Travelocity has an RSS feed that will notify you of any great deals on airline fares. You can specify which cities you want to watch, and also where you’re heading out from. It’s a great little feed that saved me about 40% on a trip to Washington, DC. The air travel dates may be limited for a particular deal, but if you’re flexible that’s OK.
Also, it can be a great boost for you to go for that trip you’ve always wanted to take, but were too hesitant because of the price.
I went up to Lake Tahoe over the labor day weekend. Overall, it was a very uneventful and relaxing trip. Tippy and I got to stay at a condo owned by Dolby Laboratories, which was very nice and cheap. The facilities were also very comfortable.
Let’s get this straight–there’s only two things people do at Tahoe: outdoor activities (skiing, hiking, sailing) or indoors spa-like activities. We really don’t fit remarkably well into either of these camps. Sure, we hiked for a few days, and it was gorgeous. But in terms of heavy-duty climbing or biking, we simply lacked the gear and mindset at the moment. So instead, we opted to relax.
My vacations usually turn out to be too eventful and rushed for me to relax. Oh, we have hit this spot, or we have to make this reservation, and so on and so forth. I resounded a thundering NO during the past weekend. We will leisurely do everything, and plan only as needed–finally, relaxation!
However, there was one thing amiss about Tahoe that really left a sour taste–the food. The vast majority of restaurants were surf and turf, presenting some boring rendition of steak and lobster we only knew too well. Peppered among these were mediocre Asian restaurants and satisfactory Mexican joints. All in all, Tahoe is really not worth the gastronome’s time. So instead of food, I have presented a picture of the lake. It really was worth it just for the views. Really.
It took forever to get down to the highway. It was, to put it lightly, quite annoying.
(Music: “Title and Registration” by Deathcab For Cutie)
Chinatown in San Francisco has always been a source of stress for me. Everytime we venture there, we get lost. It would be a simple thing to look at a map, but we’ve never really bothered–thinking we could always make our way through. We’ve been there several times, and have a murky feeling for where all the restaurants and bakeries are. This murkiness usually ends in utter disbelief at our abilities to navigate the labyrinth of hilly streets. And don’t even let me start talking about parking and the crazy Asian pedestrians.
Tippy’s favorite Chinese bakery is the Golden Gate Bakery. Their egg tarts are luscious–providing the right amount of flakiness to chewiness ratio. The bad thing is that there’s usually a long line that curves out of a cramped standing space. I usually let her take care of getting the baked items.
We also went to Uncle’s Cafe and had some fried rice and sesame chicken–the usual fare. Again, we had to wind our way through the streets to find it. “It’s just over that hill, I remember it from last time” is what we usually say. And then, it’s never over that particular hill. It’s very frustrating. We simply need a walking map of Chinatown.
I’ll be taking a short trip to Portland, Oregon to see some of my high school friends. Oh, the joys of flying Southwest airlines–where they force you to make a layover in Reno when flying from San Jose to Portland.
Expect the next post to be on Tuesday. In the meantime, enjoy my photoblog.
I’ll be traveling to New York early tomorrow morning to meet up with some friends. Hopefully, I’ll have access to internet a few times to update. I’m looking forward to some good pizza. I’ve been too NY-style-pizza deprived ever since coming to Cali.
On top of that, I want to hone my photography skills this next week and take some riveting photos. Maybe I’ll even drop by the photoblogger talk at the Apple store in SoHo.
But for now, it’s time to tie up any loose ends before leaving. Expect postings to be sparse during the next week.
I also might be working for Dolby Laboratories after my next quarter in San Francisco, depending on how things turn out.
Yesterday we went up to San Francisco again, just for kicks. As usual, it was raining and desperately miserable there (okay, not as miserable as Ithaca, but still miserable).
We had free passes to the Aquarium of the Bay. In short, do not waste your money on it if you’re in SF. It’s just a minimized inferior version of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. All the SF aquarium has is two water tubes you can walk through and some shallow pools where you can touch sharks. This, my friend, is a shame to the gauntlet of exhibits at the MB aquarium. Although I did get to touch a shark; it was a bit like squishy sand paper.
But, I digress. We traveled via Caltrain (first time!) to SF, since we ride free as Stanford students. The problem arose when we wanted to try out a pizza place on the south part of the city. We rode the Muni down to Potrero Hill and got some great pizza. We were a little worried about catching the 10PM Caltrain back to Palo Alto, but were fairly certain we would make it on time since we checked the bus schedule.
The rain was coming down hard now.
I calculated that it would take us at most 30 minutes to get back to the Caltrain, if anything didn’t go wrong. A wrong did it go.
The bus came around the corner, but then stopped short of our stop. Since the stop was the last on the route, we assumed that the driver was simply resting. It wasn’t until 15 minutes later did he start up the bus again. However, as it approached our stop the driver didn’t see us at all, and drove past us. We were horrified.
I didn’t even have words to express what happened. I just stood there, shocked. We ended up walking about half a mile in the rain, shouting profanities at the Muni system. Luckily we still made it to the Caltrain on time.
I’ll be off to San Francisco today to enjoy the sun. It’s a rare occurance that such good weather hits the city. We’ll partake in some lounging around in the Golden Gate Park.
My job was pretty demanding during the end of last week. I’m glad the long weekend is here. Not to mention that school is going to start soon.
Stanford is now giving everyone 200Mb space on the server. Much better than Cornell’s IT services.
Still holding out on XP SP2 until things die down a little more.
Hopefully moving to MovableType soon.
Trying to stay sane about my vegetarian lifestyle.
