Round 2 - SFO

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Embracing each other we parted on the words of "safe travel" and "see you in San Francisco in a day!" Shauna, walked off in the opposing direction to catch her WestJet Vancouver flight as I went through US Customs heading for San Francisco.

It was a brief two-hour flight but knowing I was going to be flying another thirteen within a day, I decided to buy a book for the flight. "Dead Tomorrow" caught my attention, right away! I read the description on the back of the book;
The body of a teenager, dredged from the seabed off the Sussex coast, is found to be missing its vital organs. Soon two more bodies are found... Caitlin Beckett, a fifteen-year-old in Brighton will die id she does not receive an urgent liver transplant. When the health system threatens to let her down, Lynn, her mother, turns in panic to the Internet and discovers a broker who can provide her with a black-market organ - but at a price. As Superintendent Roy Grace investigates the recovered bodies, he unearths the trail of a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a race against time to save the life of a young street kid, while a desperate mother will stop at nothing to save her daughter's life...

I flipped it open to page 115, to see how Peter James, the Sunday Times Bestseller actually wrote the book. After a couple of lines, I thought, this is a descent book with a great description. Then I set the book down because I need an Americano and a Raspberry Scone for breakfast before departure. As I read the magazine titles while munching down on the scone, I realized I wanted the book!

I bought the book and on the flight down from Edmonton to San Francisco, I read eighty-three pages! Since arriving at chapter 14 before landing in San Francisco, I haven't been able to pick up the book again. I've shuffled it around, moved it in my bag, even had it out during the twelve hours of bliss on Korean Air Flight #6 from LAX, but never did I actually read another page!

Yep, that's because I was frantically running about ALL of San Francisco trying to put together the final touches on my application for the E2 Teaching Visa. First, I needed to get from SFO to the hotel, then from the hotel to the BART station, the from BART to the Post Office, so I could obtain a $45.00 money order to pay for the visa. Once I had this in my hands, I needed to get from the Post Office, to the consulate before four?

During my skirmish around the San Bruno area of San Francisco, I managed to get into the downtown core by 1:12 pm, by this time Shauna sent a message to let me know she had obtained her passport with the coveted E2 visa inside. She was smiling. And I knew I needed to be too, but I had heaps to do still and I wasn't even close to the city.

I jumped off at Powell Station instead of Montgomery, mistake #1. I climbed the stairs ran into the streets and looked for Turk Street, which was exactly 1 1/2 blocks back and the the right of the station. Eagerly I went down the street in search of the Post Office after 33-seconds, I was happy to be alone because the people loitering on this street were what I knew Oakland was like; pimps, prostitutes, dregs, drug deals on the corner, foul odors and zero "white people." I was throwing off the color scale on this block with my nice black Stacy Adams dress shoes, slacks, Red Izod Golf Polo and messenger back! I was easy to spot mainly because I was in a hurry to get to the Post Office. I searched the area of the block where it was "suppose to be?" Between Hyde Street and Larkin Street. Bullshit!!! This was going to royally destroy my schedule. That's when I noticed a few people entering a non-descriptive building, so I approached seeing other people inside. I yanked on the door and it was locked! Are you serious? Locked, in the middle of the day? Now I knew I was on the wrong street in the wrong part of San Francisco!

As I stood there contemplating my next move a guy in all black clothing with a baseball cap declaring some sort of medicinal place on it, opened the door asking "what are you looking for?"

"Well, I am looking for the Post Office and according to my map I should be standing in front of it?" He replied with a smile, "it's another block down on your left inside the Federal Building, you'll be safe there."
Holly Shit! Did he mean what I thought he meant? Safe... really? DAMN! And I bolted down the street in search of the Federal Building.

I reached the turn-style door, went through the door and found myself at a Security Check Point. I disrobed myself; watch, belt, shoes, pocket change, laptop, cellphone, rings, and shoved it through their xray system. That's when shit hit the proverbial fan, again! This time, it was because I was in a federal government building and I wasn't suppose to have a camera on me. I had to go back through the freaking whole line again! And again, just to make sure I hadn't forgotten any pieces of metal hiding on my now naked frame!

I grabbed the remainder of my things, handed over my camera and dashed downstairs to find the Post Office. Once in the Post Office, I received my money order because I was the only person there. It took all of 5-minutes! Back up the stairs, to retrieve my camera and find a ride to the Korean Consulate.

Heading west, I found Van Ness Avenue, I stood on the corner with my eye's peeled open and my arm raised up flapping it at every cab driver within a two-block radius! Finally, a guy stopped; Richard (or dick, depending on your vocabulary). Dick, turned out not to be... but really was a Richard. We talked about life, San Francisco, "hot Korean ladies," that it was too bad I was married and going to Korea of all places, because they have "hot Korean ladies!" But in the end, Richard turned out to be one of my favorite people in San Francisco. He also lead me to believe in a website that he called linguistics at it's finest.

http://www.taxi1010.com

"Non-escalating Verbal Self-Defense"

It's a grammatical ammunition website for keeping you ahead of others around you to come back with a dialogue stronger to defeat the inferior brain qualities of others! And it's good humor, too!

While I was being dropped off in front of the Korean Consulate, I asked Richard if he could come back in an hour to pick-me up but he said, "sorry, I'm about to get off my shift, but here's a yellow cab number you can call to get another cab. Or you can just walk down to California Street and wave one down." I paid him, gave him a tip and jumped out the yellow Ford Escape, grabbing my bag and flinging it over my shoulder. I approached the door, ready to throw them my documents and pray that everything was processed in less than 24 hours!

At the door, I read Monday-Friday 08:00 to 17:00, excellent it was 15:00 which meant I had a bit over 2-hours to go through with whatever lay behind this buzzer only door. I quickly pressed the entrance buzzer and was let into the building. Found the Visa window and spoke to the girl on the other side. Explained I was applying for my E2 Visa and that these were my documents. She ripped open the "official transcripts" from Griffith University, fiddled through my documents pulling out the ones she wanted and handed me back four pages out of seventeen! WoW!! Good thing I had added all those extra documents, since they were taking them ALL!!! She then looked up, accepted the Postal Money order as I finished off my portion of Name, Address, Phone Number handing it over to her.

She then said, "Please come back on Friday, it will be ready then." "Ummm... I have a flight booked for tomorrow night? Please can I get it tomorrow?" "Fine, be back here around 3:00 pm tomorrow, it will be ready then." Phew... that would have really sucked if I actually had a plane ticket booked, but I still needed to find a cafe, find the wi-fi and buy the plane ticket, I went in search of food, too!

Heading down Locust Street towards California Street I turned left onto Sacramento Street as I spotted a few botique shops thinking there must be food down here someplace or a cafe? I called Shauna, with the almost "perfect" news... "Hey what are you doing?" I asked as she picked up the phone. "Oh, hey, how are things going? I am just searching around for some flip-flops." "Oh, that sounds good, why, don't you have enough shoes, yet?" "No, I need another pair of flip-flops because the other 3-pair I am bringing will eventually wear through and I need a good sandal." Yea Right! "Good news or Bad news?" That is always the question... "Good news please." "Well, the good news is I will have my Visa in my passport tomorrow just as promised, one day processing." "And the bad news?" "I wont be catching the same-flight as you, sorry but that's just part of our crazy life together."

"Okay, I get it. But why can we never fly long-distances together?" "I have no clue, but I am going to go so I can grab a bite to eat and buy a plane ticket, so I'll text you later about hanging out at the Airport, if I can figure out where I will be leaving my bags?" "Okay, love you, bye!" "Love you, bye!"

We hung up, and I was standing in front of Cafe Luna because Eunice's Cafe was closed. I went inside and asked the girl behind the counter if they had Wi-Fi? She said they didn't but said there was a Starbucks back along California Street just a couple of blocks back. I thanked her for the directions and headed back the way I came.

Eventually, I found shops and Peet's Coffee Shop. I went in to inquire about Wi-Fi, they had it with a limitation of an hour if you bought something to eat or drink. I decided why not because I was only buying a plane ticket, then heading for AT & T Park to catch the Marlins versus Giants baseball game.
I ordered a slice of banana bread and an Americano-single shot and the guy asked what size I wanted, small, medium, large? Medium please but in the end when the barista called me over she had a little tiny cup of espresso sitting in a tiny little miniature mug on a saucer. I laughed and smiled at her, asking what kind of Americano this was? She retorted with this hideous face saying that her ticket had it as an single-espresso. I laughed again and smiled stating that I didn't order the espresso but would like a Medium Americano, which is what I had ordered. She spat on the floor, spat on her co-worked, tossed the espresso down the sink, grabbed a "stay her cup" grabbed another flat scoop of espresso bean and flushed it through the system into the awaiting cup of hot-water and then stated, "here you go sir" with another hideous grimace on her face. I smiled, thanked her and laughed at her silliness then walked back to my table and awaiting computer.

Cramming the banana bread down my throat because the hunger pains wouldn't stop and after about twenty minutes I had found there were two flights between San Francisco International Airport and Incheon International Airport. Both US Airways flights operated by United Airlines left SFO-domestic airport heading for LAX-domestic at either 6:25 pm or 7:15 pm with either a two hour forty-four minute or four-hour twelve minute layover. After you land, get off the plane, get into the shuttle, transfer to International, re-check-in with Korean Airlines, get your boarding pass and hope to get through security, you might have enough time to eat and buy yourself a beer? But the 7:15 plane connects with an 11:15 plane taking off and landing at ICN at 4:15 am. Or the 6:25 plane connects with a 12:15 am plane landing at ICN at 5:15 am. I crammed my brains about the time constraints on this end, once I had my passport back into my hands I would;

1) I needed to pick up the passport at 3pm
2) Then I needed to walk 10 minutes and grab the #1 Bus back to downtown taking 30 minutes
3) Walk between the bus drop-off and the subway 15 minutes
4) Jump on the "correct" airport subway cars taking 30 minutes
5) Walk to the Travel Agency Luggage Storage place, get luggage 10 minutes
6) Walk between International Terminal and Domestic Terminal to check-in luggage and receive boarding
pass, could take 15 minutes or an hour and a half?
7) Get through SFO International Security, (sanity intact or not?) 15 minutes or two hours?
8) Find the gate and get on the plane heading for LAX

Total estimated time from Korean Consulate to being on plane for LAX = 2 hrs 10 mins to 5 hrs 25 mins

It was a no brainer after looking over the possibilities on the end prior to departing from San Francisco, anything could happen and if the shit became really sticky crap-ola then I would have to grab a Taxi Cab pay through the same orifice and end up at SFO in time to grab my luggage and run down the hallway screeeeaming at people to get out of the freaking way!

I bought the ticket through Orbitz, saved the file to my desktop, closed up my computer, went into the bathroom to change out of my dress pants into my blue jeans, since I was heading for the baseball game and then jumped onto the #1 Bus headed for downtown. By the time I reached downtown my hunger pains had come back into my system. I needed food and I need it NOW before I ripped someone's freaking head off. I transferred from the #1 bus to the #10 bus to take me to the ballpark. I was thinking about food instead of the baseball game and the "fun" I wanted to have. Then the lack of regular sleep started creeping into the outset corners of my head too! Fruck! I was hungry, tired and not thinking straight. This could be really bad, since I was going to buy the ticket from a scalper? Oh well...

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Photos

SFO - BART
BART is a great subway; quick, fast and fairly clean. However BART is outrageously expensive and this remains the reason why NO ONE uses it!

BART
On the section I rode, there are three spots where you are above ground. A passenger looks out over the crowded SF hill of houses.