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sarea
Another post written while in Anchorage!
Okay, so after the LA trip, I returned on Tuesday, July 10, and on Friday, July 13, I left for Las Vegas, for a work trip. However, I will write about that another time. Next up is whenjade_okelani came up to visit Seattle! Well, technically, she was here for work, but we managed to fit in some fun things anyway.
DAY ONE
She arrived on July 19, the same day that I flew back from Vegas. That's how tightly packed all my trips were during this period! Insane!
We had originally planned to go to Cuoco that first night, but I realized that I hadn't yet updated my Prime/Passport card, which gives me BOGO with an entree there. So of course we felt like that was too good a deal to instead pay full price for, so instead we went upstairs to Brave Horse Tavern, where we split a pretzel with pimento cheese dip (only it wasn't a dip? It was just... cold cheese in some kind of sauce? It was weird and unsatisfying), a burger, and blackened chicken tenders, which were forgettable. So basically the burger was the only good thing that night.
DAY TWO
The next day was Friday, and we met up with Adelagia and went to Gyu-kaku for lunch. It was the last reservation for that place that I had booked before they stopped doing lunch reservations, so it's unclear when we'll go back. Anyway, it was Jade's first time there, and a good time was had by all. Dinner that night was Tropea, where Jade and I split their spaghetti bolognese, insalate speciale, and fusilli quattro formaggi, as well as their coconut sorbet, which was served in a coconut shell. Adelagia had the spaghetti bolognese. It was all delicious, per the usual. Why is pasta so yummy?
Apparently we scarfed the pasta too quickly, because this is the only pic I have from that meal.
After dinner we went to do the Pirates of the Caribbean escape room at Quest Factor in Redmond. They also had a very nice waiting area, complete with boardgames and everything. Soooooo what happened with this room was that we went in and beat it in like 30 minutes. Only... we weren't sure how or why, because it all seemed to happen too quickly, and we hadn't solved many of the puzzles we knew we had to. Initially the game master seemed unaware that anything was wrong, even though we had solved it in what seemed like record time. It was only when we were increasingly fractious about all the puzzles that we hadn't solved, and we didn't understand how we had gotten to this point -- something was either wrong, or it was the lamest, easiest escape room ever -- that he realized that the room was broken, and something had been available to us that shouldn't have been (a beating heart for us to squeeze, but that's neither here nor there). At first he was like, I'll give you some % off the price, but I was like, "UM, THIS WAS NO FUN AT ALL" and I think he could tell by our mutinous expressions that that was not going to cut it, so he backtracked and just let us leave. At the time we did not realize it, but Adelagia had already paid for her entry as part of their reservation procedure, or I would have also demanded a refund on her behalf. (It ended up working out later, but that would be jumping ahead.)
It was such an unsatisfying experience, and the three of us had so been looking forward to a true escape room experience, that we booked another escape room all the way in Seattle, and drove there immediately afterward, lol. We did the Time Warp room, which we didn't beat... but the Time Escape rooms are all only 45 min, so I give us a tiny bit of leeway for that. Even though I assume they're optimized for 45 min, given that. SHHHHH.
DAY THREE
Originally for lunch on this day I was going to have a BBQ at my house. My yard was done and I was excited to try out my grill for the first time. However, I got sick while in Vegas, so I wasn't up for doing any of the prep work that would be involved.
Also, I had an errand to run that day -- I was supposed to pick up food from Teapot that would be served the next day at M's BBQ. I had been wracking my brain for what I could do with this food. I was going to pick it up in the afternoon, but we had a packed agenda including dinner and another escape room in Seattle. I didn't want to just keep the food in the trunk of my car for that whole time, but I didn't see any way around it. Then I hit upon the solution: I would store the food at work! There are fridges there and no one would be there on the weekend, so it would be perfect. However, I hadn't brought my card key out, because of course I was not expecting to have to go to work. D'ohhhhhhhhhh! I texted C. and bless him, he suggested that we meet up so that I could get his card key from him. However, it was going to be tricky, because Jade and I were trying to make a movie, and it was unclear where C. was going to be, and at what time.
While trying to figure all this out, Adelagia, Jade and I were at Pomegranate for brunch. I figured that if I ate quickly enough, I would actually have time to go back home to get my own card key. It wasn't ideal, because it felt like a "wasted" drive, but it was preferable to the alternative, which was to put C. out and at the same time risk not being able to do what I wanted to do. Luckily, the food arrived quickly so I was able to scarf it down and book it to my house. We decided that we would meet at the theater rather than getting Jade's rental car as we had originally planned, but it turned out that I made such good time, I actually could have done the latter.
We went to Lincoln Square to watch Unfriended: Dark Web. It was yet another horror movie that disappointed. :( Jade and I had unexpectedly really enjoyed the first Unfriended, but the sequel wasn't nearly as good. Horror movies are not Adelagia's thing, so she hung out at Lincoln Square until the movie got out.
After the movie we went to Midori, which was Jade's first time because when she was here last summer, they had closed for a summer break. We got 6 items, including the two different types of kouign amanns, a cream puff (passionfruit raspberry), a strawberry and pistachio tart, a cherry vanilla almond dacquoise, and a thing I forget the name of, but it's like a fancy doughnut covered with powdered sugar and with jam in the middle. Jade's favorite was the cin-amann, and I agree with her that it's the deliciousest. :D However, the cherry vanilla almond dacquoise was also super good, and we agreed that was next. I think she said the two kouign amanns were at the top, followed by the cherry dacquoise, and I can't say I disagree with her. The thing about Midori's baked goods is that they are not only best on the first day, you pretty much HAVE to eat them on the first day. Because by the second day they are already drastically different and drop significantly in deliciousness. I suppose that is the hallmark of truly fresh, high-quality baked goods. I've tried getting extra to eat later, and it's just never worth it. Probably a good thing, because that means Midori is a treat that I get to have right in the moment, but not beyond.
For dinner we metslitherhither at Shiro's, where they have a special omakase for $75/pp. Adelagia had had it once before, and I'd had it twice, but we agreed after this time that we probably didn't need to ever do it again. It wasn't that different from time to time, so it's kind of like, once you've done it a couple of times, it loses its luster. Jade got the omakase that was one step "down" (in cost), but it actually seemed more interesting. There was less sushi, but not by much, and there was interesting cooked food to take its place.
After dinner the 4 of us went back to the same Time Out escape room place from the night before, but this time we did Presidential Assassination. Again we failed to escape the room. :( But both of the rooms we did were rather forgettable, and 45 min is a really short time. So I can't say it was that much fun, especially to have to drive out to Seattle to do.
Since B. was close to home she declined to join us for another escape room back in Redmond. We decided to give Quest Factor another chance, especially as once Jade talked to someone over there, they offered to book us into another room for free. Or rather, since Adelagia had already paid her fee for the other room, we just split that cost between the three of us, so it was like a heavily discounted experience. We did the Dracula room, which was SUPER creepy but fun. It wasn't scary like The Orphanage, but in terms of creep factor it was probably the worst we've experienced. The game master said that he was so freaked out by the room he hated having to reset it, and would listen to his headphones the whole time, so that the room's eerie music (which he didn't know how to turn off) wouldn't get to it. I believe we did end up beating this room, so good for us. Though there was a "mad at the room" moment when the coffin that we were supposed to open (YES THINK OF THAT) required some really fussy placement with the cogs, and then it required far more force than we'd normally use on something in an escape room, to actually pop it open.
DAY FOUR
This was the day of M.'s BBQ, which is an event he holds every year and flies up our comrades who don't live in Seattle, to attend. First thing in the morning, I went to Whole Foods to pick up the whole sheet Berry Chantilly Cake that I had special ordered. I also got a couple of bags of party ice, so as to keep it as chilled as possible while it was in the trunk of my car. I then went to work and retrieved all the vegetarian food from the fridge, and Jade Lyfted to meet me after she returned her rental car.
We then went to our reservation at Ma'ono, because we were going to West Seattle anyway, and had fried chicken and stuff. Sooo good, but of course probably ruined our appetites for the rest of the day. First world problems.
Anyway, after lunch we had a bit of time to kill before we were expected at M's, so we went to Lincoln Park and enjoyed the scenery there. It was a beautiful day so the water was really lovely, and we took some silly selfies and things like that.
We got to M's and the sheet cake seemed none the worse for wear, other than the box having damaged a couple of the corners. Still, at least it had not melted into a mess, so the party ice had done its job. Jade and I went immediately to work, helping M with prep, including wrapping dumplings. Not long after, Other M showed up and also helped with the dumpling wrapping. The problem was, this was around noon and M didn't end up cooking the dumplings until hours later. We didn't realize this at the time, so we just left them out on the parchment, to which they immediately got stuck after awhile. Had we known he wasn't going to cook them for awhile, we would have put them in the fridge. Le sigh.
Initially, Jade and I had planned to leave early-ish, so that we could catch another movie, but once the party was in full swing it was hard to leave, because it was like the party had just gotten started, so our leaving would have been weird. K and her mom showed up with like hundreds of egg rolls that the latter ended up frying on M's balcony in his little deep fryer, lol. Her egg rolls are super good, and she even uses turkey instead of beef or pork! K had also breaded a bunch of shrimp, that I helped her deep fry (I found it really fun), and those were delicious too. Because M took so long with the rest of the food, by the time it was ready I was already stuffed with egg rolls and shrimp, lol. Other K had brought a couple of Peking ducks that she had made, but I could only eat a piece of it. M's spread of various lettuces and herbs and fish and meat to make our own wraps was wonderful, but I could barely eat any of it, I was so full from first Ma'ono and then the aforementioned egg rolls and such.
Then it was time to bust out the cake, and I felt so much pride in serving it as though I had made it myself, lol. It's because it's such a good cake, and so unexpectedly so, that it was fun to see people initially decline having any cake, and then as word got around on how good it was, it slowly but surely disappeared. I took a giant slice home for myself, and also another one for Adelagia, and then M piled me with other food -- shrimp that he hadn't gotten around to cooking, two extra pork loins that he had made just in case there wasn't enough food, and lots of egg rolls.
Also, Other M and I saved the peanuts. :)) Also the plantains. M had basically no plan for either of these things. The peanuts were somewhat chewy and stale, even though they were fresh, because they had been neither toasted nor fried. And he was going to serve the plantain raw! I had never heard of such a thing, but one taste led me to declare that this was not acceptable. So Other M and I fried the peanuts, and seasoned them, and at first people accused us of ruining them because they were somehow worse even than before. But I said it was because they were still hot, once they were cooled they would be much better, and that was totally true. They became freaking delicious once they had cooled properly! And after frying the shrimp I fried the plantains and seasoned them, and they too became edible. 잘 했다, 사레아, 잘 했다.
Jade and I ended up leaving when everyone else did, and we headed back to my house, where we dropped off the food. Adelagia met us there, and then the three of us set out for Quest Factor in Redmond again, where we did the Bank Heist room. This was also a really fun room, where we needed to operate a remote-controlled car, and where there were laser sensors a la Mission Impossible. I did a needlessly useless thing, which was crawling on my stomach through the room in order to avoid the lasers, before I realized -- wait, it's not like the cops would actually come arrest us, and it's not like they could just fail us out of the room, so what did avoiding the lasers really do? And it turned out the obvious answer was: Nothing. If you tripped them, the room would blare out an alarm and then reset. So in theory you could just run through the lasers and trip them, then just stand on the other side where you were supposed to get to anyway, until they reset. Unfortunately we didn't end up beating this room, but it was fun anyway.
The next day Jade left to go back to LA, so thus ends this trip report!
Okay, so after the LA trip, I returned on Tuesday, July 10, and on Friday, July 13, I left for Las Vegas, for a work trip. However, I will write about that another time. Next up is when
jade_okelani came up to visit Seattle! Well, technically, she was here for work, but we managed to fit in some fun things anyway.DAY ONE
She arrived on July 19, the same day that I flew back from Vegas. That's how tightly packed all my trips were during this period! Insane!
We had originally planned to go to Cuoco that first night, but I realized that I hadn't yet updated my Prime/Passport card, which gives me BOGO with an entree there. So of course we felt like that was too good a deal to instead pay full price for, so instead we went upstairs to Brave Horse Tavern, where we split a pretzel with pimento cheese dip (only it wasn't a dip? It was just... cold cheese in some kind of sauce? It was weird and unsatisfying), a burger, and blackened chicken tenders, which were forgettable. So basically the burger was the only good thing that night.
DAY TWO
The next day was Friday, and we met up with Adelagia and went to Gyu-kaku for lunch. It was the last reservation for that place that I had booked before they stopped doing lunch reservations, so it's unclear when we'll go back. Anyway, it was Jade's first time there, and a good time was had by all. Dinner that night was Tropea, where Jade and I split their spaghetti bolognese, insalate speciale, and fusilli quattro formaggi, as well as their coconut sorbet, which was served in a coconut shell. Adelagia had the spaghetti bolognese. It was all delicious, per the usual. Why is pasta so yummy?
Apparently we scarfed the pasta too quickly, because this is the only pic I have from that meal.
After dinner we went to do the Pirates of the Caribbean escape room at Quest Factor in Redmond. They also had a very nice waiting area, complete with boardgames and everything. Soooooo what happened with this room was that we went in and beat it in like 30 minutes. Only... we weren't sure how or why, because it all seemed to happen too quickly, and we hadn't solved many of the puzzles we knew we had to. Initially the game master seemed unaware that anything was wrong, even though we had solved it in what seemed like record time. It was only when we were increasingly fractious about all the puzzles that we hadn't solved, and we didn't understand how we had gotten to this point -- something was either wrong, or it was the lamest, easiest escape room ever -- that he realized that the room was broken, and something had been available to us that shouldn't have been (a beating heart for us to squeeze, but that's neither here nor there). At first he was like, I'll give you some % off the price, but I was like, "UM, THIS WAS NO FUN AT ALL" and I think he could tell by our mutinous expressions that that was not going to cut it, so he backtracked and just let us leave. At the time we did not realize it, but Adelagia had already paid for her entry as part of their reservation procedure, or I would have also demanded a refund on her behalf. (It ended up working out later, but that would be jumping ahead.)
It was such an unsatisfying experience, and the three of us had so been looking forward to a true escape room experience, that we booked another escape room all the way in Seattle, and drove there immediately afterward, lol. We did the Time Warp room, which we didn't beat... but the Time Escape rooms are all only 45 min, so I give us a tiny bit of leeway for that. Even though I assume they're optimized for 45 min, given that. SHHHHH.
DAY THREE
Originally for lunch on this day I was going to have a BBQ at my house. My yard was done and I was excited to try out my grill for the first time. However, I got sick while in Vegas, so I wasn't up for doing any of the prep work that would be involved.
Also, I had an errand to run that day -- I was supposed to pick up food from Teapot that would be served the next day at M's BBQ. I had been wracking my brain for what I could do with this food. I was going to pick it up in the afternoon, but we had a packed agenda including dinner and another escape room in Seattle. I didn't want to just keep the food in the trunk of my car for that whole time, but I didn't see any way around it. Then I hit upon the solution: I would store the food at work! There are fridges there and no one would be there on the weekend, so it would be perfect. However, I hadn't brought my card key out, because of course I was not expecting to have to go to work. D'ohhhhhhhhhh! I texted C. and bless him, he suggested that we meet up so that I could get his card key from him. However, it was going to be tricky, because Jade and I were trying to make a movie, and it was unclear where C. was going to be, and at what time.
While trying to figure all this out, Adelagia, Jade and I were at Pomegranate for brunch. I figured that if I ate quickly enough, I would actually have time to go back home to get my own card key. It wasn't ideal, because it felt like a "wasted" drive, but it was preferable to the alternative, which was to put C. out and at the same time risk not being able to do what I wanted to do. Luckily, the food arrived quickly so I was able to scarf it down and book it to my house. We decided that we would meet at the theater rather than getting Jade's rental car as we had originally planned, but it turned out that I made such good time, I actually could have done the latter.
We went to Lincoln Square to watch Unfriended: Dark Web. It was yet another horror movie that disappointed. :( Jade and I had unexpectedly really enjoyed the first Unfriended, but the sequel wasn't nearly as good. Horror movies are not Adelagia's thing, so she hung out at Lincoln Square until the movie got out.
After the movie we went to Midori, which was Jade's first time because when she was here last summer, they had closed for a summer break. We got 6 items, including the two different types of kouign amanns, a cream puff (passionfruit raspberry), a strawberry and pistachio tart, a cherry vanilla almond dacquoise, and a thing I forget the name of, but it's like a fancy doughnut covered with powdered sugar and with jam in the middle. Jade's favorite was the cin-amann, and I agree with her that it's the deliciousest. :D However, the cherry vanilla almond dacquoise was also super good, and we agreed that was next. I think she said the two kouign amanns were at the top, followed by the cherry dacquoise, and I can't say I disagree with her. The thing about Midori's baked goods is that they are not only best on the first day, you pretty much HAVE to eat them on the first day. Because by the second day they are already drastically different and drop significantly in deliciousness. I suppose that is the hallmark of truly fresh, high-quality baked goods. I've tried getting extra to eat later, and it's just never worth it. Probably a good thing, because that means Midori is a treat that I get to have right in the moment, but not beyond.
For dinner we met
slitherhither at Shiro's, where they have a special omakase for $75/pp. Adelagia had had it once before, and I'd had it twice, but we agreed after this time that we probably didn't need to ever do it again. It wasn't that different from time to time, so it's kind of like, once you've done it a couple of times, it loses its luster. Jade got the omakase that was one step "down" (in cost), but it actually seemed more interesting. There was less sushi, but not by much, and there was interesting cooked food to take its place.After dinner the 4 of us went back to the same Time Out escape room place from the night before, but this time we did Presidential Assassination. Again we failed to escape the room. :( But both of the rooms we did were rather forgettable, and 45 min is a really short time. So I can't say it was that much fun, especially to have to drive out to Seattle to do.
Since B. was close to home she declined to join us for another escape room back in Redmond. We decided to give Quest Factor another chance, especially as once Jade talked to someone over there, they offered to book us into another room for free. Or rather, since Adelagia had already paid her fee for the other room, we just split that cost between the three of us, so it was like a heavily discounted experience. We did the Dracula room, which was SUPER creepy but fun. It wasn't scary like The Orphanage, but in terms of creep factor it was probably the worst we've experienced. The game master said that he was so freaked out by the room he hated having to reset it, and would listen to his headphones the whole time, so that the room's eerie music (which he didn't know how to turn off) wouldn't get to it. I believe we did end up beating this room, so good for us. Though there was a "mad at the room" moment when the coffin that we were supposed to open (YES THINK OF THAT) required some really fussy placement with the cogs, and then it required far more force than we'd normally use on something in an escape room, to actually pop it open.
DAY FOUR
This was the day of M.'s BBQ, which is an event he holds every year and flies up our comrades who don't live in Seattle, to attend. First thing in the morning, I went to Whole Foods to pick up the whole sheet Berry Chantilly Cake that I had special ordered. I also got a couple of bags of party ice, so as to keep it as chilled as possible while it was in the trunk of my car. I then went to work and retrieved all the vegetarian food from the fridge, and Jade Lyfted to meet me after she returned her rental car.
We then went to our reservation at Ma'ono, because we were going to West Seattle anyway, and had fried chicken and stuff. Sooo good, but of course probably ruined our appetites for the rest of the day. First world problems.
Anyway, after lunch we had a bit of time to kill before we were expected at M's, so we went to Lincoln Park and enjoyed the scenery there. It was a beautiful day so the water was really lovely, and we took some silly selfies and things like that.
We got to M's and the sheet cake seemed none the worse for wear, other than the box having damaged a couple of the corners. Still, at least it had not melted into a mess, so the party ice had done its job. Jade and I went immediately to work, helping M with prep, including wrapping dumplings. Not long after, Other M showed up and also helped with the dumpling wrapping. The problem was, this was around noon and M didn't end up cooking the dumplings until hours later. We didn't realize this at the time, so we just left them out on the parchment, to which they immediately got stuck after awhile. Had we known he wasn't going to cook them for awhile, we would have put them in the fridge. Le sigh.
Initially, Jade and I had planned to leave early-ish, so that we could catch another movie, but once the party was in full swing it was hard to leave, because it was like the party had just gotten started, so our leaving would have been weird. K and her mom showed up with like hundreds of egg rolls that the latter ended up frying on M's balcony in his little deep fryer, lol. Her egg rolls are super good, and she even uses turkey instead of beef or pork! K had also breaded a bunch of shrimp, that I helped her deep fry (I found it really fun), and those were delicious too. Because M took so long with the rest of the food, by the time it was ready I was already stuffed with egg rolls and shrimp, lol. Other K had brought a couple of Peking ducks that she had made, but I could only eat a piece of it. M's spread of various lettuces and herbs and fish and meat to make our own wraps was wonderful, but I could barely eat any of it, I was so full from first Ma'ono and then the aforementioned egg rolls and such.
Then it was time to bust out the cake, and I felt so much pride in serving it as though I had made it myself, lol. It's because it's such a good cake, and so unexpectedly so, that it was fun to see people initially decline having any cake, and then as word got around on how good it was, it slowly but surely disappeared. I took a giant slice home for myself, and also another one for Adelagia, and then M piled me with other food -- shrimp that he hadn't gotten around to cooking, two extra pork loins that he had made just in case there wasn't enough food, and lots of egg rolls.
Also, Other M and I saved the peanuts. :)) Also the plantains. M had basically no plan for either of these things. The peanuts were somewhat chewy and stale, even though they were fresh, because they had been neither toasted nor fried. And he was going to serve the plantain raw! I had never heard of such a thing, but one taste led me to declare that this was not acceptable. So Other M and I fried the peanuts, and seasoned them, and at first people accused us of ruining them because they were somehow worse even than before. But I said it was because they were still hot, once they were cooled they would be much better, and that was totally true. They became freaking delicious once they had cooled properly! And after frying the shrimp I fried the plantains and seasoned them, and they too became edible. 잘 했다, 사레아, 잘 했다.
Jade and I ended up leaving when everyone else did, and we headed back to my house, where we dropped off the food. Adelagia met us there, and then the three of us set out for Quest Factor in Redmond again, where we did the Bank Heist room. This was also a really fun room, where we needed to operate a remote-controlled car, and where there were laser sensors a la Mission Impossible. I did a needlessly useless thing, which was crawling on my stomach through the room in order to avoid the lasers, before I realized -- wait, it's not like the cops would actually come arrest us, and it's not like they could just fail us out of the room, so what did avoiding the lasers really do? And it turned out the obvious answer was: Nothing. If you tripped them, the room would blare out an alarm and then reset. So in theory you could just run through the lasers and trip them, then just stand on the other side where you were supposed to get to anyway, until they reset. Unfortunately we didn't end up beating this room, but it was fun anyway.
The next day Jade left to go back to LA, so thus ends this trip report!
