
I left Hong Kong for San Francisco on the 16th of July, exactly a month after leaving Japan and marking my return to the ‘West’ 19 months after I departed England. I was apprehensive about spending time in the US for a few reasons: I’d been away for quite a while and in that time I’d got used to the Japanese, and Asian, way of doing things, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the US for most of my adult life, and deep down I just wasn’t quite sure what to expect. On the other hand I was also overly excited: I’d always dreamt of visiting San Francisco, I was also going to visit Seattle, New York and Canada and I was looking forward to having a month taking it easy in North America, giving me time to get used to western life again rather than jumping back into it straight after having left Japan.
With all this mind, and more than enough apprehension about having to deal with US custom officials, I spent 17 hours in planes and airports without being able to sleep, crossed the international date line forward, lost 12h in the process, passed the customs with little hassle and landed in San Francisco feeling like I’d done a very nasty combination of drugs. Seriously, screw drugs. All you need is to cross the international date line with no sleep: et voila, instant feeling mashed-up situation.
I somehow managed to make it to my hostel in downtown San Francisco. My body was 17 hours ahead of the clock on the wall, so I decided to fight off the jetlag by abusing the free coffee and chain smoking. And that’s when it all went a little weird. I was standing outside the hostel, smoking a cig, when I noticed a man on the corner of the street a few meters away looking a little agitated. Then out of nowhere, three people rushed him against a wall, pulling out their badges in the process. They then handcuffed him, searched him (yeilding what looked like a bag of non-descript drugs) and hauled him into an unmarked car before driving off. By the time my mangled brain had put two and two together they were gone and I was left wondering where the hell I’d booked myself into.
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written by Laurent
\\ tags: America, California, contrast, cycling, Fisherman's Wharf, Haight, Marin County, media, Mission, Richmond, rough, San Francisco, Sausalito, summer, travelling, windy
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