Category: Travel

This was a trip initiated by my woman for two reasons: To see a good friend of her’s and to check out the Cherry Blossoms bloomin around DC… ahhh boyfriend duties… These are the times when you need that body double right? Well it worked out to be a fun and interesting experiance to say the least. We left Friday afternoon and returned Sunday evening so it was very quick.

We decided to take the “Chinatown Bus” from NY to DC. This is the cheap bus that runs chinatown to chinatown between the two cities. It cost was $35 a person round trip with a company called Apex (I’m not even going to link them and you’ll find out why). It was a mad dash to get to the Manhattan bridge on Friday because our NY taxi took us on the real estate tour of LES and Chinatown, pointing out the empty retail spaces we all could use to start businesses. We ended up running on the bus 5 till four and getting the last pair of seats together on the bus… near the bathroom with the broken door. I won’t go into nausiating details of the smell we had to endour for this trip.

The bus ride is a 3 hour journy through the Garden state, something I still have yet to discover why. All I saw were brown trees lining the parkway. We made a convienent stop at a bus rest stop to dump the toilet. Near the end of the break, about 70% of the riders are back on the bus and I look out the back windows to the building side of the bus and there’s a lanky, 5 foot 5 Asian man with his lips sucking down a make shift gatorade bottle turned bong. I tried to get my camera out for this but didn’t have time, although all the back riders had a good laugh with the public 420, until we saw this man get on our bus and turn the keys to rev up the engine… he was our bus driver!!! More on this later…

Despite knowing our driver is high we were able to sleep about an hour and arrived in DC slightly past schedule. Jodi had arrived and parked in the lot where the bus unloaded which posed a problem to get out, however, it gave us time to get familiar with the local tenants of the parking lot and the employees at Today’s Bus. We learned of the house where John Wilkes Booth meet with conspirators and hatched the plot to assasante Abraham Lincoln. Upon asking the bus driver if he could move the bus so we could leave the parking lot, he replied with “ppfffffftttttt” (cough) (cough)… another bong hit and “yeah I’m almost done.”

That evening we hadn’t planned a thing but were quite hungry. We dressed and went to a great Mexican/Spanish restaurant called Lauriol Plaza. I had a combinacion quatro which was very good, unfortunately a little too good as eating ALL of the offerings didn’t bode well for me later.

Jodi lives in Dupont Circle area of Washington DC. Which if you’re not familiar with DC, this is similar to the Castro district in SF, Chelsea area of NYC, Hillcrest of San Diego, South Florida well I hope you get the general picture… Dancing was on the menu for the evening and so was having my ass grabbed apparently … so getting stupid drunk was on my menu. We headed to the local spot – Cobalt. Lucky us, it just happens to be a blow out party for them with a 3 yr anniversary party running all weekend. Friday was Heaven and Sat was hell night. I snapped a few good shots, in between taking down some stiff Greygoose and crans… Friday night was a sore one as I woke with serious head trama from the vodka.

A late start on the day Sat resulted in 2 PM brunch and getting a quick once over of the festival. Some interesting mentionings were that this “festival” had serious corporate sponsorship, with a huge Saporo blow up, a target tent teaching white kids how to write their names in Japanese calligraphy (or maybe it they said “White Devil” not sure), and a large McDonald’s tent with the marketing slogan “I am Asian!” – Check my gallery for the rest of the photos. The blossoms were classic, although being hung over and dealing with so many tourists, I didn’t have the desire to contribute any longer to the “festivities”. We took a quick 10 minute walk around and then headed back for naps….

So there’s a break in my writing this and since I haven’t finish and I don’t have time to remember everything… the quick synopsis is that we went again to the Cobalt, this time after stopping by two beautiful homes in DC – one overlooking the downtown, with a huge balcony and the other a two story brownstone type building with dark hardwood floors and a an open bar! Both also being owned by gay men… wow I never knew I would be so coveted – a straight man infiltrating the gay life of DC. I had a great time but I got the promise from the girl that I would get special treatment at the women strip club of my choice (Scores!)

However, the last fun story we have is the ride home. This I will always remember and another reason that justifies the saying “You get what you pay for” So with the China bus home, we arrive half hour before our departure time, and the bus was late…by 2 hours… we were stuck in the sun till 3 PM until we left DC. On the way I notice something irritating the driver (being in the 2nd to the front seat, and having that knowledge of bus driving from riding the yellow bus to school for 10 years). Half hour outside DC we started picking up speed and a few minutes later we were not slowing down… literally… we started down a hill and as the traffic started to back up, our driver started pumping the breaks… nothing… no squeal or slowing of this metal boat on wheels. He started to vier off the highway onto the sloped median – I also notice some cars starting to swerve to the right as they too noticed a giant bus barreling down the hill at record speeds… As the bus started to catch gravel and grass on the side, the breaks slowly kicked in and we were able to slow enough to avoid the stopped cars and the drive succeeded in not tipping the bus over the median… whew! Well as you might expect the bus to pull over because there was an obvious problem… um no. He decides to call into headquarters and let them know “we are heading back for a break adjustment”!!!

Everyone seems to be on edge they are traveling on a bus with out breaks (as am I) and the driver continues on as if this is a regular occurrence! Needless to say we make it as far back as Maryland and wait another hour while the breaks are “adjusted” before heading back on our way… Not making it back into the city until after 8, I was thankful to see the sun setting over familiar sky… I’d do it again… maybe I’ll just rent a car next time. ;)