The USA trip, part 1, Grandma's place

Day 3 of being in Oakland, Calinfornia, somewhere next door to San Francisco, or is it just a suburb of San Francisco? I have no idea.

The flight from Sydney was very pleasant considering I was with my 3 year old daughter, Kaitlyn. I packed her little Trunki suit case full of toys, snacks, nappies and wipes, and of course her Dolly. And it turned out, she did not want a bar of Dolly, did not even need any activities/toys. She was fascinated by the airport, then the plane, then the clouds, then was zombie-ised by Playhouse Disney and Toy Story 3 for much of the trip. She got over tired and had a bit of trouble getting to sleep on the plane. But then, it's not very comfortable on a plane, I wouldn't really blame her. I probably fed her too many Tiny Teddies anyways. All in all, she was a perfect angel the whole trip. I was not as nervous a flyer this time, probably because I am so distracted with Kaitlyn there all the time.

When we get to the SF airport, we waited for almost 2 hours LOL. I was so worried that I told my family in SF the wrong date/time, I frantically called everyone in Sydney to try to get hold of any one. Silly me for not having local people's phone number with me.

Soon as we get out of the airport, all I could see was bridges and overpasses, EVERYWHERE and stacking on top of one another.... It looked like a perfect maze. I am very glad I am not driving. There's no way I could get from point A to point B anywhere in/near town.

I am very impressed with the LONG LONG bridges connecting sides of the city.

Soon we arrived at Grandma's place in Oakland. It's a elderly residence converted from an old old hotel. It has nice period looking ceilings and a very old worn out piano in the lobby area. Grandma's place looks and smells like grandma/grandpa's place in Guangzhou. It's a very familiar feeling and brought back quite a lot of childhood memories. It's a good sized one bedroom apartment and grandpa's photo was hanging in the most visible place. I miss grandpa, a lot...

Grandma is getting old... although she did not look much different to when I saw her in 2007, except having shrunk/gotten shorter a little more. It's good to see her again :)

She was very happy to meet Kaitlyn, so was everyone else in the family that came to meet her. I had forgotten what having a big family is like... the noise, the crowd, the opinions and the bantering. Kaitlyn was very good with everyone, and actually greeted people and towards the end of the day even gave people hugs and kisses. And she talked with people. I am very pleasantly surprised.

Kaitlyn was exhausted by dinner time and fell asleep AT the dinner table. We had one of those Funniest Home Video moments where she was dozing off and falling and I had to very briefly struggle in my head whether to catch her or grab the camera... I caught her, bathed her quickly and put her to bed. The Peapod travel cot we bought worked wonders! It only took 2 minutes to set up even with inflating the mattress and Kaitlyn slept very well. So well in fact, grandma kept checking on her because she thougth Kaitlyn was too quiet and may've soffocated.

Day 2, the family went to yum cha in the morning. Once again, I forgot about how long it usually takes a big family to actually get out of the door to go anywhere. We decided to leave the apartment at 15 to 9, and we had 5 gatherings at the lift door and people kept disappearing back into the apartment. We ended up ACTUALLY leaving about 15 to 10! I was so glad that my cousin Jack knows what a big family is like and did not take me seriously when I said to pick my up at 10am, or he would've had to wait a long long time...

After Yum Cha, Jack took us into San Francisco itself. I still think SF is quiet, even downtoan is quiet. Oakland actually felt a lot like Cabramatta or Bankstown, but almost deserted most of the time. At night though, Oakland is a lot of Telopea... lots of cop cars driving by with sirens blasting at full volume.

We walked around town a bit, and had lunch at a Thai fast food place. The serving size is just too big here... and it is worse with Kaitlyn because I have to eat 1.5 lots of food as she never finishes her food. I have a feeling I am going to gain quite a few kilos here.

We then went to the Cable Car Museum. It's actually the powerhouse that is ACTUALLY moving all the cable cars in San Francisco. It's quite fascinating to watch all the giant gears and cables in motion.

It's an interesting city. It's in an earthquake zone, BUT it has double decker bridges that are miles and miles long, and it has caverns under most city streets to house the gears and cables that pulls the cable cars along. I guess it's all out of necessity, sort of like having Nuclear Power Plants in earth quake zones in Japan?

Kaitlyn was such a trooper. She walked with us, carrying her own little backpack, all day. She had a lot of fun shopping at Macy's and Old Navy. She was trying on stuff and TELLING me which she wanted. The girl definitely has an opinion on most things.

Emma and Jack took us to a very nice seafood restaurant called Woodhouse Fish Co. in Fillmore. The food was excellent, company was great. AND we get to see San Francisco at night when we drove back through Van Ness and such.

I like the fire escapes/stairs outside of the buildings, reminds me of the show Friends, and probably many others.

Kaitlyn was exhausted again by the time we got back in the car after dinner, and was asleep within minutes.

Day 3 is relax day and spending with Grandma. We walked around Oakland Chinatown to get to a lunch spot. I wanted Fish Ball Noodle Soup the way they make it in Guangzhou, but was disappointed to find that they also make it here the same as Sydney. It's really just a noodle soup with 5 fish balls and some green vegies. I guess I will have to wait till the next time I visit Guangzhou for the proper fishball noodle soup. Grandma could not walk very far anymore without having very sore legs, hips and back. :(

The weather here is wonderful at the moment, it's almost warmer than Sydney.

Tonight we will be checking into a little hotel about 3 minutes walk from Grandma's. I am hoping Kaitlyn can sleep in a big person bed. :)