Butterfingers and Handstand escapades: the curse of the elusive bedsheets and pillows

21 June 2009

This day was a hell lot of a day for butterfingers and handstand. We had the worst experience of our life trying to find household goods, especially pillows and bedsheets. 1st, we went Ralph's, just opposite our own apartment. Tried to find laundry powder detergents labelled 'high efficiency', but to no avail. . We gave up and returned home with the barang barang we had. Next, we tried Trader's Joe, but it sold mainly food. So, we crossed the road and went Rite Aid which sold all sorts of household materials, even mattresses and clothes line. We wanted to buy plates too but the plates sold there were non-porcelain and the plastic plates were the disposable kinds. There was this cool set of plates which was made of sugar cane apparently and was water and oil resistant, but we were told that they couldn't be washed. So it's another failed attempt here. We also tried CVS pharmacy but tadaa they don't sell bedsheets too. We turned hungry and so we decided to go try the starbucks here at westwood to see if they sell our yummy piadinis. But ALAS. they didn't have it boo:( so we bought a coffee to share. they dun have my iced expresso like they do in singapore too. sad. the straws in starbucks are super super longgggg.

okay yep so we thought bedsheets and pillows and blankies were the most impt thing on our agenda, otherwise we'd be sleeping on empty (and possibly mite-y) mattresses that night. since all the places we tried didn't sell mattresses, we tried asking the starbucks person where we could find em. they told us that there was this place in LA called target, which was super difficult to get to without a car, and they weren't even able to give us the directions cos i think it was too complicated. haha. so we thought why not try claremont hotel to see if they could sell us some sheets and pillows? since after all we checked out from there that very morning. so we trooped over to the claremont hotel and asked them, but they said that they weren't able to sell it to us. they did advise us to go over to this shopping mall called westside pavilion, but we had to get there by the big blue bus 8 or 12, and they gave us the directions.

so then we had to find out where on earth to take these buses, so we walked back to the starbucks area to try to find out where to take it. after some asking around, we finally found the stop to take our bus! haha it was our maiden voyage out of westwood and also the first time taking the big blue bus. it was quite exciting. and the thing is we knew nuts about how to pay the fare, where to get down, etc etc.

the bus came,and we got up. so the first thing was to ask how to pay. and then we realized we had to pay 75cents each, but we didn't have dat many coins. so we ended up feeding 1 buck into the machine. it was really cool sitting in the bus for the first time, and we took some fotos! and we looked like real retards cos they had all the bus guides down there on the bus and we were just there grabbing every single guide so that we could reference it next time we wanted to travel out of westwood.

something very interesting happened during the bus ride. halfway through, the bus driver stopped at this bus stop, and told everybody on the bus 'i'll be right back'. then she took her handbag and walked out of the bus toward the petrol station. lol. and the bus was left open and unattended the whole time. this sorta thing doesn't ever happen in singapore. not that i've seen. haha.

anyway, we successfully found our way to westside pavillion shopping centre (hallelujahhhh!) which looked huge cos it was 2 big buildings joined by an overhead bridge. nearby there was this small shop saying "SALE! mattresses and linens" so we decided to go in and ask the guy there. but unfortunately he only sold everything together as a package, bed frame and all. so he told us to go try macy's which was in the building called nordstrom. Went nordstrom and saw for our 1st time here in LA, a proper cinema theatre like those you find in singapore shopping malls, for e.g golden village. niceee. Found a shop which sold bedsheets for a price of 200USD. Crazy, i wonder i the bedsheets are made of gold. Headed to the bed section only to find really expensive bedsheets again and they were branded. Clavin klein and Raulph Lauren. haha we don't need such good bedsheets! It was getting late and we were starting to panick! No sheets for the night?!?! We decided to take a chance and call UCLA international office instead for help. We wanted to use the public phone there but had no coins. Walked around the whole ground level in nodstrom trying to find someone who could open the register and exchange with us notes for quarters. Went to a cafe, bodyshop, a few other stores, a stranger and then finally back to the cafe to exchange for coins. That took a really long time! When we finally got coins, we tried using the public phone to call UCLA but the office was closed to our dismay. BOO. The information centre advised us to go bed, baths and beyond at Bundy road, which meant that we had to take another bus. But seeing the sky's getting dark, we decided to take a bus back to UCLA instead and see if we could loan bedsheets from a hostel. Hopped onto bus 8 and happily rocked back to UCLA. Wanted to alight at hilgard terminal but cos of some reason, we alighted way before the terminal (maybe 3 or 4 stops). When we alighted and took a look at the map, we were sooo pek chei cos we could have alighted just outside Murphy's hall (where the international office is). OH well, we didn't want to spend another 3 quarters taking a bus so we WALKED all the way upslope towards Murphy's hall. Tried to entertain ourselves while we walked and happened to pass by many apartments labelled with combination of mathematical symbols like chi and ohm. At 1st we thought that only geeks or professors stayed at these areas, but later we realised that the houses were for fraternity purposes. COOL. took some pictures along the way.

ok, so when we reached Murphy's hall, it was closed. Damn. decided to walk to Westwood Chateau Apartments which were where Jocelyn and gang stayed. Took a long long long long walk across UCLA, passed by the building where we were gona to have lessons the next day (PAB). Had to walk up this super ulufied slope up to the apartment. On our way up, we saw many guys in sportswear, so we assumed it's the area where all the sports people lived in. We were scared by the thought of having so many suspicious guys around this area and started walking up fast the slope. We went into a university apartment on the way up and they told us that they sold bedsheets. WOW finally we could get some bedsheets. But to our disppointment, they were out of stock. double boo. WE WENT SO MANY PLACES ALR. the bedsheets and pillows were obviously hiding from us. So we continued walking up slope in an attempt to find joce's apartment. Asked this lady for directions and she so happened to be an exchange student in NUS before. COOL. but she took economics so we didn't know her friend in NUS. She advised us to go ROSS which we mistook for RALPH's. Told her we couldn't find any there and headed back down slope. Found the Westwood chateau apartments finally but they also didn't have bedsheets! ZOMG

Then, it was about 8pm already and the sky was really getting dark. Headed towards the bottom of the slope where we were suppose to meet tall nut. Suddenly, this red sports car honked and the blacks in there yelled something out. We weren't sure who they were shouting at but it was real scary. butterfingers and I wanted to escape so we brisk walked away from them, turned around to make sure they weren't following us and found them stopping around a corner. OMG they stopped! We were praying that they won't follow us and called peigen immediately to tell him to hurry to the reagan medicial centre which we were at. Butterfingers and I decided that we should just enter the medical centre for safety purposes. So we went in and sat down there waiting for tall nut, the pseudo hero, to arrive. We were so desperate for bedsheets at that time we even thought of asking the hospital for bedsheets loan. AHHHH. but before we could ask, tall nut appeared. So we just headed for dinner at noodle planet. BOOOOO NO BEDSHEETS.

lol anyway so in the end we slept without bedsheets so we bought lysol disinfectant and spammed it on our matresses. and slept like that that night. handstand put jackets and her laptop cover into her pillowcase to make a makeshift pillow, and butter fingers wrapped her jacket around her feet to make a makeshift blanket. haha that's the end of our adventure!!