The Wanderful Life of Jasmine : May 2014

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

I left my heart in San Francisco

After spending two days in Las Vegas, we rented a 15 passenger van and headed out to our first destination in California--San Francisco.
The road trip there wasn't too long and took only about seven hours.

We arrived to San Francisco late at night and checked into our hotel. Our hotel was the Fitzgerald hotel that was located on Post street, just a few blocks down from where many iconic movie scenes were filmed. The hotel was completely different from our Vegas hotel. It was not very modern and had a tiny old style elevator with a manual door and gate. The rooms were fairly small and cramped. However, I didn't mind that the hotel was old and small since I've definitely been in hotels that are much older (in Rome) and much smaller (in Paris.) What I did mind was that our hotel rooms were somewhat spooky...

While we were unpacking our stuff during our first night, my oldest sister exclaimed "Hey guys, look! look!" When my other sister and I turned around, we saw the opened drawer that she was pointing at. We were a bit confused at what we were supposed to be looking at. Then, my oldest sister exclaimed that the drawer had just opened on its own...We reasoned that the floor of the room was not leveled, which in turn causes the drawer to slide open. I'm not sure if any of us actually believed this, but it was better to have a logical explanation than to suspect paranormal activity. Over the course of the next two days we experienced our hotel door and bathroom door shutting on its own as well. The first night I ended up with nightmares and couldn't sleep very well. It didn't help that we were right next to the a main road where peace and quiet didn't exist. Luckily, the next two nights I was exhausted enough to quickly fall into deep sleep and not wake up in the middle of the night.

During our first day in San Francisco we met up with my mom's childhood friend that she hadn't seen in over 40 years. He and his wife bought us tickets for the double decker tour bus and so we all got on and toured San Francisco by bus. It was very hot that day, around 94 degrees, which we were told was extremely unusual weather for S.F. The bus tour was around 2-3 hours and it took us to all the popular spots in the city such as the famous Golden Gate Bridge and Pier 39. After the bus tour, we headed down to Chinatown for a late lunch. Then, my mom's friend headed home and my family and I ventured out to do some exploration on our own. We explored North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf our first day. Afterward, we headed back to my mom's friend's apartment for dinner. Later that night, we stopped by Union Square before heading back to our hotel. We spent about half an hour at Union Square just chit chatting with each other. I was sitting with my siblings on some steps while my parents and my mom's friend was sitting on a bench just a few feet away. Suddenly a homeless man walked to the table in front of us and slammed his fist on it violently. In my head I was thinking "oh god, please don't come over here", but unfortunately he did. As he started to walk over, I stood up. As I was about to walk away, my sister told me to stay in Vietnamese. I knew that she didn't want him to perceive that we were frightened. When the homeless guy got to us, he started talking nonsense and then asked for a penny. When my mom's childhood friend told the homeless guy that we didn't have any money, he's slammed his fist on something else and walked off angrily. My heart was pounding so fast that all I wanted to do was to return to our "haunted" hotel.

On our second day in San Francisco, we toured the Alcatraz prison, walked around Pier 39, ate overpriced seafood at the Fishermen Wharf, and visited the crookedest street in S.F. a.k.a. Lombard Street. After we descended the steep slope down from the Lombard Street, we stopped at a café for some drinks. Since San Francisco is known for the cable cars, we decided to hop on one to get back to our hotel. All the seats in the cable car that arrived were full, so we had to stand up and hold onto the poles. The ride back to the hotel was definitely fun but kind of scary. It almost seemed like a rollercoaster ride going up and down the slopes. I wonder how many people fall off the cable cars each year...since there's nothing holding you in, you're basically just holding on to the pole for dear life.

While I think San Francisco is a very beautiful city, I don't think I would ever want to live there due to the homeless people situation. We were almost always surrounded by homeless people everywhere we went in San Francisco. It's definitely a problem that the city needs to resolve...

"I left my heart in San Francisco

High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars
The morning fog may chill the air, I don't care"

Union Square

Some cool building art seen from the bus tour

City Hall

Victorian homes

wall art

On the Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

Entrance to China Town

Silver Bridge

buildings by Union Square

China Town

Saints Peter and Paul Church

Amazing view of the slopes

On the pier

Fisherman's Wharf

Seafood from the Fisherman's Wharf

boats!

Alcatraz Island

Inside Alcatraz

Behind bars...

View from Alcatraz

Book signing with a former prisoner

From prisoner to author...

Pier 39

Viewing Alcatraz Island from afar

Cable Cars

Lombard Street- S.F. crookedest street

View from Lombard Street

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Family fun in...sin city?

On my 18th birthday in Brussels, Belgium, I promised myself that I would spend my birthday in a different city every year. It's been two years since then and I've still managed to keep that promise to myself. Last year, I spent my birthday in Chicago and this year I spent my birthday in Las Vegas.

I never thought I'd end up spending my 20th birthday in sin city with my family.
Las Vegas isn't the typical family vacation destination. Most people don't walk around Las Vegas with their parents and their 3-year old niece. I had planned to spend my 21st birthday in Las Vegas, but I ended up there a year too early. My family's plan for our family vacation this year was to fly to Vegas for a few days before going on a road trip to California.

On the eve of my birthday, I was in Austin, Texas, for a fashion show I was modeling in. I spent the first six hours of my birthday there before flying out to San Francisco. For some reason, my United Airlines flight flew to San Francisco before connecting to Las Vegas. It was definitely strange going forward two hours in time and then back one hour.

My family had flown into Vegas the night before I did. I had no trouble navigating through the airports and getting to the Luxor hotel in Vegas, where my family was staying at. However, I had a bad experience with the shuttle service. The shuttle service was so disorganized and ineffective at getting people to their respective hotels in a timely manner. The shuttle service only boarded passengers that were in groups of two or four...so those in groups of odd numbers were unfortunately neglected. I waited for more than half an hour (even though the person at the ticket booth told me it would be 10 minutes). For some reason, I ended up getting in a cab with a family of three that were headed to the same hotel. We were able to board the cab with just our shuttle tickets. I eventually found out that that family had waited for two hours to get a shuttle to their hotel. They told me that they suspected the reason they were finally able to get a ride to their hotel was because they were grouped with me and that made us an even number group. I'm not sure of the reason behind why the shuttle service refused to board single passengers or groups of three, but I was just glad that I didn't have to wait two hours. On the cab ride to the hotel, I found out that the family was from Quebec I was excited to hear French again and had the opportunity to practice my French with the friendly family.

I was definitely surprised at how huge the Luxor hotel was, it seemed more like an entertainment center than a hotel. I was supposed to meet my dad at the registration area in the hotel. It seemed easy enough...

Over half an hour later and multiple frustrated phone conversations, I was almost ready to give up on reuniting with my family. Then, I finally realized that I had somehow ended up in the Excalibur hotel, which explained why my dad wasn't at the same registration area that I was. I had no clue that it was possible to enter into one hotel and end up in another. But apparently, there are passageways that connect multiple hotels in Vegas.

After reuniting with my family, we headed out to explore Las Vegas. Most of our stay in Las Vegas was spent exploring the various magnificent hotels. The hotels in Las Vegas don't even seem like hotels. I think of hotels as just a place to crash...but hotels in Vegas are a place where people spend hours shopping, eating and of course gambling. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I couldn't partake in the crazy gambling and party scene.

While I didn't get to watch any of the famous shows in Vegas, I did enjoy the numerous small street shows (that didn't come with a $100+ price tag...)

Everything in Las Vegas is really overpriced. Even after leaving the airport, you're still faced with outrageous airport prices on everything you buy. I guess this probably shouldn't be that shocking considering Las Vegas is quite a flamboyant city that is known for the extravagance.

Overall, I had quite a memorable 20th birthday in Las Vegas with my family. I definitely plan to come back (when I'm legal) to fully experience the city of lights.