Hello, I blog!

Adventures in San Francisco, 29th February – 17th March 2012

There’s just something about nature that slows time down. (Or not quite – I’ve had similar all-nature days here in Singapore but the time still felt the same.) Up till today, I still can’t solve the puzzle of the seemingly “extended” time we’ve had on one particular day in San Francisco.

I can’t quite describe the day in words, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Umbrella frenzy at Japan Town, San Francisco.

(This is a backdated entry written offline, and published when I – finally – had wireless access.)

The ongoing vacation in New Zealand has been full of amusing happenings (and merry mishaps) thus far. It’s been about;

1. A GPS named Nicolette, christened by my younger cousin J. Apparently, Nicolette was not very accurate. She led us to an abandoned shack once when we wanted to go to the Geothermal Park, and let us off-track to an unmaintained gravel road in the mountains when we wanted to drive to Wellington. Bottom line is, don’t expect 100% accuracy from a GPS. Needless to say, Nicolette received a fair amount of verbal abuse.

2. My uncle flirting with the lady behind the counter at Subway, Hutt Valley (Wellington) … right in front of his wife. And the lady flirted back. Even gave him a free foot-long piece of bread too.

3. Receiving our rental MPV cars on our first day at Auckland and realizing we had no idea how to operate it, right down to the most basic operation of opening the car doors. We’d punch a button (e.g. to open the door) and something else (e.g. the lights coming on) will happen instead. Imagine that happening ten times in a row. It took us half an hour to figure out the basics, and a further 5 days to get used to it.

4. Merry mishaps such as us causing the curtain rod at our Wellington motel to crash onto the floor when we overloaded it with our wet laundry.

5. Playing silly games such as “guess what Brenda will say when she returns to meet us”, “guess what Jillian will say when she comes out of Subway” and “guess which auntie is awake when we reach the motel”. And the loser has to drink some vile concoction.

6. Playing pranks on one another in the car. Such as putting the air conditioning at full blast when it was already dead cold outside, letting farts rip when everyone least expects it, and pretending to drive off when the last few people are still walking towards the car.

7. Putting the two top snorers in the same room and listening to them PK in the middle of the night. (It sounded like an orchestra in there.)

8. Conversations loaded with too much information.

In the car, on the way back to our motel in Wellington.

J – “Can I bathe first?”
Me – “Sure!”
J – “My backside’s itchy.”
Me – “Okay, too much information.”
J – “I think it’s growing fungus!”
Me – “…”

9. The drives around town with the cousins in the MPV with the windows down, with Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” playing at full blast on the radio with us singing along at the top of our voices.

“I gotta feeling, that tonight’s gonna be a good night,
That tonight’s gonna be a good night,
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night.”
– The Black Eyed Peas

Among many others. Thanks for keeping the smile on my face.