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SHAX@PAX2008 2: BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE MUU
And so it was that nunuu and myself had arrived in Seattle, Washington for a weekend full of nerdy fun. First thing to do was to drop off our unnecessarily-huge suitcases so we wouldn't have to lug 'em around the city.

Actually, that reminds me- Kou and I had similarly-sized suitcases, but hers weight almost HALF of what mine did. Turns out I packed almost twice as many shirts, socks, and pairs of pants as she did- and I'd brought along a couple extra pairs of shoes. I like to fly in my sandals, see, so I needed to pack my usual everyday pair in my suitcase, along with a pair of Adidas that are just PERFECT for one particular outfit. I THINK WE SEE WHO WEARS THE SKIRT IN THIS RELATIONSHIP.

(Also contributing to my bag's heft was the CD organizer into which I'd slipped the 20+ DVDs that make up my entire MST3K collection, which I'd then end up LEAVING IN SEATTLE- but more on that a little later.)

Anyway! Went in the hotel and checked in. Kou had booked a room at the Seattle Sheraton pretty much as soon as the official PAX 2008 site had launched, and over the course of the intervening three months, she had learned that it is, apparently, a four-star hotel. For what we were paying per night, it had damn well BETTER be, but nevertheless, we'd taken to fantasizing what kind of luxurious opulence awaited us. Giant plushy beds? Jacuzzi? Personal masseuse? Hey, maybe the lobby would even have one of those neat Surface units Microsoft has been installing in select Sheratons!

Man. If the Sheraton is a four-star hotel, they must've increased the maximum Star range to eight within the past five or so years. It wasn't a BAD hotel by any stretch- the room was comfortable enough, wasn't all stained up or weird-smelling, and though we had some hard-partying PAX people on our floor, we never heard a peep out of any of the other occupants no matter how late at night it was. In all respects, though, it was pretty middle-of-the-road; our room was a simple hotel room, smaller than the Hyatt and Renaissance rooms I've stayed in during Otakon. We had an LCD TV, an alarm clock, an in-room safe, a phone, a minibar with snacks and a cat-5 wire for Internet access. Those first three items were free; the last three were RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE FOR USE. $5 candy bars!? $10 GUMMY BEARS?

$10 a day Internet access?!
I dunno- I guess I'd severely overestimated Seattle's tech-savvy, given the stories fandomgreen has been feeding me since he moved over there a couple years ago. I'd figured wireless Internet access would be abundant enough that the area hotels would provide access free of charge; it doesn't seem to be TOO unheard-of a thing even around my backwater part of the country.

And to be fair, they DID have a free wireless hotspot in the lounge area located in the lobby. We went there twice with my laptop and ended up having two wildy disparate experiences- first visit, we managed to connect just fine and the connection stayed solid; on the second visit, the signal was apparently only a QUARTER as strong as before and, after taking about a minute and a half to load Google's front page, completely dropped out on me.

Oh, well- it wasn't TOO big a loss. Fact of the matter is that I'm mainly online these days to make myself available for IM, and even then I only regularly talk to a handful of people. I was sharing a room with my most frequent IM partner, and my second most-frequent one lived in town and would be meeting up with us several times over the course of the convention, so really, all that was left was browsing around and catching the latest news in gaming (which would likely be breaking at the convention itself) and in the outside world (HEY GUYS DID YOU KNOW MCCAIN CHOSE A WOMAN AS HIS RUNNING MATE?), so really, no big loss.

Besides, as we did a little exploring, we came to find out that damn near every major building in the city either has its own wireless network or can get a signal for one, so we could just cross the street to the shopping center on Pike and 5th and be able to get online. NO TIME FOR THAT, though, 'cause we've got a city to explore, and dammit, I'm getting hungry! That chicken biscuit I had in RDU had LONG since worn off!

Honestly, most of the vacation was spent on my feet, walking the well laid-out streets of Seattle in search of fun stuff.

Directly across Pike Street was the Pacific Place market, and being a generally shopping-mall-looking area, it drew Kou's attention pretty much immediately. Good thing, too, 'cause it allowed us to indulge in what's become something of a Shnuu* tradition- EATING AT Johnny Rockets!

(*SHNUU IS THE OFFICIAL TITLE FOR THE shax/nunuu PAIRING! I do not accept any other pairings >_________________<;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;!)

Well, more accurately, the tradition is to go to a Johnny Rockets in an attempt to get totally ignored by the wait staff. This all started many, many years ago at Otakon when, after waking up way too late for breakfast but really a bit too early for lunch, Kou and I happened upon a Johnny Rockets that was, oddly enough, apparently open at around 10:30 in the morning. People were seated and eating food, wait staff was moving from table to table, so we decided to go on in and try to get an early lunch. We sat at an open table and waited for someone to take our order.

And we kept on waiting for a good ten minutes, despite the fact that three separate waitresses passed our table at least TWICE EACH, but never said so much as a "I'll be right back to get you guys's order" to us.

I don't know whether it was a private function we were intruding upon, or whether service was just spectacularly bad that day, but still, we didn't really get upset so much as very amused. And it continues to this day; when I go to visit her in Toronto, we hit up the Johnny Rockets in Square One shopping center, and if we're meeting somewhere for a convention, we'll inevitably find a Johnny Rockets somewhere, look at each other, and one of us will say, "Let's go get ignored!"

(The only time we HAVEN'T observed the tradition is when she came down to visit me last year; North Carolina apparently does not care for a Johnny Rockets. The only one I know of is in Myrtle Beach, which is technically South Carolina, but either way it's a good three-hour drive from the house, and that's a bit far to go in the name of wacky fast-food tradition.)

Anyway! We weren't ignored this time, either, though I was a bit shocked to discover that, in the time since our LAST Johnny Rockets visit, the chain seems to have moved from a Fast Food pricing scheme to something more in line with a Decent Family Restaurant cost; a burger, shake and fries would run just shy of $20. Sad, really, since JR has some pretty decent shakes, from what I remember.

If nothing else, Seattle at least fed us well; there were no shortages of places to go eat. Over the course of the weekend, we'd sample fare from all over the world. In the same shopping center as Johnny Rockets was a sushi joint/Japanese Lunch-style place name o' Todai; we attempted to eat there one afternoon, but arrived just a few minutes before they were gonna close down lunch service for a few hours to get ready for dinner, so we ended up at the Thai place right next door to it, which made a pretty kickass bowl of curry. I'd never had even SEMI-authentic stuff before; my curry experience has been limited to the coconut-milkless Japanese variety, and even then, usually the kind that comes in the heat-and-serve packages you'd buy at a supermarket. The plate of mussamun I had was therefore less of a lunch and more of an experience. I ordered medium-spicy; in retrospect, probably should've gone with MAXIMUM HEAT, but other than that, two thumbs up!
Now, I'm a biiiiig fan of a steak, and again, Pacific Place had my hook-up. Seattle in general is more than happy to cook a steak for a man; problem is, nearly everywhere wants you to pay upwards of $45 for the experience. Thankfully, Gordon Biersch seems like it's run by folks who realize a poor cheap-ass bastard likes to eat meat as much as fatcat bigwigs do. Since I had a CRAVING for some beef at one point in the weekend, Kou and I dropped in to see what they could do for us.

The steak was fairly good, but the restaurant's real pride and joy is their private brewery, and they pushed those brews HARD on a customer. Both of us were in luck, I guess, since one of the exceptionally rare times I actually drink beer is when I'm eating a steak, so I guess it worked out for the best all around. And I guess the beer was pretty good, but the sad fact is that they charged me $6 for it, which resulted in me paying nearly $40 for my lunch ANYWAY.

(Well, I actually paid over $50, but only because I bought Kou's burger and root beer as well. Even though she REFUSED to try any of my beer. I'm never gonna get her drunk at this rate ;_;)

Geez, you'd think we spent the entire weekend in Pacific Place, but you'd be wrong! We only spent half the weekend there. The other half, we spent over at the Westlake Center. Get all the facts before you start jumping to conclusions, geesh.

The one area Seattle kinda let me down in, food-wise, is the realm of Breakfast. The town pretty much founded the modern Coffee movement, and this is IMMEDIATELY evident- there are Starbucks all ove the place, and even more local coffee shop-type establishments. And that seems to be the major manner in which Seattle does breakfast. That SUCKS for me, though, since I really don't like coffee.

No, if I'm gonna do breakfast that I don't have to cook myself, I start looking for local greasy-spoon diners. There are two within a block of one another here in Angier, and either one will cook you an AMAZING breakfast anytime between 6AM and 11AM. Seattle, though? Not so much. I don't know whether it's because the west-coast crowd just doesn't like a nice big plate of bacon, eggs and grits (the latter of which I fully realize is a peculiarity of the Southern people, but they're just SO GOOD, lightly-salted with a bit of butter in 'em), or because, judging from the opening times of most of the stores and businesses around the hotel, nobody really gets up before 11AM ANYWAY.

Westlake came to the rescue with a truly epic food court. Takes up most of the fourth floor of the building, and yeah, while it's more or less a mall food court, it SPANS THE GLOBE to bring you food as it might be served in the mall food courts of Asia, South America, Europe- pretty sure Africa had representation, but I'm not entirely sure.

(We had breakfast from the McDonald's tucked in the corner, though. Got there just a WEE BIT too early for the other kiosks to be open, and we were HUNGRY.)

On Labor Day, we hooked up with ladyfox, who was our guide to Seattle's International District and Pike Place Market. For all my ranting I just did about breakfast, she DID turn us on to Seattle's other great AM Meal traditon: The Crepe. In front of the convention center is a tiny kiosk from which two people dispense hot, delicious crepes. It was slammed at pretty much EVERY TIME OF THE DAY from open to close during the convention. On Monday, though, the streets were empty; the convention was over, as was most of our vacation, and all we were left with was the oppressive despair of a good time rapidly coming to a close.

BUT THAT'S OKAY, BECAUSE WE HAD CREPES FOR BREAKFAST.

After that, our first stop was the Uwajimaya shopping center (after a little futzing around, trying to find a bus that would take us there), an amalgamation of an Asian supermarket, department store, the Seattle branch of Kinokuniya and a number of restaurants nestled within. The place OOZES Asian from every crevice. It's really kind of disgusting, though it's pretty polite and courteous as ooze goes.

First thing you see when you walk in? Burger restaurant. Ohhh, Uwajimaya. Fortunately, it's more or less the shopping center's way of telling you to LEAVE YOUR AMERICAN AT THE DOOR, 'cause it's straight-up Asian from there on in. We did some wandering around- spent almost a third of my travelling money at the Kinokuniya (more on purchases later), laughed at a few products offered in the supermarket, but at the end of our Uwajiyama experience, Kou realized that not eating any crepes for breakfast had been a SEVERE tactical error and decided to remedy that with a visit to one of the udon stands on the way to the exit.

Now, I'd say my desire for a good bowl of noodles has transcended "craving" and has wandered straight into "JONES" territory. I have a noodle jones. There is no two ways about it. I live in an area where your choices for International cuisine are between one of eight Mexican restaurants and, effectively, Olive Garden; you can FIND "Asian" food, though with a few notable (and expensive) exceptions, it's of the throwing-knives-and-food-around-while-you-watch-with-eight-total-strangers-at-a-table variety. So when we encountered those booths at Uwajimaya, the temptation was STRONG.

I had to abstain, though, since we'd already planned to have lunch at Cheesecake Factory, and ladyfox had a look in her eye that indicated she'd brook NO OBSTRUCTION between herself and her cheesecake. In retrospect, and in total honesty, I regret the decision; after all, there are TWO Cheesecake Factory restaurants within a thirty-minute drive of my house. My noodle choices, on the other hand, are Top Ramen or Maruchan :(. ALL IS NOT LOST, however, since just outside the entrance to Kinokuniya, I happened across a carousel with tons of Asian recipes on it. I took so many recipe cards. I HAVE LIKE THREE DOZEN OF THESE THINGS. All of them call for ingredients I can get for cheap from an Asian supermarket right down the road.

We took turns nibbling on bits of Kou's lunch, though, which, despite not being SOUP udon, was still mighty good. I curbed my own appetite with some old favorites I'd often enjoy during my year in Nagoya, but haven't been able to find since returing, followed up by some banana-flavored Utopia yogurt goodness I forgot to take foodporn pictures of until Fox and I had it halfway finished off. lorelai and jlunar, obviously I have learned nothing from you :(.

Honestly, that's about as adventurous as our trip got, food-wise; had McDonald's one night after absolutely EVERYTHING ELSE was closed, went to the IHOP in Bellevue wth Racewing and his editor- really, we didn't take in much of the local flavor such as Von's, which I caught a glimpse of once or twice during our stay, but only heard anything ABOUT a day or two after returning. Considering how easy it was to get to the International District once we knew the proper bus, and considering we can ride there more or less for FREE, I kinda wish we'dve gotten out there sooner so as to have scrumptious noodles for at least one or two more meals, but hell, none of that is anything that can't be remedied next year!

Speaking of food, I've gotta get together with the local crowd for pizza in about an hour- THE NEVERENDING WRITEUP WILL CONTINUE.