From So-Cal to North Cal: A Recap

The five days at San Francisco, of which I was anticipating so much since August, has flown by, and now I am back at home, back to sitting my sore bum on my worn out computer chair. I feel the post-fun depression soaking in already...

Though I was anticipating this trip, I didn't really set any "expectations," just in case I depress and bum myself out, which is something I usually do (being my own party pooper). So, the time there was very, very fun.

And yes, that includes the times when we accidentally crossed the bridge to San Francisco when we weren't supposed to, when we accidentally went on the Fast Trak when we didn't have the Fast Trak, when we got lost by our own GPS, and when we went on a stroll to a nearby beach in Pacifica from my cousin's house and got soaked from rain on our stroll back. YEAH. Very, very fun.

Alright. -cracks knuckles-

Day 1

Two words. F--king hectic. My aunt was driving us (my cousins and me) and yes, she is quite the rebel driver, so I felt very, very uncomfortable the first 2 hours or so. I felt really carsick. My cousins asked me if I wanted to eat some pocky and beef jerky and I was like, sweet bejeezus I don't even want to think about eating. BUT THEN my aunt asked one of my cousins to take over the driving when we pulled over to a rest stop, and my stomach started singing hallelujah.

After my cousin started driving, I felt a little better. Eventually, we came across this weird looking fog thing that was floating at the most random position ever. We thought there was like a fire of some sort, but we realized it was actually a long-ass stretch of clouds... (Before we went under the cloud, we were at a higher altitude, so that's why it looked like it was just randomly floating.) That was when I felt so much better, and my carsickness went away. I love it when it's cloudy during a roadtrip. I felt... I felt so ALIVE (It was cloudy for a long while, too.)

Hm? Is that a fire?

Nope!

When we reached civilization and were finally near our destination, we had a really low amount of gas, but my aunt was like, NAH, we got enough gas to get us there. Which would've been true, if we didn't MISS THE DAMN EXIT????? With a very low amount of gas, we accidentally crossed the bridge to San Fran, accidentally went on the Fast Trak lane, AND got lost when trying to get back on the the bridge to get back to the correct exit.

You know, I've fallen into a lot of shit in my life, but I've never fallen into so much shit at one time. I felt like I aged 10 years from those chain of events.

Anyway, we survived, went to a gas station (my cousin took over driving again at this point, and my aunt was like "Now it's okay to get lost, we have a full tank of gas." LMAO), and finally reached my cousins' house at like 5 PM that day. Literally got delayed for an hour and a half, my God.

-sigh- In other news, I played Cards Against Humanity for the first time that night. My slightly messed up throat got even more messed up because I laughed and shrieked so hard too many times.

Day 2

Rather awkward visit to my other cousin's house. I ate some good spaghetti that she made, and LOTS of shrimp... my parents' cholesterol levels would've shot through the roof if they ate as much shrimp as I did that morning.

Anyway, this was also the day when we got soaked. My aunt was like ZOMG LET'S WALK TO THE BEACH and was so adamant about it, so we walked to the nearby beach, which had honestly great scenery, but it started raining super damn hard all of a sudden. The walk to the beach was NOT short, and we all got thoroughly soaked on the walk back. I was worried that my new jacket would get all messed up (Miraculously, it wasn't messed up. Yay for weatherproof-ness!)

The only picture I managed to take.
It looked prettier than this, trust me.

Since the weather seemed doom and gloom, the family decided to go back to our cousins' home for the day. Sounds pretty innocent and casual, yes? BUT NO.

DAMN SAN FRANCISCO TRAFFIC.

(SCREAMS A STRING OF PROFANITIES)

It took us like 2 hours to get back home, when it would've taken like about 30-40 minutes without traffic. I haven't felt so aggravated in a long time... the traffic in San Fran is comparable to the traffic in downtown L.A., damn it.

When we finally made it home in one piece, we watched How To Train Your Dragon 2 (which was a good movie.... only near the end), and then at night we played a super long ass game of classic Monopoly... I came in 3rd place, miraculously. The game was so long to the point that I was so ecstatic when I went bankrupt. It lasted 'til 2 AM, I think. (I've never in my life experienced a whole game of Monopoly... usually I would win, because the people playing with me would give up halfway, and I always buy a shit ton of property in the beginning LOL. Damn it, couldn't win this time because we actually played by the rules. Wowza.)

But even at 2 AM, I still managed to muster the energy to shower! #nightshowers4lyfe

Day 3

Lazy dog is lazy on Christmas morning.

Christmas Day! Everyone sat around the huge super awesome cool revolving Christmas tree my cousins had and opened their presents. I felt that my present for everyone was kinda pathetic in proportion to the looong time I spent on making them, but everyone seemed to like it (my uncle was like wOw) so I guess it worked out.

MY PRESENTS I RECEIVED HOWEVER COMMA, holy crap man???? SCMREAINGALSDKGADLSKF

Lavender Milk Tea from Teaway!
Note to self: Get this next time.

I got some nice handmade chocolates, a lotion/good-smelling-stuff set, a picture mount thingy, a drawing tablet (//distant screaming noises//), and color brush pens THAT I WANTED (the brush pens didn't actually come yet... UPS was acting stupid and didn't deliver it in time... my cousins and I were making fun of it by saying things like UPS? more like UPSuck.)

BUT ANYWAY

I STILL FEEL SO FCKING HAPPY.

On Christmas Day we also went to the city of Alameda and went mini-golfing. :D Afterwards, we got some milk tea, played billiards, and played some arcade games. Two things I learned: that DDR-like games and me do not mix, and that I freakin' love air hockey.

Our board game of the night was Scrabble (or um, "Scramble." //raughs). I felt kinda high... I don't usually act my drunk-like self around my cousins but um, I guess that could be my first time LMAO omg... and worst yet, I passed the drunk behavior on to two of my other cousins and damn, it was the weirdest Scrabble game I've ever played in my life--

"OMG. TGIF."
Funny thing is, it was Friday.

Day 4

Dim sum in the morning. Horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, and did I mention horrible? Horrible service, and I don't even like dim sum, so having weird tasting dim sum made it worse. That one piece of siu mai made my tongue go wonky.

//waves fist at San Francisco dim sum//

The only good thing about it was that we didn't have to wait for a table. If we did have to wait for a table, I'd be spewing fire about this experience right now 'cause that place was packed. But that doesn't make up for anything... The workers would all go in one same darn path and disappear before they got to our table. Why would you do that??? Why???

Anyway, afterwards, my cousins wanted to go to Barnes and Noble, so we did, and we wasted about 2 hours in that place... I found a book called "The Day the Crayons Quit" and it's the cutest book ever. It's about crayons going on strike and writing complaint letters to a kid... LOL.

The rest of the afternoon was spent being lazy asses at home in the living room, and my playing around with my drawing tablet and drawing random shiet. That was a nice time; I had a nice chat with my cousins.

AAAAAAAND THENNNNN,  THERE WAS CLAAAAAMMMM CHOWDER!!!!!

We went to Fisherman's Wharf and ate some clam chowder at Boudin's. And we had a great karaoke session in the car on the way there... I realized that thanks to my slight deviation from K-Pop nowadays, I actually knew 99% of the songs on the radio?? I swear a couple years ago, I would've been like wha? to every single song. Well, maybe except for the oldies... I listen to KOST 103.5 a lot.

Games of the night? OSU AND JENGA. (I only toppled the Jenga tower once. That's a record.)

Day 5

Last full day, we woke up late (woohoo!) and went to eat lunch at a Pieology near the UC Berkeley campus. I love Pieology. Except the whole "choose-what-you-want" thing. I suck at trying to act self-composed whenever I go to these sort of places... (don't even get me started on Subway; I make my mom order for me). But I decided to go all out that day and ordered all the veggie options except jalapenos and artichokes. (C'mon let's be honest, who would want artichokes on his pizza...)

My sexy pizza. 10/10 would eat.

Afterwards, we did a super quick but efficient Berkeley campus tour in the car. Like, literally. We drove through the campus. LOL. Tbh, I like Berkeley, even though it's a huge-ass campus... It's so green. I wanna roll around the grass.

Ahem, but after that, we went to Bay Street Mall in Emeryville and walked around... until it was time to watch a movie. All my cousins except me have not watched Big Hero 6 (I watched it on my birthday), and after 5 or so minutes of everyone being indecisive, even after I insisted on it being okay that I watch Big Hero 6 again, we bought tickets for Big Hero 6. =_=

And I cried over the movie. Again. I'm very sensitive, okay? I may laugh at everything, but I also cry at everything. //sniff

(TADASHIIIIIIII AHHHHH)

For dinner, my cousins and I went out to order some Thai food for us and the rest of the family, and we had a deep talk about our futures... LOL. Seriously though, when we sat in that Thai restaurant waiting for our food, I had a moment when I just glanced at everyone and went like, wow. We've made it this far in our lives. Let's hope an apocalypse doesn't happen or anything, 'cause this is great.

Day 6 was just my cousins and I going back to L.A., so there is nothing much to say about it. But, there you go. Honestly, I had a fun time up in North Cal. It was kinda exhausting, since I didn't have much sleep at night 'cause I shared a room with two of my cousins, and they snore XD But it all worked out.

Highlights of this trip: Drunk-like, screaming, loud sing-along-to-the-radio's in the car, lots of clapping, and lots of yays, hurrahs, hurrohs, huzzahs, and huzzohs. My family garners such positive energy with each other. //raughs

Hopefully my cousins and I down here in L.A. can pay another visit during the summer, or vice versa... I realize that my family isn't like some of my friends' families, that they visit each other every other day, or have huge ass gatherings every month or so... there was a point in my life when I felt kinda jealous over that. But nah, now it's fine. You don't need constant visitations to feel happy about your family, y'know? :o