Destination: United States of America & Hong Kong
Duration: 8 Days 7 Nights (Nov 30~Dec 08, 2013)
Day 1: CSI Marathon + Sunnyvale + San Jose +
Thanksgiving Shopping!!!
The strangest thing had happened out of nowhere – a
project which was dead since last year suddenly revived and required immediate
implementation. Hmm… how bizarre! As luck would have it - Implementation meant
having face to face meeting for setup in San Francisco. Last minute travel
notice also ensured that I was put on waiting list for Cathay Pacific & Singapore
Airlines. There I was wondering whether I would be put on business class but at
the end I got something BETTER! Rather than arriving in SFO on Sunday, they put
me on a flight which arrived on Saturday so it meant I GOT THE WHOLE WEEKEND
FOR MYSELF!!! Hooray!!!!
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| Cupcake anyone? |
As like any other CX flight departed from Penang, I had
the 7.50am flight before a transit in Hong Kong at 2.10pm for San Francisco. There I was bored out of my mind inflight and
accidentally stumbled upon the full 21 episodes of Season 13 CSI in the
inflight entertainment system! Thus this marked the beginning of my CSI
Marathon for the trip.
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| The illegal immigrant - Sammy... |
The PG-HK flight took around 3 ½ hours and we were served
breakfast with choices of either omelet or Rice with Chicken. Since I’d tried
omelet inflight, I went for the rice with chicken. It tasted just meh I guess.
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| Rice with Chicken as Breakfast |
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| Gate number for Connecting Flight |
Safely arrived in HK and luckily the transit wasn’t too
long. Finally boarded the plane to continue my CSI Marathon *facepalm*. Why
didn’t they have Thor the Dark World? That would make my life easier by playing
it on a loop. :p
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| Waiting for Boarding at HKIA |
This time we were presented with a menu for Lunch &
Dinner. For lunch, there were 3 main choices of Chicken, Pork & Vegetarian
Pasta but by the time the meal cart reached me – they only had pork. DARN! But
I did appreciate the Haagen Dazs Ice cream. The pork thankfully was still
tolerable with tons of carrots & mashed potato on the side. I got a glass
of white wine so that I could fell asleep better to avoid further jetlag.
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| Sammy is pleased with a Menu! |
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| Lunch & Dinner |
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| The Pork Dish with Haagen Dazs Ice Cream & White Wine |
The HK-SFO flight took more than 10 hours but I ended up
watching MORE CSI and only managed to half-asleep for 2 hours even after
drinking the wine. *facepalm* There were snacks provided between lunch &
dinner but it was just apples, cookies & peanuts. You could ask for Instant
Noodle cup though if you want. Dinner was served 2 hours before landing and
this time I got myself the fish set – the fish was nice but the spinach
tagliatelle was kind of tasteless. I guess they should provide more sauce for
this. The funny thing about this ‘dinner’ was it was based on HK time, if we
were to follow San Francisco time – this would be breakfast.
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| The Fish Set |
The flight landed in San Francisco Airport at around
10.30am and that was where the excitement begun! The sign in the airport was
clear so I had no problem taking the blue line train to car renting center. This
was where I rented a car to drive myself to Plaza Suites in Santa Clara. I
insisted on GPS and my exact line to the girl was: This would be my lifeline
here! Hhaaa… Finally we got all the paperwork done and got to the garage to
choose a car. I was delighted to see they had a Ford Fiesta! A car that I’m
familiar with! It was bad enough we had the opposite direction thing so it was
always good to drive in a familiar car.
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| Sammy is scared in a foreign car in a foreign land! |
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| Here it is! |
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| My Ford Fiesta Rental in US *facepalm* |
The ride from San Francisco Airport to Santa Clara took
around 45-50mins. One thing I noticed was American drove without caring on the
speed limit! According to the sign & my GPS, the speed limit for 101 was
65mi/h – I was driving 65mi/h but all the cars kept overtake me. *sweat* Don’t
they get speeding ticket or something?
Arrived and checked in safely in Plaza Suites – the room
was big with living room & bedroom separately into two different quarters.
Kind of creepy and too big for my taste if you asked me. After settled down
everything, it was time to start my adventure!!!
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| Living Room |
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| Some Coffee Maker |
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| Washroom |
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| Bathroom |
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| Sammy in the Bedroom |
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| The Plaza Suites |
First stop – the Winchester Mystery House which was
basically like 10-15mins drive away. There were lots of people there and I
managed to purchase the “Mansion Tour” for USD33. I did not get the Grand
Estate Tour which was the most money worth due to limited time for my
itinerary.
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| The Entrance to Winchester Mystery House |
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| Ticket Booth |
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| Waiting for the Tour |
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| Well, the Winchester Raffles! |
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| Along with some Bullets! |
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| A Gun Museum |
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| Strange Tree! |
Anyway Winchester Mystery House was basically a wacky
house with door opened to 18 feet drop or to a wall. Unfortunately no photo was
allowed inside the house but it was really FUN to experience it. Basically the
house was expanded nonstop to confuse spirit so that owner could have
everlasting life. More information on this fun place can be viewed here: http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/. Unfortunately no photo was allowed inside the house though. =(
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| Walking towards the Garden |
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| A Windmill? |
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| Tomb |
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| Courtyard of the House |
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| Some Greenhouse |
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| Sammy & a Statue |
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| Finally i make an appearance! LOL |
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| Sammy & the Cupid Fountain |
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| Rear View of the House |
My next stop was a short one to take a look at San Jose
downtown and it was 4pm when I reached there. Parking in US city is extremely
expensive as this cost me USD10 for less than 1 hour parking. But the location
was awesome and I was running out of time before the sky turned dark.
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| San Jose Museum of Art |
I took some photos of the Circle of Palms which is the
Historical marker for California’s 1st state capitol in San Jose.
The Cathedral Basilica of St Joseph was just nearby and it was stunning. They
also had a Christmas Park thing just opposite the Circle and it was really
amazing! =)
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| Circle of Palms |
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| A Panoramic View of San Jose Museum with Circle of Palms |
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| The Cathedral Basilica of St Joseph |
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| I have a take a picture! |
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| Beautiful eh? Wait till you see the inside... |
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| Wow!!! |
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| Look at this! |
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| This place is Magnificient! |
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| The San Jose Christmas Park! |
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| This is where the children meet Santa! |
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| The Soldier |
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| Froggie & Santa? |
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| Yes! They are Froggies! |
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| More Christmas House! |
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| This time is Bear Bear! |
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| The Giant Christmas Tree! |
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| The Lumber Mill? |
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| We have a Christmas Train! |
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| Flying! |
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| Mouses? |
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| Going somewhere? |
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| Gingerbread men! |
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| Lovely House! |
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| Finally found someone to help me to take a picture! |
The next destination was Gilroy Premium Outlets which was
30-40mins drive away from San Jose. The sky was turning dark and I was debating
whether I should go there. Since my colleagues would KILL me if I didn’t, I
ended up arriving at Gilroy at around 6.30pm. There were 4 major buildings of
the outlet and unless you want to cross the road in the dark, you would have to
drive to each of them. So what is a girl gotta do in a premium outlet?
*innocent look*
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| This was the only picture i took of the outlet before ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! |
Due to my impeccable timing of a Thanksgiving Weekend –
basically everything was on sales! A classic GAP jacket originally cost
USD44.99 was selling at USD14.99! OMG!!! Then there was COACH – you had to
queue to get in there! Everything was 50%+10% OFF!!!! I’m never going to buy
COACH elsewhere after this! People were going crazy in there!
Unfortunately the Samsonite Outlet was not as cheap as I
imagined – but since my luggage was out of space, I ended up buying their huge
yacht tote at around USD18. It would be useful for future travel as a spare
luggage in case of over-shopping. =)
After all the shopping, I finally realized that I hadn’t
eaten anything since the ‘dinner’ from the flight. McDonalds was the only one
available in that Building so I grabbed a grilled chicken wrap for the night.
The taste? Hmm.. too much honey mustard! I must say McDonalds is CHEAP in the
States! The wrap only cost like USD1.50! Imagine you are earning USD and
USD1.50 is basically nothing for you! You can’t really get anything with RM1.50
in Malaysia.
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| Some McD Grilled Chicken Wrap |
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| Drenched in Sauces... *facepalm* |
Finally arrived back to Plaza Suites at around 9pm – I
was supposed to be super sleepy having only able to sleep on the plane for 2
hours but jetlag caught up on me… Ended up only slept for 2 hours for the
night. *cry*
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| NOT MINE!!! I'm just a hired shopper with no salary! |
Next Day (San Francisco + EPIC FAIL!)
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