I've let the gaping hole between November and January alone long enough. It's time to fill you in on what we did over the holidays!
First, will be my birthday blog. My birthday is not technically during the holidays, but it is in December, so it counts :)
I was waiting to post till i had photos (Tan???) but it's been way too long now.
So, I turned 32 on December 3. :( That was a sad day. I didn't like it, but I couldn't stop it.
But, we ended up having a very fun time the weekend before, so it was worth it! Here's what we did....
Tan invited Alberto and me out with him and some friends visiting from Orange County on the Saturday night before my birthday.
We had Korean BBQ which was really unique and delicious. The meal comes with about 10 different side items, plus wonton soup plus sticky rice. YUM!
We had pork and beef and chicken and shrimp, all marinated in their own unique sauces and ready for cooking. Then we just dropped them one by one onto the grill in the middle of the table and picked up whatever we wanted to pop in our mouths as the items were cooked to our own unique preferences. We polished off the super yummy dinner with the blue bottle of very smooth saki recommended to us by the waitress.
We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant an hour and a half later and decided to work off some of our food by going dancing downtown in the Gaslamp. We ended up at this place that is connected to Martini Ranch called The Shaker Room. They were giving out VIP cards for free cover and so we decided to try it out. This place was super sexy. The dance floor was cramped and steamy and there were extremely hot women dancing in practically nothing up on the raised platform areas around the dance floor. The lights were really great, I have a newfound appreciation for the way moving lights are set up and run because of Backstage Presence, and these lights were the perfect mix of color and movement to play off the dancing masses. There is an upstairs area with a second bar and very cozy little couch areas tucked against the wall. The bartender upstairs made the yummiest vodka/cranberry drinks. One of the local stations was broadcasting from there that night so one of the upstairs areas was blocked off for their private party.
Then, for those who are tired of the hordes of beautiful people, there is a tiny little adjoining room where, on the other side, you walk through another door and into a very casual but lively sports bar and grill.
When we were ready for a switch we left there and went to another place I've always looked at but never gone into called The Bitter End.
The Bitter End appears to be just another pub from one of the British Isles, but it is actually much more! It has an underground dance floor that plays a variety of music from many different genres. The lights are almost nonexistent, just enough to faintly illuminate the big open floor with a few twirly lights to make things interesting. We danced to hip hop, electronica, new wave, 80s hair bands, and even a bit of country until the lights came up and the staff shooed us out the door.
By this time it was after 2:00 am, but none of us were tired. As we made our way back to the cars we kept our eyes peeled for any late night activity and Tan spotted a hookah bar with lots of people inside. We popped our head in and made our way to the counter where there was a menu of different kinds of things you could smoke in the hookah.
There was all sorts of flavors, ranging from regular tobacco-sounding things to fruity flavors to rich and chocolatey items. We decided on two fruity flavors - since none of us really smokes we thought this would be easiest for us to handle. A few minutes later after we sat down, a young guy dropped two hookahs at our table, one ready with strawberry flavored stuff and the other with mango flavored stuff. We each also got little plastic mouthpieces to put over the hookah tube so that we wouldn't catch each others germs.
It was very interesting! You could definitely tell the difference between the strawberry and the mango flavor, and I preferred mango :) The only downside to the experience was when we asked the guy for some water (we were, after all, smoking a lot!) and he paused, turned his nose up at us, and said that the only water available was for purchase.
By the time we exhausted the hookahs we were much more mellow and ready to wrap up the night. We could have also been a little green from smoking so much, but no one fessed up to it.
We parted ways shortly thereafter and headed home for the evening.
A great time was had by all, and it turned out to be one of my favorite birthday memories of all!
No comments:
Post a Comment