Hello, I finally manage to edit the video for our San Fransisco trip. I am feeling extra exhausted and fatigue with all the travel between 2 countries, also with all the deadline and interview happening. It does really eat my time. I will be sharing to you all the destination around San Fransisco.
I will be sharing all the location that I visit in this article, with the all details budget for travelling especially if you plan to travel with the family since I travel with 5 of my family members. The destination that I went to are:
I will be explaining to you 1 by 1 about the location details. If you happened to not know about these places or have so little insight about the USA. America is big, you need to really enjoy each of the places that come to visit. You cannot go around and expect to finished travel in the USA by 7 days of visit and jump from one city to another, without going to Grand Canyon or Niaga Falls or even Yosemite.
San Fransisco is a very unique city, if you see the road is up and down, it feels like you are living in a mountain. The driver in this city is really a good driver since you really need to have certain skills to drive in San Fransisco. If you watch The Venom movies or any other movies, you may have known that this city is really famous and always be a feature in almost all the movies, and then you see the road looks like your heartbeat. Also, this is where Silicon Valley exists, Samsung, Apple, and all the big giant. You will not be passing the Silicon Valley when you going out from the Airport. You will see cute housing around the mountain and ups. People love to take pictures of the houses in San Fransisco because it looks so cute and unique with all the different colours.
They also still have the train that goes up to the hills and then down to the city. I went to the city when the season is still cool in January 2019. I take ANA All Nippon Airways — affordable price and good service. The only things that I feel less are the language barrier, they speak English and understand English but when they speak it seems that I am unable to understand it.
The airlines are full of the passenger from business class to economy class I love when the stewardess wear an apron to serve the passenger and they are always helpful to provide us with water and snacks too! I think their services are good, except my legs feel so chill if I have to travel for more than 6 hours. Most of the stewardess is female.
When I board from Singapore Changi Airport to Tokyo Narita Airport, the airlines are big and then they change to smaller airlines as we cross pacific ocean. If you happened to travel a lot you may notice that the smaller the airlines the easier to get in the control for the pilot and less accident happened because they can balance the plane when it is needed to go through that big storm, which happening as we cross the ocean. Also, when we get back to Singapore and during our transit, the airport staff tried hard to be on time even before the snow storm came.
Japan is still the best country with all of the hard-working people around. Their internet is number 1 all over the world, second in Singapore. I am really grateful to be able to see these two countries even Japan for the slightest only. I personally love ANA advertisement and how they tell the passenger to buckle their seat. As the plane landing, they won’t give any announcement, if you often use a plane that announces every time they are about to board and land, this one is not doing any of that. Since they use a camera around the wheels, I can say that the technology is really high, so you don’t really have to worry about it. Sit down and relax, also follow the instructions of the stewardess when they announce it.
Below is an image that I get from Unsplash, as I am unable to take pictures in San Fransisco. We are waiting for my brother that also board a domestic flight from Tennesse, he finished working there and will get back to study in university again for his last term
We staying at Hilton San Fransisco. We actually wanted to try NIKKO hotel but decided to just stay at Hilton, since we have no ideas about how NIKKO services are. Hilton is full of business people that come and go. They have the best service, the hotel room look a little bit vintage and simple. The overall I will give 4 out of 5 stars. They have bars just beside the hotel, a mart where you can buy bread and small meals. People who will carry your luggage
You can always use UBER and LYFT to book cars, you may want to switch your App store country to the USA. It is easy to find food to eat, they also have a food court around with similar price. Never forget about tips. You gotta give tips if you feel they provide a good service, unlike in Singapore where your bills include the service tax. Smile and say “How are you?” it’s the common stuff happening in the USA, they are friendly and a really communicative people. I guess most of the western people are.
I use GRAYLINE for travelling around California. The services is good and I love that the driver is always been so cheerful and friendly. We had a Mexican bus driver to drive us to go to Yosemite. This is the best location for detoxification. If you feel stressful, depressed, and even suffering from anxiety. This is your sanctuary, you can stay here for 3–7 days, just feel the view. I love this location and planning to go back soon. The trips took us one whole day from 6 am to 8 pm at night. I don’t feel any exhaust or tired, because I get enough sleep in the bus, haha.. It is a big bus with a comfy seat.
It is an island and prison. It is a historical building in San Fransisco, many people come and visit this place and to see. You can go to PIER 33 and purchase the ticket to go to this island. The staff will give you guidance, what to expect on Alcatraz island. The ticket is returned ticket, so you can just show the ticket board the boat and then board the boat back to Pier 33. You can see on Youtube as I attached on the below page.
The second best detoxification place, I love strolling around this place. It feels so refreshing, the air, and also all the greens. We take GRAYLINE to go to this location and then they take us to Sausalito, from Sausalito we go by UBER to get back to San Fransisco.
For your information, when we visit California, The US government is shut down and we get from our Yosemite bus driver that MUIR woods probably close down too due to that. To be honest, we are so excited to visit this place yet was so dissapointed to hear the information. However, when we go it is open, so we are glad to explore this place. If you are going to USA, you may want to check about US government situation with your travel agent that you engage too and ask if they can do refund when certain event happened, since it is force majeur.
SAUSALITO
The location of this place is on the other side of San Fransisco, it is a different city. The city has calm vibes and very clean. I ould say that this is probably the place for those who are really rich. The house is so unique and expensive, that’s for sure. People drive Cadillac and other expensive cars around this area. I don’t get to capture anything around this place and I feel that you can put it in the last list if you have time to go around this town then you can go but it is not that important if you were planning to go for travelling.
Our last day in San Fransisco, brother asked us to go to this beautiful Japanese Tea Garden. The snack is kinda pricey for me but the view is magnificent, we take photo a lot and I also record this place on YouTube. This is must visit place and also there is another garden just in front, you can also try some food at the restaurant in the museum right beside the garden.
Finally we are in this famous bridge. You can go here by UBER and then strolling around the bridge and take a nice looking picture as below on my Instagram. This is the location that you need to take the photo, as many photos as you could, to mark that you have been going to San Fransisco. You can just see on YouTube as well
KLOOK Singapore
All the services that we engaged in this travel are from Singapore, which is KLOOK Singapore as 3rd party provider for us to connect with GrayLine California, which is going good as we also went to their office to confirmed with all the payment
So many of influencers that promoting this service even the macro influencers with a verified blue tick, therefore, I was thinking that this will be a good service, and yes indeed it is. So, from Yosemite to MUIR woods National Monument park is arranged by KLOOK Singapore.
We have difficulty to communicate with KLOOK Singapore to question whether or not they will refund to us since the USA government is shut down when we visit and we want to have our money back, but it is force majeur, yet they have not said anything, therefore, we try our luck to just asked them via email. It doesn’t seem that the customer service staff who reply to our email understand our questions. I have no ideas on how KLOOK recruit people but somehow a good quality staff who know about customer services will give different customer experience.
From this experience, I suggest that you guys asked the important and necessary question before engaging in all travel agent services. Also, asked the person in charge for all of your travel plan for their contact number, so they can follow-up to you for any of your queries.
Y5 PORTABLE WIFI
We also engage with WIFI connection from Y5 for their portable wifi service but it doesn’t seem to be able to provide with a good internet service when we are in California. The internet is rather slow but we can still book our uber drive and even browse using google maps. However, when we are in Yosemite and Muir woods, not even single internet can be used there
I arranged to be picked up at Raffles Exchange 711 store and somehow the 711 staff doesn’t have our record, therefore, I need to again ask Y5 for the confirmation before 711 staff give to us. They didn’t provide any invoice for us with a barcode to be scan by 711 staff, without the barcode the staff could not give to us even they have the portable wifi. I called with the Y5 staff and the staff talked to 711 staff, and the problem solved.
Do note that this is the first time we use portable wifi services, so I have no ideas about all the procedure.
They will give you the date which is a few days before you travel date and you need to give back to them right after your travel date back to your location, in this case for me in Singapore.
STARHUB INTERNATIONAL DATA ROAMING AND CALLS ROAMINGS
Not worthy to sign for the international roaming if you are gonna visit places that cannot be reached by the internet. If I am in the city, the internet can be used but it is really slow. slower than Y5 portable wifi even thou Starhub using AT&T, yet the good thing is my bills are not as high as I would expect like $500.00 but $150.00 per month when I only went to California for 6 days and that’s also mean that I use most of my internet in Singapore. I guess that’s a fair amount.
HILTON FUSIONSQUARE
They provide good wifi. There is 5 member of our family and we book 2 queen size bed. Right now, hotel in almost all location with a good quality service and stars, will not be providing you with the bed, when the room already has 2 queen size bed.
We don’t add for free breakfast into our package because we want to try food around since it is so easy to just get the food. The hotel location is located in the city, so it is pretty easy to go around and sightseeing. I can go to Macy’s just by walking around our hotel. I even manage to go to TARGET store with my sister and brother.
So far the experience has been really good with all of the services above but I will be engaging with another service when I travel again and hopefully next year to share with you on this blog.
WHAT CALIFORNIA LOCATION WILL YOU SUGGEST TO ME TO VISIT? SHARE IN THE COMMENT!
Instagram/Twitter/Facebook: Feliccine
RED 小红书：shishi3105
Douyin 抖音: Feliccine
Originally published at https://www.feliccine.com on May 17, 2019.
