Six Months in Philadelphia

Philadelphia City Hall 

Philadelphia in my mind never actually crossed my mind. From the history books, I remember it as "the City of Brotherly Love" and the city that houses the huge bell with a crack in it. There's the Philly Cheesesteak (Dalessandro's wins), and then those steps that one fictitious boxer runs up (though I really thought that was in New York City, because any big city I saw on the silver screen had to be New York City). 

And when I finally got off the Greyhound bus at 10th and Filbert, I knew that I shouldn't judge Philadelphia just yet. So what if there were three pigeons hanging out inside the station? The first time I visited Philadelphia, I would have never thought that a year later, I'd spend three hours installing an IKEA bed frame, my IKEA bed frame, in a room that I'd be renting out for the next 12 months. 6 months later, and the bed is still in tact!

When I was living in New York City, I never blogged about it. I actually haven't blogged in many months (I must stop talking about blogging because apparently, according to some blog tips I read, readers hate to read about blogging and would rather read about things that will be useful to the reader). But because my readership has declined from 5 to 0, I shouldn't really worry too much about that.

I've been in Philadelphia and the only post I can remember posting is about my trip to Cambodia. I've travelled a tremendous amount recently and have yet to update them. It's really never ever going to happen. As TSwift would say, like, ever.

Being in a new city is like falling in love. No it's not. Let's just say I've been on a few dates, thought I was falling in love, got stood up, and now I'm avoiding the phone calls but not necessarily ready to break up and move on. It's also convenient that I arrived during the summer, when everything was whimsical and heated! 6 months later, the polar vortex arrived and ruined a little girl's dream.

I haven't taken any pictures with my camera (I'm 90% ready to sell it, except the buyer loves stalling) so I browsed through my phone looking for some horizontal images (#nofilter) of this city called Philadelphia.

Race Street Pier

Fairmount Park

Broad and JFK

Thanks for the description sign, PPA.  

10th between Arch and Cherry

The 76ers first and only win? Probably.

First Hockey game! It was fun until it stopped being not fun 30 minutes later.

I do love the murals around the city.

KAWS at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Despite the construction, these residents still decorated their tree!

And then the snow came...

And it kept coming. Also, I've never see any street allow such parking!

This was the first snow, and I was Dora the Explorer.

The commute to work

Dangerous!

I'd live in South Philly just so I can decorate my window like this.

A portrait of my uncle, the oldest of 10 children.

"Get on the motorbike!"
"Are you sure?"
"I take my wife to the market every morning on this!"
I put my helmet, give him my bag, and get on.
"Isn't this great!? I'm 82, but I'm still having fun! Make sure you're always having fun!" he shouts over his shoulder as we drive through a dry dirt road to his house. 

I came here for the pigs

My first post in Vietnam and this is what I came up with!? I couldn't contain my excitement when my aunt took me to her backyard. I have to say, pigs don't really "oink" and I wonder where the origin of that sound came from. They snort. Below are images from my visit to the countryside. Captions included.

The entire time, I thought of babe and the three little pigs. But look at these 3. Poor pink one.

She is so big, almost the size of a donkey! She's the mother to these cute little ones below.

Hi! They make me smile. 

Packing and Flying

My dad looking as cool as a cucumber packing the gifts aka joint medicine for his brothers and sisters

I can't read any of this. 

Ziploc bags aren't just for sandwiches and hot cheetos. All my clothes.

Accomplished.

My friends.

I fear flying. I wish buckling my seatbelt meant I'll be transported to the final destination. Click it and I am there. Really, someone please invent that. The first step is to land safely. After that, I can worry about the other unprepared unplanned events I have waiting for me.

In 14 hours I will be in Taiwan. In 14 hours I will be in Hue.

If anything happens, know that I love all of you! I am freaking myself out. Please please let there be a second post after this!

Passport, Visa, Debit Card

I am half way there with my packing. As in the first half are the essential time sensitive items I had to have to even start my short travel. And I got that done pretty early! A week prior! Yes! The second half will be done before I leave the airport, I swear.  

Passport Good to go! I have a few more years until it's expired.

Visa That pink slip is a loose leaf visa. In other words, I didn't want to mail in my passport and risk losing it, so I opted for this visa, which sadly will be taken away when I leave Vietnam. Since I didn't live near the embassy, I went through a travel agent. Since mine is a three month multiple visa, it was $160. I saved $10 because I was born in Vietnam. Who decided this?

My other option was to get a visa on arrival. You apply online at any reputable visa website, pay the fees, get a pre approval letter, and when you land at either Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi, you will get a stamp. However, the process can take 15 minutes to hours. I couldn't risk that either because I had a connecting flight. The visa on arrival is about $30 dollars cheaper.

Debit Card I can't imagine carrying around thousands of dollars especially in humid weather. After researching, it was unanimous from expats and travelers loved the Charles Schwab platinum debit card.  There are no fees! This means I can use any ATM machine, and if it charges me, Charles Schwab will reimburse the fees within 24 hours. It works domestically and internationally. It's $5 or more every time you withdraw money, and that will obviously add up. I can get five bowls of pho instead!

Signing up for it wasn't as easy as other banks, which is good because it deters people from actually completing the process. Like most banks, you can apply online. During the application, they will also have you open a brokerage account. Do not be alarmed, there is no minimum requirement and you can just leave this empty. However, you won't receive your card until you deposit money into your checking account.

Because it's your first time, you can't simply transfer money from your other bank account. You have to mail in a form! I don't think many people even know how that is done. Luckily for me, I had a Charles Schwab bank near by so I went in there and had them do it for me. A few days later, you'll receive a lot of mail, like 5, from Charles Schwab and none of it will be your card! Just pamphlets and important information about your new account. Finally, in less than a week, you will receive a white envelope with no mentioning of Charles Schwab anywhere but you can already feel the card! I was overjoyed when it arrived, just in time for my trip.

Let's go to Puerto Rico!

I'm really awful at posting images of any of my travels. That's probably why instagram is so effective because you can just shoot, edit, and send it off to the internet. When I go anywhere, there's some sort of pre planning involved, and then the actual trip, and by the time I fly back home, I'm exhausted. The thought of looking through 567 images, editing, and captioning them isn't the first thing I want to do. But what sucks is that I then forget the little details of each image, like where I shot it, and the name of the stranger posing in the photo with me. And then it made me realize that if I didn't share the images, what was the point in taking them? It's fascinating because really, we take all these images and end up only using less than 10% of them, or I do. Really, if I only had one image from any trip, I'll be very happy with it. Now, this topic of "synthetic happiness" reminds me of the TED talk I watched today.

Puerto Rico was the most unique trip I'll ever have. Let me give you a list of things we should have not done but did anyway.

DON'T
- let a stranger in your car
- let 2 strangers, especially men, in your car
- give your email or phone number to a stranger
- talk to a shirtless stranger at 4am at the beach with no one around

I think the main takeaway is that we talked to strangers during our trip, which was what made the trip so special. These strangers weren't strange to Puerto Rico (except the 2 men), they're locals and they know more than what's in the guidebook. The trip was enriching and thrilling thanks to our curiosity. Of course, we wouldn't have done so if we felt any danger! Always travel with caution, use your instincts, and remember that kind people do exist outside your hometown.

We left MIA with shots of whiskey, and landed in San Juan with shots of delicious rum

This beach near Ocean Park (between Old San Juan and the aiport) where we'd come back 4 days later

Inside El Local, the most hipster bar  in PR, more so than Williamsburg/Silver Lake

NYC experience in a pistachio shell

When I got back, it felt like it didn't happen. Those 13 months in NYC, proclaimed by many as the greatest city in the world, did happen. Here are some things I can't believe I did. I am so grateful for the experience.

- Entered the offices of Seventeen Magazine, Interview Magazine, People Magazine, Martha Stewart publications, Men's Fitness Magazine, Cole Haan, Frye
- Met Anderson Cooper (twice!)
- Lived on the upper upper upper west side
- Entered Uniqlo's "employees only" door
- Assisted Under the Radar's Yeasayer cover shoot in Brooklyn

- Adopted a kitten for 4 days
- Befriended a mouse in the apartment

- Watched Bill Cunningham do his thing

- Woke up at 3am to see Backstreet Boys perform at Central Park

- Semi experienced Hurricane Sandy
- Took the subway at every time imaginable
- Befriended and worked with Christopher Lane
- Went backstage at Terminal 5 

Devoted fans catching a glimpse of Maroon 5 at Rockefeller Center

Art production assistant for Christine's short Paper Crane

Road tripping across the USA

Inside J Crew NYFW

Road Trip to Canada

Getting to know Lamour Supreme, a great artist and person 

Real winter, even though it was weak by NY standards

Made the cut

One of the most unique and thrilling trips - Puerto Rico

The Calvin Klein model mannequins  at New York Fashion Night Out 2012

I am a travel agent

8 hours and a few minutes later, my credit card bill quadrupled.

The purchase was impulsive (contemplated for 2 weeks, confirmed in 3, and purchased the next morning, after 8 intensive hours of research).

The results surprised me. At first, I was looking for the cheapest price. I also had to fly into Hue. So, I used Kayak, and within in minutes, found a great deal. However, I realized that it was powered through  vayama, and I have never used the website before. I researched it, and it got mixed reviews. Before confirmation, they had some change policy and that worried me. I could have booked it and finished everything in 10 minutes, but I was not happy with it.

So, I decided to hunt on my own mimicking the itinerary given to me by Kayak. I then researched which way was better for purchasing tickets: direct airline or third party. I don't know why I even looked it up, because it really all depends and it's best to look into both.

I proceeded to Korean Air and searched the same times. The price was about 100 dollars more than Kayak's. But with this, I had to also look into getting a flight to Hue.

I checked Kayak for flights to Hue either at Hanoi or HCMC. Both were around $200 one way. That's so expensive! I went to Jetstar with no luck.

The only way to get to Hue was through Vietnam Airlines.

I then went to VA, and to my surprise, the tickets are significantly cheaper when you click on "Vietnam/English" as the country. They had 4 schedule flights daily to Hue, and prices ranged from $80-$40! However, the days were limited. So I used this to determine what day I should depart.

Since I had an estimated departure and return date, I searched through my favorite websites including STA, Student Universe, Orbitz, Expedia, Bing. That was time consuming. But it gave me a great picture of what I should expect in terms of arrival time and layovers.

United had really cheap flights, less than $1000! However, they all arrive to HCMC around 1AM. And there was no way I would stay at the airport overnight and wait for the next flight. I had to remember that a relative was picking me up, and I would not want her to go at such an inconvenient time. I eliminated United.

Korean Air had decent prices, with a 10+ layover at ICN. Of course, I was excited about this! After a long trip, I can take the subway to Seoul, jim chil bang, nap, relax, and meet up with a friend for AYCEBBQ, how great is that!?

Another option was an 8 hour layover in Taipei. Again, I got excited. Yeah, I would venture out just for some boba and food. But I researched China Airlines, and though it is fine now, it had a bad reputation a few years back. I didn't want to read into it, but a plane did crash and killed all the passengers... But that was a rare case. And they say flying is safer than driving, yet I'm always attentive during emergency procedures, even if it's the same every time.

And at this point (about 5 hours later), I panicked and thought "No, I can't do this. I will die. The plane will crash. OH MY GOODNESS, AMERICA is nice. I like my bed! I like my smart phone. I like wearing boots and clothes!"

It was 3am. I heard my mom wake up to use the restroom and I turned off the lights and pretended to go to sleep. I woke up at 11am.

I decided to book a flight with a layover in Taipei. I've never been, and spending 3 hours in the city is enough for me. Also, a pal of mine is currently there so I can meet up with her also.

I went directly to China Airlines because they had more options for departure times. Also, they and a lot of the Asian airlines only had it in military time, so this website was a lifesaver. The second step required that I put in a contact number from someone in Vietnam. My dad wasn't home, so that meant I had to wait until later to book it.

No.

I decided to book through SU or STA, because they had better results, and I've booked an international flight with them before. Upon more searching, Japan Airlines popped up. 14 hour layover! And the time was great, morning until night. I started imagining myself in Tokyo for the whole day. How great would that be!? But... the arrival time in HCMC did not work out. It was too late.

Back to the Taipei/Chinese Airlines plan.

I went back to STA. The flight I wanted was gone. The remaining flights had a layover in Taipei, but it was overnight. WHY? WHY!

Finally, after altering my return date (arrival date I had to keep because VA only had specific days), I booked my tickets. One layover in Taipei for 8 hours in the morning to afternoon. On my return flight, another 8 hour layover, from the afternoon to late evening. 3 hours wait time in HCMC (perfect to get my Visa on arrival), and a convenient time for my relative to pick me up. Perfect.

Let's Go to Da House Hotel!

I took an impulsive trip to Puerto Rico a few weeks ago, and I'll never forget it. How can I when it was literally days after Hurricane Sandy hit and a few hours before Barack Obama won the 2012 Presidential Election. And toss Halloween and a long day trip in DC too. But that's another post!

We were on a tight budget, and that worked in our favor. We stayed at the artful Da House Hotel (I still don't know how it's pronounced, so I'll keep to saying da house, like da car and da boyz). It was at the heart of Old San Juan, within walking distance of everything in this charming city. And you can't beat $80 a night for a beautiful room.

Da House isn't for the older folks. It's literally next to a night club/bar/restaurant, so you'll hear music until 4am. And it is loud! But we were always too tired by the time we got back to even be bothered by the noise. You can read more reviews on yelp and tripadvisor.

Thanks for the inspiration

Bill Cunningham 

Shiro Ono 

Gunther Holtorf

The Dandelion

Central Park