... See, this is why I can't have anything nice. Or start anything without coming back to it immediately. Considering the end of the Monterey trip is now over a week old and yet I still have this post sitting here unfinished. (Actually I have several posts sitting unfinished. This is simply the oldest that I still intend to finish.)
I originally wrote "So while San Francisco is far enough away to be out of range without a fair few hours to spend, Santa Cruz is close enough to be an evening's worth of adventure," but then I never actually wrote that post. So, from a slightly different perspective then!
When we went to Santa Cruz, all that we knew about it was that my brother had been there once and had a decent time. There's a boardwalk there, you see. Very Coney Island, theme park-y in general. (Not that I've ever been to Coney Island, but still.) And because I am extraordinarily single-minded in what I count as "fun"... my brother and I went straight for the arcades. Went back and forth between two of the ones we found playing DDR pretty much constantly.
I believe I've mentioned Dance Dance Revolution before. Well, it's an entirely different experience playing it in public. Mostly because the stakes are higher, at least in my opinion. Screw up in your basement on your own pad and no one has to know about it. Screw up in public in front of the small crowd that occasionally gathers when I play DDR, and that's a little more embarrassing. And yes, I do get crowds. Not often, and not very large ones (never more than a dozen people, really), but people will stop and watch for a moment when I'm on the pad.
In this case, the half-dozen people that had gathered to watch me take on one particularly hard song on an In The Groove machine (which is basically DDR in all but name, kinda like Stepmania) actually applauded when I finished. That's not at all common, and frankly it's even more embarrassing. Which doesn't mean I disliked it, but I have no stage presence and no real sense of how to acknowledge that kind of thing. (And I was exhausted to boot.)
But, it does in the end make it all the more fun. Being decently good (if not excellent) at DDR is fun, yes. Having other people see that is even better. This is why I have never yet passed up an opportunity to play DDR in public, and that chance alone made the trip to Santa Cruz worthwhile.
Showing posts with label Monterey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monterey. Show all posts
2011-07-05
2011-06-25
Monterey Chronicles - Return Flight
Seriously, never fly Delta.
If there had been free Wi-Fi in the Twin Cities airport, I would have posted this from there last night. There was not, and so I couldn’t. I certainly had the time for it though. You see, our return flight had one layover at the Twin Cities, in Minnesota, that was supposed to be about an hour long. Thanks to a slight delay in our leg out from San Jose, that had been shortened to about 40 minutes by the time we were on the ground.
Once we got to the gate, the trouble began: the listed departure time was a full hour after what we were expecting. A prior flight had been delayed or something, thus meaning they wouldn’t have the plane for us to board until an hour later than they had been planning. And that was bad enough, but at least it gave us the time to get dinner or something and relax a little.
Then our gate changed, because the prior flight in our gate had some kind of mechanical problem that necessitated a 2-hour repair. (Take note: Delta is screwing up more than one flight today!) They had already been waiting for something like two hours already when they got this news, so… yeah. Well, we picked up and bounced on over to the new gate.
Where we discovered that the flight we were waiting on wasn’t going to be getting anywhere until 15 minutes before the new (delayed) departure time. Let’s see, cleaning, crew change, and boarding in 15 minutes…? Yeah, no. So now we were going to be delayed an hour and a half, factoring in a reasonable turnaround time.
And then? Then the announcement came on… somehow we no longer had a crew. They had been delayed out of La Guardia in New York, apparently. So they weren’t going to be here until over two hours after the scheduled departure time, and we couldn’t do anything to board or prepare the plane until we had a crew. End result: a delay of two and a half hours, a flight that was supposed to take off at 1919 finally getting out of the gate at 2249.
Anyone else want to know why I hate flying?
(Note: there are more Monterey Chronicles coming; I still have stories to tell about the vacation. I just had to rant about this.)
If there had been free Wi-Fi in the Twin Cities airport, I would have posted this from there last night. There was not, and so I couldn’t. I certainly had the time for it though. You see, our return flight had one layover at the Twin Cities, in Minnesota, that was supposed to be about an hour long. Thanks to a slight delay in our leg out from San Jose, that had been shortened to about 40 minutes by the time we were on the ground.
Once we got to the gate, the trouble began: the listed departure time was a full hour after what we were expecting. A prior flight had been delayed or something, thus meaning they wouldn’t have the plane for us to board until an hour later than they had been planning. And that was bad enough, but at least it gave us the time to get dinner or something and relax a little.
Then our gate changed, because the prior flight in our gate had some kind of mechanical problem that necessitated a 2-hour repair. (Take note: Delta is screwing up more than one flight today!) They had already been waiting for something like two hours already when they got this news, so… yeah. Well, we picked up and bounced on over to the new gate.
Where we discovered that the flight we were waiting on wasn’t going to be getting anywhere until 15 minutes before the new (delayed) departure time. Let’s see, cleaning, crew change, and boarding in 15 minutes…? Yeah, no. So now we were going to be delayed an hour and a half, factoring in a reasonable turnaround time.
And then? Then the announcement came on… somehow we no longer had a crew. They had been delayed out of La Guardia in New York, apparently. So they weren’t going to be here until over two hours after the scheduled departure time, and we couldn’t do anything to board or prepare the plane until we had a crew. End result: a delay of two and a half hours, a flight that was supposed to take off at 1919 finally getting out of the gate at 2249.
Anyone else want to know why I hate flying?
(Note: there are more Monterey Chronicles coming; I still have stories to tell about the vacation. I just had to rant about this.)
2011-06-23
Monterey Chronicles - Kayaking
Yesterday morning, I went on a kayaking tour of Monterey Bay, or at least the coastline from Fisherman's Wharf up to the Monterey Aquarium and back. For the people who have been there, you know what I'm talking about, and for the people who haven't, well, I think it was about a mile's worth of paddling, each way?
Really the distance wasn't the point. The point of this particular excursion was the wildlife. I can honestly say that I have not actually seen sea lions, harbor seals, or sea otters out in the wild (such as it is) before yesterday. Now I have. We got as close as all the relevant laws will allow, which is to say about 50 to 100 feet away. You see, if we get any closer, we'll disturb their natural activities, which could actually harm them in the end, so we're banned from doing so. The guide for our tour kept a careful watch on the tour (which was only five people, not counting him, so it wasn't exactly hard), but other kayakers out there had to be warned off at least once.
Probably the coolest part of the tour was right at the end, when we were paddling along a stone wall nicknamed the "Invertebrate Wall" by the tour guide. There were sea stars attached to the stone, which was pretty neat... but then the sea lion burst out of the water about 20 feet away. I was kind of worried about that whole distance thing, but they were busy feeding, and it's not like we could do anything about that. You could actually see fish jumping in every direction to try to get out of the way.
... Unfortunately, most of the allure here is visual, and I don't have any of the pictures on my computer. Well, if you're ever in Monterey, it's totally worth it to take a kayak out along the coastline and see what you can see. Trust me, I had fun with it.
Really the distance wasn't the point. The point of this particular excursion was the wildlife. I can honestly say that I have not actually seen sea lions, harbor seals, or sea otters out in the wild (such as it is) before yesterday. Now I have. We got as close as all the relevant laws will allow, which is to say about 50 to 100 feet away. You see, if we get any closer, we'll disturb their natural activities, which could actually harm them in the end, so we're banned from doing so. The guide for our tour kept a careful watch on the tour (which was only five people, not counting him, so it wasn't exactly hard), but other kayakers out there had to be warned off at least once.
Probably the coolest part of the tour was right at the end, when we were paddling along a stone wall nicknamed the "Invertebrate Wall" by the tour guide. There were sea stars attached to the stone, which was pretty neat... but then the sea lion burst out of the water about 20 feet away. I was kind of worried about that whole distance thing, but they were busy feeding, and it's not like we could do anything about that. You could actually see fish jumping in every direction to try to get out of the way.
... Unfortunately, most of the allure here is visual, and I don't have any of the pictures on my computer. Well, if you're ever in Monterey, it's totally worth it to take a kayak out along the coastline and see what you can see. Trust me, I had fun with it.
2011-06-22
Monterey Chronicles - San Francisco
"Wait," I hear people asking. "What does San Francisco have to do with Monterey?"
Well, nothing. Except for the fact that my brother and I wanted to go to San Francisco, and Sunday was the last chance to really do that. He has work during the week, after all, and it's far enough away from Monterey to make it a full-day trip. So after the excitement on Saturday, we all devoted Sunday to a trip up the coast to San Francisco.
Why did we want to go there? I mean, pick a reason. There's the Golden Gate Bridge to see if nothing else. But, I admit we had a different goal: the Kinokuniya bookstore that we knew was in San Francisco. I've been missing the shopping that I had back in Kyoto, when I went there to study abroad, and we were hoping that we could go buy a few more Japanese books that we won't be able to find anywhere else.
Had we known that the Kinokuniya was part of a much larger mall entirely devoted to Japanese stuff, we might have budgeted more time and money for this operation. As it stood we spent quite a while sitting there in the Kinokuniya struggling to decide what shiny stuff we actually wanted badly enough to buy. Of my purchases, probably the one I care about the most is the guide to Project Diva 2nd, a Vocaloids PSP game.
Then we needed lunch, and we were surrounded by Japanese food. Everyone else went for tempura. I got eel. And no, I never tire of the looks on others' faces when I order eel. It's delicious, if you were curious. Then we found taiyaki for dessert, and did a little more shopping where I got a wall hanging of Miku Hatsune, one of the Vocaloids. (Can you tell what I'm kind of a fan of?)
Finally we managed to tear ourselves away from the Japanese stuff, and went to the Golden Gate Bridge. We started the adventure in Fort Point, underneath the San Francisco side of the bridge, and wandered around staring at old Civil War-era cannons before surveying the shipping in the channel under the bridge. Including the container ship that was big enough to be mistaken for a lighthouse from a distance.
After that, we walked up and out onto the bridge a short distance, far enough to catch a glimpse of sea lions down in the channel. Since we didn't actually want to walk to Oakland, we didn't cross the bridge entirely, but it was fun nevertheless. And we got to see another container ship, too.
That was pretty much it. But honestly, that was more than enough.
Well, nothing. Except for the fact that my brother and I wanted to go to San Francisco, and Sunday was the last chance to really do that. He has work during the week, after all, and it's far enough away from Monterey to make it a full-day trip. So after the excitement on Saturday, we all devoted Sunday to a trip up the coast to San Francisco.
Why did we want to go there? I mean, pick a reason. There's the Golden Gate Bridge to see if nothing else. But, I admit we had a different goal: the Kinokuniya bookstore that we knew was in San Francisco. I've been missing the shopping that I had back in Kyoto, when I went there to study abroad, and we were hoping that we could go buy a few more Japanese books that we won't be able to find anywhere else.
Had we known that the Kinokuniya was part of a much larger mall entirely devoted to Japanese stuff, we might have budgeted more time and money for this operation. As it stood we spent quite a while sitting there in the Kinokuniya struggling to decide what shiny stuff we actually wanted badly enough to buy. Of my purchases, probably the one I care about the most is the guide to Project Diva 2nd, a Vocaloids PSP game.
Then we needed lunch, and we were surrounded by Japanese food. Everyone else went for tempura. I got eel. And no, I never tire of the looks on others' faces when I order eel. It's delicious, if you were curious. Then we found taiyaki for dessert, and did a little more shopping where I got a wall hanging of Miku Hatsune, one of the Vocaloids. (Can you tell what I'm kind of a fan of?)
Finally we managed to tear ourselves away from the Japanese stuff, and went to the Golden Gate Bridge. We started the adventure in Fort Point, underneath the San Francisco side of the bridge, and wandered around staring at old Civil War-era cannons before surveying the shipping in the channel under the bridge. Including the container ship that was big enough to be mistaken for a lighthouse from a distance.
After that, we walked up and out onto the bridge a short distance, far enough to catch a glimpse of sea lions down in the channel. Since we didn't actually want to walk to Oakland, we didn't cross the bridge entirely, but it was fun nevertheless. And we got to see another container ship, too.
That was pretty much it. But honestly, that was more than enough.
2011-06-21
Monterey Chronicles - Cannery Row
Pretty much the first thing we did on Saturday afternoon after driving down to Monterey itself was to go to Cannery Row. As my brother explained, and as we could see perfectly well once we were there ourselves, Cannery Row is the particular "tourist" area of the city (well, one of, at any rate), with a large number of food and touristy shopping options. Plus the Monterey Aquarium, which I have not been to yet. We'll get to that soon enough.
I probably should have been paying more attention to things like the area's history... from what I remember, from the 1930s about through the 1950s, Cannery Row was a major fishing and, well, canning area. That came to a halt when they ran out of fish, since these were the days before controls on fishing really existed. John Steinbeck wrote books about this area, too, in addition to works like Grapes of Wrath.
... That's a really crappy account of the history. I really wasn't paying attention. *sigh*
Well, anyway! We ended up stopping in several different stores and attractions along Cannery Row, although mostly I just bought candy and chocolate. There were probably a half-dozen stores that we passed devoted to candy, and one in particular that was devoted solely to Ghirardelli chocolate. Most of it is already gone, sadly.
There was also a cool little mirror maze attraction that we saw, where you had to find your way through a practically endless collection of mirrors. Seeing someone, or the exit, didn't actually mean that someone was anywhere near you. Oh, and they used strobe lights and occasionally just turned them off entirely to make it harder. My brother and I actually were making a good deal of progress toward memorizing the correct route entirely, though.
The same place had a laser challenge thing, where you had to work your way through a hallway without touching any of the laser beams. Kind of like a spy movie thing with the lasers that you can't touch without sounding an alarm. That was completely impossible. I'd be absolutely certain that I was nowhere near the laser beam, and then the little buzzer would go off as I went right through it.
So yeah. Cannery Row. I'm given to understand that it's fun. If you're ever in Monterey, go check it out.
I probably should have been paying more attention to things like the area's history... from what I remember, from the 1930s about through the 1950s, Cannery Row was a major fishing and, well, canning area. That came to a halt when they ran out of fish, since these were the days before controls on fishing really existed. John Steinbeck wrote books about this area, too, in addition to works like Grapes of Wrath.
... That's a really crappy account of the history. I really wasn't paying attention. *sigh*
Well, anyway! We ended up stopping in several different stores and attractions along Cannery Row, although mostly I just bought candy and chocolate. There were probably a half-dozen stores that we passed devoted to candy, and one in particular that was devoted solely to Ghirardelli chocolate. Most of it is already gone, sadly.
There was also a cool little mirror maze attraction that we saw, where you had to find your way through a practically endless collection of mirrors. Seeing someone, or the exit, didn't actually mean that someone was anywhere near you. Oh, and they used strobe lights and occasionally just turned them off entirely to make it harder. My brother and I actually were making a good deal of progress toward memorizing the correct route entirely, though.
The same place had a laser challenge thing, where you had to work your way through a hallway without touching any of the laser beams. Kind of like a spy movie thing with the lasers that you can't touch without sounding an alarm. That was completely impossible. I'd be absolutely certain that I was nowhere near the laser beam, and then the little buzzer would go off as I went right through it.
So yeah. Cannery Row. I'm given to understand that it's fun. If you're ever in Monterey, go check it out.
2011-06-20
Monterey Chronicles - Intro, Departure Flight
Yeah, there's a reason why I haven't been posting over the last several days. Let's just say that the days immediately prior to a vacation tend to be a little... chaotic. And the first few days of a vacation are rarely any better. First comes the packing, and then there's all sorts of new things to do, and so on and so forth. But yeah, this post is coming from a hotel in California, practically within walking distance of Monterey Bay. I've been here since Saturday, and it's been quite the interesting adventure.
So I get to make it a series of posts! There's all sorts of things I've been doing, and it'd be way too much for any one post to take in. I'll try to provide pictures, where I have them, but I've mostly been letting everyone else take the pictures, so I actually don't have that many.
At any rate, the adventure started on Saturday with the most incompetent ground crew I've ever seen. We had a really early flight, so we had to be at the airport really early... and when we got there, we saw an absolute train wreck of a line to get to the baggage counter and no sense of proper routing or crowd control. Had we not taken advantage of the lack of control to, well, jump ahead a little, we probably would have missed our flight, despite getting there within a reasonable time.
Then when we do get to the gate... there's no gate agent, and the airplane's crew is just standing around chatting and having their breakfast. At first this wasn't a problem, because we still had a comfortable margin before the flight was scheduled to take off. It became a problem before too long, because there was still no one there nearly 15 minutes after the plane was supposed to start boarding. The flight took off a full half-hour late thanks to the total lack of any gate agents until it was way too late to board a 757's worth of people on time.
So, basically? Delta has a few things to work on as far as "efficiency" is concerned.
Thankfully we managed to get to our connecting flight on time and reach San Jose safely. From there it was a reasonably short drive south to Monterey itself. And from there, well... all sorts of things happened! I'll get to that with the next post.
So I get to make it a series of posts! There's all sorts of things I've been doing, and it'd be way too much for any one post to take in. I'll try to provide pictures, where I have them, but I've mostly been letting everyone else take the pictures, so I actually don't have that many.
At any rate, the adventure started on Saturday with the most incompetent ground crew I've ever seen. We had a really early flight, so we had to be at the airport really early... and when we got there, we saw an absolute train wreck of a line to get to the baggage counter and no sense of proper routing or crowd control. Had we not taken advantage of the lack of control to, well, jump ahead a little, we probably would have missed our flight, despite getting there within a reasonable time.
Then when we do get to the gate... there's no gate agent, and the airplane's crew is just standing around chatting and having their breakfast. At first this wasn't a problem, because we still had a comfortable margin before the flight was scheduled to take off. It became a problem before too long, because there was still no one there nearly 15 minutes after the plane was supposed to start boarding. The flight took off a full half-hour late thanks to the total lack of any gate agents until it was way too late to board a 757's worth of people on time.
So, basically? Delta has a few things to work on as far as "efficiency" is concerned.
Thankfully we managed to get to our connecting flight on time and reach San Jose safely. From there it was a reasonably short drive south to Monterey itself. And from there, well... all sorts of things happened! I'll get to that with the next post.
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