i tried my best to post on blogger but it just wont work ;[
i seriously TRIED to post something on blogger so i would b more used to it, but i just couldn’t type much. its the effort that counts right? ;D
okay. so YES, i remember saying that Id mention my SF bizzare public transportation fiasco with pictures to help u visualize the craziness. Well here it goes, it was on May 6th and It was the first time my friend and I were taking the Amtrak to SF. It was for our first Soompi meet too.
We met at the train station and got our tickets before our 8:30am train. Our plan was to take it to Emeryville and then take a city bus right in front of the Amtrak station (according to google) which would then take us to the Ferry Boat Building Amtrak station. we were thinking, how hard could it b to find one/a couple city buses…
picture we took on the train while going to SF.
Once we arrived in Emeryville we left and tried walking around in order to find the city bus…none were to be found. Its obvious that we didn’t know the place at all..lol.
After about 15mins of looking we gave up and went back to the station so that we could ask for some help…..we ended up buying tickets with Amtrak and then we walked outside….
as we approached a bus, the driver knocks on the window and points to the opposite direction like he was seriously “mad.” (we were obviously like WTF) This was what kinda started the fiasco part of the trip. We then got on the bus and it took us to the Ferry boat building.
(please ignore blue circle ;D)
After we got off…the air was so fresh and different from Sacramento air. The feeling was totally of “ocean air.” lol iono how to explain it. We just walked around randomly hoping that we’d find the bus we were looking for and we did find it. We boarded the bus and got dropped off right in front of Yerba Buena Gardens. It was so funny cuz we were there like an hour and a half early so we just sat at the park for a little bit…noticed this half naked guys dancing “oddly”…and we ended up walking around the area.
That was when I spotted my 1st Papa’s Beard bakery…btw i’ve heard raves about this place (didn’t get to go in after the meet ;/) after we came back it, we had like 20 more mins left and we sat in this circle area right in front of the sun. then this guy with a dog walks pass by and he says hi and then he starts talking to us. oddly, he teaches at the college we both go to and we’ve never seen him on campus or anything…such an odd place to meet a professor we didn’t know that existed o.o apparently his part time job was like some dog trainer or something.. but he didn’t say much to me cause according to my friend, I looked hella bored and uninterested. He talked a lot about how men should treat women better in the sense where psychology and early childhood would make a huge difference in making them become the typical gentleman. He also mentioned teaching them the “proper way” during childhood so that they would b accustomed to being “gentlemen” like into adulthood. I think that was wht he was talking about. He was asking us about our majors and we both said undecided so that was another long conversation.
While my friend “listened and talked” to him, i was looking around trying to find our group, of ppl I’ve never seen before :O After like a 50min conversation with him, he finally left and we were trying to find our group still and we searched for signs but didn’t see any. That was when we were panicking because the point of us making this trip was to attend the meet first. At this point, we were almost an hour late for the meet time so we were thinking that they obviously left w.o waiting for us…LOL. Then my friend and I saw a group of ppl that seemed like they were here for the soompi meet but neither of us wanted to ask them so we just stood by the group trying to make the other ask…. good thing one of the guys asked my friend if she posted on the fb event page :D i was hella shy and didn’t know wht to say to all these strangers so i kinda just sat and spoke bits at a time ;] then we went to this nearby plaza/mall and grabbed some lunch. we had pizza (ordered pepperoni but they gave us cheese WTF again, we were their only customers!!!!) and then we headed back to the Yerba Buena Gardens area for bowling or ice skating but we just hung around with a couple ppl we met. after going to starbucks we just went back to the YBG area and hung around. My friend and I remembered that the the bus driver announced back in Emeryville that the last bus was at 6pm, so my friend called Amtrak to verify with them but they told us that it wasn’t true and that it runs until like 8. So we were like okay so we can b here for like one more hour before leaving. (not true, they lied to us!)
After everyone was done, they wanted to go to Japantown to take a group photo and do other stuff. When we got to the parking lot..our driver had trouble finding his car ;PPP it was funny though….we took like around half an hour and finally found it… and it was like 7pm already. as we were getting to japantown….my friend and I were getting worried…wondering wht would happen if we missed the bus…then that means we’ll miss the train. -.- we started panicking and when we finally reached a street that had a sign welcoming us to japan town we told the driver we had to get out right now to catch the bus. We ended up walking really fast into running like crazy ppl…and we finally got to a bus stop that had the same number bus as the one we took to YBG. We even asked the passengers and the bus driver. The bus driver told us that it drops us off really close to the Ferry Boat Building about 3-4 street down ( he lied to us too…)
we got off not knowing where the heck we were going……we just started running and my friend NEVER runs and even she was f’en running…!!!!! We were so annoyed and confused it couldn’t be explained with words. I know i was running and screaming like a crazy person……i literally ran down like 5 streets and was out of breathe….my friend stopped at like the 2nd street but she told me to run and stop any bus I could find…i was confused as hell not know wth to do….. knowing that we had like 10 mins to catch that bus…we were sure we were gonna miss it.
i ended up waiting for my friend and just walked with her as we cussed and shouted about how we “hated” sf, their public transportation, etc…..then we found a street we remembered walking past earlier in the day…it was close by the beautiful bridge we crossed while on the amtrak bus….we had to walk down this long ass street until we finally got to the “shitty” FBB. We rush inside to talk to the lady at the counter….i went back out to try and spot the amtrak bus but none were in sight….she didn’t give us info we wanted to hear…she told my friend that the bus probably passed already and that if it was running late they’d get a notice on their computer….we didn’t know wht to do, we missed the bus, meaning we missed the train, we were “lost” at some unknown place we never been to…we were totally depressed, mad, clueless, frustrated….etc.
Later my friends mom suggested that we take the BART to Richmond to try and catch the train from that station. I went back into the FBB and asked for the nearest Bart station. We headed over there and my friend had to go to the bathroom really badly….(didn’t have anytime before frm all the crazy running and all)….its was probably around 7:45pm……once we found the BART station, we asked for a bathroom and they said that there are none bcuz they were closed after 9/11…we were seriously like WTF, seriously…so we HAD to find a bathroom quick…Up in the map below, the numbers represent the places we’ve been to asking to use their bathroom. They either closed already (wells fargo, SB #3)….. denied us use of their bathroom cause they were closing soon!!!! (YES, peets coffee u SOB!!!)„or bathrooms didn’t exist in their store (SB #1)… we were told that there was one inside The hyatt hotel but had no f’en clue where is was at so we just kept walking towards the direction pointed by some stranger……the closes BART stations are pointed above but I cant remember which one we entered…..
then we get to the ticket buying system…. we had NO clue how to use it…there were too many stops and such so we ended up talking to one of the bart officers….we were watching other passengers buy their tickets..but they all just added money to some pass that they had so we were like o.o…oh krapt…this really nice lady helped up buy our ticket after she bought hers. then my friend goes and puts her ticket in like everybody else and it accepts her ticket and comes back out for her to get it..but the doors didn’t open….then we had to go talk to the bart officer again…they let my friend through the gate and when it was my turn i tried putting my ticket into the feeder but it wouldn’t accept it…had to deal with the officer again..then we ran down the stairs hoping we didn’t miss the earliest train to Richmond Amtrak station. we FINALLY boarded the BART and were seriously burned out of energy and all -.- looking.
our hair was all messed up…we probably looked like hella CRAZYYY ppl bcuz wht we went through was freakin’ crazy!!!…we got on bart for the very first time in our lives and once it started running….our ear drums were disappearing….the piercing sounds we are not used to were horrible…as we had our ears covered with our hands, which helped a bit….and looking at other passengers„„,they probably thought we were psycho or something but u can really tell..those ppl r totally use to the piercing noises…O;.. we thought they were so so so horrid.
FINALLY, we reached the Richmond Amtrak station and we ran up the stairs hoping we didn’t miss the train by a few mins…..i think it was around 8:30pm…. the announcement board said that the next train to sac would arrive at 9:30pm…we just sat by the stairs and reflected on our day..how we could’ve changed it if we got the chance to and wht could’ve been even worse..most of it was sulking…
(taken @ YB Gardens area…was ;[ cuz i was the shortest among the 4)
this was probably wht i looked like while on the bart.
i bet if others were in the same situation, they would do the same. :} so, yes, im proud of US!!
During the train ride home we listened to my friends ipod with a multiple way earphone adapter and were so quiet but we ended up talking and listening to music at the same time a while later. We both thought that the experiences we went through today were a life time experience especially since it was something we never went through before. I guess we did learn a lot about public transportation, not counting on others to give us info cause most of the tiem they are wrong :O, managing time especially when taking public transportation,…etc… sure it was full of frustration and anger but we “learned” something that day. And of course it felt like nothing went our way……i even mentioned that we spent more than 12 hours together hanging out while getting some fresh air, which is a plus cuz im sure we never get this much back in sac….
i sometimes tease my friend by saying that I know my way around the Amtrak Stations especially to Richmond Amtrak and the BART ;] WE say that we won’t get lost anymore in that area ;P
i mean how can we ever forget this experience…….
its 12:29am ;[ took me quite some hours to type this up ughhh but I finally started typing it and finished like I promised :DD….ill continue with the rest of my post on a new post tmrw……………….ahh too lazy to check for spelling and grammar erros….
gnight all!!! btw i got my Bacardi shirt in the mail a few weeks ago…dono where its at right now but will take a pix once I find it.
sweet dreamsss.
