Menyeberangi Lautan Pasifik

Two days in San Diego, and I am still not sun burnt. Less of what I had expected.

But the weather is still a welcoming change from Seattle's. The sun had not let us down and it had been relatively warm. It does get chilly when the sea wind (read: wind, not breeze) blows, especially at the beach area. Woohhhhh.....brrrr... and those beach people seem to be enjoying the water.

Anyway, just an update on what I have been up to in SD. Yuting and I arrived early in the morning, no thanks to a good four hour delay by Amtrak. We managed to see the Pacific Ocean from the train, albeit it was a night view. Someone taught me to look for "white foams" in the dark horizon and that would be the breaking waves in the ocean. At certain moments, when the train was near enough to the edge of the cliff, I could see the coastline and saw where the waves hit the shore.

Although the train was delayed, I must commend Amtrak for the good service. Because of a tunnel reinforcement work being down as a earthquake preventive measure, we had to detrain at the Santa Barbara station, which is several stations before our final destination. From there, Amtrak arranged everyone onto buses that sent us directly to our final destinations, skipping most stops in between.

Luckily our hostel - San Diego USA Hostel - was within walking distance from the train station, about 8 blocks away. Wen Chun, another NUS friend of ours was to meet us at the hostel, since he checked in earlier. I practically fell into deep slumber once my torso touched the mattress. Oh.. and the most special thing in this hostel.... it has a ceiling fan in the room!!! haha... haven't seen it in a while!

After a couple of hours of sleep, it was wakey time and start-the-sightseeing time. First up, was to register at the hostel (the counter wasn't open when we came) and then a 10 second walk outside just to check out the temperature. A nice warm shower was really welcomed, followed by breakfast, which was self-made pancake, sweetened with maple syrup.

Wen Chun, Yuting and I wanted to visit SD Oldtown first and I was adamant to see the beaches after that. So our itinerary for the day was decided. We bought the SD Trolley Day-tripper which costs each of us only $5, really cheap. It is valid on any SD transit (bus & trolley) for the whole day.

Our hostel was at Downtown so we took the Blue-line trolley to the Old-town Transfer Station. San Diego was where "California" first came about. Before that, ownership of the region was being wrestled among the Mexicans and the Americans. The Oldtown was razed to ground in a fire some decades ago and thus the new San Diego town was built at the current downtown area. Some old buildings that still survived were turned into museums and memory timepieces, including a housing quarter where a well-to-do Spanish family once lived.

From the Oldtown Transfer Station, we could take Bus line 8 or 9 to Mission Beach and Pacific Beach. The lines basically ran the same loop except in opposite directions. Mission Beach was not crowded. But there were many people taking advantage of the good weather and went for long runs along the beach. And a number of surfers and bodyboarders took to the water. We spent some quality time taking pictures of people at the beach... haha

That evening, Huaqian joined us. On the way back from meeting her at the Amtrak station, we met up with the other NUS students who were also gonna spend a few days in SD. They were at LA before this and flew into SD for a couple of "skip-class days" haha... The SD airport is really near the city and the few times I saw the planes, I thought they were going to land right above me.... they were that close to ground!

They checked into our hostel but were all given different rooms. So they ended up booking a Omni Hotel room for the next few days. Anyway, we had our quintessential american meal at TGI Fridays just across the street. And I retired early for the night. I did check out a salsa place, Cafe Sevilla, but cover charge was $8 so I passed for it. (No point going if no one I knew was gonna join me.)

For the four of us, the next day was spent at the famous San Diego Zoo. We found the place similar to Singapore Zoo... or rather Singapore Zoo was largely similar to it =) The animal exhibit areas were designed to reflect their wild habitat. And the entire place was HUGE. There was a cable car that takes you to the top of the zoo and at the same time serves as a sightseeing tool. By the end of the day, we still didn't finish the Itura Forest area but we covered the main attractions, mainly the panda and polar bear. Their Pandas, Baiyun and Gaogao had been featured in many news articles before.

That night, Yuting and I walked around the Gaslamp Quarter, which was where our hostel was located. It's where the nice restaurants, pubs and clubs are located, kinda like Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur. Good thing that our hostel has a 11pm onwards "quiet time", so it's actually quiet within the hostel. We don't even hear music from the streets. That very night, Microsoft had some kind of party going on. Unfortunately, we weren't dressed well enough to gate-crash.

After that, we met up with the other NUS students who went to Seaworld instead of the Zoo. Seaworld was a waterpark cum aquarium, like Hong Kong's Ocean World. We visited their hotel room and I fell almost asleep there.... boredom. haha... anyway, we had to head back to our hostel as we needed to rest early and pack for our early train ride the next day. We were heading to LA!!!!!

Oh yeah, that night, I was trying to access the wireless internet in the hostel. A tip to mac users out there... whenever a hostel gives you the password and you can't access the wireless no matter what, try adding a "$" before the password. It worked for me in SD and in Seattle. Strange but true!