Jakey Jake » North America

If youre going to san francisco…. Bay to Breakers is AWESOME

admin — Tue, 22 May 2007 20:16:29 +0000

So i spent a quick night over in LA staying at hollywood hostels before getting the greyhound to San Francisco. The trip was about 7 hours, luckily most of which i slept. Arriving in a big city where you have no idea where you are and only an address can sometimes be unnerving, add to that you are carrying a shiteload of luggage and you are walking through the local black ghetto and you get an idea of where i was at. I still managed to make it to the hostel alive and well and decided to have a quiet night in watching some videos and sitting on the net. Its definately worth having a laptop when youre on the road, especially if you’re in the states, there are that many free wireless networks its crazy.

Anyway i spent the next few days doing the touristy thing, going up coit tower, looking through the fishermans wharf, boat tripping around the golden gate and alkatraz, catching the cable cars and checking out the shops. I bought a new camera because i stupidly left my old one behind. So i went for the new optio a30, which is pretty good thus far, although the shots seem a little out of focus, im sure thats more to do with me than the camera.

So it seems that San Fran is the city of events, i thought melbourne had that title but it must be more to do with sports. I went to the oyster and beer festival which was friggin awesome, and then the next day i went to the best party of my entire life…. yes thats right, ive called it…. the BEST. better even than beerfest…. big call i know. This party was the breakers to bay, for a little more info check this out Bay to Breakers . I woke up with a massive hang over and decided to go down and check it out even though we were an hour late. I wasnt disappointed, 5 minutes after getting there i had my first 6 pack in hand and off i trundeled with over 70,000 other people all in dress ups partying as hard as you can. I really understand why americans are so patriotic now, they really know how to live over here, ok minus the health care system, its pretty easy to see why this place has been number 1 for so long. SO anyway the party, we entered right near the start and i just kept meeting more and more awesome americans, they were dressed up in homer simpons, convicts, never-nudes, nude people on rollerskates, chickens, superheroes, bumblebees, butterflys, referees, you name it it was there…. and a lot of people were nude. People made floats that carried their kegs and every now and then they would have these huge chugging sessions and involve everyone that was nearby. needless to say we only made it halfway through the park and by about 4pm id met a bunch of people that took me back to their place for a kick on party on the side of the street which kept kicking on until 9 when we left for a club where we met this guy who had a mansion on quoit hill overlooking the whole bay where we proceeded to kick on until 10am, yeah it was a big party day….. whoops, but like i said best party day ever!!!

Crazy mimai and the beach party culture sprinkled with a touch of art deco

admin — Wed, 16 May 2007 09:03:44 +0000

The hostel is in a perfect location, just a block from the beach, 2 blocks to the main shopping strip and 1 block from the main bars. South beach is what is known as the ärt deco area as all the they are mostly buildings of that style, its really fiunky and you feel like youve stepped back in time to the 50s, although there are loads of lambos hummers, ferraris, bentleys, aston martins, vettes, and some really crazy done up cars. Anyway the super clubs are pretty shit cause the area where you would normally dance is the VIP area and it costs around 6-900USD to hire out an area there. Yeah it sucks, everyone is trying to see or be seen and it seems like no one has fun, pretentious clubs arent my scene. Thank god theres a lot of funky lounges and dive bars around the area. I hung out with a bunch of irish guys who were in miami for a wedding and we went a little crazy. We went to mansion cause head kandi were playing and on the sunday we went to nikkis beach bar which i would definitely recommend.

Anyway on sunday afternoon after waslking around seeing some of the art deco precinct i returned back to the hostel to find cop cars swarming the area. Two black guys had come in and smashed the receptionist with a cricket bat and stole all the cash from the draw. It was like being in CSI miami, the crime scene investigation unit had swamped the area and taped off the foyer to the hostel so noone could go in or come out, pain in the arse really, i just hope the receptionsit guy is ok. Then on sunday night i was catching a cab home with an irish guy and he decided he wanted to test the white powders in the area and he got the taxi driver to drive us out to the ghettos where 4 guys, clearly on angel dust or PCP, and probably both, were going crazy at us, ive never felt so unsafe in all my travels, it felt like something out of cops. anyway he got what he came for and we headed back to the hostel. He tried his stuff and he had a big spew, apparently they had sold him crack… poor bugger. Then that night after i had passed out something bit me, i woke up with my eye so swollen i couldnt see out of it and my hand was so inflamed it looked like someone had inflated it with helium. So a trip to the doctors was in order where he prescribed me some quartozome which the nurse injected into my back side, then she said i had a nice hiney hehehe. Anyway monday and tuesday here were really shit weatherwise and i had to buy an umbrella it was raining so heavily. Anyway im on the plane now back to LA for a night then to San Fran.

More info about southbeach

The wedding in Naples FL

admin — Sun, 13 May 2007 09:02:31 +0000

the plane was meant to leave from melbourne at 10.30am however because of an engine problem we were delayed 1.5 hours so i didnt arrive into LAX until 8.45am. The trip was pretty uneventful, watched a couple of movies and was unable to sleep for the most part, although the times i did fall asleep i would wake up with a startle with my head on a strange mans shoulder. So arrived in LA and caught the public bus into santa monica, which is a whole lot cheaper than taking shuttles or cabs. I had to organise a ticket to miami and the only flight center i could remember was the one on venice so i scooted over there and 450USD lighter had my plane ticket to naples florida. Spent the rest of the day looking around santa monica’s beautiful shops and trying to decide whether i should go out to the airport or head in to the orbit hostel and get a few short hours sleep before heading off at 4am to catch a 6am flight. Orbit won. I caught up with katana, mohammed and steve, managed to have a couple of beers before hitting the hay, LA is just as i remembered it

I missed my shuttle bus by 2minutes (assholes) and thereore had to catch a cab which wounded my wallet far more than i felt necessary, and then he expecteded a gratuity which i felt should have been more inline with a “fuck you and have a nice day”rather than some financial reward, but hey its the US of A. anyway a few hours later i arrived at Miami FLA and proceeded to have my dinero fleeced again, having to catch a cab around the corner (literally it was less than 300m but you couldnt walk it) to the greyhound bus stop 10 dollars lighter. I had to wait around in the bus stop for 4 hours before the bus left for naples, the three hour trip was going to take 4.5 hours due to thick smoke from a fire. In the bus stop these three black Americans struck up a conversation about their children and general life in the US. The guy was trying to get the women into a 3some and really didnt care who else in the bus stop knew, the women sounded like they were upfor it to, and had you seen either of them you wouldve wanted to relieve the pressure on your intestines with a chunder, these people were OBESE. Unusual i hear you say for the states… well no and the strange thing was she was proud, the guy asked her if she could cook, she gets up and says “take a look at me baby, does it look like i cant cook, look at the size of me baby, ill cook you the best food you ever had”in my mind i was thinking the fact that you can eat really has no logical connection with your cooking ability, but your show certainly proves how incredibly effective you are at eating

so i slept on the bus for most of the trip, while coughing my lungs up everynow and again. Eventually we arrived in naples at 10pm and i preceeded to take a cab to the ritz-carlton. I met up with sammy, david, georgia, rae and richie who were having dinner at the hotel restaurant, as a pre wedding guest arrival do. I think they were all pretty smashed but they managed to get me checked in to my room even though they all thought i was about to die from some pretty heavy coughing fits. So there i was in my lovely room on the 8^th floor overlooking beautiful vanderbuilt beach and the hotel, looking forward to sleeping in my massive king bed with my 40” lcd tv and inroom internet…. ahhh the luxuries. Next morning i had buffet breakfast. Oh, this is what i look forward to most at hotels, big glorious, copious, bountiful, plentiful food of the breakfast variety YUM. The wedding was a great success even though they weren’t able to hold it on the beach due to the smoke. The band was fantastic and made everyone shake their tush but we all bailed pretty early because of jetlag. The next day we drove from naples to miami in a stretched hummer which was an experience, 3 hours on the road having a great time with the klingers, i have to say theyre an awesome bunch of people, im really liking getting to know them and my dad and tina. So we had a few drinks at the 4 seasons beore i hopped into a cab to miami south beach where i was staying at the tropics hotel on collins ave a1a.

New Years Eve in Times square

admin — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 09:49:35 +0000

Well after the 19 hour flight I was back in NY NY . This time it was for NYE. I was organizing to meet up with Tash (elliots sister) and Liese (Damo’s sister) I only managed to meet up with Liese but it was a crazy few days. Liese was over there with her friends Emma and Jane from London and they were over for a party. Needless to say this time shopping and touristy stuff took a back seat to partying. We went to a bar on 10 th and 30 th I think, or around there somewhere, and the road was blocked off as some guy had done a hit and run (the woman was ok) but the man decided to flee into a 15 story building and when the cops came for him he tried climbing down the fire escape, however he fell off and died. The next day we decided we should definitely do some touristy stuff so we went to the statue of liberty, and walked around down town. Today was new years eve and we were going to times square… the place to be for NYE. It started off early, we arrived at 5pm and the queues were already huge and we had to run up a few streets to try and get in before the others. We made it in at 57 th st and we managed to squish through loads and loads of other people to get down the front, right near the stage, however our view was obscured due to some rather large satellite dishes. So we contemplated what to do as we had a sober 7 hour wait in front of us. Shortly after we began pondering our options our minds were made up for us as the stupid police decided to close the pen we were in. so we started walking back when we made a break for it and jumped the fences into the pen next to us and then we ran out as we found another part that would give us an even better view. We were walking down some street when we decided to eat at one of the delis and I bought a heap of fruit. While sitting down we noticed a bar and decided to hit it up, the sobriety thing wasn’t too appealing. So we went in and met a bunch of aussies, of course and a bunch of new Yorkers too, especially one cute one called Kelly. So we stayed in the bar until about 11.30 when we went into the crowd to watch the ball drop. It was awesome especially when the confetti dropped, everyone was in such a good mood. Definitely a new years eve to remember.

So after NYE it was time to head down to Lima to start the geckos tour.

New York Ney York, what an awesome place

admin — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 09:46:53 +0000

Flying into ny I was pretty excited. Id heard good things about ny but I had no idea what I was in for. After landing and getting held up in customs cause I didn’t have a place to stay and they were pretty anal about all the immigration stuff and they went through ALL my stuff. I finally got into town and found a good little hostel called the Chelsea international hostel on west 20 th and 8 th streets. I wanted to take it easy for a while so I basically just wandered around NY doing the touristy thing. Visiting ground zero, wall st, empire state, central park, grand central station, times square yadda yadda. The shopping in NYC is the BEST, theres a massive range and so much of it is very cheap. I picked up 2 pairs of diesel shoes for 120USD and when I got back I saw that one pair was worth 300AUD, talk about a rip off!!!! Anyway after wandering around for the week it was time to come home for Katie and James’ wedding on the 11 th of December. So the flight from NY to LA took 5 hours with a 3 hour stop over.. then another 14 hours from LA to Sydney .