Whoa, November...I'll be going home in less than a month.Frankly I have no words to describe my feeling. It's caught between sad and happy. Happy because, of course, who isn't happy coming home to your countries after months being abroad? Even though some of my friends said
"Wow, you're going home this winter? So soon, you just arrived on August."Yeah, I can totally see their points. If I could choose whether going home or staying here for Christmas, I would choose neither of them because I would choose: GOING TO NEW YORK OR LA! Or better, going to some place else where snow's falling.
Anyway, I have no special thing to discuss here. Things have been going pretty well and my friends and I are practically stuck in college life, and even more:
Stevens Creek Boulevard. lol the funny thing about my life here in the US, specifically in
Silicon Valley, or even more specifically in
City of Cupertino.
Too bad I don't have any illustrating programs that allow me to draw the map. But I'm just going to make this simple.
Sorry for the lame editing. I meant to hand draw the map but then realized that I'm in the middle of Photoshop crisis these days. So my only saviors are Photobucket and iPhoto. What a lame amateur graphic designer T_TOn late August, after staying for less than a month in a small hotel in Sunnyvale, I was "stranded" in a very loooooong street called Stevens Creek Boulevard,
which stretches from Cupertino to the city limit of San Jose.
My campus is located at one end of the street (which I've never gone beyond).
Along the road are places that feed me with leisure and daily needs:
- Marina Asian market: a supermarket where my roommate and I often go for grocery shopping every week. I feel like calling this place "Xiao Taiwan" or "Little Taiwan" since it's dominated by Chinese-speaking people. The prices are reasonable as well. There's a small resto inside the supermarket. Sometimes, Elda and I would have Chinese food there at lunch (usually on Sunday, but it's getting rarer these days). But we would always have to share the portion into two regarding the supersize portion (it's impossible to devour them all for one portion, even though my appetite is considerably big). The price is well...a little pricey. About $6.00 or so.
However, I always have to speak broken Chinese here to order the food. Speaking Chinese is recommended to get a better hospitality from the fierce-looking ladies behind the counter.
- Marukai Japanese market:
I love going to this supermarket right after Graphic Design class with Aymee, a good friend of mine. We're both quite into Japanese stuff and food. This place is a good selection in case you want to try out making Japanese food at home. They sell quite a huge variety of Japanese vegetables and food. Oh, and they also have quick-served frozen food ranging from bento （べんと）to yakisoba（やきそば） . Anyway, my favorite one would be Beef Curry rice which costs $3.50 - one of the cheapest items among all other quick-served food. They also have Japanese cashiers, whom I've never had the gut to speak in Japanese even though it's only a quick and simple arigatou.
- Daiso: a huge store which sells Japanese items ranging from decorations to stationery located next to Marukai. Prices averagely range from $1.50. If i need to buy some cheap stuff especially stationery, I would always buy them here.
- Target: pretty explanatory. I usually would choose to buy some reasonable-priced clothing there. Located next to Marina. Pretty much they sell everything there and it's quite an amusing fact. When my friends and I got bored, we would usually go windowshopping there, or when on my Birthday, Elda and I dropped by Target to warm ourselves from the bone-piercing air outside (and it was raining at that moment). But yeah, it's windowshopping-worthy, since the items to look at aren't so bad either :)
- Chillis: a Mexican fine restaurant that serves food ranging from jalapenos to my favorite Texas cheese fries. Lately I fell for another course whose name I barely remember.
- Yoshinoya: a fast food Japanese beef bowl restaurant.
- AMC: The
one and only cinema at this small town. Despite being visible from Stevens Creek boulevard, the cinema was actually located in Wolfe Road near Stevens Creek. So from the intersection of Stevens Creek and Wolfe Road, we have to walk a bit further to the cinema.
On the spot ticket: $8.00.
Book tickets prior to the showing day: $6.00.
This cinema is different from cinemas in Indonesia. In Indonesia, we would usually have the usher standing outside the showing theatre entrance, but here, the usher (one person only) would usually stand outside the cinema's entrance, which enables movie watchers to switch movies without having to buy another ticket (I'm not promoting illegal stuff or anything, but that's the truth!). So yes, actually, $8.00 is only meant for one movie showing, despite the fact that you can actually switch movies right after finishing one movie. This is considered illegal though :p
- Cupertino City Center: it's actually where AMC is located. But the mall is quite inactive so we rarely go there, only for watching movies though.
- Pasha's Market: a small Hindi mini market that surprisingly sells Indonesian Indomie at a very low price!
- Seven Eleven: located just next to my apartment. I commonly go there through a connecting door from my apartment.
- My friend's residences: They reside in apartments along the road of Stevens Creek, or at least, on the road near Stevens Creek. At least it doesn't take long to go from Stevens Creek to their residence.
- McD: People can't live without this. Period. Good thing it's located just two blocks away from my apartment
- El Pollo Loco:
A Mexican fast food restaurant. Loving the flame grilled chickens and mashed potatoes as the side dish!
- Panda Express:
A famed Chinese fast food restaurant with price ranging from $6.00 to $8.00 near school. My favorite dish: brocolli beef and black pepper chicken.
- Whole Foods:
A supermarket near school just like Safeway
- Ariake Sushi: Okay, it's not comparable to Sushi Tei, but well, it's the only real Japanese restaurant I could ever find along Stevens Creek.
- Valley Fair: The only mall located a bit far from my apartment, but still on Stevens Creek. It's a bit quiet mall with branded stores. In case I have a problem with my laptop, I would usually go to Apple store there for costumer's service
- Santana Row:
It's a convenient city walk right across Valley Fair. I'd rather go to this place due to the outdoor vibe and it just looks more sophisticated (considering that I'm a bit bored going to the mall, I mean, they have lots of mall in Jakarta!). They have Borders bookstore there, which I'm glad to have had the discount card which opens wider opportunity for me to buy more books. Pinkberry yoghurt is also located there, and it's a nice place with wooden verandah in front of it to chill on the weekend while munching on yoghurts. Along the streets of Santana Row are even more branded stores compared to Valley Fair, like Gucci (gah, my friend's mom works there! I've entered the store once and hoped that I could exit it carrying a huge bag with a Gucci text on it), H&M, and many more
- Safeway: A supermarket I'd choose to go to in case I get bored going to Marina. Since the target consumers are aimed mostly on Americans, the prices there are a bit more expensive...
- Marshall: A megastore like Target but it's just that they don't have groceries or anything food-related there. But they have a great deal of clothing items there.
- Barnes and Nobles:
Yes, there's one at Stevens Creek. A huge bookstore indeed. But I rarely go there. I go to Borders even more often.
So basically those are places that my friends and I often go to, all along the road of Stevens Creek Boulevard. Anyway, there are some other interesting places yet they're out of this road, which is quite impossible to go to every day or every week (the bus, ahem, you have to switch buses)
- San Francisco:
Duh
You know the reason why I put those pictures above.
- In-N-Out Burger:
Located at El Camino Real. Their burger portions are so effin' huge!!!
- T-Mobile service center: Who knows my roommate and I might have a problem with our phone provider.
- Caltrain station: the closest one is in Sunnyvale. I usually go to San Francisco from this station.
- Hankook Korean Supermarket:
Its layout is almost like Marina Food Market and Marukai Japanese Supermarket, but as you can tell, it's dominated with Korean products and Korean people. But likely Marina Food Market, it's got a small restaurant inside it which has a super duper delicious Dolsot Bibimbap (돌솥 비빔밥) for about $9.00. Yeah I know, it's pricey but it's quite worth it :D
Yeah it's just too bad it's not on Stevens Creek :(. I have to take two buses to reach it.
- Castro Street:
A good place to hang out with many restaurant along its rows and not to mention, a music store that sells my favorite violin case yet I never got to buy up until this point *brb cries at the corner*
So yeah, basically that's a bit of my life that revolves around this long road of Stevens Creek Boulevard. Anyway I picked up a metaphor that would depict my life in the US:
it's like an iron, going back and forth from my apartment to school or just going along the street and stopping at one of those places above. When I finally get to get out of Stevens Creek Boulevard,
it feels kind of overwhelming, because after all this time, my life in the US always depends on this long street. Getting out of the street even though it's just going to a nearby road out of it, it feels like I get to see the other side of America. Ironic, isn't it?
But well, on the other hand, living in a place where there's only one long street that feeds you and your everyday life gives such an advantage. Along this street, one of the buses commonly seen to be operating is
Bus 23.
So we just have to take that bus to go to all places located in the street. It's quite strategic.
At least you don't have to switch buses to go to the supermarket or if you want to go grab some Japanese food for lunch.
