Mind The Gap

Album with pictures.  Everything is now pretty much done except for Russ’ costume.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hmfullen/DragonCon08/

Just some random bits from the trip.

Pinball game in one of the airports.

Monument to capitalism at a mall near the hotel.

Mounted police letting their horses drink from a fountain downtown.

Fun juxtaposition of colors in Chinatown.

Old sign in Chinatown.

Bus advertising it’s own use of biodiesel in the shopping district.

‘Twas a fun trip, and those are all the photos I have.

On our one major afternoon of exploring, one of our stops was the Chinese Gardens. It didn’t take us long to wander through, which made the ticket price seem disappointing. However, I think one could have made much more of an event of it than we did (such as by going on one of the guided tours or renting the gadget that has pre-recorded info about various stops in the garden).

We sort of just meandered through, looked at things, snapped some photos, and then wandered out.

Some neat bonsai.

Ryan’s silhouette in front of a willow tree across the lake.

Stone pattern on the ground.

More miniatures.

Ryan in front of the flowering tree.

I was thinking of editing this image to remove the dirt smears, and then printing it to frame at the office.

Another nice view through one of the decorative windows.

Tiny sign at the very bottom of the wall of the tea house.

City skyline behind the pagoda on the lake.

Close up of the willow tree.

View from inside one of the buildings.

And thus concludes our summary of the Chinese Gardens.

Been a busy couple of weeks.  But, I’ve finally uploaded a few more photos from our trip to Portland earlier in the month, so here we go.

We stayed at the Doubletree at Lloyd Center.  The hotel is undergoing renovation (environmentally friendly renovation, I might add).  Where they are in the overall project plan, I do not know, but I found that several area’s are already redone, while some others are not.  We had a newly redecorated room, that even underwent some enhancement during our stay (new chair brought in, new curtains hung), while some others in our party on a lower floor were still stuck with the 80s furniture and formica.

Anywho, I took several pictures of things around the hotel, such as the views from various windows, Ryan and I, and a bit of amusing signage.

Views from the hotel:

(Mostly from our room, a couple from another room we briefly visited.)

Ryan and I:

Amusing Signage:

(I liked that it was room 666, and there is a no smoking sign…)

Only one or two more installments of Portland pictures to go!

There are loads more pics from the trip, but I’ve decided to siphon them out a few at a time, because I feel like it.

On today’s menu we have the few pics I took of food and drink.  (I meant to do more of this, but ultimately kept getting distracted.)

This is a photo of the paper chopstick cover from a little sushi place where Ryan and I had lunch on our first day in the city.

Beer sample from the Rock Bottom brewery/restaurant.  All of them were good (although the seasonal stout is to be recommended especially), and the food was also rather tasty.  A+++ would visit again.

Photo of sake from a fancy sushi place (the name of which unfortunately escapes me).  I took several pictures of the serving setup, but ended up settling on this one.

This is my favorite photo of the serving because the sake is poured so that it overflows into the secondary dish there as a symbol of abundance (we were told), and meanwhile beside this symbol of abundance is a chipped plate, and it’s generally considered bad form to serve a guest from cracked or chipped dishes.  I found the juxtaposition amusing.

The sake itself was also of interest.  First, the bottle is comically huge, at over a foot tall.  Second, the sake is a milky white color instead of clear, is a bit milder/sweeter than normal sake, and is served chilled.  We sampled a few and as a group chose this one (Murai Family Nigori Sake).  Bit of info here.

After a hectic week, and with very little planning, Ryan made a hotel reservation, arranged some last minute puppy sitting and we headed off to Tampa. The plan was simple: Drive a bunch, eat some good food, drink some good booze, take in the sights of the strip in Ybor, show off the new wig I made, and generally get our party on. It’s not often that we do nightlife, but every once in a while it seems like a good idea.

We left a bit late, but figured that was ok since it isn’t cool to show up at a club prior to midnight anyway. Here we are in the car, driving driving.

After driving for quite a while, we hopped off the road in the middle of some insane construction, and stopped at a place called Remington’s Steakhouse.

It was the kind of place with peanut shells on the floor, and there was a ~30 minute wait to get a table. When we got a table, our waitress had also picked up an 11-top at the same time. She was very friendly and helpful though, so that made up for it. Her name was Heather as well.

Here we are waiting for our dinner, patiently.

Then the food finally arrived. (The place was packed, so it took a while, but was pretty well worth it, particularly when one considers the alternative (I think there was a Bennigan’s, and maybe a McDonald’s).)

Ryan enjoyed his:

Mine was pretty good too:

The food was, in fact, so good, that I took a time lapse video of it, for your viewing enjoyment.

Then we finished the trek to the hotel. I did not take any pictures of our approach or arrival because it was a bit scary. Instead we focused as a team on parking as close to the building as possible, and scurrying inside. Fortunately we had a styrofoam head with my valentine’s wig attached to it to protect us from harm.

Once inside we watched some anime on tv and started getting ready to go out. Here are far too many pictures of my pink eyeshadow.

Check out the size of my nose! If I didn’t feel so comfortable with you, dear reader, I would crop that. Ok, actually I’m just lazy, but lets not split hairs.

Then we started the trip to the Ybor area. We got there to find things far more insane than they usually would be. Parking at the Burger King a mile away from the strip was $20, for a start, and the traffic was absolutely unacceptable. We spread a few blocks out from this mayhem to try to find a place to get cash so we could get some overpriced parking. One place was so dimly lit and crowded with folks that looked generally unhappy that we opted not to even get out of the car. The next place was reasonably well lit, but at this time of night (midnight-ish) in that neighborhood they locked the door and you could only do business through a little teller window thing, so no ATM for us. We gave up on this and got back on the interstate, went over and exit or two, and found a well lit gas station with lots of people from various walks of life all seeming to coexist peacefully. We got cash, and then headed back downtown. I did not photograph this part of the trip.

While on the strip we learned the cause of all the craziness. The adult-oriented Gasparilla Night Parade, related to the Gasparilla Pirate Festival. It would be just our luck wouldn’t it. People were EVERYWHERE. The main street was blocked off, and filled with staggering drunkards, some ornery. As we walked to a little bar we liked to start off the night, my hair met various reactions. One guy stopped me to very enthusiastically tell me he loved it (“that hair is bomb, I really like that”) bless his soul. Others would not make eye contact with me, but would loudly say things that I suppose they hoped would spur some reaction (“them ain’t no dreads”). Really? Was it the pink color that gave it away? It’s a wig, on purpose. It’s fun. Don’t hate. To be technical they are dreads, if one considers the method of construction. They are most definitely not natural dreads, nor were they trying to be. But who keeps score anyway?

Once we made it through the crowds of people, we got to the Reservoir Bar. I like this place. We hung out there for a while, and took this picture. We were not drunk at this point. We never really got to what I would call drunk, due to the claustrophobic crowding and the need to drive back to the hotel. However, the people watching was seriously excellent.

After our feet mostly stopped hurting from the initial walk, we planned out where to go next. With my hair and outfit as they were, I thought we needed something where the music is electronic and people might have glow sticks. So, we checked out the Castle.

This place was a lot of fun. On the way there two girls stopped their car to say that they loved my hair. One police officer on a horse also complimented it. My ego was gradually recovering from the initial walk through the sometimes jeering crowd earlier. Having been a gothy kid in school, I thought this Castle place might be pretty accepting. The downstairs area seemed a little tricky while the path to the stairs was totally clear, so we headed on upstairs. The older guy in the red g-string at the top of the stairs after we got in answered that one for me. Very accepting atmosphere. I was glad this was a place he could hang out at, next to that lady in the school girl outfit and the guy with no shirt and the full-length PVC trench coat. Rock on.

Saturday night upstairs at this place is called Communion After Dark, and features “the latest and best electro, industrial, futurepop, powernoise, darkwave, synthpop, coldwave, EBM, IDM & gothic music out today” – and yes, yes it certainly did seem to be just that. On the big video screens we had the latest Harry Potter movie. (On a side note, that was a pretty dark movie.)

I noticed a guy in a batman suit on the other side of the dance floor area. There were also pretty girls (patrons, not employees, it appeared) in gothy/piratey/fetishy costumes dancing on stages around the place. That was pretty neato. Everyone we encountered was polite, and some downright friendly. A major contrast to the indifference and belligerence of the street we were on earlier. I liked it there. Next time we go to Ybor we are considering just hanging out at that place the whole night and not bothering with the main drag.

Walking back to the car, we saw this and found it funny. Someone has contributed some of their “hey show us your tits” beads to a statue of what is obviously a very important man.

We both stopped and gave up, taking off our dress shoes while sitting on a bench, and then resumed the walk back to the car. Then we high-tailed it back to the hotel. Early the next morning we started the trek back.

All in all it was a pretty fun time. Next time we’ll make sure it’s not the night of the parade, and maybe will plan a little more so we have more time to enjoy the scenery. We’ll definitely get some better shoes to wear.