Time Machine: San Francisco, New Year's Eve, December 31, 2009

For New Year's Eve, I wanted to do one of those big bashes in San Francisco, and fortunately I found some willing participants to go with me:  my cousin Sheri and my friend Megan, whom you've already met in a previous Time Machine entry for Waikiki.  Partners in crime we are.  The year before, I was in Las Vegas with my parents and thousands of other people on the Strip (in the middle of the street!), counting down to midnight.  We'll save that for a future Time Machine entry.  Here's a teaser:  my dad says at one point during the night, "It smells like marijuana!"

Of course, we researched where to go.  There were many choices, ranging from nightclubs, bars, and hotels.  There was even a party offered at the San Francisco City Hall, which has the most beautiful rotunda.  But it didn't sound as cool as the one at the Westin St. Francis hotel, sponsored by "A-list".  (note, link will probably update to the latest NYE party)  There were rooms with different themes, plus a fashion show and live music, so we opted to go there.  Tickets were sold on A-list's website, but you know me, I had to look for discounts since it was T-minus one week and prices had gone up.  Using San Francisco's craigslist, I found a pair of tickets from one person, and one ticket from another.  Sheri was sooooo nice to go and do the transactions in person, with cash!  We ended up paying ~$100 for each ticket, 50% off "face value", not too bad for last-minute.  The tickets included admission and all-you-can-drink.

New Year's Eve was a work day, boo.  I left work in the afternoon and Megan and I set off for Sheri's house in San Francisco.  When we arrived in town, Sheri was in the process of picking up the NYE party tickets.  The Westin wasn't too far away from where she works.  Sheri texted me that the line was full of people in their 20's, and no Asians.  This doesn't faze us in the least.  We're ecstatic because we'd be the "hot Asian chicks" at the party!

We picked up drive-thru McDonald's and scarfed it down at Sheri's before changing into our party dresses.  I had brought several with me as I was indecisive about what to wear.  Thank goodness I had brought a "younger"-looking dress to blend in with the 20-somethings; the rest of my dresses had heavy beading and/or sequins on them.  They would have been perfect to wear on a cruise or even a work-related evening party, but not at a place where young people were going to be running around and getting wasted.  Sheri and Megan's dresses were perfect for the venue...my dress reeked of "not-a-spring-chicken" since the hem went past my knees!  I had Sheri take a picture of me on my iPhone so I could send it to Babe, who was attending a NYE party at his friend's house.  He texted back "wow".  Such a sweetie.

BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) offered special NYE service to downtown San Francisco until the wee hours of the morning, so we opted to do that instead of chancing our life on the road after the festivities were over.  Parking was free at the BART station as it was after-hours.  We saw many other people doing the same thing, all dressed up to party, waiting for the BART train to come.  The ride to downtown SF took 15 minutes or so.  We walked several blocks to the Westin, which flanked one side of Union Square.  The doors had already opened at 9pm; we got there around 9:30pm and the line was snaking down the side of the hotel.  Hardly any Asians in line.  We eventually make our way to the entrance, protected by several big bouncers who were checking ID's.  I chatted with a cute African-American and he told me that they made $300 for the 6 hours of work.  Not bad for standing in front of a door and kicking drunkards out.  He also mentioned that he'd be around after the party. ;)

We got inside, traded our tickets for wristbands, and did a coat-check for $4.  Too bad there wasn't a purse check as I hated carrying my bag around.  Next thing we did was explore all the different rooms and get a drink.  The party theme was "Passport to the World", so the ballrooms were decorated to represent Europe, Asia, and USA.  There were smaller rooms with other themes, like the North Pole.  The Asia room was filled with a ton of individually-wrapped fortune cookies, bleh.  As the night went by, these cookies would eventually disappear, as drunk people get the munchies.

There was a room that was showcasing pop hits, so we stayed in there a while to dance.  It's a challenge to dance and hold a drink at the same time.  The dance floor was already starting to get wet from spilled drinks.  We shimmed off our double cheeseburger dinner.  Around 11pm, we head over to the USA ballroom.  A catwalk was set up for the fashion show, which was so-so.  The fashions were okay but I think the models were pulled from the crowd, not exactly supermodel-types.  After the show was over, the catwalk was dismantled, providing more space to dance.  The dance floor got more crowded as the night went on.  I saw huge nets hanging from the ceiling, filled with hundreds of balloons to fall on party-goers at the crack of midnight.  The dance floor was getting sopping wet.  A guy came over from one of the VIP tables with a bottle of Grey Goose in hand and started dancing with us.  He wanted to free up both hands to dance with us, so he put the bottle down on the floor.  I was worried that someone was going to trip over it as the dance floor was packed.  Eventually, this girl picked up the bottle and goes 'Yeah!' and chugged.  The guy was a bit dismayed (since he probably paid $500 for table service!), but he was having a good time dancing with us.  There was a screen with a digital clock projected on it, counting down the time to midnight.  (the picture is showing 9+ seconds, with what seems to be hundred-thousands of a second accuracy)  It was very hard to take iPhone pictures while moving and in the dark.  I wasn't really looking forward to midnight, as I knew that there'd be people looking around for someone to kiss, and I wasn't wanting to kiss a stranger.  Once the clock struck midnight, balloons were pouring down and everyone was screaming "Happy New Year!"  I texted a kiss to Babe and tried to look busy on my phone, avoiding eye contact with people.  Eventually, the guy who was dancing around with the bottle came over and gave me a wet kiss on my cheek.  I think he also gave Sheri and Megan wet kisses too, bleh.

I wasn't getting my money's worth at the party...I only had a vodka tonic that night, and had Sprite the rest of the time, so that I could watch over my girls.  (I'm good at that!)  I didn't mind as I was not in the mood to get smashed that night.  Sheri and Megan had several drinks and were very happy at this point.  Lots of young people got their money's worth and were running around the hallways, screaming obscenities at the top of their lungs.  A fight almost broke out on the staircase while we were walking upstairs.  Eventually, we managed to stumble over to the "North Pole" room to dance.  Since we were a group of girls without partners, three guys came over to dance with us.  I was paired up with a guy that looked Middle Eastern.  He was pretty harmless, so I danced with him the rest of the night to stop other guys from approaching.  The time was around 1am and I was getting tired.  I told the girls that I wanted to leave, so we got our coats and headed to the BART station.  It was a slooooow walk as everyone's feet were hurting.  We headed back to Sheri's BART station.  I was getting the munchies (surprise surprise), so I convinced them to go to Denny's.  It was packed at 3am, and there was a long line of people waiting to be seated.  Fortunately for us, it was a big group that was waiting; we were seated within 10 minutes since we only had 3 people.  Why does a Denny's breakfast taste so good after a long night?  What was cool was that I had updated my status on Facebook, and my friend Sandy added a comment that she and mutual friend Melissa were also at Denny's at the same time, but back home in Sacramento!  It was like we were virtually together, hehe.  After our post-party eats, we went back to Sheri's and crashed until noon.

In summary, I don't think I will go to another one of these local hotel NYE bashes unless I was with Babe, or a big group of friends.  I'd also try a different venue, perhaps SF City Hall, as I am impressed with the architecture.  If I was looking for a good place to party on NYE, I'd do Las Vegas again.  Maybe for NYE 2010...see you there?