It was the first time I were to meet Ming every since high school. I knew he was staying in SF; he tried to look for a place for me to stay (unfortunately he didn't know any, so I ended up at Sandra and Gordon's).
It was a long awaited meet up. I've been living and traveling to Westfield for about a month already, and the boy had forgotten I was even in the city. -_- Fine la. He was paying for my dinner.
I wanted some real American food besides Buckhorn's, so we settled with Mel's Drive In between Westfield and the Metreon. If I'm not mistaken I was in the midst of being out of a job and I lamented to him about how my manager treated me and how if I didn't find another job in 10 days I'll probably be sent to Malaysia.
It was very refreshing to actually talk to another Malaysian after facing so many Americans. It was nice to talk to people with English you've grown up watching on the TV, but once you hear someone say "lah" after a month, Manglish actually eases the homesickness.
After all our banter over diner food (which is actually very fattening and unhealthy but like who caaaares I wanted American cuisine so I GET AMERICAN CUISINE) I wanted to head over to the Castro, cos ever since Shen went there and told me about the gay community I wanted to see it for myself.
Ming was extremely apprehensive of going there but I told him it's okay because we look like a couple anyway.... so hopefully no one of our same sex will hit on us lol. Digress for a bit, Roman was also very against going to Castro. Okay for him I think I know why lah cos he can pass off as a gay guy with all his stylish dressing but Ming? LOL
So anyways we dropped by a bar and talked more over a couple of Tsing Tao (HAHAH) beers. I remembered feeling much better because after working at Buckhorn SFC you'd be wanting some de-stressing activities in your schedule.
I then had a suggestion to look for Harvey Milk's apartment so we set off wandering the dark streets of Castro, only aided by Ming's GPS. After a while we realised the GPS was useless.. well after it led us to an appreciation place for Milk it did. I spotted a group of gays and not wanting to wander around the dark streets any longer, I made Ming ask for help.
And they were the nicest strangers I've ever met in SF. Really. The three men took us under their wing and showed us Harvey Milk's camera shop, the apartment where he lived in (which was above his camera shop) and back to the bars so we could find our way back to the Muni. While we were walking they asked us about Malaysia, what we were doing here, and I told them that I've never seen anything like Castro before. Yeah it was a bit ulu for me to say that but they laughed it off and said it's what you get in San Francisco! :)
I've forgotten their names now but well. I hope they're doing fine, wherever they are. They sure did make my SF trip a more livable one in a way.
Ahhh I feel happy now
