Good evening, Singapore, and welcome to episode 32 of Sleepless in Singapore on Sunday, August 25th, 2024. Today's episode is going to be about the second half of my US road trip with Marcus, the leg from Nampa to the coast and then down the coastline all the way to Mexico. So please make yourselves comfortable and let my voice be your guide for a restful night.

After that very nice and very big dinner we had in Nampa, we enjoyed a nice evening in our Airbnb in the same place. The next day, we got up very early because we wanted to get to Portland, and that is quite a bit of a drive. But that was also an absolutely beautiful stretch along, or partly across, I guess, the Blue Mountains. Then there is Mount Hood, which is a very, very pretty mountain. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Mount Fuji in Japan. It's very symmetrical, very nice to look at. We stopped there on the way to take a lot of pictures. I even got out the nice camera to take these pictures. We also had a stop that might have been earlier at the Dixie Pass Prairie City, where there is an old wagon, you know, like those hay wagons.

Finally, after a very long drive, which should be the last time that Marcus had to drive by himself because later on I got my driver's license, we arrived at Portland where we stayed for two nights. I think at the Marriott, which was alright. The first night, we went out for dinner at Lechon, a restaurant pretty much downtown where we had absolutely beautiful mixed dishes for dinner. Really nice. I'm looking at a plate of marrow bones and some kind of pita bread that came along with it. Really very good.

The next day in the morning, Marcus and I went out to find the local FedEx office because that was where I could finally pick up my driver's license. So we got two of these scooters next to the hotel and then we suddenly realized that it's very cold. We both were in t-shirts, Marcus was in shorts even, and it was like eight degrees or something. So I just bought a sweater, which I still have until today, so it's a kind of memory. We went to FedEx, I got my driver's license, and Marcus was very relieved that he did not have to drive for the rest of the trip as well.

Then we went to Proud Mary Cafe, and that was one of the best breakfasts on the whole trip. I had a giant roast with what looks like scallops on top, and we had this kind of meringue to share. It looked beautiful. I can very highly recommend it. The area around there seemed quite alright too. There were all these little houses. Portland seemed to be very open and friendly and full of very nice food stops. I remember right after breakfast, we walked around a bit, and maybe half an hour later, I wanted to go to Tokyo Sando because they had Katsu Sando, and I got one, and that was also really nice. That was just a food truck around the corner of our hotel, but it was super good too.

That day, we did a little bit of sightseeing. We contemplated going on a riverboat tour, which we didn't end up doing. We went to this place, Powell's Books, Houston New Books, which is a giant bookstore again, and we enjoyed at least an hour there. Then we went to Bell & Cow, which is some special ice cream, and we went to Voodoo Donut, which apparently Portland is famous for. It's a donut place, and I can already say they had donuts. We didn't get donuts that time because there was a queue, and the estimated waiting time to get a bunch of donuts was two hours. As much as I like food, I hate waiting more, so I decided not to get that and walk around a bit more.

We went to this market that was like a local... I don't even know what that was. Like an art fair where people at the same time sold all kinds of trinkets and all kinds of small weird stuff. But anyway, we had a good day. We had a very nice time in Portland doing sightseeing, and then in the evening, we went to, I think it was called Departure Portland, which was up not super high but you had a nice view. It was a very nice restaurant with pork belly and sashimi and Wagyu and very excellent ice cream. We even had a nice drink after on that rooftop terrace with a very nice view of Portland. A very interesting restaurant too. It almost looked like entering a spaceship. The bathrooms were metal only. They looked a little bit like a prison bathroom but in a nice good way. Very modern, very interesting.

On our second day in Portland, we went out to a bit of a different area and we found the Quarter World Arcade, which is a very classical old-school arcade hall, and that was a lot of fun. We spent quite some time and some small coins there. We played these racing games and fighting games, and I think they had the real old games too, and they had a flipper. That was pretty cool. Then we went for what I think was a very excellent Vietnamese Pho and Banh Mi for lunch. Finally, in the afternoon, we found one of these donut places where you did not have to queue for hours, and we got the whole sampler box, which in hindsight, looking at these pictures, was a little bit too much maybe. There were like 10 donuts. 12. How many are these? 12 donuts. Very interesting flavors with bacon and maple, and they were good. Not that good that you would eat all 10, but they were good. We enjoyed.

Oh yeah, and then we also had to go to Hertz to see if we could register me as an additional driver, which luckily we could. For dinner, we went to this place, a Peruvian place, family-owned Peruvian restaurant called Casa Soraya, where we had Peruvian dishes obviously, which I'd say were alright. I don't think it actually lived up to the hype. What I also kind of vividly remember of that evening is we were sitting half outside, so it was obviously a backyard but there were plastic planes on top so it wasn't really outside. The thing is, it started to rain quite a bit and the water was going everywhere, and all the people had to move around their tables to find halfway dry spots. I got very wet feet. I am looking at a picture here drying my feet with a hotel hair dryer. So that was a bit of a mixed evening, as was the next day in the morning by the way, when we went to a place, Vivian's Restaurant and Barbecue, for breakfast. It had nice reviews on Google and the menu sounded alright, but I think that probably was the most underwhelming thing we had during our whole road trip that time. I had pancakes and some scrambled eggs, but looking at the picture already doesn't look super nice, and from my memory trying them definitely also was not nice.

Going on though, from Portland and from that breakfast place, we finally made it to the ocean. Our plan was to go along the ocean from Portland to Tijuana. Not in one go obviously, but for the rest of the road trip. For a big part, we could do that. Sadly, the most interesting part in the middle was blocked off because there was a landslide and the road was impassable. So I have a reason to come back. But the first stretch was already pretty amazing. We went to the Redwood National and State Parks, and that is where the biggest trees in the world apparently are. These mammoth trees. Again, you can drive through. There is actually one tree that hollowed out somehow and you can drive through the tree. But for the rest of the park, it's a proper park. It's not all just fun and driving through trees. It's decent nature and people take care of nature, I want to say. These trees, they are really giant. I'm standing next to a tree, I look like an ant. They are at least 10 meters in circumference and probably more actually. They are very, very impressive to look at. Apparently, the biggest one or the tallest one of all these trees is not public knowledge because they want to avoid that all the people go there and trample it down. But already the regular big trees are very, very impressive.

In the evening, we made it basically to Eureka or I guess to the neighboring city of Arcata, where I think we also stayed for the night. Can't figure it out. We seem to have had dinner at a place called Campground, which looks really nice. There are deviled eggs and bacon. There is a big steak. There are burnt Brussels sprouts. There's a cocktail. There's a big dessert. I can't say I really remember that, but it looks pretty decent. It seems from there we went on driving to Eureka. Maybe that was our lunch. Then from there, we were driving to Eureka and staying in Eureka. In Eureka, we were barbecuing again. I remember we arrived quite early and we had bought some board games. So we had a nice afternoon playing these exit board games. Then it looks like Marcus prepared some kind of pasta salad, which was quite nice. I was grilling that steak. Apparently, I was grilling that steak very well. Not as in very well done, but as in I did a good job. Because I remember Marcus was full of compliments. Even though he's a very nice person, being full of compliments is usually not his typical behavior. So I was quite proud of my steak grilling talent, which kind of led to me being responsible for grilling the meat for the rest of the trip.

The next day, we took our Dodge to Mendocino. Mendocino? I don't know. But that was a very beautiful place. That looked like a place where all the rich people in California go to retire. We had breakfast at this place. What is it called? I think it might be the Flow Restaurant and Lounge. Breakfast was very nice. But what was particularly nice was all these old but very nice American wooden houses by the ocean. Looking at this little bay full of green and then the bay behind, very postcard views. Very good day too. Very nice driving along the ocean down the coastline. Sadly, that was also where a stretch of the coastline was blocked off as mentioned earlier. I think that was the Shoreline Highway or the Shoreline Highway leading down to San Francisco. But either way, we had a stop in between in Napa Valley because we wanted to see what all the fuss is about. About America's apparently greatest wine area. We spent our time at a very nice Airbnb. Very expensive too but very, very nice Airbnb. We went to a very nice Japanese place. Not just sushi but real Japanese food. I mean not that sushi is not real but there's a lot more than sushi, right? So that place was called Ramen Gaijin. It was pretty decent. Then we went for ice cream at Screamin' Minnie's Ice Cream, which in 2016 apparently won the prize for the best ice cream parlor in the United States. It was quite good.

The next day, we went on to drive around Napa Valley for a bit. It really does look a little like Tuscany. It's very, very nice to look at these rolling hills. But then you also have these giant wineries. We were trying to find a winery for a tasting or even for just food. Maybe we did our research wrong but it was a tiny bit difficult to find something nice to eat. We did find something. La Strada Napa. Didn't take any pictures of the food so I don't think it was very memorable. Then we finally made it to San Francisco, coming in via the Golden Gate Bridge, which I have seen before but I never drove over. So we took a lot of pictures. We came back even the next day and took some more pictures. But that evening, we took a lot of pictures. I think in San Francisco, we also stayed two days at a hotel. I had stayed before the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. I find that quite cool. The hotel rooms are pretty much like every hotel but the inside of that hotel is very open and they have these cool glass lifts going up and down. Yeah, I liked that the first time and so we came back.

Dinner in San Francisco was Moe's Restaurant where we had a giant burger and fries. Then we were walking around a bit in that area. Of course, I also had another ice cream for dessert at the Baked Bear, which is ice cream sandwiches or cookie ice cream sandwiches I guess. It was nice too. Then we walked a bit around and there's one thing about America, about the United States, I have not mentioned the whole time even though it's true for other cities too but just now I'm looking at a picture so I think I should mention that. I think Covid might have hit some American cities or whole America quite hard. There are a lot of homeless people there. In the center of the city, of many of these cities we visited, there were tents on the walkways where people were sleeping in tents. There were a lot of homeless people and a lot of junkies I guess. I mean of course I understand that's a general problem and I shouldn't judge but it doesn't make the place or these places very appealing. Also, I feel like the homeless people in the US, they are not like the homeless people in Japan that are very organized and still very proud. I really feel sometimes I'm a little scared, sometimes it's just not nice because of the smells and the things you see. I don't want to paint too much of a picture but it happened multiple times that people did not use any bathrooms but just went wherever they are and did whatever they had to do. That is really just not nice when you walk down the street in the center of a city, a nice city like Portland or San Francisco or later LA, and then you're confronted with that kind of poverty. It happened a lot. It also happened the year before in downtown Manhattan where the couple of times I've been there before I really always liked it and that time I also felt a bit weird, felt a bit off, felt very dirty, very smelly. Then also with the legalizing marijuana, it smells like marijuana everywhere and it's not nice, it's not a good smell. So yeah, it made me feel quite uncomfortable. I mean it's supposed to be the greatest country in the world, at least that's what the Americans tell me, but sometimes it feels somewhere between some random corner in Thailand and somewhere in, I don't know, Kenya.

Alright, I kind of had to get that off my chest because I saw pictures like that in almost every city and now I told it and now I'll shut up about it again because San Francisco, absolutely amazing city, really so many things to do, so much food to try, so many restaurants, so many bakeries. I'm looking here at a picture of the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Bakery where you can go and try, even for free I think, you can try fortune cookies. We did have a good time in downtown San Francisco sightseeing and then also what I thought was super cool, what the first time when I was in San Francisco I couldn't do because I couldn't get tickets, but this time finally it happened, was visiting Alcatraz prison. And that's very interesting, it's kind of like a museum and you can get a tour, you can get these audio guides and it's not just a prison building, right, it's the whole island and you can see the different factories and all the different buildings and the stuff they have there and inside it's very, very impressive. Then you also have the original cells where these people broke out of Alcatraz and somehow managed to flee and until today nobody knows if they were successful or not. So that was a very, very good day, I think both Marcus and I enjoyed a lot.

Then of course we went to Pier 39 and also the other piers and we went to In-N-Out Burger because we wanted to try. In the evening, there was some kind of parade, I think they were preparing for some kind of, I don't know, some kind of parade. We had more ice cream at Humphrey's Locombe Ferry Building, there was an ice cream place, forgot the name but there was also a queue and luckily it was only like 20 minutes or so but I queued for the ice cream and it was very nice ice cream. The next morning, we had to queue again for a sandwich that is, and that is these pork sandwiches. Sadly, I didn't note down the name but there are amazing sandwiches. You also have to queue again for half an hour to get that sandwich but they are quite nice. We had some other stuff there too, there's like a little market. Everything is extremely expensive but everything is quite nice.

Oh yeah, we went for a bus tour, we went on one of these double-decker tourist buses. We were sitting up there, we were freezing, really, really windy and really cold. Then when we again came across the Golden Gate Bridge to that like photo spot there, it was so windy when we crossed the bridge and we both were only wearing a hoodie and no jacket. It was really cold and not very nice but we did have a very nice view and I guess it was worth the price. We also went to Rathaus where we had Spätzle and Sauerkraut and other German things. Schlutzkrapfen, Kässpätzle, Jägerschnitzel, Bratwurst, Currywurst, Pretzel with Obatzda. Everything was on the menu. Markus drinking a Schneider Weiße and it was surprisingly good. It was very original German Bavarian mostly food. Sausage, mashed potato, very cool, very nice.

What else did we do in San Francisco? Oh yeah, we went for dinner with an old friend of mine and her husband at a place called I think the Burma Superstar, which was very nice food, very good. We ate a lot. It also reminded me a lot of back home. I mean back home here in Singapore because we had Prata and Curry. That was a really nice evening. It's not that I'm in contact very much with them but I really like them, both of them. We had good talks and Markus got along with them great too. That was a really cool evening. Dessert and ice cream was at the Toy Boat Dessert Cafe. It was okay.

The next day, we went to see Apple Park, and on our way there, we got bagels at the House of Bagels at the Edgewood Shopping Center. Very, very excellent bagels—very nice. Apple Park is kind of cool too. I know I'm an Apple fanboy, and I know it's maybe not that interesting. It's just another Apple store, but it's really cool architecture. You can see this ring that Apple Park is. That is all very impressive. It's a very, very cool office building.

We also went to the old One Infinite Loop, of course. Basically, just a bunch of random office buildings. We took a picture of the sign there and then left again.

Then, we went on to the beach somewhere. Hoagies—I don't know what that is. Markus seemed to have a Bloody Mary here. I'm looking at a Summerland Beach Cafe with Eggs Benedict and a giant portion of potatoes. Oh yeah, that is somewhere in Santa Barbara already. That's not in San Francisco anymore.

Yeah, I think I don't have a lot of pictures of that because we had to go down the big highway, the interstate or however they call that, because that part where we actually wanted to go—Big Sur and Monterey and all these very nice-looking places that the macOS versions are named after—we couldn't go because the road was blocked. So, not a lot of pictures, just a bit of highway and down to Santa Barbara.

Then we didn't even go to LA first. We went down to San Diego and to Mexico first. And I think, looking at the time, San Diego and Mexico, and then LA, and back to Nevada, back to Las Vegas, and then back home. That part I will tell you about next weekend.

For now, I'm going to read some Tom Sawyer for you.