Adventures of 2 Girls

by Ning Cai

  Walking back into the backyard, I checked the dryer and saw that the cycle was almost complete, with just a minute to go. I stepped inside the house and caught snatches of Pam’s phone conversation with Angeline, explaining why we were unfortunately over an hour late.

  After peeing (oh thank God – finally), I grabbed a box of macadamia chocolates we’d purchased the day before, slipped on some warm fluffy clothes from the dryer and left Lori’s house to return the bathrobe to Grandma across the street.

  The vacuum cleaner was once again humming and my constant knocking on the front door went unheeded. Just when I was contemplating leaving the box of chocolates by the door along with the folded bathrobe, the door opened and Grandma poked her head out. Her kindly Japanese features broke into a smile and her eyes laughed. “Ah! The bathrobe girl!”

  Right. Thanks. Why did she have to proclaim it so loudly?!

  “Mahalo nui loa. Thank you so much,” I grinned sheepishly, returning the borrowed bathrobe and presenting her with the box of chocolates. “A hui hou kakou. Until we meet again.”

  “A’ole pilikia! No problem,” She laughed and waved. “Pomaika’i! Good luck!”

  Crossing the road back to Lori’s house with both hands in my pockets, I found myself chuckling at the entire series of events. It had truly been a hilarious comedy of errors. And this was just the beginning of our adventures!

  Barely a month down and eight more to go! I really hoped my friendship with the BFF survived the test, and that we survived this round-the-world trip. It’s not easy when you travel with another person for such an extended period... what more two girls with PMS!

  Just before I reached Lori’s gate, a familiar car pulled up. Alan jumped out of the driver’s seat, holding a paper bag. I ran down the slope, engulfing the tanned Hawaiian in a tight bear hug, “Aloha! I’m so happy to see you Alan... but don’t you have a flight to catch?”

  “Hoaloha! Beloved friend! Yes, I’m on my way to the airport but I wanted to surprise you girls with a little something since you leave Hawaii for the mainland tomorrow. Have you been keeping out of trouble?” Alan smiled warmly, his endearing local accent adding to his charm. I spied some Hawaiian t-shirts inside his paper bag.

  Laughing as I pulled Alan inside the house, I told him the entire story. Oh, if he’d only come by an hour earlier! Pam joined in (she’d finally pulled on some shorts) and Alan let out a loud guffaw. “Ah, the bathrobe girl?”

  I flashed him a wry grin.

  “You gonna be legendary, Ning!” Alan wiped tears from his eyes, his stout frame still shaking from laughter. “You know in Hawaii we like to ‘talk story’... all the neighbours will be hearing about it in no time! Ho’omaika’I ‘ana! Congrats!”

  Great. I glared at the BFF who turned to face me with her innocent koala look.

  Grrrrr. Maybe we should re-title the book The Misadventures of 2 Girls!

  05

  from sea to shining sea

  USA · March to May 2011

  PAM

  “Oh. My. God...”

  I froze. The whites on my knuckles were gleaming under the street lamps as I gripped the steering wheel in horror.

  “Oh fuck!” The BFF swore under her breath as her eyes flew open. “What are we gonna do?!”

  We were waiting at a traffic junction for the lights to turn green, just after turning out from the carpark of a strip mall in Honolulu. It was dark and drizzling outside – and it was late – but we had to grab some groceries to cook breakfast in the morning. I wasn’t familiar with the roads at all because it was our first night in the capital city of Hawaii, and I hate driving at night when I’m in a new city... especially if it’s raining.

  Staring back at us from across the traffic junction was a formidable row of cars; their headlights glaring back at us. And the battalion was building up with each minute. We were on the wrong side of the road!

  My eyes desperately searched the confusing network of roads for a way of escape. There was no way I could drive off because vehicles were zipping by in front of us. How in the world was I supposed to get back to the other side of the road? Where was the other side of the road? I finally spotted it after a while, but it was a long, diagonal stretch across a major road junction...

  The traffic lights turned green and I inched forward as the first row of cars rolled ominously towards us, flashing their headlights in warning.

  “I... need... to... get... to... the... other... side...” I muttered, biting my lip in determination. I believe in the power of Intention, and that was what I was channelling all my energy to. I turned the steering wheel to the right, and made a diagonal beeline towards the road that I kept firmly in view.

  As the first row of cars parted like the Red Sea around us, the second row of cars were stunned because they hadn’t seen us till then. They started honking furiously. A man even rolled down his window and flashed me his middle finger. I shut out the incessant honking and bright headlights and focussed on getting us through the sea of oncoming traffic.

  “You can do it, keep going...” Ning urged me on, learning forward with her eyes wide open and gripping the dashboard nervously. Her voice was unusually calm despite the situation.

  My heart was pounding furiously in my head as the blinding lights of oncoming traffic rolled towards us in endless waves. The honking was becoming fiercer and angrier.

  After what seemed like forever, I managed to get us onto the right side of the road... literally. Watching over my shoulder, I cautiously slid into the flow of traffic on the right and Ning and I heaved a huge sigh of relief. The BFF collapsed on the passenger seat beside me in emotional exhaustion.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I apologised. “I think we turned out at the entrance of the car park instead of the exit... and it was a one-way street... I wish GPS could navigate car parks!”

  “Pam!!!” Ning flashed me her indignant expression – face scrunched up, lips pursed and eyes narrowed – and I felt a grin tugging at my lips in spite of myself. This would be a face I’d grow accustomed to in the months to come. “Let’s not tell our parents about this, OK!”

  “Are you nuts? Of course not!”

  Despite the minor heart attack, I was thankful that we got a taste of fast, angry traffic in Honolulu, especially after the laidback roads of Maui, Big Island and Molokai. But fast and angry is relative, isn’t it? Honolulu was our last stop on the Hawaiian chain of islands. And I dare say it prepared us – albeit only a fraction – for the monster traffic in Los Angeles.

  * * *

  There was also the time when we were slapped with a traffic fine in San Francisco.

  San Francisco is a beautiful city to drive in – regardless of what people tell you. There are so many colourful, unique neighourhoods to visit that it would be a waste if you didn’t have the freedom and mobility of a car. One of our favourite spots was the charming town of Sausalito just across the Golden Gate Bridge, with its pretty cafés and quaint little shops. Ning and I really enjoyed grabbing a Starbucks Coffee and simply taking a drive on the undulating slopes of America’s favourite city.

  The only downside of driving in San Francisco is the parking. It’s very costly and there are just not enough parking lots throughout the city. When we visited Ning’s former experimental film lecturer Ken Rosenthal at his rented apartment one morning, we had to drive around his neighbourhood for half an hour before finally finding an empty lot along the main road a couple of blocks away.

  It was a legal lot so our hearts sank when we saw a familiar white flap of paper tucked under the windscreen wiper when we returned after a scrumptious homemade lunch.

  “No way... please tell me this isn’t what I think it is...” I groaned, stopping in my tracks when I saw it from a distance.

  Ning strode over briskly and yanked the paper from under the wiper, flipping it over with a frown. “Yup, it is what you think it is. But why?”

  I trotted over, my heart pounding. “What does it say?”

&
nbsp; “It doesn’t say anything!” She turned the paper to look at the back, and then flipped it over again to scan the front.

  I took the traffic fine ticket from her and stared at it for a while. “Did we park illegally?”

  Ning and I walked around the car, then glanced at the other cars parallel parked along the same stretch. They were all legal parking lots. We checked the parking meter to see if our time had exceeded, but it was still in the safe zone.

  The fine cost us US$40 and we had no clue why. We contemplated ignoring it, but our friends later advised us to pay up because the last thing we wanted was the U.S. immigration detaining us in New York for having a criminal record!

  As it turned out, the reason was on the ticket all the while. Our eyes just could not see it, and our brains could not process it, because the words were simply too unfamiliar and cryptic for us non-San Francisco residents.

  We were fined for parking on a slope – with a gradient greater than 15 degrees – without curbing the wheels!

  “How on earth would we know?!” We had wailed when someone showed it to us several days later, after we had paid the fine. “No one told us we had to!”

  Guess some things you just have to learn the hard way...

  * * *

  Despite these little hiccups, I love road trips. There is something incredibly exciting about renting a car, dumping all your belongings in the boot, stocking up on snacks, having a takeaway coffee in the drinks holder, reading road maps and cranking up the volume on the radio! And with your best gal pal beside you, her feet on the dashboard as she belts out radio tunes at the top her voice, it’s a scene right out of Thelma and Louise!

  Going on a U.S. road trip had been an item on my bucket list for years. While the idea probably started with Thelma and Louise, it was definitely the 2005 movie Elizabethtown (starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst) that really fanned the flame and fuelled the fire.

  Ning and I had bought a one-way ticket from Singapore to Honolulu, touching down on American soil in March 2011. All we knew was that we had a flight to catch in New York City, bound for Paris, on May 31. How we were going to get from Honolulu to New York was entirely up to us, and we left our options wide open. We would talk to locals along the way, get tips from our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram friends, and just go with the flow. Somehow, we would find our way across the United States of America, from sea to shining sea.

  Doing a road trip across the U.S. for three months is a costly affair, unless you decide to buy a fifth-hand, beat-up, gas-guzzler of a truck. To be fair, we also took the Greyhound bus and Amtrak train so that saved us some money. But we were really grateful that Hertz Singapore heard about our round-the-world trip, and offered to sponsor our car rental in the U.S. and France. For two girls using up our life savings, we really wanted to kiss them on the mouth.

  I did most of the driving while Ning did most of the navigating. Before GPS was invented, hers would have been the most dreaded designated role. I remember having countless heated fights with my ex when I was navigating with road maps...

  But thank God for GPS! Ning became quite an expert with the Hertz NeverLost GPS system. We used it in the U.S., and in France too when we did a two-week road trip in Brittany and Normandy, making stops at the breathtaking Mont Saint Michel and exploring the grand Loire Valley. And except for the occasional tiff (usually when we missed a freeway exit), most of our drives were adventures in themselves.

  One of our favourite self-drives was on Highway 1 between San Francisco and the quiet seaside town of Mendocino about four hours north. Mendocino is where they filmed the hit TV series Murder She Wrote. It’s a quaint “New England” town in California, perched on the sea cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I think Ning must have heard me say, “Oh, look at those wild flowers!” a gazillion times during that drive!

  I much prefer the dramatic rocky coasts of Northern California to sunny Southern California. The north is moodier, more melancholic, with muted shades of greens and pastels, rolling fogs and endless gray-blue waves shrouded with a misty spray. And oh, the fresh seafood in Northern California is to-die-for!

  We also drove in New England, from Boston to Cape Code and Vermont, and then crossing the American-Canadian border overland to Montreal, before making a loop down to New York. It was the first time I’d ever driven in the East Coast and it was such a charming experience. New England is a lot older than California, so the historic buildings and old towns were always so picturesque.

  The best part of the road trip was that we could stop anywhere we wanted, be it at a quiet lookout point overlooking the Pacific Ocean, or an obscure American town like Boonville, or just a roadside stall selling smoothies or a food truck selling fresh shrimp scampi.

  Even driving four hours in the desert towards the Grand Canyon was fun in retrospect. It’s quite an experience to see a single road winding through a flat, dry and brown terrain for as far as the eye can see – literally to the horizon! That scene never quite changes. And you never quite get there.

  It was the most boring stretch of road I’ve ever driven on. But the BFF had never seen mirages before, and her childlike excitement when pointing them out to me warmed my heart. Her “Guess Who I Am” games also forced me to keep awake, although at times I really wished for her to shut up so my mind could go into screensaver mode.

  Basically, Ning’s game goes like this: she could choose to be anyone in the world, and I had to guess who she was. I could ask her any question, but she could only answer “yes” or “no”.

  “Are you a man?”

  “No.”

  “Are you under 40?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you famous?”

  “No.”

  “Do I know you personally?”

  “Yes.”

  You get the idea. The game could go on for hours!

  And when you’ve been driving for hundreds of miles on a straight road, the GPS kind of goes into screensaver mode too... or so it seemed. She would be quiet for hours at a stretch when we were out in the deserts of Nevada and Arizona. But just when we’d forgotten about her, she would say in a calm and gentle voice, “In five miles, keep right.”

  It always made me smile. Because it reminded me that she was keeping watch over us, like God from up above, and making sure we were on the right track. We never felt more loved and taken care of than by our Hertz NeverLost GPS system!

  Looking back on our 3-month road trip across the United States, I’ve learnt that a true traveller is never intent on arriving. There is no such thing as a “destination” when you’re on the road. You stop when you feel like stopping, and so every moment is both a journey and a destination.

  Isn’t life a bit like that, too?

  But through the ever-changing landscape – from oceans and rocky coasts, to mountains and vast deserts – one thing remains constant: the road trip buddy beside you who makes you see each moment with new eyes, and fills your soul with a sense of adventure. And I can honestly say that there is no better road trip buddy than my BFF. I wouldn’t trade her for anyone, or anything, in the world!

  From U.S. to France to South Africa... road trip buddies forever!

  06

  you were worth the wait

  Las Vegas · April 2011

  NING

  A sea of voices buzzed around us in the gigantic theatre at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Almost 2,000 people were already seated and everyone was excitedly waiting for the show to begin. Surrounded by beautiful tapestry above us, rich velvet drapes and opulent architecture, I almost believed I was transported back in time... to a grand 14th-century opera house with Pam next to me.

  The BFF was sipping a drink from our Cirque Du Soleil O cup, which we’d just purchased out front before we got to our seats. Our Singaporean friend May, who has worked for years for this world-class performance company, had helped us purchase the best seats in the house. The US$500 tickets gave us the perfect seats, right in the middle of the theatre. I h
ad never spent so much money on show tickets before, but having waited so long to watch O, there was simply no compromise.

  When Cirque du Soleil first came to Singapore, they set up a huge circus top tent at the Padang for their Saltimbanco show. My good friend Yi Lynn had complimentary tickets and she generously invited her friend Tyler and myself to join her.

  I was just a kid then but I fell in love with the circus that late November night in 1999. Cirque du Soleil had a poetic melancholy that resonated with something deep and dark in my soul, and my heart leapt when I witnessed Saltimbanco’s beautifully-weaved layers of visual and musical artistry.

  The fourth wall was broken when the Cirque performers gracefully weaved themselves among the audience. I’ve always battled with a phobia of clowns since I was a child, but there was something different about Cirque. It wasn’t a regular circus (I’m not comfortable with circus troupes using animals in their shows because I think it’s animal cruelty); it was art.

  And as a very special Christmas gift one year, my school announced that our entire cohort would be watching Saltimbanco! It was my favourite school outing ever. I was really grateful because there was no way I could afford the highly-priced tickets, despite already working two part-time jobs (being a restaurant’s resident door-greeter and giving tuition to a Primary 3 boy) while juggling school.

  Once again under the Big Top, I was able to re-experience the magic of Cirque. And with this second opportunity to watch Saltimbanco, I could take note of the technical aspects of the show that had been completely invisible to me prior. I marvelled at the performers’ professionalism and expertise, entirely impressed with the production.