Darkoshi

These are actually not the kind of bad things I was expecting to hear when I clicked to watch the video. But they are definitely good to be aware of, if you're planning a Greyhound bus trip.



Video title: 10 BAD Things That WILL Happen on the GREYHOUND BUS
Posted by: Frugal Travel Guru
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQB-GQE00Xk
Date posted: Oct 1, 2018


I think I've taken Greyhound buses a couple of times, and don't recall them being bad. But those were short trips and a long time ago (before wi-fi even was a thing), and maybe the buses weren't even Greyhounds.

When my brother and his wife took a Greyhound from here to Florida last summer, it ended up being late and causing them to miss their flight from there. So yep, apparently you should expect the bus to be late, maybe even VERY late, as the video says.

Even more amusing than the clips I've seen about phallic imagery in Bhutan...

South Korea has a family-oriented "Penis Park":
https://adayinmylife.livejournal.com/2483806.html

I'm looking at hotel room descriptions, and I don't understand the difference between these:

Room, 1 King Bed
360 square feet
(Extra beds available: Crib)
Room sleeps 4 guests (up to 3 children)

Room, 1 King Bed
360 square feet
(Extra beds available: Crib)
Room sleeps 2 guests (up to 1 child)


Neither description mentions there being a sofa bed.

I think the "up to x children" means that of the total people in the room, one of them must be an adult, and the rest can be children.


When reading the first description, I wondered if they were saying that the king bed is large enough to sleep 4 people? But then I saw the 2nd one, which also has a king bed, but only says it is for 2 people. So where do the other people sleep? Are only cribs available... so they mean the first room supports 2 adults and 2 children, but not 4 adults?

Is it not really based on the beds then, or the amount of space for cribs (as both have the same # of square feet), but rather based on the number of towels provided?

Or are the rooms identical, but it's just that they would charge a different amount, depending on the number of children?

In the airport, leaving, Qiao's hat almost got left behind. But Forestfen valiantly sent it through the security checkpoint after us.

I already mentioned the beverages in the plane and the alarming car. (Dasani sparkling lime, like unsweet Sprite).

I had planned to have my name added to the rental car contract as an additional driver, but the person at the counter in Boston said it wasn't necessary; that we were "domestic partners" even though not married, as we live at the same address.

First stop after leaving the airport: My Thai Vegan Cafe for dinner. Google Maps told us to take an exit that didn't exist as we were driving through the tunnel from the airport. Then it directed us to drive all the way across town, and would have had us turn around and drive back the same way. I decided not. We eventually got to the right place. The staircase up to the restaurant, which reviews had described as being so sketchy, turned out to be a perfectly fine staircase. Though admittedly not so great for someone with a bad foot and knee.

The ambiance in the restaurant was nice (not fancy, but pleasant enough), with large windows looking out on downtown Boston after dark. The food was delicious. Appetizers: Tofu Cigars (crisp! fried! tasty!) and mango salad (tangy! zesty! fresh!). For an entree I had a creamy tofu & mock meat curry served over avocado. They had vegan bubble tea and chocolate layer cake too. The cake was to-go, and oh was it good the next day. So good, I'm still thinking about it.

Then we drove to our hotel (smelling petunias before seeing them), checked in, and slept. At home, we sleep with fans on. Qiao likes the wind. We both like that it drowns out other noise. On the trip, I used the Simple Noise App on my phone along with a small portable speaker. In brown noise oscillating mode, it sounds ocean-like. The speaker takes 2 AA batteries, and we used it 7 nights for at least 8 hours each night. The batteries surprisingly never died.

In spite of getting good sleep each night, my eyesight didn't seem to improve any during the whole week.

The next day, we scouted out the concert venue early in the day (saw a giant cruise ship) and returned to the hotel for lunch. I would have liked to walk around downtown a bit, but Qiao's foot (or hip?) was acting up badly. Later we went to the concert. Tweety Bird got to watch the concert too, tucked into Qiao's shirt pocket.

On Monday we drove to my dad's place and spent the rest of the week there, taking it easy. My dad puts the rest of us to shame, the way he's exercising and staying in shape. My step-mom had tools for making hand-made cards, and showed me how to use them. She also showed me how to play Word Jewels. I played a bit of pool. Walked around the circle a few times. Went to a Lebanese restaurant. Listened to a recording of my grandma that I hadn't heard before.

On a grocery trip, I came across some Maya Kaimal ketchup, so I promptly got 2 bottles to take home with us. To avoid a nasty mess should the bottles break, I carefully wrapped them in clear bubble wrap, and put each in its own ziplock bag. Then I further wrapped them in clothing when packing my suitcase.

On the trip back home, I was worried we'd miss our connection in DC as the layover was only 40 minutes, and we had to switch terminals via one of those sandcrawler buses. But we made it to our gate just as the plane was starting to board - luckily about ten minutes later than scheduled.

We had a night flight to Columbia. I had forgotten how pretty towns and cities look from up above, lit up at night.

On one of the flights, there was an intercom announcement before landing, "If you leave behind any items on the plane, you can check for them tomorrow on eBay."

At home, unpacking my suitcase, I found a notice that it had been searched by the TSA. That wasn't a big surprise - I had suspected the carefully wrapped bottles in my suitcase would look suspicious through a scanner. Even though the ketchup labels were visible through the bubble wrap, they had sliced apart the cellophane tape I had used to keep the bubble wrap in place.

( Photos... )

Nearly half the window shades were kept down during the flights. Have those people flown so much that they are bored with seeing clouds and sky and the land below?

Free soft drinks were still served even though the flights were short.

At the hotel, greeted by a sweet scent of pink petunias.
The room had the same layout as the one in Jacksonville.

Difficult typing without dedicated Home & End keys.

Car alarm that goes off, apparently if you open the car door with the key and don't put the key in the ignition soon enough. Though at first it seemed to go off even when opening the door with the button on the key. The rental car company did not warn us about this; we had to figure it out on our own.

Running Firefox from a USB 2 flash drive is maddeningly slow and jerky even on a laptop with 32 GB RAM.

Parlour Bells played the opening act at the concert. They were quite good. The lead singer reminds me of Billy Idol, without a sneer.

The Culture Club gig was great. They did end up playing most of the new songs I had heard on the SoundCloud page, interspersed between old songs. Here are some videos from the concert that others have posted.

Got home, washed specks off my windshield, washed algae off the vinyl siding on one side of the garage, washed dishes. Ate. Vacuumed dog hair off the carpets.

It felt comparably cool this evening when I left work and got home, though it was still 89 degrees outside. That is why I decided to take advantage of the relative coolness to do the windshield and siding washing.

I've had a small watering can sitting around the house for a while. It's the kind for potted plants with a long narrow spout. It hasn't gotten much use, as I usually use a tall plastic cup to water the plants. But I used it today, along with a sponge, for washing the windshield and siding. Much easier than dragging out the big hose. Much cleaner than having water in a bucket and rinsing the sponge in the bucket and getting the remaining water all dirty. Yep, the watering can has finally found its calling.

My passport will expire soon, and who knows when I might want or need to go on a trip. So I need to fill out a renewal form. Monday I went and got photos taken for it. But now I'm procrastinating filling out the form. It is just a form, but for some reason it seems like a difficult task.

Friday evening, I got to see and listen to George Takei in person, at a "Sci-Fi Spectacular" concert at the Atlanta Symphony. There were people dressed up in Stormtrooper (not my photo; it was linked from reddit), Jedi, and Darth Vader costumes in the lobby (and on stage), but I suspect they were hired for the event, as I didn't see them in the audience. The concert also had a lot of good music, including performances of Duel of the Fates and When You Wish Upon a Star. Hearing the music live however, didn't sound any better or different to me, than listening to the same music on CDs or MP3s. And hearing it live like that has the drawback of you having to sit quietly while listening to it, whereas when listening to it at home, you can move around and dance, or do whatever you want.

At one rest stop in Pennsylvania, there was a group of women dressed in Amish garb (a novel sight for me), and a parked van marked as an "Amish/Mennonite taxi service".

At another stop, Qiao later mentioned that as I was heading into the bathroom, a woman behind me spoke to me, saying that it was the women's bathroom. This surprised me, as I hadn't heard anyone speak to me. It's probably for the best though, as the woman might have felt awkward if I had replied "I know" or "Yeah, that's right". She probably mistook me for a boy as my hair was short, my clothing non-feminine, and I didn't have a purse with me.

Qiao and I drove to Massachusetts to visit family last week.

The HappyCow App was very useful in helping me find nearby vegan/vegetarian restaurants to stop at for lunch&dinner on the way there and back. I'd highly recommend the app and website for other traveling vegans. (However, the app starts automatically in the background when I turn on my phone, and apparently tries to connect to the internet right away. Why? I don't know. In case you don't like it doing that, you may want to search via the happycow.net website instead of installing the app.)

One highway rest area, in Virgina I believe, had a nice big building. One of the vending machines had oranges in it!

You know how the motels have little soaps and bottles of shampoo and such? One motel also had a packet labeled "Deluxe Vanity Kit". Curious, I opened it. It contained 2 cotton swabs, a cotton ball, and a tiny emery board. Deluxe, indeed.

Another motel had a cute rubber ducky in the bathroom to greet us.

Lately, I've acquired a taste for this "Synergy" line of kombucha drinks. They have a slightly sour flavor like apple cider vinegar, but are also slightly sweet, and naturally effervescent!

I drove to Myrtle Beach. The drive there was fine. The day was cloudy and there was some rain, so I did not get hot during the drive, in spite of my car not having air-conditioning.

My hotel room was fine. From some reviews of the hotel I had read, I had been a bit worried, but the room was fine. It had a fine view of the ocean.

I went to the ocean. I was wearing my new swim outfit, consisting of boys'/men's swim-shorts and a girls'/women's sleeveless rashguard. The outfit felt very comfortable. It's the first time I recall ever feeling comfortable, and not at all dorky, in a swimsuit. I even went wandering around the hotel grounds in the outfit afterwards, rather than going to my room right away to change out of it.

The ocean was fine. It wasn't cold. It was salty, but that is to be expected of the ocean. I didn't encounter any garbage nor any sharks nor any stinging jellyfish in the water. There were nice waves.

Me being in the ocean consists of wading out in the water to chest-height, watching for tall waves in order to jump with them and avoid my face getting wet, doggy-paddling a bit, floating on my back a bit, and as I mentioned, watching out for waves. It's sort of a game, me against the ocean. Of course, the ocean would always win against me, so I only go out chest-deep, enough to be somewhat dangerous but not muchly so. Even then the ocean tends to win. It did on the 2nd day, smacking me down with a big wave, and then pummeling me with another. I excused myself from the game in order to expel stinging saltwater from my airways. Not to leave on a defeated note, I then went back into the surf and waded knee-deep for a while.

Then I even went into one of the swimming pools for a while. I hadn't been in a swimming pool for over a decade or so. (There's something unappealing about getting into a tank of chlorine-smelling water in which other people have been hanging around in). I doggy paddled a bit, and swam a bit, and floated on my back. It was ok. Nothing particularly special. I determined that I hadn't been missing much in that decade or so. But it was ok.

I was glad for my new swim outfit, which I felt comfortable in. I was glad for my menstrual cup, which made going into the water possible, in spite of my period having started the day of the trip.

Seeing the laser lights at night was neat, even though I worried about the beams catching me in my eyes.

I went out to eat with my family. It was ok.

I thought about what it would be like, to be down at the ocean without other people around, so that I could listen to the ocean talking without any distractions... I realized that it would either not make any impact on me at all (no different than having people around), or that I would feel sadness.

Internet access was sporadic at the hotel, as was my cell-phone signal.
I flipped through the channels on the cable television in my room. I watched part of a movie.

The next day I went shopping and bought some things. That was fine.

Then I drove back home. The temperature was in the 100s that day, and it was a hot drive back. But it was ok. I drove through Sumter, to see the town. There wasn't much special to see though, on the route I took. I also stopped at a boat landing by the Wateree River. It was sort of neat down there... I would have liked to just sit on the landing for a while, watching the river flow past. But I was the only person there, and I had left my car windows rolled down, and I felt a bit uneasy that someone might walk out of the bushes and/or steal from my car while it was out of my sight.

I managed to avoid a sun-burn while at the ocean. My left arm nearly got sunburned on the drive back. But so far it's ok and not peeling.

Forestfen called and asked me if my extra day at the beach was "wonderful". (She left the day before me). I said that it was ok. I don't think she really heard my answer, but I don't mind. It's easier if she thinks I'm happy. Sometimes I wonder to myself, is she for real? Does she really experience things which seem plain or okay or fine to me as "wonderful"? Do other people experience things like she does?