Day In Brief:

Leaving Singapore

Seoul Airport

San Franciso

Lodgings: Holiday Inn Civic Centre

Leaving Singapore Got stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the airport. An accident on the road reduced the 3 lanes on the expressway to only 1 lane, causing the morning traffic to slow down considerably. Kept in frantic touch with C over handphones. The fact that certain parts of the expressway did not have any handphone coverage added to our anxiety, especially when I was still stuck on the road half an hour after our agreed upon time :p Finally reached the airport at around 9.30am much to the relief of C and my other friends who were there to send me off. Lugged my 3 bags all by myself as I rushed into the airport to check in my luggage. Got everything settled slightly before 10am. Phew! 45 minutes to departure.

My parents and my sis! Wait! Where's my little brother? Away at school camp....:(

Took a few photos with my parents and the friends who were there to send us off before saying our goodbyes. Did a little shopping at the duty-free shops with C before proceeding to the boarding area to board our flight, SQ 016, bound for San Francisco via Seoul. As Singapore was a transit stop for many Indians commuting between India and the States, found that there were many Indians on the flight, to the extent that food on the menu was catered to the North Indian, Korean and Western palate. Found this to be really interesting. :)

Me and C with Fengliang and Derrick who came to send us off...:)

In transit at Seoul Landed in Seoul Airport around 4pm Singapore time, legs were already very cramped from the 5+ hours flight. Was extremely glad to disembark the plane for a quick 1 hour stroll around the Seoul airport, swore off all forms of escalators and chose to walk instead. Found the Seoul Airport to be clean, spacious, bright and airy due to its architecture which introduced a lot of light in.

Seoul to San Franciso Embarked on the same plane for the remaining 9.5 hours flight to San Francisco. Worked up an appetite and felt much more refreshed after the one hour walk. Unfortunately, I did not really like the main course that I chose, ended up finishing only the appetiser of ham rather than the main course, contrary to my norm ;p Spent a restless 4 hours on the plane, switching between nintendo games, channel surfing the movies, and trying to nap, before finally giving up to freshen myself up in preparation for breakfast, which turned out to be much more palatable than the dinner ;)

San Francisco Landed in San Francisco at 5+am Singapore time red-eyed and feeling awfully tired, having not fully slept for the entire plane journey. Was ready to nod off there and then at the US customs ;p Clearing the US customs took a longer time than my experience with other customs, guess the US custom authorities are more meticulous and require more details from us. Yet, found it to be a rather pleasant experience as the customs officers were rather friendly. Friendly banter with the cabin crew who served us, while we were waiting for our luggage further lifted my spirits :) Met up with the travel agent, who is from HK, with little delay. His friendliness made us feel rather welcome, coupled with his chattiness, by the time we reached the Holiday Inn at Civic Centre, me and C felt much more informed about San Francisco in general :) San Franciso gave me a really nice first impression with its buildings and houses built on sloping hills, SF bay painted a really pretty picture under the glow of the afternoon sunshine. Finally met up with our travelmates at 4++pm :) Great! Now that the travel party's complete, guess we're ready to start on our trip ;p

The travel party's complete! As everyone was really tired by then....our first few hours spent as a 4some in San Francisco was spent errm....napping.....all the way till 7pm. Took to the streets of San Francisco in search of dinner, decided to walk along market street towards Chinatown, after finding out directions from a friendly local on the street who came to our "rescue" when he saw us grappling with our map :P Had immense fun walking along the streets of SF. Guess it's all this walking that really gave me a "true" feeling of being in San Francisco as compared to viewing SF from the windows of the vehicle :P Had my first experience of walking up and down the sloping streets that's so typical of SF, nice! Though tiring it may be,especially when the weather felt really cold to me, despite having my windbreaker on :P, I enjoyed the walk to the Chinese restaurant for dinner of Wanton noodles and back to the HICC thoroughly..:) Ended the ultra long day (due to the time difference), got back to the hotel at 10pm and turned in for the night :)

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