Tripping all week.

I’ve been tripping with the family all week. It was a long long week that came and went in a blink of an eye.

I’m tired. So so tired. I don’t think I’ve been so tired before. It was definitely taxing.

I had very very little time to recharge. I had very little time to myself, whenever I can, I steal some. Whatever little time I can.

Overall, it was a good trip though. I had a good time with my mom, and my two aunties, one whom I only spent a few hours with before. But it was a very tiring trip.

It started late Saturday night as I picked them up from the airport at 12:30 AM. Things were fine, as things usually are at that time of the night.

The only problem was that I had a very very busy day with the cleaning and putting up the bike rack and the errands and shoe racks. I barely got any time to relax and watched House of Cards. Then Macaron came over and the rest of the night was moot, even though it was late-ish already.

Tired. Barely any sleep as I couldn’t sleep on the futon that night for some reason.

The next day was our trip out to the 626. For the most part it was fine, it was actually good.

It was a light relaxed day as we went to grab some lunch and did some light shopping before we headed over to their friends house. They just moved in and it was a Viet woman who babysits a ton of kids for $20/day. That’s not a bad price. Very cheap in my opinion, but she was nice and she speaks Canto.

I sat there for a while, just listening to them talk as more and more friends came over to catch up.

For the most part, they haven’t seen each other in over 34 years. There was a lot to talk about and to talk.

I went home, because mom said that I could.

The biggest impression I got was the rowdy kids, all laughing at me, because I had my hair up in my top knot and rat tail. It worked, but later in the night, as I went over to get dinner with them, the kids became more social with me. A little rowdy and kept calling me “Old Man” or “Fuck you, Old Man”. It was kind of funny and cute.

That night was easy. That day was easy.

The rest of the week was a blur. It was just a mess of long hours in the car, me getting tired and not being able to sleep at night. It was fantastic.

Monday should have been an easy easy day, and for the most part it was. We spent most of it in the car, driving up the 5 to SF. It took us about 6 hours or so to get to Chinatown, getting on the new Bay Bridge. It was actually kind of awesome.

We parked and we were on our way down the streets and hills of Chinatown. We crisscrossed the streets back and forth, looking at the vegetables and other novelty items in storefront. About an hour later, they were done.

ALL OF THEM WERE DONE.

So, it being around 4 and mom doesn’t want to go to Big Auntie’s left because she was going to get home late and didn’t want to inconvenience them in having them take us out to dinner, we had to find something else to do.

The Golden Gate Bridge.

We were on our way.

We went to the park, which I had never been, so I was actually kind of excited. We parked the car and did a small hike around. We saw, we took pictures, we explored for a little bit and then we were done.

DONE. All before 5pm.

So, we were going back to Fremont/Union City. Being the brilliant navigator that I am and google maps, instead of going through the city and back to the Bay Bridge, we went to 101 North, across the Golden Gate Bridge and went in a big ass circle. It took almost forever.

Long long long day of bad decisions.

Oh, don’t get me started on having the issues I had all prior to the trip even starting.

1. Getting the bike rack up was a shit show. The drill I borrowed sucked. No power. I broke my shoe rack (which was kind of fortunate ’cause the new shoe racks at Target were much bigger), I drilled multiple holes in my wall, I had to go, last minute to OSH to pick up a stud finder, and on Saturday morning, I had to drive to The Lion’s to pick up a more powerful drill.
2. I had already booked our hotel at the Cosmopolitan for Monday, ’cause the plan was originally to go to Vegas first, then the bay. Mom changed it on me last minute, as I picked her up from the airport, she told me. I was peeved. Very peeved. Because it was so close to the check-in date, I couldn’t cancel the reservation without having to pay for the full day, so I had to call expedia to make just changes and changed the check-in date to Wednesday. Ended up having to spend an extra $200. Fun times

So, we got to auntie’s house, put down our bags and rested about 10 minutes before we were out the door again and in the car to go to dinner. Getting to dinner was another fiasco in itself.

Auntie convince uncle to sit in my car and help me navigate as auntie drove their Pilot. Uncle for some reason got scared and didn’t trust that auntie would get there, so while we were stopped in an intersection, uncle released his seat belt and was about to jump out of the car to switch positions with auntie. When I put a kibosh to that, he ended up calling her to get her directions. It was just a weird and frustrating night.

Dinner in itself went fine. Met up with Cynthia and we just chatted and caught up.

The rest of the trip was fine for the most part.

Getting out of Fremont wasn’t without its headaches, but in the end, we got out and were on our merry way to Sacramento.

The drive was fine and that day was fine.

I got there and managed to take a short nap and then I met first cousins on my mom’s side that I never met before. It was interesting to say the least.

The next day was the long long long drive to Vegas. It happened without any problems. We checked in and rested about an hour or so before we went out to explore the Strip.

I haven’t been there in about 10 years and it was definitely changed. Grant it that I don’t remember much of Vegas from way back when, but it was definitely different, but not really.

As we trekked the strip, mom and the aunties tried to catch up to my fast walking and eventually they got wiped out as Big Auntie’s feet hurt. We went to get dinner and then we went to the room.

I left to sit in a bar for about an hour just to get away and spend some time alone.

The next day we explored the other half of the strip and finally went to eat.

Auntie wasn’t feeling well, but eventually she got better.

The drive back to LA was uneventful.

Friday we went to Wi Day Spa and sauna for a bit. I had a good time sweating, but mom and auntie didn’t sweat as much. I figured. Then we went to Alhambra and met up with Big Auntie’s old friends.

We tried to get out of dinner, but we couldn’t.

Eventually we got home and the next day, we just relaxed and didn’t do anything. I dropped them off at the airport and came home and just crashed.

The whirlwind weekend was over.

I just rested and in a way, I’m still resting.

It was definitely a good trip, albeit with some issues that were beyond my control, but it is definitely something that I would do again. It was for family.

It was for family.