Portland also rocks my world

Since Friday was movie night, Saturday was our road trip day. Adam and I woke up nice and early ("4 realz" this time) and headed down to Portland for some fabulous shopping since they have NO SALES TAX! We first made a pitstop in an outlet mall in Washington called Centralia Outlets, where they had a Nike Clearance Store that sold shoes for cheaper than your normal factory outlets! Adam got a pair of basketball shoes for $15 and he got me a pair of Nike Zooms for $35!! I almost wanted to get two pairs but I controlled myself..hehe..


After we got to the Woodburn Outlet a little south of Portland, Adam spent the entire day with me shopping! The thing is, on top of the no sales tax deal, even though I missed the Memorial Day crazy cheapness, I still found a lot of clothes for really good price, like a pair of jeans and a sweater at Guess for $32 altogether and two pairs of shorts at Aeropostale for $7! I spent about $65 at CK, which is the most we spent at a store, but it was still a good number of items for that price.

We left Woodburn at around 6pm (we got there at around 2pm) and then we headed down to Salem because we were looking for Air Force 1's and were told there was a mall there that would possibly sell them. After a longer than expected drive, we found the mall at this ghetto city center and it wasn't even that big. Of course, no AF1's. Nevertheless, what did end up making my day perfect was the restaurant we ended up going to after wandering around the downtown for a while.

So as the story goes, after being in Seattle and area twice, for a total of two weeks, we have eaten at many many fancy and not so fancy restaurants, including $150 dinner for Adam's bday at this placed called Rocksalt Seafood and Steak, as well as mid-ranged Indian, Viet, Thai places, and of course the Space Needle. ALL the restaurants in which I have dined have had food that were less than Waterloo Standard. How a city filled with rich techies have such low quality for taste is beyond me...err...perhaps the techie part explains it.... At any rate, McGrath's Fish House was awesome. Awesomely delicious and awesomely cheap for a fancy Keg styled Seafood restaurant. Two entrees, one pint of beer, and one strawberry lemonade totaled $35 (no tax!). The waiter was super professional too - a lot more so than those fine dining restaurants. If you are ever in the hood of Oregon, you should definitely check out that resturant.

We didn't get home until 1am, but the trip definitely marked my the last night in Seattle with a perfect finish...haha

Kung Fu Panda rocked my world

I just came back from seeing Kung Fu Panda. I walked in with no expectations and I was blown away...a thoroughly clever movie. I think it is just as good as The Incredibles, which has been, by far, the cleverest movie ever.

I went online to see if any critics commented on the background that Kung Fu Panda is based, but I didn't see anything and was pretty disappointed. The fact that "panda Kung Fu" is commonly used to describe people who is showing off a skill that they don't have is already putting a clever spin on the movie. On top of that, you have the furious five, each animal is based on a KF set that models after the animal movements....how crazy is that? And then you have Oogway, which literally means turtle in chinese, and is the wisest creature according to chinese legend!

Oh, and not to forget the fight scenes were just incredible! I thought I was watching those old school chinese kungfu drama movies!!! With the sound effects and everything.

But at any rate, even if one is not familiar with Chinese mythology, there's no doubt you'd enjoy it. 85% on Rotten Tomatoes! Definitely a worthwhile movie!

Adventures at the Conveyor Belt Sushi

After work yesterday, Adam and I headed to the super cheap conveyor belt/rotating sushi joint in his neighbourhood.

A couple of years ago, while I was in Taiwan, I had a taste of what rotating sushi was like: conveyor filled with colourful plates that indicate ridiculously cheap pricing of the sushi, there is never an empty spot because any time someone takes a dish away, the spot gets filled by another dish, the dishes range from miso soup to tempuras to sushi/sashimi/maki to dessert to random things you have no idea what they are, and best of all, your eyes are always bigger than your stomach - you just keep grabbing dishes you want to eat and you don't even have time to eat them! Oh those Japanese!

After I came back to Canada, I made several attempts at the rotating sushi in Toronto. First time was with Andrea at a place near Bay and Wellesley. The selection was minimal and the price was ridiculous...$20 for lunch/person and we weren't even full. The second time was with Matt Chan, Ju, Lee, Mike, and them and we went to one close to Yonge and Wellesley. That was insanely expensive, there were like a variety of 5 crappy dishes, the conveyor was always empty, and we ended up at Salad King after spending $20 each.

And so, that brings us to Seattle, where I got the authentic rotating sushi experience replicated. Although the selection was not as crazy as it was in Asia, only limited to maki, sushi (no sashimi), edamame, and calamari, there was a good variety of each type and the conveyor belt was always packed with dishes. The price was really cheap too, $1.00 - $3.00 per dish. You can imagine how much sushi Adam and I had if our total was $23 before tax and tip.

That's me scowling at Adam for taking a pic of me while i was being a greedy glutinous pig, hording all the sushi without really thinking about whether or not I can eat all of that. If you look closely, there are three empty spots on the conveyor, that's all taken by me.

The ppl working there were pretty cool too. A bunch of young Asians playing around being really loud, you wonder if they have supervisors! There was a young mixed looking guy directly across from me making the rolls, he looked about 18-20 and he kept winking at me and making faces, every time Adam wasn't paying attention. I was kinda embarrassed and decided to fix my eyes on all the sushi, was wasn't really a problem. What's up with the west coast people? Adam's theory is that girls from the WC are so easy that the guys aren't afraid to randomly hit on girls, even if they have boyfriends. From the stories Jon told me in Cali, I think I believe that.

After the conveyor belt sushi, we went to Bellevue Square, a really big mall. Adam wanted to show me "The Container Store" but I was reluctant because I didn't want to go to a store that sold tupperware. However, I was wrong when I got there. Guess what they sell? That's right, every kind of storage container imaginable. The store was the size of a castle. Reminds me of Asia again with all these creative storage solutions!

After we got out of them mall, which closed at 9:30pm (what isn't better than Toronto here??), we went to the movie theatre in an attempt to watch SaTC. Unfortunately, Adam's prime card didn't give us discounts because we had to purchase the tix online first. Being the cheapasses that we are, we ended up at the grocery store again shopping for food. And because Adam is really annoying, he decided to take a picture of us at the grocery store. WTH.
=)

Adventures at the Grocery Store

I went grocery shopping yesterday to cook for Adam's Birthday. Steak...mMmm....

Good Looking Tall Asian Guy Working at Produce: Are you finding everything you are looking for?
Me: Errr...well i'm looking for cheap wine glass...I'm here visiting and I dont want to buy anything expensive since I don't want to bring it back...
GLTAGWP: Well I think we have some, come with me
leads me down to the plastic cup and plate section I've already been to...
GLTAGWP: so where are you from?
Me: Toronto
GLTAGWP: Oh, from cali?
Me: (a little flattered that he thinks I'm from california) No, no. Up in Canada...I guess the stereotypes are true about you guys not knowing where we are, huh?
GLTAGWP: Hahaha, well erm..Canada is great!
Continues to talk about Canada and wine when he clearly knew nothing about either topic.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we didn't find the glasses (as predicted) and he went off. But later he approached me again, told me he asked his coworkers and none of them knew and told me all about himself. The guy is from SF, goes to school at UDub, didn't make it in Architecture, competes in international college taekwondo, has an ex-gf who is taiwanese, told me we had a connection, gave me his phone number, and gave me a little note that said, "free bolthouse, no charge - brendon".

So even though I never got my wine glasses, I got a free bottle of beverage.

I'm in Seattle again...

..and will be back this Sunday.

The plane ride was insane. A baby cried for the entire five hours high pitch. And then 2 hour layover in Vancouver, for a 30 min plane ride to Seattle. Went to the airport at 2:30pm, plane took off at 5pm, arrived in Seattle at 1am. What a long flight.