Coit Tower. From this spot, you could again get a view of the San Francisco bay and downtown San Francisco. We didn't enter the tower tough. The view from here was spectacular already.
It was almost dark already and thus, it was the best time to then visit the Twin Peaks. It was located pretty far, about 30 mins, south of San Francisco. During our way there, Lego contacted us and informed us that he'd finished with work. Since he lived somewhere near there, we decided to meet there. Twin Peaks at evening was really cold. This was the first time we felt freezingly cold, you know, your teeth and hands shivering. The downtown view at night was amazing. Notice the brighter straight line of lights in the picture, that was the famous Market Street. I think it was the main road in SF, like Surabaya's Tunjungan. There were lots of professional photographers taking pictures here (with tripod, of course). This was also the second time I met Lego in face. The first time I met him was briefly at his wedding in Yogyakarta a few months before. Hence I couldn't immediately recognize him again here :-), besides it was pretty dark up there.
All 4 of us were hungry, so we decided to have dinner together. Since I had no idea of any place, Robert and Lego discussed it, and Thanks God It's Friday's (TGIF) was our choice. I ordered some steak, rib IIRC, and it was nyam nyam yummy. You should try their Jack Daniel's menu. This was our first western meal since we arrived at SF. We had lots of talks during dinner, about work, life in US, visas, competition, etc. Thanks to Lego, he was the one who treated us all. :-)
After dinner, Lego kindly took us back to our hotel. Robert went home on his own since his home was closer to the restaurant. And.. that concluded our day tour. Thanks to Robert who kindly took us all around SF. I'd strongly recommend "Robert SF Personal Tour" as the best way to experience SF. I guarantee it will be the most personalized and customized tour for you, expecially for budget tourist like us :-). The only drawback is it's only available on weekend and if he's free from work. Oh btw, Robert said that he would take us to Monterey at the end of the week. Wow!
After taking our shower, we walked to Union Square to find some breakfast. There were many restaurants serving breakfast packages. Seriously, we had to put in our mind that 1 US$ = Rp. 2.000 before all prices felt normal :-). There were Pizza, Mexican food (Burito, Taco), Thai food, Asian (Chinese) food, and various other breakfast that we had no idea what it was. We kept walking until we reached San Francisco Shopping Center, 1 block south of Union Square. The shopping center had an interesting curved-shaped elevator. We ended up taking our breakfast at Panda Express in the food court. It's a fast food of Chinese meal. Oh, we also got our first fortune cookie. Inside the cookie, you'd find a word-of-wisdom. I didn't remember what it was about, but it was something nice (well, customers wouldn't be back if they put something rude).
Around 12PM, I contacted Robert. Apparently he was already around the area. Due to my lack of knowledge, Robert had to actually go around the area several times before we finally met him :-). Our first destination then of course was the famous Golden Gate Bridge. There were lots of tourists. We also took lots of pictures here. We were really lucky because the weather was so good that we could get a clear view of the whole bridge. It was really cold and windy there, however the air felt so refreshing. The ocean was just so blue and crystal clear. It was simply a breathtaking view. Notice the hill behind the bridge in this picture, you should go there if you want the best view of the bridge. The bridge construction itself was also amazing. Did you believe that the cables are actually made from lots of smaller cables so that they could survive earthquake? |  |
Satisfied, we proceeded crossing the bridge on Robert's car. At the end of the bridge, there was another stop point where you could get another view of the bridge. Here we also had a great view of downtown San Francisco and Alcatraz from here. You could also go further down to "Vista Point" get a view of the bridge from the bottom.
 |  |
 We then went a little bit more to the North, to Sausalito. Sausalito was famous for being home of the rich. It had a great bay view. Couples would also find it a romantic place. Robert told us that Li Ming (a HK actor) had a movie made here. |
Our journey continued to some higher land to get just another view of the Golden Gate Bridge. And I have to tell you that you would get the best view from here. Not only that, you would also get an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean from here. City tour wouldn't normally take you to this spot, so there weren't as many tourists here as down there. Thanks to Robert, our "personal tour guide", we got this amazing opportunity.
 |  |
OK, we were ready to get back to downtown SF. While we didn't need to pay to cross the bridge to the north, you had to pay for the southward direction into the city. But since there were 3 persons in the car, we got a free pass. Robert then took us to the Palace of Fine Arts. This place was very beatiful. It was like a heavenly palace with really huge structures. Well, imagine it like the place of god/goddess in Greek mythology. If you've seen The Rock, you'll remember the dome as the set where Sean Connery met his daughter and got caught by Nicholas Cage.
 |  |
It was around 5 PM already, we then went to the most "weird" (crookedest) street in San Francisco, or maybe in the world, Lombard Street. The neighbourhood was just so creative that you actually had to do a zig-zag passing down the road. Unfortunately it was fall season so the flowers were not all blooming. Now just imagine the challenge faced by the owner of any of the house in this neighbourhood to park their car in their garage. |  |
It was almost dark already and thus, it was the best time to then visit the Twin Peaks. It was located pretty far, about 30 mins, south of San Francisco. During our way there, Lego contacted us and informed us that he'd finished with work. Since he lived somewhere near there, we decided to meet there. Twin Peaks at evening was really cold. This was the first time we felt freezingly cold, you know, your teeth and hands shivering. The downtown view at night was amazing. Notice the brighter straight line of lights in the picture, that was the famous Market Street. I think it was the main road in SF, like Surabaya's Tunjungan. There were lots of professional photographers taking pictures here (with tripod, of course). This was also the second time I met Lego in face. The first time I met him was briefly at his wedding in Yogyakarta a few months before. Hence I couldn't immediately recognize him again here :-), besides it was pretty dark up there.All 4 of us were hungry, so we decided to have dinner together. Since I had no idea of any place, Robert and Lego discussed it, and Thanks God It's Friday's (TGIF) was our choice. I ordered some steak, rib IIRC, and it was nyam nyam yummy. You should try their Jack Daniel's menu. This was our first western meal since we arrived at SF. We had lots of talks during dinner, about work, life in US, visas, competition, etc. Thanks to Lego, he was the one who treated us all. :-)
After dinner, Lego kindly took us back to our hotel. Robert went home on his own since his home was closer to the restaurant. And.. that concluded our day tour. Thanks to Robert who kindly took us all around SF. I'd strongly recommend "Robert SF Personal Tour" as the best way to experience SF. I guarantee it will be the most personalized and customized tour for you, expecially for budget tourist like us :-). The only drawback is it's only available on weekend and if he's free from work. Oh btw, Robert said that he would take us to Monterey at the end of the week. Wow!
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Day 01: San Francisco, CA
Captain log, earth (San Francisco) date Oct 9th 2005
At about 8.30AM, earlier than scheduled, we landed at SFO. First impression, well, it's an airport, what did you expect? :-) Anyway, I still think Changi is better. As usual, we first had to line-up for the immigration process. When my turn came, I approached the officer with my wife. Being Indonesian, I was told to wait to do some special registration before I could get an entry-clearance, while my wife had her passport stamped right-away. I waited for only about 5 mins for the interview. The interview went well. The officer asked my personal details, the reason I came, where I'd stay, when I'd leave, etc. He was very nice, he kept telling me, "this won't take long, just a few more questions". I also had my fingerprint and photo taken again here (just like when I applied for the visa at Surabaya's consulate). Anyway, I got only one month of entry, while my wife got 6 months of entry :-). But that was already enough, because we'd only stay for 3 weeks max. At the end, the officer reminded me carefully that since I was given some FIN# number, when I leave US, I should not let the airline officer took my immigration card, and instead I should find and confirm my leave myself. This turned out to be a little (tiny) problematic later, because the airline officer insisted on taking my card and didn't know about this procedure. I'll talk about it more in day 16.
We then immediately proceeded to the arrival hall. It wasn't really as big as I had expected. First thing we'd like to know was what the weather was like outside. There we went, our first breath of SF air :-). It was a really nice weather, cool, but not too cold. Felt like on the mountain. Perhaps you could compare it with Batu, but colder. I think I could survive with just a t-shirt and an ordinary jacket. Later I found out that it was about 20 degree Celcius. Nice, isn't it?
Since we'd be leaving via LAX, we decided to explore SFO first. We first took all available brochures/flyers, lots of them. There was a vending machine which sells electronic gadget, such as iPod. There were also museums, stores. We went to the spacious departure hall and I thought the roof there was nice :-). There was also AirTrain which could take you to all other terminals. Surprisingly, no free internet access :-(.
Before coming here, we'd done lots of research on hotels and available ground transport. In fact, we thought that finding hotels in US is much much easier and faster than finding hotels, say in Bali or Jakarta. We used online services such as Expedia, Orbitz, TripAdvisor, and many others. We could get some good bargain too by making our reservation online. Since the competition would be at 12th, we planned to stay for 2 nights first in downtown SF. And we picked Astoria hotel because of its great location (next to Chinatown) and relatively low price (USD59/night before tax).
We then proceeded to the BART station, bought two tickets to downtown SF, Montgomery Station. BART was nice too, although IMO Singapore's MRT was cleaner. The trip took about 30 mins and it approached the city via subway. So you could imagine, we "popped-up" from underground, right immediately in the middle of San Francisco, on a relatively quiet Sunday morning. From there, we walked about 4 blocks to our hotel. It was not that far actually, except when you brought your luggages (and the road was climbing up, yes, SF is hilly), they became a hassle.
We found our hotel. It is perfectly next to the Chinatown gate. We checked-in, took a brief rest, and went to explore Chinatown. SF Chinatown was about 6 blocks tall and 3 blocks wide. The road was small. Shops were all along the road. We then had lunch there. Our first SF lunch was simply fried rice and fried noodle. We were too hungry and just wanted to satisfy our stomatch. They tasted perfect. The surprise was that the portion was huge. We ended up wrapping-up half of the rice and half of the noddle and brought it back for dinner. The term for this was "food to go" (bungkus, maksude).
Our exploration continued to Union Square. It was about 2 blocks away south of our hotel. It was a, well, huge square with a tall tower in the middle of it. There were lots of branded stores all around the square.
Next to the square was cable-car. It was a "must-ride" for every tourist :-). We bought passports which would allow us unlimited ride for all buses/streetcars/cable-cars for 3 days. I learned later that this was unnecessary as we could have bought bus ticket which could be used for up to 4 hours. Anyway, it was a very nice experience riding the cable-car up and down on the hilly SF. When the road went down, the driver would just do a free-fall :-) and most passengers would yell. It was also interesting to see how they rotated the car once it reaced its end. Btw, at the end of the road (somewhere on the northern part), we found "Barnes and Nobles" bookstore. It was getting cold and colder, and it was warm and nice inside the bookstore.
When we got back to Union Square, it was about 9.00PM already. We went back to our hotel. I contacted my friend, Lego, and my friend's brother, Robert, who both worked there. Robert was going to be free the next day (a Columbus day) so he promised to take us for a tour around SF. Great! Stay tuned for more exciting day.
At about 8.30AM, earlier than scheduled, we landed at SFO. First impression, well, it's an airport, what did you expect? :-) Anyway, I still think Changi is better. As usual, we first had to line-up for the immigration process. When my turn came, I approached the officer with my wife. Being Indonesian, I was told to wait to do some special registration before I could get an entry-clearance, while my wife had her passport stamped right-away. I waited for only about 5 mins for the interview. The interview went well. The officer asked my personal details, the reason I came, where I'd stay, when I'd leave, etc. He was very nice, he kept telling me, "this won't take long, just a few more questions". I also had my fingerprint and photo taken again here (just like when I applied for the visa at Surabaya's consulate). Anyway, I got only one month of entry, while my wife got 6 months of entry :-). But that was already enough, because we'd only stay for 3 weeks max. At the end, the officer reminded me carefully that since I was given some FIN# number, when I leave US, I should not let the airline officer took my immigration card, and instead I should find and confirm my leave myself. This turned out to be a little (tiny) problematic later, because the airline officer insisted on taking my card and didn't know about this procedure. I'll talk about it more in day 16.
We then immediately proceeded to the arrival hall. It wasn't really as big as I had expected. First thing we'd like to know was what the weather was like outside. There we went, our first breath of SF air :-). It was a really nice weather, cool, but not too cold. Felt like on the mountain. Perhaps you could compare it with Batu, but colder. I think I could survive with just a t-shirt and an ordinary jacket. Later I found out that it was about 20 degree Celcius. Nice, isn't it?
Since we'd be leaving via LAX, we decided to explore SFO first. We first took all available brochures/flyers, lots of them. There was a vending machine which sells electronic gadget, such as iPod. There were also museums, stores. We went to the spacious departure hall and I thought the roof there was nice :-). There was also AirTrain which could take you to all other terminals. Surprisingly, no free internet access :-(.Before coming here, we'd done lots of research on hotels and available ground transport. In fact, we thought that finding hotels in US is much much easier and faster than finding hotels, say in Bali or Jakarta. We used online services such as Expedia, Orbitz, TripAdvisor, and many others. We could get some good bargain too by making our reservation online. Since the competition would be at 12th, we planned to stay for 2 nights first in downtown SF. And we picked Astoria hotel because of its great location (next to Chinatown) and relatively low price (USD59/night before tax).
We then proceeded to the BART station, bought two tickets to downtown SF, Montgomery Station. BART was nice too, although IMO Singapore's MRT was cleaner. The trip took about 30 mins and it approached the city via subway. So you could imagine, we "popped-up" from underground, right immediately in the middle of San Francisco, on a relatively quiet Sunday morning. From there, we walked about 4 blocks to our hotel. It was not that far actually, except when you brought your luggages (and the road was climbing up, yes, SF is hilly), they became a hassle. |  |
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Next to the square was cable-car. It was a "must-ride" for every tourist :-). We bought passports which would allow us unlimited ride for all buses/streetcars/cable-cars for 3 days. I learned later that this was unnecessary as we could have bought bus ticket which could be used for up to 4 hours. Anyway, it was a very nice experience riding the cable-car up and down on the hilly SF. When the road went down, the driver would just do a free-fall :-) and most passengers would yell. It was also interesting to see how they rotated the car once it reaced its end. Btw, at the end of the road (somewhere on the northern part), we found "Barnes and Nobles" bookstore. It was getting cold and colder, and it was warm and nice inside the bookstore.
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When we got back to Union Square, it was about 9.00PM already. We went back to our hotel. I contacted my friend, Lego, and my friend's brother, Robert, who both worked there. Robert was going to be free the next day (a Columbus day) so he promised to take us for a tour around SF. Great! Stay tuned for more exciting day.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Day 01 Singapore-Japan-San Francisco
Captain log, earth (Singapore) date 9 Oct 2005.
We woke up very early, 2.00AM, because late for the plane was the last thing we would ever want to happen. We then went to Changi, and at around 3.30AM, we already arrived there to do the usual check-in ritual.
Before doing check-in, each passenger would have a little interview. It was just some requirement for US security, I guess. He asked about what you brought, whether you brought meat, whether you brought laptop, etc (I don't remember all the details). After we got our boarding pass, we still had lots of time, so we accessed the internet, checked email. Just when we were about to board, there would be another security check. It was a very thorough check, you even had to take your shoes off and let the officer check them. Fortunately my shoes were new :).
The flight to Narita, Tokyo took about 7 hours and we arrived there at 14.15 PM Tokyo Time (2 hours ahead of Surabaya). The NorthWest plane was very comfortable and clean. I was glad that there was no smell (but just plain fresh air) on the plane, as I think I'm very smell-sensitive and a little smell could easily make me sick. Each seat was equipped with a TV, I watched "Fantastic Four" on the flight, while the rest of the time I just slept (to cover-up my morning sleep).
Narita is a very comfortable airport too, although I must say that Changi is more spacious and hence feels better. We transitted there for about 2 hours, so we had some time to browse around and try some Japanese lunch (hot tofu + noodle). While browsing, I found some interesting gadget: a JVC camcorder with a hard-disk as its storage. It was something like 40/80 GB and could store about 40 hrs of movie in MPEG-2 format. Cool, but the price was hefty (> USD 1000).
At 16.00 PM, our flight departed from Japan, headed to San Francisco, the farthest we'd ever step our feet on. We were so excited. The trip would take about 9 hours. We'd be crossing the international date so when we arrived at San Francisco, it would still be Oct 9th 09.00 AM daylight time (Oct 9th 23.00PM Surabaya or 14 hours before Surabaya time). During the flight, we were given two meals (dinner and breakfast or was it lunch and dinner, whatever) and lots of snacks every so hours. I watched "War of the worlds" here, very cool movie, not a satisfactory ending though. The rest of the time, we spent it with sleeping, hoping that when we arrived at SF, we wouldn't feel jet-lag.
Btw, the plane was not crowded. It was a 2-4-2 seat in each row. I noticed some people were sitting alone on the 4 seats and could use all 4 of them as a bed. How nice. So next time you took a flight alone, you might want to consider this strategy.
Somehow, I also managed to crash the TV set on my seat, it rebooted and I could see it rebooted Linux and tried to connect to some multicast server. Interesting. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of this.
That's all for now, see ya at San Francisco :).
We woke up very early, 2.00AM, because late for the plane was the last thing we would ever want to happen. We then went to Changi, and at around 3.30AM, we already arrived there to do the usual check-in ritual.
Before doing check-in, each passenger would have a little interview. It was just some requirement for US security, I guess. He asked about what you brought, whether you brought meat, whether you brought laptop, etc (I don't remember all the details). After we got our boarding pass, we still had lots of time, so we accessed the internet, checked email. Just when we were about to board, there would be another security check. It was a very thorough check, you even had to take your shoes off and let the officer check them. Fortunately my shoes were new :).The flight to Narita, Tokyo took about 7 hours and we arrived there at 14.15 PM Tokyo Time (2 hours ahead of Surabaya). The NorthWest plane was very comfortable and clean. I was glad that there was no smell (but just plain fresh air) on the plane, as I think I'm very smell-sensitive and a little smell could easily make me sick. Each seat was equipped with a TV, I watched "Fantastic Four" on the flight, while the rest of the time I just slept (to cover-up my morning sleep).
Narita is a very comfortable airport too, although I must say that Changi is more spacious and hence feels better. We transitted there for about 2 hours, so we had some time to browse around and try some Japanese lunch (hot tofu + noodle). While browsing, I found some interesting gadget: a JVC camcorder with a hard-disk as its storage. It was something like 40/80 GB and could store about 40 hrs of movie in MPEG-2 format. Cool, but the price was hefty (> USD 1000).At 16.00 PM, our flight departed from Japan, headed to San Francisco, the farthest we'd ever step our feet on. We were so excited. The trip would take about 9 hours. We'd be crossing the international date so when we arrived at San Francisco, it would still be Oct 9th 09.00 AM daylight time (Oct 9th 23.00PM Surabaya or 14 hours before Surabaya time). During the flight, we were given two meals (dinner and breakfast or was it lunch and dinner, whatever) and lots of snacks every so hours. I watched "War of the worlds" here, very cool movie, not a satisfactory ending though. The rest of the time, we spent it with sleeping, hoping that when we arrived at SF, we wouldn't feel jet-lag.
Btw, the plane was not crowded. It was a 2-4-2 seat in each row. I noticed some people were sitting alone on the 4 seats and could use all 4 of them as a bed. How nice. So next time you took a flight alone, you might want to consider this strategy.
Somehow, I also managed to crash the TV set on my seat, it rebooted and I could see it rebooted Linux and tried to connect to some multicast server. Interesting. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of this.
That's all for now, see ya at San Francisco :).
Day 00 : Surabaya - Singapore
I'll be documenting my 16-days trip in US in the next few days. But first, let's preserve some interesting link again: TopCoder 2005 Finalists Press Release.
Since I'm a coder, I'll start with 0-based index :). Besides we weren't in US yet on day 0. Here was my complete itinerary:
GA 842L - 08 Oct 2005 - SUB-SIN - 0700 1010
NW 6M - 09 Oct 2005 - SIN-NRT - 0600 1415
NW 28M - 09 Oct 2005 - NRT-SFO - 1610 0930
NW 1M - 25 Oct - LAX-NRT - 1310 1700
NW 5M - 26 Oct - NRT-SIN - 1845 0105
GA 843L - 27 Oct - SIN-SUB - 1810 1925
The round-trip plane ticket cost was USD 915 (it was a low-season). Anyway if you're flying with NorthWest (or any planes), you shouldn't forget to register for the frequent flyer program. I got about 17,231 pts from this trip alone. Another 2,769 pts would earn me a free ticket to any destination in Asia. Wow. Just hope NorthWest will be doing fine, considering they just filed something like a bankruptcy protection program in US. But I'm sure they will be, their planes are very clean, well-equipped, and pretty much comfortable. I'm a happy customer.
We left Surabaya at 08 Oct 2005 07.00 using Garuda Indonesia. The trip to Singapore was about 2 hours and we arrived there at 10.00 local time. Going abroad was my wife's first experience, so I can tell you how excited she was all the time.
Oh, before leaving Juanda (Surabaya), we met our friend, Ruslan, who was also going to Singapore. So we were on the same flight, and thanks to him, we got a free taxi ride from Changi to our hotel.
I had a funny incident at Changi. Somehow, before the immigration clearance, while filling the immigration form, I left my cellphone on top of the table. And I forgot to take it back. I realized it when I was about to enter the taxi, so I quickly rushed back into the terminal. Thank God, it was still there.
We had to stay 1 night in Singapore because the flight to Japan would leave early the next day. We chose the earliest Garuda flight so that we could enjoy Singapore for a whole day. NorthWest is very generous to give us Furama RiverFront hotel. It was a pretty nice hotel. Unfortunately since we came too early, there were no room available yet. Wow, it's definitely not a low season in Singapore. So we had to wait about 1 hour for a room to be cleaned. We were given a welcome-drink voucher to be spent at the hotel's lounge. While waiting, I checked with my laptop and apparently they had wireless internet, but it's not free :(.
The hotel was about 15 minutes of walk from Chinatown, but we decided to go to the famous Orchard first. Besides, the hotel provided a free shuttle bus to Orchard. It was Saturday so it was pretty crowded at Orchard. My wife told me she preferred to do sight-seeing instead of shopping. So we took a quick sweep of malls and plazas around Orchard, and decided to have our lunch at Yoshinoya inside Takashimaya. The food was great. I recommend it to everyone. Unfortunately we forgot to pay a visit to Borders.
I still had my EZ-Link card from my previous visit, so I bought another one for SGD15 for my wife. Armed with this, we were ready to travel all around the city. I planned to take my wife to Sentosa to watch the beautiful musical fountain (the only must-see attraction at Sentosa IMHO); but I thought it was still to early. So we decided to visit Suntec first, which is just next to Orchard.
Around 5 PM, we decided to go to Sentosa. The only thing we would like to see was the musical fountain which started at 7.40 PM. Based on my experience, if you would like to get the best view (straight in front of the fountain), you'd need to arrive at least 1 hour before. My guess was right, it was pretty crowded already at around 6.30 PM there; but we managed to find a perfect spot. The show was really spectacular. The last time I saw this was about 7 years ago, and they had "upgraded" the story. 7 years ago, the laser could only draw the outline; but now they could "fill" and draw the complete character. There was also fire burst out occasionally and you could actually feel it's hot.
After that, we took the cable car back, had dinner (some Vietnamese meal), went back to the hotel to get a rest as we had to wake up early morning for the flight to the US the next day.
Since I'm a coder, I'll start with 0-based index :). Besides we weren't in US yet on day 0. Here was my complete itinerary:
GA 842L - 08 Oct 2005 - SUB-SIN - 0700 1010
NW 6M - 09 Oct 2005 - SIN-NRT - 0600 1415
NW 28M - 09 Oct 2005 - NRT-SFO - 1610 0930
NW 1M - 25 Oct - LAX-NRT - 1310 1700
NW 5M - 26 Oct - NRT-SIN - 1845 0105
GA 843L - 27 Oct - SIN-SUB - 1810 1925
The round-trip plane ticket cost was USD 915 (it was a low-season). Anyway if you're flying with NorthWest (or any planes), you shouldn't forget to register for the frequent flyer program. I got about 17,231 pts from this trip alone. Another 2,769 pts would earn me a free ticket to any destination in Asia. Wow. Just hope NorthWest will be doing fine, considering they just filed something like a bankruptcy protection program in US. But I'm sure they will be, their planes are very clean, well-equipped, and pretty much comfortable. I'm a happy customer.
We left Surabaya at 08 Oct 2005 07.00 using Garuda Indonesia. The trip to Singapore was about 2 hours and we arrived there at 10.00 local time. Going abroad was my wife's first experience, so I can tell you how excited she was all the time.
Oh, before leaving Juanda (Surabaya), we met our friend, Ruslan, who was also going to Singapore. So we were on the same flight, and thanks to him, we got a free taxi ride from Changi to our hotel.
I had a funny incident at Changi. Somehow, before the immigration clearance, while filling the immigration form, I left my cellphone on top of the table. And I forgot to take it back. I realized it when I was about to enter the taxi, so I quickly rushed back into the terminal. Thank God, it was still there.
We had to stay 1 night in Singapore because the flight to Japan would leave early the next day. We chose the earliest Garuda flight so that we could enjoy Singapore for a whole day. NorthWest is very generous to give us Furama RiverFront hotel. It was a pretty nice hotel. Unfortunately since we came too early, there were no room available yet. Wow, it's definitely not a low season in Singapore. So we had to wait about 1 hour for a room to be cleaned. We were given a welcome-drink voucher to be spent at the hotel's lounge. While waiting, I checked with my laptop and apparently they had wireless internet, but it's not free :(.
The hotel was about 15 minutes of walk from Chinatown, but we decided to go to the famous Orchard first. Besides, the hotel provided a free shuttle bus to Orchard. It was Saturday so it was pretty crowded at Orchard. My wife told me she preferred to do sight-seeing instead of shopping. So we took a quick sweep of malls and plazas around Orchard, and decided to have our lunch at Yoshinoya inside Takashimaya. The food was great. I recommend it to everyone. Unfortunately we forgot to pay a visit to Borders.I still had my EZ-Link card from my previous visit, so I bought another one for SGD15 for my wife. Armed with this, we were ready to travel all around the city. I planned to take my wife to Sentosa to watch the beautiful musical fountain (the only must-see attraction at Sentosa IMHO); but I thought it was still to early. So we decided to visit Suntec first, which is just next to Orchard.
 |  |
| Crowded Orchard | Fountain wealth @ Suntec |
Around 5 PM, we decided to go to Sentosa. The only thing we would like to see was the musical fountain which started at 7.40 PM. Based on my experience, if you would like to get the best view (straight in front of the fountain), you'd need to arrive at least 1 hour before. My guess was right, it was pretty crowded already at around 6.30 PM there; but we managed to find a perfect spot. The show was really spectacular. The last time I saw this was about 7 years ago, and they had "upgraded" the story. 7 years ago, the laser could only draw the outline; but now they could "fill" and draw the complete character. There was also fire burst out occasionally and you could actually feel it's hot.
 |  |
| Took a cable car | Flower clock (about 6.02 PM) |
 |  |
| The fountain garden | Musical fountain at 7.00 PM |
 |  |
| Amazing laser | Drawing a woman |
 |  |
| With fire | Me with Merlion @ Sentosa |
After that, we took the cable car back, had dinner (some Vietnamese meal), went back to the hotel to get a rest as we had to wake up early morning for the flight to the US the next day.
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