Destination: San Francisco, USA
Duration: 5 Days 4 Nights (Mar 31 ~ Apr 04, 2012)
Once upon a time, it was almost in everyone’s dream to step on the United
States – the Land of Milk and Honey. Our lives were influenced heavily by
Americas – the movie, the music, the fast food chain and the coffee chain were
at every corner of our local street. Americas seems to be the Mecca of every
youngster.
On the night of March 30, we started long journey to live our great American
dream. We matched into the airport one hour before departure and were greeted
with a 2 hours Delay Notice from our lovely Silkair. *facepalm* As a good
faith, Silkair provided us RM15 meal voucher which we claimed at Starbucks. We
were served with black pepper chicken puff in flight.
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| Coffee Bean from Meal Voucher |
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| Lucius wants to drink too! |
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| Black Pepper Chicken Puff on Silkair |
We arrived in Changi Airport near midnight and went to look for places to
rest for the night as our next flight only departed in morning. Changi airport
really was the best airport in the world, we quickly found rest places and
spent our night on the couch.
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| Someone is playing with her phone! |
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| "Bed" for the Night... |
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| Sammy slept like a pig. |
We woke up the next morning with some time to spare to explore the airport,
unfortunately it was raining thus preventing us to visit their famed Butterfly
garden. We grabbed a sandwich from Dunkin’ Donuts before boarding our flight to
San Francisco via Seoul.
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| Breakfast before Boarding... |
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| Here is our Ride... |
Lunch on board the SQ flight were:-
Appetizer: Celeriac root salad with shrimp
Entrees:
Pan roasted chicken with mushroom onion sauce, seasonal vegetables and
rosemary garlic potatoes
Or
Beef Bulgogi
Korean style grilled beef with seasonal vegetables and steamed rice
Dessert: Cheese and Cracker, Ice Cream, Roll and butter
The beef bulgori was great, the meat was soft and tender – not a fan of the
salad though. Kind of disappointed when we got our ice cream – Magnolia?
Seriously? No Haagen Dazs? We were also served with peanuts and some drinks
before the flight landed on Seoul. Look at the Singapore sling! Red and Shinny!
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| Beef Bulgori! |
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| Pan Roasted Chicken |
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| Magnolia? Seriously? |
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| Singapore Sling! |
We got off the plane to stretch our legs and basically have to walk to
departure gate again. It was the same plane actually but they won’t allow
anyone to stay on the plane during this transit.
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| Our short stop at Korea... |
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| Nice Displays! |
Dinner was served on board again. I’d never eaten so many inflight meal in one day!
Appetizer: Pasta and roasted vegetable salad, barbecue mayo
Entrees:
Pan fried fish with lemon dill sauce, buttered vegetables and potatoes
Dessert: Cheese and Cracker, Ice Cream, Roll and butter
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| Fishie... quite fishie... |
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| Prefer Baskin Robbins Strawberry Cheesecake though. :p |
We slept through most of the flight until breakfast was served. It was a
rough flight though as we encountered several turbulence.
Appetizer: Fruit Appetizer
Entrees:
Fried Rice with chicken, shrimps and egg
Or
Clive omelet with gammon ham, baked beans and roasted potatoes
Dessert: Breakfast roll, butter – fruit preserve
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| Finally! |
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| Fried Rice - no taste at all.. |
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| The Western Set |
Finally we arrived in SFO airport and met up with our colleagues who took CX
flight. Did you know that not more than 3 person from a same department is
allowed to be on a same flight for any business trip? Didn’t realize our company
practices this until this trip.
We quickly met up with another batch of colleagues from CX flight and off to our hotel – Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf together. The road in San Francisco was up and down and up and down! Apparently the city was built on hills so whatever goes up must come down! Really salute the driver in San Francisco. *hat off*
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| Sammy is excited! |
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| Photos from the Airport Transfer... |
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| Graffiti on the Street |
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| Steep Road!! O_O!!! |
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| I hope the vehicle brake has been checked recently! |
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| The famous cable car! |
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| Here we are! |
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| Home for few nights... |
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| Some sofa... |
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| No bathtub though... |
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| Bathroom |
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| TV and workstation |
After a short break in hotel, we went to take a bus to get Union Square to
do some sightseeing + shopping. My impression: Heaven for shopaholic!
Unfortunately I was not really in the mood of shopping though but it was cool
to experience the San Francisco shopping scene. The classic cable car was
always full of people so we only took a photo with it.
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| Banana Republic |
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| Coach |
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| The newspaper booth! |
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| PRADA!!! |
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| Burberry!!! |
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| Union Square |
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| Union Square from another direction. =p |
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| Stomp on cable car before it took off. |
We finally ate our lunch/dinner in some Chinese restaurant in a shopping
mall – don’t ask me why I go all the way to US to eat Chinese food though.
*facepalm* Definitely not my kind of idea! We ordered 2 sets of the rice/noodle
stuffs and shared it among 3 of us.
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| Noodles, Prawn and Vegetables |
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| Rice, Chicken & Vegetables |
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| Hey! Let's hope this is true! |
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| Bloomingdale's! Didn't have the chance to get in though... |
We then proceeded to Pier 39 to Hardrock Café to grab some souvenirs. It was
windy and kind of quiet there. In fact, it was so windy that I couldn’t hold my
camera right to take a clear picture. =(
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| Walk from hotel to the Pier Area... |
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| The Fisherman's Wharf! |
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| Pier 39! |
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| Victorian building.. |
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| Lovely cable cars! |
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| I love SF! |
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| The place was almost empty due to night time... |
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| Facing the sea - look at the flag blown by the wind! |
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| Well, not really in the mood of shopping really.. *innocent look* |
We started off our second day in San Francisco with a half day tour. Our bus
went through the golden gate bridge and stopped at uphill to let us take a
photo. There was also gun emplacement around the area. The sun lighting was
against us though – backlight! *facepalm*
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| Beautiful building - photo taken from the bus... |
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| The Open Top Bus... |
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| Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge |
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| Going through the Bridge.. |
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| Going uphill to get a good spot for the Bridge |
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| Getting there! |
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| Here we are!!! |
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| A portrait is much needed! |
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| Another direction... |
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| Gun Emplacement Area... |
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| Darn Backlight! |
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| Can i get a weapon? |
Our journey continued to Cliff’s house – one of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area which used to be a Gingebread Palace with the famous Sutro Baths including six of the largest indoor swimming pools. However, nothing much was left at this decade. You could see the outline of the swimming pools though. The water was naturally pouring in from the ocean. I climbed down the steep road to be nearer to the pool and I would see some people actually walked across the tiny swimming pool structure but I was too afraid to go on with the strong wind.
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| Where the bus stopped.. see the swimming pool? |
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| Getting Closer |
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| View from midpoint... |
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| Here we are at the bottom! |
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| The Famous Restaurant |
The bus then drove us around the Golden Gate National Park to have a look at the windmills and garden. After that we were treated with the colorful Victorian homes.
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| The Windmill - apparently a lot of people get married here.. |
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| The Garden... |
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| OMG! Who got stuck in the window? |
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| Getting near to the Victorian Homes Area... |
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| Beautiful huh? |
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| Oh Wow!!! |
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| Really Beautiful Church! |
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| The road is full of beautiful building |
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| Another!!! |
Our tour ended back to Fisherman’s wharf so we grabbed some lunches from the street stalls there. Their clam chowder with sourdough was a must-try. There was not seat around the area so we all had to stand and munched down our lunch.
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| Stalls at Fisherman's Wharf |
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| The must-try clam chowder! |
We then went for a 1 hour bay cruise circling around the bridge, Alcatraz and the city. We wanted to go for Alcatraz but unfortunately time was too short as we were told to be back to hotel by 3pm. So we would have to settle to be close to Alcatraz from the cruise.
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| Pier 43 to get on the cruise... |
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| Here come our cruise! |
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| Start Moving.. |
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| First view of Alcatraz... |
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| Getting Close to the Bridge |
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| Make a turn at the side.. |
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| Enjoying the cruise! |
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| Turning to another direction! |
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| View from the Cruise |
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| Getting close to Alcatraz! |
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| Why is the building wrapped in white? |
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| The Dock... |
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| Pier 39 from the Cruise |
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| Street Performer |
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| CRAB!!!! |
After the cruise, we managed to find Lombard Street based on our map! Amazing huh? There was loads of HIKING to get to the place but it was well worth it. Gosh, the road was really steep though. *sweat* Lombard Street It is famous for having a steep, one-block section that consists of eight tight hairpin turns. Thank God I was not driving in San Francisco! If you think the up and down steep road were a challenge, try drive on this road instead! I think I will have a heart attack if I ever drive in a road like this. I think the architect is trying to KILL with this!
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| Cherry Blossom on the way to Lambard Street.. |
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| Here it is! |
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| Look at the cars turning around! |
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| Opposite View from Lambard Street, imagine we hike all the way from bottom to atop! |
After Lombard Street, we had to go back to the hotel for the sales conference. A cocktail dinner so they say. I won’t comment much of the conference itself but here are some photos of the foods from the few days. Please DO NOT ask me to list down what I like and what I wish to accomplish during the conference – I will MURDER you on the spot. *deadly stare*
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| Sammy was waiting in the Hotel.. |
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| Sneak out to grab dinner after the cocktail reception since we hardly eat anything at all... |
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| Potato Chips during Hunger.. |
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| Salad |
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| Soup |
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| Prawn and Steak... |
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| Burrito |
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| Cake and Sandwich |
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| Cranberry Juice |
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| Dinner @Scoma's |
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| Lobster Rivioli |
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| Seared Tuna |
Flight back from San Francisco to Malaysia was a red eye flight on the same night the conference ended. Thus it ended our great (not-so) American dream.
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| Vending machine @SFO... |
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| Goodbye SF! |
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| Sammy wanna go home! |
We had our supper on the plane at 2am in the morning with:-
Appetizer: Marinated shrimp and cucumber salad with garlic dressing
Main Courses
Panfried chicken in tomato olive sauce with vegetables medley and potatoes
Or
Stir fried fillet with ginger and spring onion, Chinese vegetables and rice noodle
Dessert: Cheese and crackers, Chocolate brownie, roll and butter
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| Fishie! |
The food was not bad and we quickly fell into a slumber until breakfast.
Appetizer: Fruit Apprtizer
Main Courses
Steamed lor mai fun and siew mai
Or
Cheese scrambled egg with pork sausage marinated tomato and potatoes
Dessert: Assorted breakfast rolls, butter – fruit preserve
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| Typical Western Set |
One thing I don’t understand was why we were taking such a huge route from SFO to HK though. Too much air traffic?
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| Why are we taking a big round? |
We had a short stop at HK airport and back to the plane again and get another breakfast!
Appetizer: Fruit Apprtizer
Main Courses
Wok fried egg noodles with chicken, prawns and seasonal vegetables
Or
Chive omelette with veal sausage, grilled tomato and potatoes
Dessert: Assorted breakfast rolls, butter – fruit preserve
The noodle was really nice - The best inflight meal out of this trip. So after 24 hours, we finally arrived in Penang airport safely. Thank God it was Friday so we still have the weekend to sleep off our jetlag. =)
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| Yummy!!! |
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| Last Meal on Silkair SIN-PEN... |
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| Sammy is happy to be home! |
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