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adelagiaIt all started four years ago, when we went to Ivar's Salmon House in Seattle on a beautiful summer's day, me and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sarea_okelani and slitherhither. We sat outside by the water, watching the boats whiz by, pouring oyster shooters down our gullets, a perfect way to while away a summer afternoon. We vowed then to come back every summer, maybe even multiple times a summer.
Cut to the last week of August 2018 and we still had yet to make good on that vow. The lesson here is to never trust any of us when we promise things. In our defense, we did plan to go to Ivar's on the 25th, but the weather was crappy that day and we were still in the throes of that horrible haze that had enveloped Seattle due to fires in both California and British Columbia, with the winds somehow blowing smoke towards us from both ends.
So instead we ended up at Tacos Chukis in the SLU neighborhood of Seattle, on recommendation from our friend S. Sarea got pork tacos, a cheese quesadilla, and horchata; I had pork and beef tacos; Slither got pork on cactus! She let us try a bit of cactus; it was sort of squashy like okra, which Sarea did not care for. I like okra a lot, so it was fine.
Sarea and I have become somewhat lax on bringing oppas with us, largely because, as explained before, a) we are creatures of habit and it got boring taking pictures of all the same places we always go to, and b) there was a lot of travel happening in summer, especially for Sarea, and we just kinda forgot about our regular weekend stuff. It was no different on this day, but thankfully, I had Emergency Eeyore with me, who is technically a little pouch in which I carry my headphones, but can also fill in for Minhyuk oppa since he had an Eeyore costume on in their Winter's Tale video. (I also had Emergency Donald on hand, but Eunkwang has since enlisted in the military, so he is in no condition to take us anywhere.)
After this we wandered across the street to Herkimer Coffee, where Sarea showed us pictures of kittens she was thinking of getting, at which point I decided I will one day have a cat of my own named BamBam (and possibly a second cat, MC Subsubs, just to see that name written on a vet board). I am allergic to both cats and responsibility, so this is unlikely to ever happen; nevertheless this has not stopped me from trawling cat listings on Craigslist and refusing to let Sarea have the cat name of BamBam even though it was her idea in the first place.
Slither had to go and be fabulous elsewhere (some kind of Prince-themed dance party where it turned out she knew the bartender and was plied with extra-strong drinks all night at half price; not a bad way to spend a night out), and Sarea and I headed down to our now favorite noraebang, Comma Karaoke. Even though we have been there multiple times for multiple hours at a time they are always surprised when we ask for 3 hours of singing time.
When we finished, we ran into E, our classmate from Korean class, again. He was just about to leave (with his mom and nephew) and we were on our way to dinner, so if another twenty seconds had passed by we would've missed him entirely. It's so weird we keep seeing him there. He probably also thought we were weird, because as he was pulling away, Sarea and I were rock-paper-scissoring for where to eat dinner (Hanmaum vs. Bogul Bogul); I, and therefore Bogul Bogul "won," so off we went.
The last time we were there we had seen the next table order bossam, which looked good, so we got that. We also got an order of cheese back ribs, because cheese.
I ate the leftovers cold in the following days; they were delicious. Sarea thinks I'm crazy for eating cold leftovers. She just doesn't understand.
Labor Day Weekend! The weather was actually nice – in fact, a little too nice, because it got really hot as we sat outside at Ivar's Salmon House. WE DID IT, YOU GUYS. WE FINALLY DID IT.
We had a late meal (or early, depending on how you look at it) at around 3:30PM so we could partake of their happy hour. Sangrias were on special for half off, so we all got that. But basically they tasted like watered down wine, which I guess is our own fault for falling for the "special of the day" gambit. Sigh. Food-wise, they gave us complimentary cornbread muffins, which were better in theory than in taste. Slither got calamari (it came in a gigantic portion, enough to feed twelve of your closest friends) and a grilled salmon salad; Sarea got mussels (or clams? Someone correct me) and fish and chips (and she also initially ordered clam chowder but they forgot to bring it, by which time she didn't want it anyway), and I had fish and chips.
I am still enjoying the leftover fries, which have now been sitting in my fridge for the last 6 days and are just about hardened to the perfect consistency. DON'T YOU JUDGE ME.
Sarea and Slither also got dessert of blackberry ice-cream and a chocolate torte. We forgot to take a picture of the torte, but here's some half-eaten ice-cream.
We weren't ready for the day to end, so we searched for a coffee place we could go to. Waze told Slither that there was a coffee place nearby even though we couldn't find it on any other map; nonetheless we went to check it out and it turned out to be an Ezell's Fried Chicken.
At least there was Chocolati Café a few blocks away, so we headed there instead. Slither asked for decaf options, and the barista suggested their "housemade" horchata, consisting of rice milk, vanilla syrup, and cinnamon. She got a fully caffeinated coffee instead for some reason, and Sarea went with the horchata, which she had to return because it was disgusting and nothing like actual horchata. I had a latte plus a bittersweet truffle to share with the table.
While we chatted (and kept marvelling over how late it was seeing as we'd just had lunch) I surreptitiously tracked the progress of a graphic artist sitting nearby who was drawing a landscape on his laptop. It was like watching magic happen. Seriously I have no idea how he ended up with a beautiful Arizona-like landscape when he'd first started out with a blank blue background and a blob of brown. Sorcery.
Also for some reason the words "phallic victory" came out of my mouth when what I really meant to say "Pyrrhic victory". Please excuse me while I dig this hole to bury myself in forever.
The next day wasn't technically part of an Oppa Outing, but I'll note it anyway because we had occasion to hang out again on account of me getting a nice pay raise (thanks to some frankly amazing bargaining by the union). As Sarea likes to note, I've already spent most of it on buying JB-specific albums on eBay (it's a sickness), but I also wanted to treat Sarea and Slither to dinner, so we went to Federal Way for the day.
Seolleongtang for lunch – the tall ahjussi was there and recognized us, hooray! And then a hop and skip away to Café Noir for coffee to while away some time until noraebang opened. We took Slither to Comma Karaoke for the first time to help us murder music, and the proprietors gave us recs for good gamjatang and soondaeguk. Sadly they did not have recs for ganjang gejang – they were like, just look it up on the Internet and make it yourself!
So Moon Nan Jib for dinner – we got a KBBQ set and also yangnyeom gejang! We had never noticed it on the menu before! Slither made a heroic attempt to eat it, but was uncertain of herself, leading to my advice to "just bite it and suck it," which of course then prompted unladylike comments from Sarea.
And thus endeth the weekend.
sarea_okelani and slitherhither. We sat outside by the water, watching the boats whiz by, pouring oyster shooters down our gullets, a perfect way to while away a summer afternoon. We vowed then to come back every summer, maybe even multiple times a summer.Cut to the last week of August 2018 and we still had yet to make good on that vow. The lesson here is to never trust any of us when we promise things. In our defense, we did plan to go to Ivar's on the 25th, but the weather was crappy that day and we were still in the throes of that horrible haze that had enveloped Seattle due to fires in both California and British Columbia, with the winds somehow blowing smoke towards us from both ends.
So instead we ended up at Tacos Chukis in the SLU neighborhood of Seattle, on recommendation from our friend S. Sarea got pork tacos, a cheese quesadilla, and horchata; I had pork and beef tacos; Slither got pork on cactus! She let us try a bit of cactus; it was sort of squashy like okra, which Sarea did not care for. I like okra a lot, so it was fine.
Sarea and I have become somewhat lax on bringing oppas with us, largely because, as explained before, a) we are creatures of habit and it got boring taking pictures of all the same places we always go to, and b) there was a lot of travel happening in summer, especially for Sarea, and we just kinda forgot about our regular weekend stuff. It was no different on this day, but thankfully, I had Emergency Eeyore with me, who is technically a little pouch in which I carry my headphones, but can also fill in for Minhyuk oppa since he had an Eeyore costume on in their Winter's Tale video. (I also had Emergency Donald on hand, but Eunkwang has since enlisted in the military, so he is in no condition to take us anywhere.)
After this we wandered across the street to Herkimer Coffee, where Sarea showed us pictures of kittens she was thinking of getting, at which point I decided I will one day have a cat of my own named BamBam (and possibly a second cat, MC Subsubs, just to see that name written on a vet board). I am allergic to both cats and responsibility, so this is unlikely to ever happen; nevertheless this has not stopped me from trawling cat listings on Craigslist and refusing to let Sarea have the cat name of BamBam even though it was her idea in the first place.
Slither had to go and be fabulous elsewhere (some kind of Prince-themed dance party where it turned out she knew the bartender and was plied with extra-strong drinks all night at half price; not a bad way to spend a night out), and Sarea and I headed down to our now favorite noraebang, Comma Karaoke. Even though we have been there multiple times for multiple hours at a time they are always surprised when we ask for 3 hours of singing time.
When we finished, we ran into E, our classmate from Korean class, again. He was just about to leave (with his mom and nephew) and we were on our way to dinner, so if another twenty seconds had passed by we would've missed him entirely. It's so weird we keep seeing him there. He probably also thought we were weird, because as he was pulling away, Sarea and I were rock-paper-scissoring for where to eat dinner (Hanmaum vs. Bogul Bogul); I, and therefore Bogul Bogul "won," so off we went.
The last time we were there we had seen the next table order bossam, which looked good, so we got that. We also got an order of cheese back ribs, because cheese.
I ate the leftovers cold in the following days; they were delicious. Sarea thinks I'm crazy for eating cold leftovers. She just doesn't understand.
Labor Day Weekend! The weather was actually nice – in fact, a little too nice, because it got really hot as we sat outside at Ivar's Salmon House. WE DID IT, YOU GUYS. WE FINALLY DID IT.
We had a late meal (or early, depending on how you look at it) at around 3:30PM so we could partake of their happy hour. Sangrias were on special for half off, so we all got that. But basically they tasted like watered down wine, which I guess is our own fault for falling for the "special of the day" gambit. Sigh. Food-wise, they gave us complimentary cornbread muffins, which were better in theory than in taste. Slither got calamari (it came in a gigantic portion, enough to feed twelve of your closest friends) and a grilled salmon salad; Sarea got mussels (or clams? Someone correct me) and fish and chips (and she also initially ordered clam chowder but they forgot to bring it, by which time she didn't want it anyway), and I had fish and chips.
I am still enjoying the leftover fries, which have now been sitting in my fridge for the last 6 days and are just about hardened to the perfect consistency. DON'T YOU JUDGE ME.
Sarea and Slither also got dessert of blackberry ice-cream and a chocolate torte. We forgot to take a picture of the torte, but here's some half-eaten ice-cream.
We weren't ready for the day to end, so we searched for a coffee place we could go to. Waze told Slither that there was a coffee place nearby even though we couldn't find it on any other map; nonetheless we went to check it out and it turned out to be an Ezell's Fried Chicken.
At least there was Chocolati Café a few blocks away, so we headed there instead. Slither asked for decaf options, and the barista suggested their "housemade" horchata, consisting of rice milk, vanilla syrup, and cinnamon. She got a fully caffeinated coffee instead for some reason, and Sarea went with the horchata, which she had to return because it was disgusting and nothing like actual horchata. I had a latte plus a bittersweet truffle to share with the table.
While we chatted (and kept marvelling over how late it was seeing as we'd just had lunch) I surreptitiously tracked the progress of a graphic artist sitting nearby who was drawing a landscape on his laptop. It was like watching magic happen. Seriously I have no idea how he ended up with a beautiful Arizona-like landscape when he'd first started out with a blank blue background and a blob of brown. Sorcery.
Also for some reason the words "phallic victory" came out of my mouth when what I really meant to say "Pyrrhic victory". Please excuse me while I dig this hole to bury myself in forever.
The next day wasn't technically part of an Oppa Outing, but I'll note it anyway because we had occasion to hang out again on account of me getting a nice pay raise (thanks to some frankly amazing bargaining by the union). As Sarea likes to note, I've already spent most of it on buying JB-specific albums on eBay (it's a sickness), but I also wanted to treat Sarea and Slither to dinner, so we went to Federal Way for the day.
Seolleongtang for lunch – the tall ahjussi was there and recognized us, hooray! And then a hop and skip away to Café Noir for coffee to while away some time until noraebang opened. We took Slither to Comma Karaoke for the first time to help us murder music, and the proprietors gave us recs for good gamjatang and soondaeguk. Sadly they did not have recs for ganjang gejang – they were like, just look it up on the Internet and make it yourself!
So Moon Nan Jib for dinner – we got a KBBQ set and also yangnyeom gejang! We had never noticed it on the menu before! Slither made a heroic attempt to eat it, but was uncertain of herself, leading to my advice to "just bite it and suck it," which of course then prompted unladylike comments from Sarea.
And thus endeth the weekend.
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no subject
on 2018-09-11 04:25 am (UTC)which of course then prompted unladylike comments from Sarea
It was a phallic victory on my part.
no subject
on 2018-09-11 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
on 2018-09-11 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
on 2018-09-11 07:39 pm (UTC)PS: I have to confess that I actually went wow someone is posting yayyy!!
no subject
on 2018-09-12 02:14 am (UTC)