California 2014 - Journey to San Francisco

another year to plan another trip for eiseai. this time we're taking a journey to california. i first traveled to california exactly 30 years ago, when i was 9 years old - exact age amir is now. we went to san francisco, los angeles and honolulu. i remember that trip clearly - the long queue to ride dumbo, tssc sleeping away in a restaurant while we queued, the first time tasting sprite and cracker jacks, the walk from ramada inn to hyatt in honolulu pulling our suitcases (tssc was sooo unimpressed with ramada inn), the scary taxi ride in san francisco - the driver going even faster as we screamed out loud, tssc being called a 'big spender' by the burger king cashier - and us taking the word too literally!

when we booked our tickets, it was after the national carrier made the decision to cease flights to the states, so we had to take a code sharing flight for our second leg from narita to la. not only did we have to change planes, we also had to stop over in narita for 10 hours! luckily they have a dayroom for those on transit.

and then planning where to go (and we decided on san francisco, los angeles, san diego and vegas), the things to do (ranging form ferry tours to theme parks to walking tours), accommodation (where to stay at the most affordable rate near places we want to visit), transports (we're taking planes, trains and automobiles). google is a massive help - it brought us to city pass, anaheim shuttle, amtrack, luxbus, deuce.

our journey began on the first week of december. flight to narita was at midnight. i thought would be a good flight because its mas. but i was mistaken. they changed from a boeing to an airbus and seat configuration were different and had jumbled my seat bookings. we ended up having to sit separately except for me and akmal. amir and asyraf sat with grumpy old men who were tsk-ing every time they wanted to take their trays or even moved a bit. in the end i told the both of them to just sleep and prayed for a quick 6.5 hours flight.

we arrived in narita early saturday morning. we checked into our dayroom and took the boys for a light breakfast while watching the planes flying in and taking off. then we went back to the room to take a nap and let the boys play with the puzzles they got on the plane. when they started to speak in their outside voices, hubby turned off the lights and got them to sleep. and sleep they did…for 5 hours! we woke up in time to take a shower and check out before having a quick but seriously yummy dinner and boarding our second flight for the day.

the second flight was much better, we were all seated together even though we could not pre-book the seats when we booked the flight - yeah, thanks mas. the boys surprisingly slept after the long nap they had earlier. we arrived in LA an hour before the scheduled arrival time. that gave us 4 hours at lax - more than enough time for us to clear immigration, change terminal, check in for the third leg of our journey and eat!

our flight to san francisco was a quick one hour flight and the taxi ride taking us to our destination was a smooth one. we were all knackered when we finally stopped at our hotel. its a lovely place - a two-bedroom with a small and fully functional kitchen, a cable car stop just outside the front door, 5-minutes from fisherman's wharf.

we walked to the nearby safeway to get stuff for breakfast and a pizza for dinner in front of safeway. everyone was out like a light by 8am and we had a long, 13-hour sleep to wake up feeling refreshed to enjoy the first day of our 3-weeks adventure in sunny california.