I can't believe we survived the long hour of flight and the freezy cold wind of San Francisco!
Baby's nap and sleep time is all topsy turvy now. But he's extremely obedient and we are so lucky to have such a dearie little boy! He sleeps through all the take offs and landings and we have 2 of each as we need to do a transit in Korean international airport. I pity the mummies of those babies who were crying their hearts out due to the ear discomfort.
He's really active and managing him on the plane isn't easy but really boys are like that. Everyone who sees him says he's cute and handsome :) Between breastfeeding, carrying him around, entertaining him, letting him sleep on my lap, breasts, arms, I still managed to watch 2.5 movies and eat my lunches, breakfast and dinner properly. Lucky we also brought his favourite toys and some new ones on board with us. And not to forgot, moisturising cream and baby nose spray is a must. We adults need to use these too. Long hours of dryness on the plane is no joke.
In San franz, we went to hotel to rest and then went supermarket shopping for breakfast for tomorrow and water for the rest of the days. Of course we also got lunch at the Loving Hut, a vegan food stall at Westfield shopping mall. The spicy noodle is great! So good that baby refuses his baby food and insisted on eating ours. Interesting, on the first day, we felt kind of giddy and as if the world is shaking. We thought its because of the aftermath of long hours of flight but when we saw the water in the bottles shaking on the supermarket racks, we knew the world really IS shaking. Kind of worrying... but we got over it on the second day and its as if the world stops shaking, or rather we have gotten used to the shaking.
We saw people of different races on the road. A cab driver told us almost 50% of people here are Chinese, and that's because historically, the Chinese came to San Francisco first before the Whites during the Gold Rush. The people in the city can be pretty hostile. I witnessed a middle age lady wind down her car window and shouted "You son of a bitch!" to a young man who crossed the road recklessly and nearly caused her an accident. Just to make a stronger point, she shouted it twice. Then I saw a woman scolding the toilet cleaner because the cubicle she went to was faulty and she insisted the cleaner do something, but that was totally unnecessary because the other cubicles were quickly emptied and she could have gotten into one of them fast. But we met really nice people too. The service people here are friendly and helpful and the Muni bus drivers, and tram drivers are polite and keen to answer questions, unlike the poor attitude of some bus drivers we have over here. Maybe because most of our bus drivers are poorly paid foreign workers who are forced to work long hours and made to live in undesirable conditions (think SMRT drivers), whereas the drivers here are locals who have a pride in their jobs. It is really a pity that our country choose to be carrot heads and want to squeeze us citizens dry by raising fares for a bus service that is way less than satisfactory and accommodate some multi million profit transport company. Can somebody tell this Lui guy that "privatising" a "public transport" is an oxymoron? I wonder how many screw ups this government can do before the next elections. Oh well, they have 4 years to screw things up further.
On the first day out of town, we went to Lombard street, the crookedest street in the world. I wonder who would think of building a street like that... the cars are really challenging the crooked and steep street, driving from top to bottom. I'm glad we didn't bring the pram that day coz the slope is really steep and I pity the Chinese mother carrying the baby pram down the slope. Lucky her family member is holding her baby. Then we took a cruise to get close to the Golden Gate bridge. This is really romantic. Baby was asleep in my arms when we were on the cruise. It was better that way because the wind is really strong and chilly. We managed to see some sea lions resting on the planks by the bay but they were rather far away. The cruise ride was great and the magnificent bridge against the sunset is pretty!
Baby's feet were really cold when we went home although we put on socks, shoes and layers of clothes on him, so that the next day, we got him a good pair of winter shoes. Its pretty cheap, only USD 19.90.
Yesterday, we went to the Golden Gate Park and the California Academy of Sciences was totally awesome! One would wonder what the hell our Science Centre and Discovery centre is doing! Kieran totally enjoyed. He got to see large fishes swimming right infront of him, and he got to touch a Galapagos giant tortoise sculpture, see real penguins, large stingrays and baby sharks swimming gracefully, dancing jellyfishes that changes its colour every second like a computer screensaver, crawl around an interactive virtual place to catch virtual bugs, and amazes us and the reindeer caretaker by saying "deer!" when we showed him the reindeers and taught him how to say it for the first time! Its my first time seeing such a well planned and beautifully designed Science & discovery centre. Wonderful.
After that we went to the Japanese Tea garden. Couldn't managed to get to the Conservatory of flowers coz its too late. It was a pleasant and peaceful walk in the garden but it was rather small, and the tix are pricey for a small place. That evening was pretty scary because we couldn't manage to get a cab at the Golden Gate Park after 5pm. We are lucky a Chinese cab driver happened to drive in and picked us up. 2 elderly ladies saw and thought we boarded the cab they called and shouted to us but the driver insisted he didn't take any calls. The driver is a nice guy. The Chinese here are mostly Cantonese, and they tend to help each other or other foreign Chinese. Most of the streets along the Chinatown area has Chinese names and instructions and their names are pretty interesting like "Yun Yun seamstress" and "Wang Tea House".
Today was shopping day. We went to shop along Hayes street, and bought quite a bit of nice stuff. A magnetic toy, a toy robot that moves when you wind it and has sensors to prevent falling off tabletops, Levis jeans and clothes for baby, old Navy clothes for Kieran's friends, and a good bargain for a winter wear for a dad. Then we got to Macy's Men after dinner and got shirts, pants, shoes at a good bargain for hubby. A really relaxing and happy day.
We had tried the Muni buses that runs on cables but not on rails, the cable cars or trams that run on cables ad rails, and the metro that goes underground, all on our city passes. It is an amazing experience and I'm glad hubby planned it all well. I must say the City passes that we bought and the T mobile sim card that allows 3G on hubby's smart phone really helps a lot in getting us around San Francisco easily.
We can't really visit the nature parks although that would be my favourite thing to do because we are having baby along with us, and we'll have to wait until he's older to do that.
I can't wait to bring dear baby, when he's of school going age, to Australia where we can feed the Kangeroos and wallabies in the Zoos, and visit nature reserves, see penguins in the wild, and have fun, basically. Who says babies can't enjoy a holiday when he goes overseas under 6 years of age? He giggles at the grey squirrel at the Japanese tea garden, he's amused by dogs (some dogs resemble bears more as their really huge and furry), he loves the fishes in the Aquarium, he makes holiday fun when he interacts with people, and he learns new words like "deer" and "milk" along this journey!
I'm looking forward to going to Fisherman's Wharf tomorrow where we can visit the Aquarium of the Bay, possibly see some sea lions up close and walk along the streets of the Bay. And we'll also do some shopping in the afternoon and evening. SHops here close late. 11pm just now, there are still lots of people on the streets. A city never sleeps.
Did I mention baby points of the man in the US dollar note and says "Yee ahhh!" He looked proud of himself but I was so embarrassed and quickly kept the note. Coz "Yee ahhh" in my Kieran's language means "monkey"...
