Adieu New York

11 October 2018

This is our penultimate day in Flushing before flying to San Francisco tomorrow.  

While Belinda hosted mum for the afternoon, WT and I went to Times Square to buy farewell gifts.

It was a pretty wet day, and we decided not to stay out too long.  Even the queues for buses in Flushing needed protection.

Simon again lavished a huge dinner on the six of us.

Emma departed for Vancouver that night, and left behind her laptop charger.

 I guess they had a good time together.

12 October 2018

Maylene and Rhys took the bus and Sky Bus to JFK.  They are flying Alaska Air to LAX.  And after a 5-hour layover, it was Virgin Australia back to Melbourne.

They left their cookie dough behind in the fridge, and were sad when we told them.

WT engaged in serious negotiations with the US Postal Service to get Emma's charger and Barnaby's SIM card sent.  They have strict compliance requirements around where return addresses should be placed and how big the parcel needs to be to accommodate the huge USPS stickers.

Simon dropped mum, WT and I at JFK terminal 1 on WT's instruction.  Air Alaska was terminal 7.

By the time we figured that out, we had said our good byes and Simon was gone.

I approached a taxi driver to take us to terminal 7.  Apparently taxis are not allowed to do pick-ups at departures.  The driver asked the armed security person at the curb if he could take me from terminal 1 to 7.

The security guy said he didn't mind.  We piled in with our luggage and in 10 mins we were in front of terminal 7.

Apart from this diversion, the flight was uneventful, and we arrived 20 mins early.  So control made us wait on the tarmac for 20 mins to ensure that we were on time.

See Hack very kindly picked us up and was already waiting at luggage claim when we emerged.  Warm greetings were exchanged with Han when we arrived home in Fremont.

13 October 2018

See Hack is playing tour guide today.

We started with farmers market at the Ferry Terminal. 

Things here are too expensive to buy because they are locally farmed, organic, vegan, gluten free, LGBT approved and nuclear free.

Lunch was at Pho 2000 in Tenderloin.  It was cheap and cheerful though the route there smelled like an AC/DC concert.

Coits Tower on Telegraph Hill offered some nice views of the city and harbour.

It costs $9 to take the lift up the tower, so we skipped this.

Next stop was to get a closeup of the Golden Gate bridge.  The short drive there along Marine Parade brought us to the bottom of the bridge.

Yes it was a bit windy.  

There were lots of Korean tourists, coming-of-age photographing and wedding parties at the Palace of Fine Arts.

We were thwarted from visiting Pier 39 by the full car park in Fishermans Wharf.  So I suggested we buy meat for dinner.  Which is what See Hack is cooking as I write this.