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Here's the long-overdue trip summary of the Bay Area trip jade_okelani and I took in Nov 2018. It's truly a summary at this point, as I've long forgotten many details, and am going off some notes I took as well as our itinerary, and that's it. No doubt there will be many edits once Jade reads this and is like, "Remember this or that?"
The weird thing is, I sort of remember writing about parts of it? I wonder if I did write about it and lost it or something, and just couldn’t face doing it again. If that happened, I’ve blocked it haha.
Wed, Nov 7, 2018
I arrived in SJC ahead of schedule! Jade had already arrived, but not too much earlier. The exit to baggage claim was between her gate and mine, so we met in the middle, JUST LIKE my coming from Seattle and her coming from LA!
We went to Budget to get the rental car and omg the line moved sooooooooooo slowly. We know now that next time, whoever arrives early will just go get in line for the rental car. We got through it because we had each other – we ordered oatmilk from Oatly for me and I KT’edadelagia to do the same (they only release the ability to order once every so often, and you’re only allowed to order one case per person, so I had to get both of them involved) – and ate raspberry almond bars from Midori, which were of course delicious. (RIP Midori… at least in your standalone store form. *cry*) The guy ahead of us, however, did not have a friend or any patience (not that I really blame him) and he was maaaaaaaaaaad. We heard a Budget employee tell him that all that was left was a minivan, maybe because of his fare class, maybe because he was being a dick, who knows? Because when we got up to check in, we were given a Nissan Sentra. This is, however, the same type of car we had a major accident in years ago. Always a good sign!
For lunch we went to Old Port Lobster Shack, which was, oddly enough, in a strip mall. Odd because it’s kind of a pricey place, with pricey ingredients. We had a surly server who was not helpful at all. I got a regular lobster roll (made with mayo), while Jade got a naked lobster roll (butter instead of mayo). We also got fried calamari as a side. Verdict: hella fucking delicious… however, with tip it cost just under $80. O.o I mean… it was lobster and it was delicious but ohmygod.
We went to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott in Emeryville. We arrived around 1pm and was told that we could not do early check in, even though on the app I had already checked in and it said we were checked in. We took our bags back to the car, then when we went back to use the restroom, were told we could check in after all. WTF?
At 3pm we had an escape room to do, Omescape’s “Room Omega." It was full of math and super fun, but we got stuck at the end trying to converge time. -.- The gamemaster said afterward that we were going so fast at the beginning she thought we were going to set a new record. -.- Arrrghhh! The name “Room Omega" tells you nothing about the premise of the room, though. We both thought my suggestion for its name was way better: “DR. MATH AND HIS ADVENTURES IN TIME." LOL. I wrote our team name as “Time Convergers." For the irony, you see.
We then stopped by Gregoire for some potato puffs, which were yummy but not as yummy as I remembered from when I went with my cousin K. yeeaaaaars ago. It could have been that we were still pretty full from lunch, too, but due to location reasons and trying to cram everything in, we felt we had to go anyway. We walked around UC Berkeley for a bit, then went to Blue Bottle and got some kind of latte with Oatly oat milk and chicory, which was recommended to us by the barista and was very delicious. While we were drinking our lattes I suddenly realized that our Chez Panisse reservation was at 6pm and not 7pm as I had kept saying. Oops! But thank god it dawned on me, or we would have missed our reservation and been charged some annoying amount.
Possibly no other meal was as hyped as Chez Panisse, which has all this reputation and mystique surrounding it. I had also had a really, really great meal there when I went with K., though we weren’t able to get a reservation in the main dining room at the time and could only go to their café. I still remember that we had nettle pizza – NETTLE PIZZA WHAT – and it was sooooo effing delicious. So I had really high expectations since we were going to be in their main dining room for their $100/pp prix fixe (more like $140 after tax and tip) meal. Well… I guess when you have as high expectations as we had, it’s really hard to meet the bar, because it did not meet it. Everything was fine, but nothing was amazeballs (except maybe the dessert, which involved pear but I can’t actually remember it that well). Maybe it was the time of year? Maybe it was because we weren’t really hungry at all? I don’t know, but it wasn’t an experience I would need to repeat.
Thu, Nov 8, 2018
SICK. I was fucking sick, AGAIN. I was just getting over a cold – literally was still sniffling from it – when I woke up with a sore throat and feeling blah. Despite being sick before the trip, and getting my period the day before I left, the one saving grace was that I would be well, mostly, while we were in the Bay Area. HA! I can’t believe I fell for that. THANKS, UNIVERSE. I still can’t believe I got a cold twice in a row – that’s only ever happened one other time in my life… though that’s two times too many!! It also meant that getting my flu shot was once again delayed, since you’re not supposed to get it while you’re sick. Argh. Jade wasn’t feeling too well either, so we decided not to be too ambitious in terms of what we were going to do that day.
We went to Oliveto for lunch, which my cousin K. had recommended. It was okay. We got some pastas, I believe, and they were good, but again nothing spectacular. I’m sure our being sick didn’t help matters.
Since we weren’t going to go into the city for a day of fun, given how blah we felt, we decided to just watch TV in our hotel room. What? I mean, we never see each other, so even getting to do something like that, as long as it’s together, is special okay?! Anyway, we watched various episodes of: The Haunting of Hill House, What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?, Your Honor, Where Stars Land and I’m Not a Robot.
I had forgotten to bring a coat to the Bay Area, and in the evening it got cold enough to warrant one. All the terrible, raging forest fires made the air total shit, but not any warmer at night. I ordered one at Loft online, and at some point before dinner, went to pick it up. First we drove to the MacArthur BART station, parked, and took BART into the city. I got my coat (which was lovelier than even I had thought it would be, from seeing it online), and Jade bought a purple jack of her own. They were both like 40% off so it was awesome.
We walked to Pier 39 and had Boudin Bakery for dinner. A small bowl of okay clam chowder and half a grilled cheese with bacon cost almost $16! Outrageous! We then tried clam chowder at a different place and it was okay as well… we had this idea of trying every chowder being offered at Pier 39, but then we had yummy vanilla soft serve, some mini cinnamon sugar donuts, and tried some fudge, and more clam chowder seemed less and less appealing, lol. We went to the Lefthanders Store, but it was lame. We also got distracted by this place that had water massage machines. The guy, Alan (?), was really nice to us. Because it was later in the evening and thus not prime time, he gave us 10 min massages in the machines for $10, plus we got to try the oxygen bar (neither of us liked that very much). One time he sprayed something into our hands and gestured that we should sniff it (it was aromatherapy of some kind), so we did. Alan: “A stranger just sprayed something into your hands and told you breathe it in and YOU DID." LOLOL damn it, Alan.
By the time we left Alan it was pretty late … we left Pier 39 and walked back to the BART station, then took the train back to our car at the park and ride. It was a very successful and fun night, all things (mainly our not feeling that well) considered!
Fri, Nov. 9, 2018
We were going to do an early breakfast at Zazie, but since we weren’t feeling our best we decided to just make it a late brunch. We did the park and ride thing again, and took BART into the city.
Despite the wait, indicating that it was a popular place (and thus presumably had good food), we were both kinda underwhelmed with Zazie. The place was cramped and the food was only so-so. Afterward, we walked to Bi-Rite for ice cream. It was a looooong walk, going up and down San Francisco’s hills. Bi-Rite was yummy (I got salted caramel and some kind of cinnamon), generously portioned and costing less than $5. From there we walked to Boba Guys – everything was on Fillmore St. – and killed some time there. I had the strawberry matcha latte that I had so enjoyed the last time I was in SF for work, but it was too creamy for how I actually felt, while Jade had some kind of refreshing seasonal tea that was really good. They had a Korean fried chicken store pop-up at this particular location, so we tried the popcorn chicken and ddukbokki. I actually really liked the ddukbokki that way! Fried and in small pieces, with no sauce.
Then we walked to Rothy’s, and it was super disappointing, but they had no store-only prints! Ugh. But I was at least able to try on The Sneaker and found out my size for that (a 6, my normal size). After Rothy’s we had an hour to kill before dinner and really needed to pee, so we went to Subway and got a bathroom Coke lolol. That’s what I called it on Splitwise. Gross haha.
Dinner was at House of Prime Rib, which was the second-most anticipated meal of ours. This time, it did not disappoint, and even exceeded our high expectations. That’s right! House of Prime Rib is where it’s at! Dinner was THE BEST. We both got the English cut (thin slices), mashed potatoes, and half creamed corn, half creamed spinach. After we were done we each got one more slice of prime rib, and Jade even got a bit more of the sides. It was all delicious. For the money it’s actually a better experience than Lawry’s, imho. You could get a baked potato if you wanted, in place of the mashed potatoes, whereas Lawry’s charges extra for additional sides, there’s no substitutions – and they certainly don’t let you do half and half. And of course at Lawry’s you don’t get that extra slice of meat after you’re done (you have to get any of their cuts other than the smallest, to qualify). So Lawry’s is more costly and you don’t get as much. But I think their meat quality might be better; Jade didn’t think so, though, so maybe really there’s nothing Lawry’s is better at. It doesn’t really matter, though, given their locations – we’ll just go to whichever one we happen to be near!
After dinner we went to retrieve the car ($3 to park all day at the park and ride!) and drove to Sunnyvale to check into our next hotel, Wild Palms. Along the way my brother called to say he’d join us for the escape room we had planned for that night.
We did PanIQ’s “Wild West." It was at 11:30pm! We got it through a Groupon; PanIQ rooms are normally quite pricey. The room was fun, although we did not escape; the gamemaster said he was actually impressed we got as far as we did (we had just one puzzle left in a hidden room :/) for three people, and that no one had escaped that day. Doingdungeons escape rooms with a squad of too-few people since 2005! :P My brother, K. (yet another K. omg), did well for his first time! Unfortunately our ability to play chess did not help us with the part that involved chess (the instructions were NOT clear enough), and we lost a lot of time there. (Apropos of nothing, I had brought him a frozen – well, not by the time it got to him – mooncake, courtesy of my mom. -.-)
Sat, Nov. 10, 2018
Jade and I ate the breakfast provided by Wild Palms, and it was not bad at all considering it was complimentary.
We had a 9:20am tour of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, which lasted 2+ hours. I am not much of a museum type person, even though this isn’t strictly a museum and has a cool story to go along with it. I thought I would be into it, but I don’t know if it was because of how cold it was, or because I was sick, or what, but I was done with it pretty quickly. Just not my thing, I guess.
After that, we did something that is my thing – we went to an awesome restaurant and ate yummy things, lol. The restaurant was Orchard City Kitchen, which I had been to with my brother before, and it did not disappoint. Everything was yummy, and I was glad they still had the BBB (biscuit, butter, bacon). Soooo good.
Next up, an escape room! It was Omescape’s “Kingdom of Cats," and to this day I still consider it one of the most fun escape rooms we’ve done. Fun premise and fun puzzles (including a smelling puzzle that I don’t know if we’ve ever done before or since). Again we did really well until the very last puzzle, but we did manage to escape.
For dinner we met up with K. again and went to Din Ding Dumpling House; I would again give this establishment an “okay." That seemed to be the theme of our food experiences in the Bay Area, with a few exceptions.
After dinner it was time for another escape room! We did Crimson Key’s “The Breakout Club," in which we are elementary school students who first need to break into the computer system in order to change all our grades to As, then successfully break out before the teacher catches us and gives us detention. It’s a totally cute premise, and extremely low-tech… but we had tons of fun, and the gamemasters were this brother-sister team (we think) that were really friendly and cool. Again Jade’s quick wit was the source of much hilarity… the thing I remember most is when we were trying to pass math equations to our friend “Mark" who was hiding in the bathroom. He would do the math if we bribed him with candy, but all this answers came out in these perfectly laminated sheets. When we were asking for hints, the gamemaster asked us about Mark, and Jade was like, “…he’s hiding in the bathroom, and… I think he has a laminator in there!" LOLOL oh how we all (including the gamemaster) cracked up. Some of Mark’s hints to us, however, were handwritten – it was clear that we had stumped the gamemasters and their pre-planned hint system, haha. We succeeded in breaking out, but Crimson Key focuses on the experience rather than competition, so every group gets out, they make sure of it, lol.
After this is when we went to – Creamistry! For the first time! As I mentioned in my recent LA trip writeup (where we did 20 escape rooms), I had organic cream with black cherry, almonds, and whipped cream. Mmmm. It really hit the spot. (And since I’m planning to backdate this post, I don’t want future me to be confused – I’m writing this on May 12, 2019. So the LA trip I’m talking about is the one I recently did in April.)
That night, my coworker T. Skyped me from Thailand because she was at the Christian Louboutin store where her cousin is a manager, and she once again bought me a pair of shoes using her cousin’s employee discount. Score!
Sun, Nov. 11, 2018
Jade and I had brunch at The Table, which, you guessed it – was okay.
Then we went back to Crimson Key to do their other room, “Apartment 408." I don’t remember much about this one, though this time our gamemaster was the brother, and K. didn’t join us. I’m sure it was again a low-tech affair, because they seem to focus on the experience and the story. I have a vague recollection that I enjoyed it. Oddly, even though I had said previously that Crimson Key focuses on experience rather than competition so every group finishes, on my escape room spreadsheet I have a “no" marked for escaping this one. So did we or not? Only time – or Jade – will tell. (Or maybe we only finished because they gave us extra time. That’s probably it.)
Around 3pm, for a snack, we went to Bibo’s NY Style Pizza, which we enjoyed muchly. It was low key/casual, and we liked the slices we got. Hit the spot! Oh, and at some point we went to Sugar Butter Flour to get their burnt almond cake and other treats. It might have been before our stop at Bibo’s; I’m not sure now. :/ Anyway, the burnt almond cake was delish, but Jade was not impressed with any of their other items.
Then it was off to Sawadee Thai Massage, where we had 3-hour massage treatments planned. It cost a pretty penny and was nice and relaxing, but… it did not feel like 3 hours. I mean, obviously it lasted that long or we wouldn’t have left, but literally when they nudged us up we both thought that it was time for the next thing, when in fact they were done. LOL and -.-. I guess there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, because apparently when you go much past the hour mark, you can’t even really tell/appreciate it! I definitely don’t think it was worth what we paid.
We had dinner with K. at Tomi Sushi afterward, which put us there around 8pm. I had seen on Yelp or somewhere that their sushi omakase was the way to go, so that’s what we all did (at least, K. and I did, because I have pictures of it… not sure if maybe Jade did something else). It was good, probably one of our better Bay Area meals, but still not so outstanding that I’m clamoring to go back.
Mon, Nov. 12, 2018
Here’s the part where I’m nuts, and who better to be nuts with than my BFF, who is such a good sport about indulging the weird whims that I have??? So the story here is that at work, the thing that had been making the rounds as the next “must have" item was the Dyson Hair Wrap (it’s a blow dryer/curling iron combo that auto-wraps your hair around it, drying it in place), which was sold out everywhere (including online) despite a retail price of $500-600, depending on how you customized it. The day before or something like that, A. from work had sent around an email saying that the limited edition purple version of the Dyson Hair Wrap was available at Dyson stores in three cities, including San Francisco! Well of course once I heard that, I really really REALLY wanted to go get it, because it seemed like fate that I happened to be near one of the cities that had it? And yes, granted, we were already in South Bay and it meant we’d have to drive back up to San Francisco – at least an hour-long drive – but I just sooooooo wanted it. For some reason, though, we had to wait until Monday morning to even see if we would do it – maybe it was that the store was closed by the time I had seen A.’s email so I wasn’t sure if they actually had it, so I had to make sure they did before we could set off. Yeah, that was probably it.
Anyway, THEY DID, so off we went. I drove us back up – since this was my crazy idea/desire, it was only right that I take on driving duties – and then hopped out of the car while Jade circled around (because parking in SF is nuts) and walked to the Dyson store. The guy who helped me turned out to be a guy who was similar to me in age, and lived in Temple City and went to Temple City High, which was a “rival" school of mine! Not that I really knew of any rivalries in high school, but that’s how he put it. He was a drum major there and everything! And again it just felt like kismet that I should go to SF to buy this overpriced curling iron, lol. Anyway, I ended up going for the full set – I mean, when you’re buying a $600 curling iron, if you really have to hem and haw over whether to spend an additional $50 YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T BE BUYING IT AT ALL. The thing was HUGE omg and heavy – I had offered on the work email thread to bring one back for anyone else who was interested, but thank god no one took me up on it because I don’t think I could have hauled two sets of this thing back to Seattle with me. Definitely not with all the boxes intact.
Once we were back in South Bay, we went to Bibo’s again because we had enjoyed that pizza so much, and had a proper lunch there.
We must have gone back to the hotel at that point and watched some TV, because our next escape room wasn’t until 4pm. It was at Off the Couch, and we were supposed to do “Inheritance" at 4pm and “Conspiracy" at 5pm. Off the Couch was the place that was run by a guy named Nick, who Jade had established a rapport with over the phone due to our mutual love of escape rooms. He was willing to give us discounts on all their rooms, since we were going to do them all, including a screaming deal on their most involved/expensive room, Excalibur. Now… here’s a part where I don’t QUITE remember what happened, so bear with me.
I believe we did “Inheritance" as planned. However, another group was doing “Conspiracy," so we couldn’t do it immediately afterward, as we planned. We wanted to be cool about it, but we also had dinner reservations at 6:30pm and K. was meeting us there, so as the time ticked down we were getting kind of nervous about getting out of there on time. Then… I think what happened was that we started Conspiracy, but stopped halfway through so that we could get to dinner (we had worked this all out with the escape room folks ahead of time).
We met K. at Elyse, which was supposed to be this super cool French/Vietnamese fusion (even though, yes, Vietnamese cuisine is already kind of that already), but ended up being kinda lame. It wasn’t so much fusion as it was that the menu had both types of cuisines on there. The food was once again just okay.
Back we went to Off the Couch, and again I’m going by memory here, but I seem to recall that we opted not to continue Conspiracy – or they had reset the room for another group or something, and anyway it would have been boring for my brother to sit around while we finished that room. So we didn’t continue it. Instead we did Excalibur, which is their expensive, immersive 2-hour experience (we wore capes and had staves and swords and everything). Despite the hype, and the cool premise and set and all that, I was very meh about it, to be honest. I’m maybe not built for 2-hour escape rooms, despite how it would seem like that’d be really fun. Or maybe it was that it was that terrible after-dinner time, in which my brain is looking more toward sleep than puzzle solving. In any case, I believe we finished, but only because the gamemaster helped us through to the end and we got extra time. After that, it was very, very late for everyone, and while they were game to let us continue our Conspiracy game from earlier if we wanted to do it, I could tell they wanted to leave, and we kinda wanted to leave, so we worked it out where they booked us to do it early the next day, before my flight out. This is all sounding fairly legitimate in my head, so I think that is what happened. And they never did charge us for my brother joining us for Excalibur, so it was all good.
Afterward, it was like 11pm and dinner had been houuuuuurs ago, and less than satisfying, so we went to In-N-Out! Yesssssssss. That super hit the spot.
Tue, Nov. 13, 2018
Waaaaah, time to go. We had a lot of fun with the escape rooms in the Bay Area, even if our food choices were really hit or miss. And of course, being together! So it was sad that it was over.
We did Conspiracy in the morning, iirc, and they hadn’t set up the room EXACTLY the same as when we left it, which was a little annoying, but also understandable. I can’t even remember now what exactly was different, but it doesn’t matter… we didn’t escape in time, anyway.
For our final meal in the Bay Area we went to Sorelle Italian Bistro, which had decent food and was homey in a nice way. We both enjoyed our pastas, as well as the huge tiramisu that we shared for dessert.
Then it was off to the airport! Jade’s flight was later than mine, so she returned the rental car. If anything happened after that, I have zero recollection of it. :))))))))))
jade_okelani and I took in Nov 2018. It's truly a summary at this point, as I've long forgotten many details, and am going off some notes I took as well as our itinerary, and that's it. No doubt there will be many edits once Jade reads this and is like, "Remember this or that?"The weird thing is, I sort of remember writing about parts of it? I wonder if I did write about it and lost it or something, and just couldn’t face doing it again. If that happened, I’ve blocked it haha.
Wed, Nov 7, 2018
I arrived in SJC ahead of schedule! Jade had already arrived, but not too much earlier. The exit to baggage claim was between her gate and mine, so we met in the middle, JUST LIKE my coming from Seattle and her coming from LA!
We went to Budget to get the rental car and omg the line moved sooooooooooo slowly. We know now that next time, whoever arrives early will just go get in line for the rental car. We got through it because we had each other – we ordered oatmilk from Oatly for me and I KT’ed
adelagia to do the same (they only release the ability to order once every so often, and you’re only allowed to order one case per person, so I had to get both of them involved) – and ate raspberry almond bars from Midori, which were of course delicious. (RIP Midori… at least in your standalone store form. *cry*) The guy ahead of us, however, did not have a friend or any patience (not that I really blame him) and he was maaaaaaaaaaad. We heard a Budget employee tell him that all that was left was a minivan, maybe because of his fare class, maybe because he was being a dick, who knows? Because when we got up to check in, we were given a Nissan Sentra. This is, however, the same type of car we had a major accident in years ago. Always a good sign!For lunch we went to Old Port Lobster Shack, which was, oddly enough, in a strip mall. Odd because it’s kind of a pricey place, with pricey ingredients. We had a surly server who was not helpful at all. I got a regular lobster roll (made with mayo), while Jade got a naked lobster roll (butter instead of mayo). We also got fried calamari as a side. Verdict: hella fucking delicious… however, with tip it cost just under $80. O.o I mean… it was lobster and it was delicious but ohmygod.
We went to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott in Emeryville. We arrived around 1pm and was told that we could not do early check in, even though on the app I had already checked in and it said we were checked in. We took our bags back to the car, then when we went back to use the restroom, were told we could check in after all. WTF?
At 3pm we had an escape room to do, Omescape’s “Room Omega." It was full of math and super fun, but we got stuck at the end trying to converge time. -.- The gamemaster said afterward that we were going so fast at the beginning she thought we were going to set a new record. -.- Arrrghhh! The name “Room Omega" tells you nothing about the premise of the room, though. We both thought my suggestion for its name was way better: “DR. MATH AND HIS ADVENTURES IN TIME." LOL. I wrote our team name as “Time Convergers." For the irony, you see.
We then stopped by Gregoire for some potato puffs, which were yummy but not as yummy as I remembered from when I went with my cousin K. yeeaaaaars ago. It could have been that we were still pretty full from lunch, too, but due to location reasons and trying to cram everything in, we felt we had to go anyway. We walked around UC Berkeley for a bit, then went to Blue Bottle and got some kind of latte with Oatly oat milk and chicory, which was recommended to us by the barista and was very delicious. While we were drinking our lattes I suddenly realized that our Chez Panisse reservation was at 6pm and not 7pm as I had kept saying. Oops! But thank god it dawned on me, or we would have missed our reservation and been charged some annoying amount.
Possibly no other meal was as hyped as Chez Panisse, which has all this reputation and mystique surrounding it. I had also had a really, really great meal there when I went with K., though we weren’t able to get a reservation in the main dining room at the time and could only go to their café. I still remember that we had nettle pizza – NETTLE PIZZA WHAT – and it was sooooo effing delicious. So I had really high expectations since we were going to be in their main dining room for their $100/pp prix fixe (more like $140 after tax and tip) meal. Well… I guess when you have as high expectations as we had, it’s really hard to meet the bar, because it did not meet it. Everything was fine, but nothing was amazeballs (except maybe the dessert, which involved pear but I can’t actually remember it that well). Maybe it was the time of year? Maybe it was because we weren’t really hungry at all? I don’t know, but it wasn’t an experience I would need to repeat.
Thu, Nov 8, 2018
SICK. I was fucking sick, AGAIN. I was just getting over a cold – literally was still sniffling from it – when I woke up with a sore throat and feeling blah. Despite being sick before the trip, and getting my period the day before I left, the one saving grace was that I would be well, mostly, while we were in the Bay Area. HA! I can’t believe I fell for that. THANKS, UNIVERSE. I still can’t believe I got a cold twice in a row – that’s only ever happened one other time in my life… though that’s two times too many!! It also meant that getting my flu shot was once again delayed, since you’re not supposed to get it while you’re sick. Argh. Jade wasn’t feeling too well either, so we decided not to be too ambitious in terms of what we were going to do that day.
We went to Oliveto for lunch, which my cousin K. had recommended. It was okay. We got some pastas, I believe, and they were good, but again nothing spectacular. I’m sure our being sick didn’t help matters.
Since we weren’t going to go into the city for a day of fun, given how blah we felt, we decided to just watch TV in our hotel room. What? I mean, we never see each other, so even getting to do something like that, as long as it’s together, is special okay?! Anyway, we watched various episodes of: The Haunting of Hill House, What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?, Your Honor, Where Stars Land and I’m Not a Robot.
I had forgotten to bring a coat to the Bay Area, and in the evening it got cold enough to warrant one. All the terrible, raging forest fires made the air total shit, but not any warmer at night. I ordered one at Loft online, and at some point before dinner, went to pick it up. First we drove to the MacArthur BART station, parked, and took BART into the city. I got my coat (which was lovelier than even I had thought it would be, from seeing it online), and Jade bought a purple jack of her own. They were both like 40% off so it was awesome.
We walked to Pier 39 and had Boudin Bakery for dinner. A small bowl of okay clam chowder and half a grilled cheese with bacon cost almost $16! Outrageous! We then tried clam chowder at a different place and it was okay as well… we had this idea of trying every chowder being offered at Pier 39, but then we had yummy vanilla soft serve, some mini cinnamon sugar donuts, and tried some fudge, and more clam chowder seemed less and less appealing, lol. We went to the Lefthanders Store, but it was lame. We also got distracted by this place that had water massage machines. The guy, Alan (?), was really nice to us. Because it was later in the evening and thus not prime time, he gave us 10 min massages in the machines for $10, plus we got to try the oxygen bar (neither of us liked that very much). One time he sprayed something into our hands and gestured that we should sniff it (it was aromatherapy of some kind), so we did. Alan: “A stranger just sprayed something into your hands and told you breathe it in and YOU DID." LOLOL damn it, Alan.
By the time we left Alan it was pretty late … we left Pier 39 and walked back to the BART station, then took the train back to our car at the park and ride. It was a very successful and fun night, all things (mainly our not feeling that well) considered!
Fri, Nov. 9, 2018
We were going to do an early breakfast at Zazie, but since we weren’t feeling our best we decided to just make it a late brunch. We did the park and ride thing again, and took BART into the city.
Despite the wait, indicating that it was a popular place (and thus presumably had good food), we were both kinda underwhelmed with Zazie. The place was cramped and the food was only so-so. Afterward, we walked to Bi-Rite for ice cream. It was a looooong walk, going up and down San Francisco’s hills. Bi-Rite was yummy (I got salted caramel and some kind of cinnamon), generously portioned and costing less than $5. From there we walked to Boba Guys – everything was on Fillmore St. – and killed some time there. I had the strawberry matcha latte that I had so enjoyed the last time I was in SF for work, but it was too creamy for how I actually felt, while Jade had some kind of refreshing seasonal tea that was really good. They had a Korean fried chicken store pop-up at this particular location, so we tried the popcorn chicken and ddukbokki. I actually really liked the ddukbokki that way! Fried and in small pieces, with no sauce.
Then we walked to Rothy’s, and it was super disappointing, but they had no store-only prints! Ugh. But I was at least able to try on The Sneaker and found out my size for that (a 6, my normal size). After Rothy’s we had an hour to kill before dinner and really needed to pee, so we went to Subway and got a bathroom Coke lolol. That’s what I called it on Splitwise. Gross haha.
Dinner was at House of Prime Rib, which was the second-most anticipated meal of ours. This time, it did not disappoint, and even exceeded our high expectations. That’s right! House of Prime Rib is where it’s at! Dinner was THE BEST. We both got the English cut (thin slices), mashed potatoes, and half creamed corn, half creamed spinach. After we were done we each got one more slice of prime rib, and Jade even got a bit more of the sides. It was all delicious. For the money it’s actually a better experience than Lawry’s, imho. You could get a baked potato if you wanted, in place of the mashed potatoes, whereas Lawry’s charges extra for additional sides, there’s no substitutions – and they certainly don’t let you do half and half. And of course at Lawry’s you don’t get that extra slice of meat after you’re done (you have to get any of their cuts other than the smallest, to qualify). So Lawry’s is more costly and you don’t get as much. But I think their meat quality might be better; Jade didn’t think so, though, so maybe really there’s nothing Lawry’s is better at. It doesn’t really matter, though, given their locations – we’ll just go to whichever one we happen to be near!
After dinner we went to retrieve the car ($3 to park all day at the park and ride!) and drove to Sunnyvale to check into our next hotel, Wild Palms. Along the way my brother called to say he’d join us for the escape room we had planned for that night.
We did PanIQ’s “Wild West." It was at 11:30pm! We got it through a Groupon; PanIQ rooms are normally quite pricey. The room was fun, although we did not escape; the gamemaster said he was actually impressed we got as far as we did (we had just one puzzle left in a hidden room :/) for three people, and that no one had escaped that day. Doing
Sat, Nov. 10, 2018
Jade and I ate the breakfast provided by Wild Palms, and it was not bad at all considering it was complimentary.
We had a 9:20am tour of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, which lasted 2+ hours. I am not much of a museum type person, even though this isn’t strictly a museum and has a cool story to go along with it. I thought I would be into it, but I don’t know if it was because of how cold it was, or because I was sick, or what, but I was done with it pretty quickly. Just not my thing, I guess.
After that, we did something that is my thing – we went to an awesome restaurant and ate yummy things, lol. The restaurant was Orchard City Kitchen, which I had been to with my brother before, and it did not disappoint. Everything was yummy, and I was glad they still had the BBB (biscuit, butter, bacon). Soooo good.
Next up, an escape room! It was Omescape’s “Kingdom of Cats," and to this day I still consider it one of the most fun escape rooms we’ve done. Fun premise and fun puzzles (including a smelling puzzle that I don’t know if we’ve ever done before or since). Again we did really well until the very last puzzle, but we did manage to escape.
For dinner we met up with K. again and went to Din Ding Dumpling House; I would again give this establishment an “okay." That seemed to be the theme of our food experiences in the Bay Area, with a few exceptions.
After dinner it was time for another escape room! We did Crimson Key’s “The Breakout Club," in which we are elementary school students who first need to break into the computer system in order to change all our grades to As, then successfully break out before the teacher catches us and gives us detention. It’s a totally cute premise, and extremely low-tech… but we had tons of fun, and the gamemasters were this brother-sister team (we think) that were really friendly and cool. Again Jade’s quick wit was the source of much hilarity… the thing I remember most is when we were trying to pass math equations to our friend “Mark" who was hiding in the bathroom. He would do the math if we bribed him with candy, but all this answers came out in these perfectly laminated sheets. When we were asking for hints, the gamemaster asked us about Mark, and Jade was like, “…he’s hiding in the bathroom, and… I think he has a laminator in there!" LOLOL oh how we all (including the gamemaster) cracked up. Some of Mark’s hints to us, however, were handwritten – it was clear that we had stumped the gamemasters and their pre-planned hint system, haha. We succeeded in breaking out, but Crimson Key focuses on the experience rather than competition, so every group gets out, they make sure of it, lol.
After this is when we went to – Creamistry! For the first time! As I mentioned in my recent LA trip writeup (where we did 20 escape rooms), I had organic cream with black cherry, almonds, and whipped cream. Mmmm. It really hit the spot. (And since I’m planning to backdate this post, I don’t want future me to be confused – I’m writing this on May 12, 2019. So the LA trip I’m talking about is the one I recently did in April.)
That night, my coworker T. Skyped me from Thailand because she was at the Christian Louboutin store where her cousin is a manager, and she once again bought me a pair of shoes using her cousin’s employee discount. Score!
Sun, Nov. 11, 2018
Jade and I had brunch at The Table, which, you guessed it – was okay.
Then we went back to Crimson Key to do their other room, “Apartment 408." I don’t remember much about this one, though this time our gamemaster was the brother, and K. didn’t join us. I’m sure it was again a low-tech affair, because they seem to focus on the experience and the story. I have a vague recollection that I enjoyed it. Oddly, even though I had said previously that Crimson Key focuses on experience rather than competition so every group finishes, on my escape room spreadsheet I have a “no" marked for escaping this one. So did we or not? Only time – or Jade – will tell. (Or maybe we only finished because they gave us extra time. That’s probably it.)
Around 3pm, for a snack, we went to Bibo’s NY Style Pizza, which we enjoyed muchly. It was low key/casual, and we liked the slices we got. Hit the spot! Oh, and at some point we went to Sugar Butter Flour to get their burnt almond cake and other treats. It might have been before our stop at Bibo’s; I’m not sure now. :/ Anyway, the burnt almond cake was delish, but Jade was not impressed with any of their other items.
Then it was off to Sawadee Thai Massage, where we had 3-hour massage treatments planned. It cost a pretty penny and was nice and relaxing, but… it did not feel like 3 hours. I mean, obviously it lasted that long or we wouldn’t have left, but literally when they nudged us up we both thought that it was time for the next thing, when in fact they were done. LOL and -.-. I guess there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, because apparently when you go much past the hour mark, you can’t even really tell/appreciate it! I definitely don’t think it was worth what we paid.
We had dinner with K. at Tomi Sushi afterward, which put us there around 8pm. I had seen on Yelp or somewhere that their sushi omakase was the way to go, so that’s what we all did (at least, K. and I did, because I have pictures of it… not sure if maybe Jade did something else). It was good, probably one of our better Bay Area meals, but still not so outstanding that I’m clamoring to go back.
Mon, Nov. 12, 2018
Here’s the part where I’m nuts, and who better to be nuts with than my BFF, who is such a good sport about indulging the weird whims that I have??? So the story here is that at work, the thing that had been making the rounds as the next “must have" item was the Dyson Hair Wrap (it’s a blow dryer/curling iron combo that auto-wraps your hair around it, drying it in place), which was sold out everywhere (including online) despite a retail price of $500-600, depending on how you customized it. The day before or something like that, A. from work had sent around an email saying that the limited edition purple version of the Dyson Hair Wrap was available at Dyson stores in three cities, including San Francisco! Well of course once I heard that, I really really REALLY wanted to go get it, because it seemed like fate that I happened to be near one of the cities that had it? And yes, granted, we were already in South Bay and it meant we’d have to drive back up to San Francisco – at least an hour-long drive – but I just sooooooo wanted it. For some reason, though, we had to wait until Monday morning to even see if we would do it – maybe it was that the store was closed by the time I had seen A.’s email so I wasn’t sure if they actually had it, so I had to make sure they did before we could set off. Yeah, that was probably it.
Anyway, THEY DID, so off we went. I drove us back up – since this was my crazy idea/desire, it was only right that I take on driving duties – and then hopped out of the car while Jade circled around (because parking in SF is nuts) and walked to the Dyson store. The guy who helped me turned out to be a guy who was similar to me in age, and lived in Temple City and went to Temple City High, which was a “rival" school of mine! Not that I really knew of any rivalries in high school, but that’s how he put it. He was a drum major there and everything! And again it just felt like kismet that I should go to SF to buy this overpriced curling iron, lol. Anyway, I ended up going for the full set – I mean, when you’re buying a $600 curling iron, if you really have to hem and haw over whether to spend an additional $50 YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T BE BUYING IT AT ALL. The thing was HUGE omg and heavy – I had offered on the work email thread to bring one back for anyone else who was interested, but thank god no one took me up on it because I don’t think I could have hauled two sets of this thing back to Seattle with me. Definitely not with all the boxes intact.
Once we were back in South Bay, we went to Bibo’s again because we had enjoyed that pizza so much, and had a proper lunch there.
We must have gone back to the hotel at that point and watched some TV, because our next escape room wasn’t until 4pm. It was at Off the Couch, and we were supposed to do “Inheritance" at 4pm and “Conspiracy" at 5pm. Off the Couch was the place that was run by a guy named Nick, who Jade had established a rapport with over the phone due to our mutual love of escape rooms. He was willing to give us discounts on all their rooms, since we were going to do them all, including a screaming deal on their most involved/expensive room, Excalibur. Now… here’s a part where I don’t QUITE remember what happened, so bear with me.
I believe we did “Inheritance" as planned. However, another group was doing “Conspiracy," so we couldn’t do it immediately afterward, as we planned. We wanted to be cool about it, but we also had dinner reservations at 6:30pm and K. was meeting us there, so as the time ticked down we were getting kind of nervous about getting out of there on time. Then… I think what happened was that we started Conspiracy, but stopped halfway through so that we could get to dinner (we had worked this all out with the escape room folks ahead of time).
We met K. at Elyse, which was supposed to be this super cool French/Vietnamese fusion (even though, yes, Vietnamese cuisine is already kind of that already), but ended up being kinda lame. It wasn’t so much fusion as it was that the menu had both types of cuisines on there. The food was once again just okay.
Back we went to Off the Couch, and again I’m going by memory here, but I seem to recall that we opted not to continue Conspiracy – or they had reset the room for another group or something, and anyway it would have been boring for my brother to sit around while we finished that room. So we didn’t continue it. Instead we did Excalibur, which is their expensive, immersive 2-hour experience (we wore capes and had staves and swords and everything). Despite the hype, and the cool premise and set and all that, I was very meh about it, to be honest. I’m maybe not built for 2-hour escape rooms, despite how it would seem like that’d be really fun. Or maybe it was that it was that terrible after-dinner time, in which my brain is looking more toward sleep than puzzle solving. In any case, I believe we finished, but only because the gamemaster helped us through to the end and we got extra time. After that, it was very, very late for everyone, and while they were game to let us continue our Conspiracy game from earlier if we wanted to do it, I could tell they wanted to leave, and we kinda wanted to leave, so we worked it out where they booked us to do it early the next day, before my flight out. This is all sounding fairly legitimate in my head, so I think that is what happened. And they never did charge us for my brother joining us for Excalibur, so it was all good.
Afterward, it was like 11pm and dinner had been houuuuuurs ago, and less than satisfying, so we went to In-N-Out! Yesssssssss. That super hit the spot.
Tue, Nov. 13, 2018
Waaaaah, time to go. We had a lot of fun with the escape rooms in the Bay Area, even if our food choices were really hit or miss. And of course, being together! So it was sad that it was over.
We did Conspiracy in the morning, iirc, and they hadn’t set up the room EXACTLY the same as when we left it, which was a little annoying, but also understandable. I can’t even remember now what exactly was different, but it doesn’t matter… we didn’t escape in time, anyway.
For our final meal in the Bay Area we went to Sorelle Italian Bistro, which had decent food and was homey in a nice way. We both enjoyed our pastas, as well as the huge tiramisu that we shared for dessert.
Then it was off to the airport! Jade’s flight was later than mine, so she returned the rental car. If anything happened after that, I have zero recollection of it. :))))))))))
