Around The World

Rent a Car Enterprise doesn't have any cars available so I tried this. The conceirge guy called them for me and asked for a quotation for a convertible. The cheapest was at least 170USD. Soooo, we settled for a non convertible which was half the price. It's supposedly said that their service is so superb, they will drive the car down to your hotel, and you settle the documentations and voila, you're out for your road trip. However, they take at least an hour or so to get the car to you which would be wasting quite some sunshine time out. So instead, we requested to be picked up to pick a car at their office, which indeed came quite fast. So the paperwork and selection of the car was settled in a breeze. The guy set the GPS for us and so here we go.

Just when I was hitting the wheels and trying to follow the GPS, the GPS doesn't seem to dictate the location of the car and doesn't seem to be directing the vehicle to any sensible location that is entered. I kept on driving straight, having faith that it would somehow point to the correct location. 5 mins past and it still showed that same screen it was 5 mins ago and I started panicking. I tried to do a U-turn and tried to find the B&W Car Rental but oh shit we just couldn't find it! Basically I was just following my instinct and the faith that I would probably see a freeway entrance and get to the destination. Little do I know that the roads are so unfamiliar and complicated. Totally lost somehow after 1 hour of driving aimlessly. I think I ended up at Hawthorne and was approached some strangers and asked for help. One guy did try to play around with the GPS but it just seemed faulty. Then he took out his own phone and tried pointing us to the correct direction to get to our destination. On the phone it looks simple - straight roads, turn here turn there. The real deal isn't easy. Then we continued driving hoping to find a shop to get a mobile sim card to use google maps. 

FUCK! My phone isn't even unlocked? Faints. At this point, I felt so hopeless and almost at the brim of tears. My friend seemed to want to burst into tears too. But we both held in. But the most amazing thing happens when I felt that there's mankind on earth was that the lady at the mobile shop was so willingly helping us find our way back. She lent us a phone to call the rental company but we left the car rental details back in the car. Luckily their brand is so distinct I could still recall it in the state of destress. She googled it and call them and asked for a direction back. Then, printed out a google direction guide. I don't seem to seem to apprehend the directions but still very appreciative of her kind gestures. So we continued asking around the correct direction we should head in the cross junction. After driving aimlessly for the new 20 minutes and all depending on 6th sense, I finally got my ass back to the rental company.

I'm not sure whether to praise them for their service recovery or curse them for their lousy products. They gave us a faulty shitty crap GPS and spoiled the entire day and sightseeing plan, but they were 'nice' enough to refund the rental amount except for insurance - which at least we didn't lose the whole amount just getting ourselves lost in foreign land. After much negotiations, they were willing to drop us at one of the beaches.

  

Was at Manhattan Beach. The beach region is HUGE - there's a downtown beach shopping area and the truely-beach area which is unwalkable. Gotta take a bus, and even so it's still a distance. The beachside clothing retail shops has the most gorgeous beachwear, and so is the price tag!