San Francisco Through The Eyes Of A Rockstar (Part 10 – Neptune Palace Seafood, Immigration)

We leave at 5 minutes past midnight. It’s a 13 hour 52 minute flight and we will land back in Hong Kong sometime around 6 am. I start writing from the Marco Polo (Cathay Pacific frequent flyers’) Club Lounge.

For our last meal, we pick Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf.

Serious Couple Shot, Ignore Hamster-sized Tongue. (So that’s why the waiter was “Uh, do you want him in the picture?”)

And tell Rockstar naughty people used to get sent to that island (Alcatraz) in his window. (Blue tape only at children’s window seats)

And have the 3 fish (USD 22 and the most expensive meal we have here) dish – sesame tuna with faintly wasabi-ish sauce, salmon with a mildly zesty cream, seabass with an alcoholic-tasting sauce we all can’t get enough of. (Spot Rockstar’s fork horning in on the photo-op).

Rockstar’s been slipping in a comment or two about wanting to get back to school. (Oh tee hee. And there I thought it was my son I was blogging about.) I’m going to steel myself for a wee bit of drama anyway. Meantime, we’re steeling ourselves to face Immigration.

SF Airport just after we checked our humongous luggage in

We… really don’t have any legitimate reason to fear passing thru US Immigration, Kings and I are still on our 10 year visas granted out of Singapore since our honeymoon days, it’s just the whole screening and fierce immigration officers. And germ freak me doesn’t like putting our shoes, jackets and scarves in the plastic bin that has been touched by countless other shoe soles, some of which have also known public toilet floors recently.

Right behind us, some exhibition of small monuments in the major cities, right in front of us <pause for effect> Immigration. I don’t have the guts to take a picture of all the bustling and officers going on right outside this frame.

Going thru security turns out to be wayy not as bad as when we went on our honeymoon a year after 9-11. (Entering San Francisco we had also been pleasantly surprised by the immigration officer with a very Chinese name on his tag speaking to us in Putonghua, referring to me as “Mei Nee” – and who seemed almost disappointed to switch to English when I couldn’t understand what he was asking.)

In the Marco Polo lounge, Rockstar elicits an involuntary laugh from the auntie sitting at the next table as he samples cup noodles, sandwiches, a slice of pizza I packed, and still manages to put away a significant portion of each type of cheese from the snack counter. “He’s hyper!” (Yeah we kinda know.)

We get shushed by Rockstar, who reminds me we’re supposed to be whispering, in the “reading section”. (There was a sign. Rockstar’s latest thing is “What that sign says?” at everything that looks like a sign. N-ot so cute when you’re on a highway and have no idea what we just whizzed past but your son won’t take “I don’t know” for an answer.

I spy the first Hermes Birkin – in deep red alligator, no less (exotic skin Birkins can run up 6-figure price tags) – since we’ve been in the States. Woman Attached to Birkin is also wearing a rich brown fur-trimmed cape and shiny knee-high boots.

Looking around the lounge I spy more Prada. Louis Vuitton. (Or as many local Hongkies refer to the label, “LV” – there is so much LV in HK I will probably never own one – I get this idea many more people know exactly what I spent on my bag, or what I might have spent on it at Milan Station, and yes there is a market for resale.)

It’s almost like we’re already back in HK.

The family at the next table has a helper tending to the smaller of 2 children. On the rare occasion we noticed a helper minding a child in Union Square, the child had an Asian mum. And there were no helpers at the Golden Gate Park playground minding any of the kids, both times we visited. More dads than we usually see in HK though.

Last furtive picture from our seat on the plane before I switch off my iPhone.

Goodbye, San Francisco. You did wonders for our family.

Re-entering Hong Kong I get stuck in the auto gate. I quickly start feeling like corralled livestock. Moo. I have very light fingerprints – standard scanners often have problems reading my prints. Within a minute before an immigration officer with a screen thingy wanders over unconcernedly.

Very casually he gives me a once-over. Another officer speedwalks by, “Sir, I’m getting off my shift now,” and he waves in acknowledgement without looking up from his screen. In terms of Immigration Looks, Hong Kong should get 5 stars – I don’t feel like an illegal immigrant, a terrorist, or a smuggler of fake goods. Which is just as well since we’re none of the above, but these days you almost expect all immigration officers to be that way.

“The gate’s open, you know.” He’s cleared my passport and HKID manually in what feels like less than 60 seconds.

Also, he’s switched to Cantonese after realizing I can understand him. Of course he has. I start, turn, and exit. He’s already ambled off in search of more livestock when I look back.

HOW does he move that fast without seeming at all in a hurry?

(Bear in mind if you or your rockstar were running a fever when you entered HK you’d be stopped far longer getting off the plane, for a checkup).

As I push the trolley laden with 3 giant bags and 2 little hand-carries to the green lane, I remind Kings, with Rockstar on his shoulders, to stay close.

The officer’s gaze flickers over Rockstar, and we pass thru the green lane without comment. Not unusual for parents of small children to lug about several times their child’s weight in luggage I guess.

(We had our snowgear and Rockstar had accumulated half a dozen large wooden jigsaws, ping-pong paddles and a family-size LIFE boardgame we got so he had something to unwrap on Christmas morning itself. We spent Christmas and New Year’s Day playing LIFE.

We like how it brainwashes kids that you eventually command a better salary if you go to college.)

Rockstar is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the taxi non-queue around 7am

(We start switching him back to HK time the moment we board the plane. He stays up about 2 hours longer, then we put him down for a full night’s sleep. Also change his outer clothes and socks, brush his teeth, put on some moisturiser which he hates but is part of his pre-bedtime ritual, lay one of his old baby bedsheets over the plane cushions and seat.)

In the last few days I wasn’t so much dreading leaving San Francisco as I was dreading coming back to HK. I expected to feel at least a little depressed. As we take the HKD 300-ish cab home. (Cab fare starts looking alright when you eye your luggage and rockstar at 7 in the morning – especially when it’s HKD 80-ish per head to take the Airport Express and then HKD 70-ish cab home from there anyway).

As Kings observes the very grey sun-less morning (too common here) it’s a pleasant surprise we’re happy to come home.