Hans Tseng (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} gweenmeanie) wrote,@ 2004-08-05 17:39:00 |
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CROSS COUNTRY
Seeing as it is my last summer before I enter college, thus being the first summer free from the wraths of mandatory education, I decided that it is high time that I treated myself to an adventure. A cross-country adventure. By road. For education. For liberation. I decided to take a ROAD TRIP.
Yaaay~
YAY!!!
Yaay!
On the bus from Anaheim, CA to San Antonio, TX
July 12 ~ July 13
During the 30-hour bus ride from California to Texas, the first thing that offended me was the awful excuse for a restroom they have in the back of the bus. I guess I was expecting a lavatory like that of an aeroplane where there is actually a functional flush, but instead the bus only provided a porta-potty. I had discovered this when somewhere down the line I thought, "Well, maybe I should use the restroom," but upon opening the door, I immediately closed it and returned to my seat. For the remainder of my bus rides I waited until the rest stops to appeal to my digestive system.
The really upsetting part of the trip however was the hour-long delay which occurred I think in Calexico, CA, or maybe it was in Santa Ana...? Either way, there were issues that arose with people's tickets sometime during the first quarter of the trip which eventually caused the bus to arrive in San Antonio nearly two hours late.
On San Antonio, TX
July 13 ~ July 19
Rachel (phrotus) is awesome as always and I was very pleased with her and her family's hospitality for me. I was not expecting to get a whole room to myself <3. Like they say, everything is big in Texas. The city of San Antonio is ginormous and takes some 30~40 minutes to traverse across, at least from what I've experienced going from place to place. I think I really prefer things being closer together though.
Among the very good things in Texas was Taco Cabana which had yummy fajita platters that make my heart happy. Same with Bluebell ice cream, which I found out is a company, not a flavor like I had previously thought. We also went to Chick-fil-A which I hadn't heard of until Rachel mentioned it to me before; apparently its empire only goes so far. Although the cashier we talked to said that they had just recently set up three locations in Orange County?! ...but to be honest, it wasn't that exciting as far as fast food goes... >_> ... 
One of the attractions we went to is the Schlitterbahn water park in New Braunsfel, which is supposedly the largest water park in the world, or at least the country. It was my first water park, and despite burning the soles of my feet (due to lack of sandals or slippers), it was fun and enjoyable, especially the part where Rachel is in her bathing suit (mmm~). All the innertubes I had were far too big though; my butt would drag every so often on the water slides and I don't know if it's supposed to do that...?
A game I played which could be potentially addicting if I had a GameCube would be the Four Swords Adventure game which we played on...Friday night? But apparently I really suck at the game since I got voted down pretty much every round :(. "You're not much a team player," admitted Rachel. Oh well :(
The last day of my stay in Texas was spent searching for postcards to send to my friends. We managed to find a few at Walgreens but they mostly consisted of the Alamo and Riverwalk which I hadn't visited yet. So then in the remainding hour, we did, just so I wouldn't be lying when I send the postcards. And I started a trend at the Alamo gift store where I decided I would buy a t-shirt from every state I visit.
On the bus ride from San Antonio, TX to Tampa, FL
July 19 ~ July 20
I anticipated the ride to be slightly shorter than the first bus ride, however due to my first bus getting to one location 10 minutes late and the bus I was supposed to transfer to leaving that location 5 minutes early, I ended up having to take a detour route and being about two or three hours later coming in to Tampa to visit Jhordan (birdcages).
On Tampa, FL
July 20 ~ July 22
The first night in Tampa I had my closest encounter with drug use wtf?? We were to meet with Jhordan's friends, and that's what we did, but then we ended up on an excursion driving around Tampa in his friend's car along with two of his other friends, the three of them all the while smoking pot and talking of nothing but pot, who to smoke pot with, where to smoke pot, pot pot pot. We ended up at a porn store advertising Paris Hilton (who had saggy boobs), where one of his friends bought a pipe disguised as a highlighter marker with which to smoke pot. Pot pot pot.
Later Jhordan informed me that he had thought his friends had quit. So much for that. Scratches head.
On that note, Rachel and I had a brief conversation during my stay with her where we decided that we are probably going to remain straight-edge for the rest of our lives "because, er, I just don't like it..." since beer tastes like piss and marijuana smells like ass. That is if I didn't have any moral objections to substance abuse in the first place.
The last day at Tampa was also spent scouring around town for tourist-y paraphernalia, where I ended up being late to the bus station and missing my first bus. And I didn't even find the damn Florida t-shirt! Jhordan picked me up again and we went to his friend Alia's house anticipating to play some Four Swords Adventure, but then he had to get me back to the bus station before any of that happened so I don't miss my bus again. As it turns out, however, this second bus departs at 5:40PM, not 5:00PM, so we ended up rushing for nothing. Boo.
On the bus ride from Tampa, FL toFrederick, MD Washington, D.C.
July 22 ~ July 23
Florida was intensely humid and my glasses would fog every time I entered Jhordan's car. But it all ended well as I managed to buy a green Florida shirt for $4 at one of the rest stops on the bus heading towards Maryland. Huzzah! Well, the original plan was to head towards Frederick, MD, but what ended up happening was I stopped the bus ride short by getting off at Washington, D.C. where Garrett (offbeatnik) picked me up since Frederick would've been an additional few hours.
On Washington, D.C.
July 23
The heat and humidity wasn't much better here, and I had to lug around my stuff through the city so that wasn't too great. But seeing all the famous buildings was a nice experience, although in retrospect it now seems kind of "eh." We got to walk through the Museum of Natural History though which I wanted to see only because the dinosaurs kept talking about wanting to go there in that animated movie "We're back!" from a while ago where Doctor Good-Eye went back in time to pick up some dinosaurs and fed them brain cereal or something that made them capable of speaking in English, but his evil twin brother Doctor Screw-Eye (who incidentally has a screw for an eye) wanted the dinosaurs to stay stupid and mean because I don't know.
On Barnesville, MD
July 23 ~ July 26
Garrett lives on a sheep farm and his mother spins yarn. The day after I arrived I woke up to do a chore with Garrett, although it was really kind of a wimpy chore: we lugged around these pieces of old fencing which took probably 15 minutes total. But I remember Garrett talking about how one of his friends visited before and he would do nothing besides watch anime and not even help with chores, so I felt that I should be a little more helpful. After the chore we went hiking and jogging?! I ended up wimping out after a mile of jogging though because that's what happens when you've been sitting through 80 hours of bus-age.
The rest of the visit wasn't quite as eventful though seeing as I pretty much ended up sitting at the computer for a good deal of time while Garrett rushed to finish some t-shirt designs due in Sunday evening. We did however manage to get me a new pair of shoes on Sunday: a pair of blue high-top Chuck Taylors! w3wt. I feel so in the loop? Although apparently Chucks weren't as wide-spread in the east coast as it is here in the west. Shrug.
On the bus ride from Barnesville, MD to Somerville, NJ
July 26
By some freak occurrence, this bus ride ended up being on time. I was actually very worried about this bus because one of the transfers has a 10-minute window for the first bus to arrive and the next bus to depart, so if the first bus was late then, well, you know. BUT THAT DID NOT HAPPEN AND I ENDED UP IN NEW JERSEY AT THE ORIGINALLY SPECIFIED TIME. Holy crap, that was awesome.
On Mountain Lakes, NJ
July 26 ~ July 28
The first night with Yuko (aidosaur, better known online by her draconic persona Aido) was excellent because I was treated by her to a hibachi dinner where we both sufficiently stuffed ourselves. We also sketched each other pictures in our sketchbooks which was most excellent.
The second day we were planning on visiting New York City, but a rainstorm interrupted our plans and we did not go :(. Instead we drove for an hour-and-a-half to see the NEW JERSEY MITSUWA for half an hour to eat. That was fun. I bought myself a Taiyaki, which is this pastry item molded like a fish that has red bean paste inside; I used to have them when I was a child in Taiwan <3. Ah, memories.
My greatest regret of New Jersey however is the sad fact that I DIDN'T GET A NEW JERSEY T-SHIRT. Which means I'll simply have to go back there again one of these days...!
On the train ride from Mountain Lakes, NJ to Wilmington, DE
July 28
Good old trains. I went by way of NJ Transit down to Trenton and then the rest of the way to Delaware by Amtrak. And arrived on time. Good old trains. (Note here that I shall go back on saying this later in this writing.)
On Newark, DE
July 28 ~ July 30
I did get to visit the University of Delaware though. A quaint little place, but not too nice amidst humidity. Its mascot is the Blue Hen? I got a t-shirt from their store to prove it; sez "Delaware Blue Hens" on it.
Another thing the west coast doesn't have are Applebee's which I started seeing from Texas onward. Although I guess it's just your typical grill and bar that you can find anywhere. (edit: that was a lie, apparently we DO have Applebee's and I'm just an ignoramus.)
On Friday morning we woke up at 4AM (after I managed to sleep for probably 20 minutes due to the wretched humidity) to head towards OTAKON.
On Otakon 2004
July 30 ~ August 1
We got into the line for registration at about 5:45AM but the line doesn't open until 8:30, and when that finally happened there was an additional hour to wait to get to the registration window. What made the situation worse was that this was Otakon, which means that, basically, a good portion of the populace attending has not taken a shower in quite some time. Canadian friend Matt whom I met at Otakon and I had an enthralling conversation about how we Otakon should include a panel detailing the steps towards acceptable hygiene with possible free soap bars for the masses.
The first day of Otakon was relatively uneventful however. It took me quite some time before I managed to fully awake at which point I started taking pictures of the good cosplayers. A certain Sam in our group cosplayed Chii from Chobits and a certain Lynn/Tuffie cosplayed a burnette Princess Peach, but by no means does that make her Princess Daisy. It should also be fit to mention that also amongst the group were Jim (gonk) and Chris (triple_c).
For some reason, at about 11PM my "group" ended up sitting in a circle on the convention floor and a game of spin the bottle commenced. Now you must realize, this was between a group of anime nerds. Thus the furthest it came to were very detached pecks on the cheek, especially in terms of the guys. I was mostly indifferent to the whole ordeal.
Back in the hotel room of the other half of the group, this Ripley's show was on the television following the extraordinary tale of the world's largest rubber band ball dropping from an aeroplane onto the grounds of a desert. What will happen??? Will it bounce??? Or will it explode??? For some reason they managed to fill an entire half-hour (or was it a full hour?) going through every ridiculous aspect of the so-called adventure, going so far as to stage a freak helicopter accident to make it seem like hte whole ordeal was, in fact, very dangerous. In the end, the rubber-band ball ended up cratering into the earth and splitting in two. I felt cheated so I stormed back to my room and went to sleep.
![The line for 'Girl next door [H]'](http://slimemansion.com/photos/2004/crosscountry/053.jpg)
The next day also didn't contain many points of interest. The original plan was to see the L'Arc~en~Ciel concert, but after realizing the line wrapped around three buildings, Matt and I went around the rest of the convention which ended up being more crowded than we thought it'd be despite the mass of people attending the concert. It was at this point, going down into the video game room, where we had started the previously mentioned conversation on the necessity to educate the people about the miracle of soap and showers.
We also discovered, according to a Jet Li movie from a decade ago titled "Swordsman II," that the secret to supernatural powers is by cutting off ones' penis and becoming a woman. Talk about enlightenment.
Finally the day ended with eleven people in one hotel room, seven of whom fit onto a single bed. Granted it wasn't an entirely pleasant experience, I can now say that I went to Otakon to sleep with six people. Take that for self-incrimination!
On the train ride from Wilmington, DE toAnaheim, CA Chicago, IL
August 2 ~ August 3
The first train ride from Wilmington to Washington, D.C. went smoothly enough, and left me with three hours to explore the amazing Union Station which was essentially a shopping mall. For some reason I felt compelled to stuff myself with food. However, after boarding the train heading to Chicago, a two-hour delay turned up due to engine trouble. No biggie, I think to myself, considering there's a five-hour layover in Chicago. The train ride proved to be quite irritating though. For one thing, the two black women sitting behind me insisted on talking up a storm into some 3AM in the morning. At one point I had turned around to ask them if they would mind chatting in the Lounge car, to which they reply that they'll tone it down. As soon as I turned my head they launched into a fit of slander against me, as if I couldn't hear. Fucking...! This is the reason racism exists. 
Sometime into the night, from what I heard from an Amtrak employee later on, the train had hit a truck, causing an additional three-hour delay patching things up with paperwork. We ended up in Chicago an hour after my transfer train would have left, but it hadn't left yet because it too was delayed. For eight hours.
I didn't stay the whole eight hours (I know it to be eight hours now because I checked in my baggage at Washington, D.C. to Anaheim, and when I went this morning to see if my baggage has arrived at 10AM, the originally schedule time of arrival, the employee informed me that I should try back sometime between 6PM to 8PM). After six hours, when they announced that they had more engine issues, I picked up my bags and said "Fuck this." I called Jen (jennifurret) and her friend Jimmy up who lived about 40 minutes from the station and arranged for me to spend the night at Jimmy's. This put me on a little impromptu journey through downtown Chicago at 9PM walking to the other train station which would take me to a city closer to their residence. Suddenly the warnings from my friends about not walking into dark alleyways seemed so much more prevalent.
On the various cities of Indiana and Illinois
August 3 ~ August 4
The next day we had an Indian buffet for brunch and after a short stop at Jen's house, Jimmy took me down to Chicago for a proper tour of the city. Made it to the airport 45 minutes before my plane left, but an additional 20 minutes was spent going through the security lines, being thoroughly felt up.
On the flight from Chicago, IL to Santa Ana, CA
August 4
It didn't occur to me until I was fastened in my seat on the aeroplane that this would be the first time I would be flying in... five or six years? It gave me the jitters. Really, a five-hour flight from Chicago to Orange County is such a miracle after spending some 120 hours on the road by means of bus and train. The majority of the first four hours was spent staring off into space and idly thinking about my comic, and then the last hour on the transfer plane was spent requesting a glass of ginger ale, drinking the glass of ginger ale, and staring at the unnerving picture of the man on my fold-down tray.
On returning home to California
August 4
HOLY CRAP I'M BACK I'M BACK I'M BACK. My darling friend Devon picked me up from the airport and we had a squealy reunion, and upon my return home I was greeted with an equally warming welcome from my family. Good old California <3.
Reflecting back upon the trip, I feel a little more cultured in the various regions of America. Southern accents don't seem so ridiculous to me anymore. Ethnic food exists in the middle of America. Mexicans aren't that bad, but I don't know if I can say the same about black people.
One difference I did notice was that in the other states, apparently they actually make a distinction between calling a freeway an interstate or a highway (by actually calling it an "Interstate" or a "Highway" rather than just a "freeway" like we do here in California). Also, in California we would say "You take the 55 north to the 91 west" but in other they would drop the "the" in front of the freeway numbers, or they would say "the interstate-5."
With that knowledge in mind, I shall now consider my cross-country trip for next summer, which will most definitely be by way of plane.
Seeing as it is my last summer before I enter college, thus being the first summer free from the wraths of mandatory education, I decided that it is high time that I treated myself to an adventure. A cross-country adventure. By road. For education. For liberation. I decided to take a ROAD TRIP.
On the bus from Anaheim, CA to San Antonio, TX
July 12 ~ July 13
During the 30-hour bus ride from California to Texas, the first thing that offended me was the awful excuse for a restroom they have in the back of the bus. I guess I was expecting a lavatory like that of an aeroplane where there is actually a functional flush, but instead the bus only provided a porta-potty. I had discovered this when somewhere down the line I thought, "Well, maybe I should use the restroom," but upon opening the door, I immediately closed it and returned to my seat. For the remainder of my bus rides I waited until the rest stops to appeal to my digestive system.
On San Antonio, TX
July 13 ~ July 19
Rachel (phrotus) is awesome as always and I was very pleased with her and her family's hospitality for me. I was not expecting to get a whole room to myself <3. Like they say, everything is big in Texas. The city of San Antonio is ginormous and takes some 30~40 minutes to traverse across, at least from what I've experienced going from place to place. I think I really prefer things being closer together though. On the bus ride from San Antonio, TX to Tampa, FL
July 19 ~ July 20
I anticipated the ride to be slightly shorter than the first bus ride, however due to my first bus getting to one location 10 minutes late and the bus I was supposed to transfer to leaving that location 5 minutes early, I ended up having to take a detour route and being about two or three hours later coming in to Tampa to visit Jhordan (
birdcages).On Tampa, FL
July 20 ~ July 22
On the bus ride from Tampa, FL to
July 22 ~ July 23
Florida was intensely humid and my glasses would fog every time I entered Jhordan's car. But it all ended well as I managed to buy a green Florida shirt for $4 at one of the rest stops on the bus heading towards Maryland. Huzzah! Well, the original plan was to head towards Frederick, MD, but what ended up happening was I stopped the bus ride short by getting off at Washington, D.C. where Garrett (
offbeatnik) picked me up since Frederick would've been an additional few hours.On Washington, D.C.
July 23
The heat and humidity wasn't much better here, and I had to lug around my stuff through the city so that wasn't too great. But seeing all the famous buildings was a nice experience, although in retrospect it now seems kind of "eh." We got to walk through the Museum of Natural History though which I wanted to see only because the dinosaurs kept talking about wanting to go there in that animated movie "We're back!" from a while ago where Doctor Good-Eye went back in time to pick up some dinosaurs and fed them brain cereal or something that made them capable of speaking in English, but his evil twin brother Doctor Screw-Eye (who incidentally has a screw for an eye) wanted the dinosaurs to stay stupid and mean because I don't know.On Barnesville, MD
July 23 ~ July 26
Garrett lives on a sheep farm and his mother spins yarn. The day after I arrived I woke up to do a chore with Garrett, although it was really kind of a wimpy chore: we lugged around these pieces of old fencing which took probably 15 minutes total. But I remember Garrett talking about how one of his friends visited before and he would do nothing besides watch anime and not even help with chores, so I felt that I should be a little more helpful. After the chore we went hiking and jogging?! I ended up wimping out after a mile of jogging though because that's what happens when you've been sitting through 80 hours of bus-age.
On the bus ride from Barnesville, MD to Somerville, NJ
July 26
By some freak occurrence, this bus ride ended up being on time. I was actually very worried about this bus because one of the transfers has a 10-minute window for the first bus to arrive and the next bus to depart, so if the first bus was late then, well, you know. BUT THAT DID NOT HAPPEN AND I ENDED UP IN NEW JERSEY AT THE ORIGINALLY SPECIFIED TIME. Holy crap, that was awesome.On Mountain Lakes, NJ
July 26 ~ July 28
The first night with Yuko (aidosaur, better known online by her draconic persona Aido) was excellent because I was treated by her to a hibachi dinner where we both sufficiently stuffed ourselves. We also sketched each other pictures in our sketchbooks which was most excellent. On the train ride from Mountain Lakes, NJ to Wilmington, DE
July 28
Good old trains. I went by way of NJ Transit down to Trenton and then the rest of the way to Delaware by Amtrak. And arrived on time. Good old trains. (Note here that I shall go back on saying this later in this writing.)
On Newark, DE
July 28 ~ July 30
On Otakon 2004
July 30 ~ August 1
We got into the line for registration at about 5:45AM but the line doesn't open until 8:30, and when that finally happened there was an additional hour to wait to get to the registration window. What made the situation worse was that this was Otakon, which means that, basically, a good portion of the populace attending has not taken a shower in quite some time. Canadian friend Matt whom I met at Otakon and I had an enthralling conversation about how we Otakon should include a panel detailing the steps towards acceptable hygiene with possible free soap bars for the masses. gonk) and Chris (triple_c).On the train ride from Wilmington, DE to
August 2 ~ August 3
The first train ride from Wilmington to Washington, D.C. went smoothly enough, and left me with three hours to explore the amazing Union Station which was essentially a shopping mall. For some reason I felt compelled to stuff myself with food. However, after boarding the train heading to Chicago, a two-hour delay turned up due to engine trouble. No biggie, I think to myself, considering there's a five-hour layover in Chicago. The train ride proved to be quite irritating though. For one thing, the two black women sitting behind me insisted on talking up a storm into some 3AM in the morning. At one point I had turned around to ask them if they would mind chatting in the Lounge car, to which they reply that they'll tone it down. As soon as I turned my head they launched into a fit of slander against me, as if I couldn't hear. Fucking...! This is the reason racism exists. jennifurret) and her friend Jimmy up who lived about 40 minutes from the station and arranged for me to spend the night at Jimmy's. This put me on a little impromptu journey through downtown Chicago at 9PM walking to the other train station which would take me to a city closer to their residence. Suddenly the warnings from my friends about not walking into dark alleyways seemed so much more prevalent.On the various cities of Indiana and Illinois
August 3 ~ August 4
On the flight from Chicago, IL to Santa Ana, CA
August 4
It didn't occur to me until I was fastened in my seat on the aeroplane that this would be the first time I would be flying in... five or six years? It gave me the jitters. Really, a five-hour flight from Chicago to Orange County is such a miracle after spending some 120 hours on the road by means of bus and train. The majority of the first four hours was spent staring off into space and idly thinking about my comic, and then the last hour on the transfer plane was spent requesting a glass of ginger ale, drinking the glass of ginger ale, and staring at the unnerving picture of the man on my fold-down tray.On returning home to California
August 4
HOLY CRAP I'M BACK I'M BACK I'M BACK. My darling friend Devon picked me up from the airport and we had a squealy reunion, and upon my return home I was greeted with an equally warming welcome from my family. Good old California <3.
