Category: Travel

I lost my hat on the train back from LA a few months ago. 🙁

In my defense, I don’t usually lose things. I was distracted by another train passenger being disruptive. He had had the police called on him for “acting threateningly” towards an Amtrak employee. I was eager to disembark.

The new hat is distinctly less cool, and cost $8, twice as much as the old one. At least it has a wider brim!

I recently took a trip to LA to pick up desk-bed parts. It was a success!

My original plan was to have a friend drive the furniture up for me, but I couldn’t find a willing driver (and car rentals got complicated). Instead, I used uShip! uShip is an online bid-based marketplace for shipping items (especially large, unpackable, awkwardly-shaped items, like motorcycles and furniture).

When shipping something through uShip, you start by making a “shipment” on the website. You enter details about the items (size, weight, number), where you’re going from/to, and when you need the items by. uShip automatically generates an expected price based on the information, so you have an idea of what you’re going to pay. Once you publicly list the shipment (at least 2 weeks before the intended move, please!), movers start bidding on it. You can accept any bid at any time, at which point you should contact the mover directly to iron out pickup/dropoff details.

Pros:

• uShip provides a money-back guarantee, where you don’t pay the mover until you get your items. uShip holds the money until then. If anything goes wrong with the move, you can contact uShip for help.
• The auction-based format of uShip helps get you a lower price, both because of mover-mover competition and because movers can combine shipments to the same destination.
• I didn’t have to drive anywhere.
• I didn’t have to pack anything (unlike using Fedex, e.g.). The movers provided all of the padding material (nothing disposable!) and loaded all of the items.
• Items can be delivered to someone else, so I didn’t need to be at both ends of the shipment.

Cons

• I paid $320 to the movers ($25 fee to uShip), $130 more than uShip originally predicted (and J accidentally tipped 40% upon delivery…). I do think that it was a good value, considering that I didn’t have to drive and a new bunk bed of questionable quality costs around $900.
• It was scary to use uShip for the first time D:

My experience was excellent, although it heavily depends on which mover you use (reviews are provided on the website). The movers I worked with were very organized and fast! The furniture was delivered the same day as pickup. The movers even helped carry it up to a second floor apartment. I would use uShip again, and would generally recommend it if you are moving a small number of items (i.e. not a whole house of furniture).

 

By the way, I took Megabus to LA ($37), and BoltBus back ($23). I did not take any overnight buses, due to the last miserable experience. The bus rides were fine by day, since I didn’t need to sleep. They were much cheaper than flights (would’ve been $150 each way), and cheaper and faster than the train (would’ve been $80 each way, since the cheapest tier of ticket was sold out). A friend in the area housed and fed me 🙂

The weekend after going to Sacramento (so about 3 months ago now), J and I visited our undergraduate institution outside of Los Angeles, ’cause our old dorm was having its big annual party! Woo!

We took an overnight BoltBus to get from San Jose (Diridon Station) to LA (Union Station). It was cheap at $25/person, but I would never do it again.

Pros:

• It was overnight, so that we didn’t waste a day on traveling. Amtrak only has a daytime train between LA and the Bay Area.
• Going overnight also decreases the chances of running into traffic.
• It was cheap (half the cost of Amtrak, half to 1/8 the cost of a flight).
• Lower emissions than a plane.
• The stop in San Jose was relatively easy for us to get to.
• There was a bathroom on board!

Cons:

• It was overnight, so we needed to sleep to have a good next day.
• The seats are uncomfortable and cramped -> it was hard to sleep.
• The bus driver talked inappropriately loudly for the time of night. Pretty sure he was the only one fully awake.
• Intermittent stops were accompanied by bright lights and loud announcements, thus disturbing our sleep.

Yeah… Only take an overnight bus if you’re a heavy sleeper and don’t mind cramped chairs. We were super tired when we got to LA. We made a multitude of plans to find a nice place to nap, but never actually succeeded in any of them 🙁 Overall, Amtrak is a nicer experience.

We stayed with the lovely T for the duration of our trip. Thanks!

We visited Grist & Toll, an urban flour mill located in Pasadena. Who knows how long it’s been there! I’ve been missing out for years D:

J and I got one bag of bread flour (and one as a gift for our host, T!) and one bag of general purpose flour grown by Mai Nyugen, a farmer who tries to be super environmentally friendly. For example, most (all?) of her field work is done using horses(!) and she doesn’t irrigate. Of course, the flour is super expensive (~$35/5 lbs flour).

We had dinner at the acclaimed Chengdu Taste, supposedly the best Szechuan restaurant outside of Szechuan Province, China. Unfortunately, we accidentally went with some friends who don’t particularly like spicy food… I think there was a miscommunication somewhere.

And we went to the dorm party!!

And a few straggler happenings:

The dorm now has fancy recycling bins from Terracycle! Okay, I don’t think anyone is using them, but the intent is good. I may take my dental care waste back there to recycle it.

The communal projector is falling apart.

The university recently switched to different dorm furniture, casting off the old (which was much beloved!). When we were visiting, I scrounged around for bunk-bed parts. I got enough for 1 bunk bed (so spots for 2 beds, or a bed and a desk) and 1 table, plus extras for future repairs. Now I just have to figure out how to get them to the Bay Area!! I’m hoping USHIP works out.

We also popped into Goodwill just in time for them to close. Since we weren’t actually looking for anything, a 5-minute browse was sufficient. This was the most professional Goodwill I’ve ever seen. The cashier was dressed in a suit (a suit!), and the store was clean and organized. When we walked in, I thought that we must be in the wrong place; it looked like an actual store!

Edit: My mom admonished me for not recognizing the portrait as being of Jerry Brown, a previous and the current California governor.