All About Japanese

Lombok Cattle Traders by Carl Parkes

It sounds so good, but few people actually allow themselves to indulge in spontaneous travel, but Neil Woodburn at Gadling recently answered the call of impulse, with impressive results. Me? I'm going to Texas next month, northern Arizona in May, and perhaps Philadelphia in June. Nothing spontaneous.....it's all planned well in advance.

Spontaneous travel is rare in life, but when it occurs it is fabulously rewarding.

Case in point: Saturday at noon I was sitting at home in Los Angeles talking on the phone with my girlfriend who was at a conference in San Francisco. Over the course of a 15 minute conversation, I learned that my college team, UCLA, was playing in the Elite Eight in San Francisco (I had thought they were playing on the other side of the country). I also remembered that Gogol Bordello, after their Friday show in LA, was also playing in San Francisco Saturday night.

By 12:30 I had reservations on a 2:00 Southwest flight. I made it to the airport by 1:00, arrived in San Francisco at 3:30, caught a BART bus to the Oakland Sports Arena by 4:00 and, by tip-off, was sitting in a seat my girlfriend had procured from a scalper a mere two hours earlier.

After the game, which UCLA won, we headed out to dinner, and then to a club called Slim’s where we tipped the doorman $50 to let the two of us into the sold-out Gogol Bordello show. By 2 a.m. we were wiped out. A quick cab back to the very hip and cool, highly recommended Ian Schrager hotel Clift, and then it was night-night.

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