Thanks to a business trip, I have had a chance to travel to San Francisco, California USA. I would say that other than the uncomfortable feeling of long hours flying and the changing time zones, I think I still enjoy the whole trip overall. As the work part which was actually not so taxing afterall, I have planned my visits to many 'touristy' places of interests in the beautiful city. I mean, come one, which idiot would wanna miss seeing the famous Pier 39 and the Golden Gate Bridge right?
Shopping is great in San Francisco too, with most of the labels available in astounding collections. But the 9.5% tax thing is a turn off. The price tags do not include the tax for all, unlike our GST-included price system. Anyway, to me it is such a colossal 'achievement' to eventually have my feet stepped into those legendary multilabel boutiques, namely Barneys, Nordstom, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales and Macy's. As these are the branches in SF, the merchandise collections may be not as amazing as in New York stores. One bad thing about shopping in SF is the operating hours of most boutiques. They open early at 10am, and close early too at 7pm. Only Bloomingdales and Macy's open till 9pm. On Sundays, the shops close even earlier at 6pm. So the tip is, shopping is best done early in the city while sight seeing can be done later. Anyway, almost all sales assistants I have encounters with are extremely polite and enthusiastic in their service. This is what Singapore lacks.
And there are many homeless people on the street who ask you for money or make weird noise, and they can be very persistent too - a very ironical scenario to such an advanced, clean and modern city.
More to come, the tourist trap...
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