I Found a Heart in San Francisco

It was really strange to see a deserted San Francisco International Airport. It still took time to get through security. Not because they were doing any screening for coronavirus. That was a lie. There wasn't any. No, it was because they were bored and frisked almost every person. I had never been frisked ever when flying, until this trip. I don't know if they have a quota to fill, or just trying to show they were doing their job. So much for social distancing.

After getting out of customs with the crowds of bored workers standing around talking, it was a lot more spacious out in the terminal. I was tired but I tried to take a few photos. I guess seeing a Buddha without any other accouterments looked strange to me. Just sitting out in the open in the middle of a seating area. 

Lots of space to sit and eat but no restaurants were open. I couldn't even find an inexpensive bottle of water.

I did find a giant heart. I guess someone left it in San Francisco. (Sorry about the bad joke)

I also found an expensive N95 mask. I figured I might need it. Sad to say I was right.

I thought I would do a comparison of a US public restroom to the Japanese one. Surprise, they did block off the air hand dryers at the airport in San Francisco.

As for the carpet, not exciting. I have to say PDX definitely has better carpet.

I was out at the Alaska Airlines gates for my final flight. There were a few still flying that day.

Really empty flights. They were actually having Alaska Airline employees fill in some of the seats to make sure the weight was okay.

It was nice not to have to worry about having other passengers around me.

Also nice not to have to wait for the plane to take off. No runway traffic this day.

A bit of clear sky over San Francisco Bay. Still a lot of cargo ships heading out towards the Pacific ocean. 

Up over Oakland and the Bay Bridge. I've had fun driving over that bridge.

The island that sticks out from the bridge, that's Treasure Island.

The tiny island just right and a little above Treasure Island, that is Alcatraz. The larger island to the right is Angel Island. Beyond that is part of the main land north of San Francisco. Tiberon and Sausalito. Sadly the clouds were covering the Golden Gate Bridge, which would be just above Alcatraz in this photo.

More clouds along the way. I'm not sure what part of Northern California this was since so much was obscured. That might be Clear Lake, but I am not sure.

I do know that this landscape is from earthquake faults. 

And finally heading down through the clouds to land at Portland International Airport. A little sad since I have no idea when travel will happen again. I do miss going to places like Japan. But for now, we all just have to wait.

Getting There

July found me on a train crossing the Willamette River.  

To that place that locals love to take photos of the carpet. Portland International Airport. So of course, I did that. 

Knowing that it would be some time before I would get a meal, I searched for something to eat.  Portland Bowl at Tamale Boy. It's great how flexible they are with their dishes. This is black beans, rice, mixed greens, tomato salsa, eggs, Monterey Jack cheese and guacamole sauce. Next time I will skip the eggs. Other than that, it was like a nice salad. And not expensive.

The plane to Canada was late. It's a Bombardier Q400. It is interesting to fly in a plane this size. A little noisy too.  

But the views are very scenic when the clouds clear. Mount Rainier with a couple lakes in Washington.

It's not easy getting photos through plane windows. So I'm always happy when my zoom picks up an image like this. Snowy Mount Rainier, even in summer.

And Vancouver International Airport. Time for another carpet photo. 

Finally boarded my plane and starting to roll out. 

Several hours later I make it through Narita International Airport's Immigration and Customs. Deep inside the train station there was a bamboo tree with tanzaku wishes for Tanabata. 

Once again waiting for my N'EX train. I didn't think to get a photo of Narita Airport's carpet. Maybe next time?

I found Bourbon Choco Anpan cookies while waiting. These are the same thing that was given away as prizes at the Moi dix Mois ~La Kitchen Knife Aristocracy~ shows. So I had to try them. Compared to the other Bourbon cookies, these ones were a bit dry. I prefer the Kikori no Kirikabu, Tree Stumps to these. But they are much harder to find.

So I was off on my journey back to Tokyo. Compared to March, the fields around Narita were green.

Checking in at Honolulu Hawaii

Tokyo was March so Hawaii was April. Still cold really early in the morning, but thankfully no ice. Since I post photos of train stations in Japan, here is one early morning in Oregon. It's worth the savings to take the train to the airport, if I get up early. 

Back on Hawaiian Airlines and they had Honolulu Cookie Company shortbread cookies. I wanted to try these so I was glad they offered them. Hawaiian Airlines has decent service on their flights. And it was great how the pilot gave us an air tour of Oahu on the descent into the airport. Over Diamond Head, Pearl Harbor and a few more places. I was so busy looking I forgot to take photos. 

Fast forward through a taxi ride from the airport to my hotel in Honolulu. I brought my Tokidoki LeSportsac Spiaggia purse back to the place it came from. I remember actually calling the local LeSportsac store back when to get this and a couple other pieces. And yes I did visit the store during my trip and bought a little something that wasn't Tokidoki. The person running the store was really nice, even opened the store up so I could look around. He recognized my purse. Thanks LeSportsac Honolulu!

After checking in I decided to visit the Hawai'i Convention Center where the Kawaii Kon convention was being held. One of the first things I noticed was that Hawaiians drive a lot of interesting cars.

 Lots of glass used for the Hawai'i Convention Center.

Inside there were palm trees. Not real palm trees though. The venue had a nice open feeling to all the floors and was decently laid out so it wasn't too difficult to find where the various rooms were. I previously wrote about the convention so I won't go into it here. Links to the three posts are here:

2019 Kawaii Kon Moi-même-Moitié Fashion Show http://blukats.blogspot.com/2019/04/2019-moi-meme-moitie-kawaii-kon-fashion.html

2019 Kawaii Kon Mana-sama Question and Answer Panel http://blukats.blogspot.com/2019/04/2019-mana-questions-and-answers-at.html 

2019 Kawaii Kon Moi-même-Moitié Tea Party http://blukats.blogspot.com/2019/04/2019-moi-meme-moitie-tea-party-with.html

I did spend some time walking around the convention when it was going on and seeing more than I wrote about. There were a lot of enthusiastic attendees, fun cosplays and interesting vendors. I do think for an anime convention it was a lot more relaxed than others I've been to, which was good.

Back to my hotel room. Even though I was in the back wing, there was still a view of the ocean and lots of green.

And a park along the ocean. Very tempting, I headed out to take a look.

It is Ala Moana Regional Park and it was hot and humid. And that sun...yeah there was sun.

It was nice to be able to see so much ocean.

And trees.

And Myna birds. 

And Red-crested Cardinals. So many birds in these trees.

I'm not sure how effective that orange fence is. I did notice in Honolulu people tend to do whatever they want. It was an interesting place.

An inviting bench. It was a good place to sit and think.

With a view of the Ala Wai Canal. The hills just beyond all the concrete buildings were very tempting.

 Not much further away was Diamond Head, just beyond Waikiki.

I'm not going to talk about the expensive awful dinner I had that first night. The food was okay but overpriced, the service was not very good. Part of the problem is that restaurants in the area are mostly expensive and I did not have a car. I did walk a lot but it was hot and humid so I had to make sure not to over do it. So my options were limited to what was around the hotel.

It was nice that in the hotel the Starbucks also served beer. While it was not open late, sitting down to enjoy a Longboard Island lager from Kona Brewing after that dinner and the heat outside was pleasant. Considering that I had a very strange encounter in the lobby right after this, I'm glad there was this nice moment prior. I'm also glad there was a nice video online to watch once I reached my room. And I had something to look forward to the next day.