mini Seattle trip

a few weeks ago Kris and i went up to Seattle for a super quick trip. we left SF at 7am on saturday and returned at 11pm on sunday. the whole reason for such a quick trip was to cheer on our friend Pat. he graduated with a doctorate in physical therapy and is now officially certified to help with anybody's achy needs. this is just a quick recap of the weekends events. saturday was a non-stop, very random day.

a lunch celebration was had at Pat's girlfriend's mom's restaurant, China Star. good ol' chinese food.

tired from partying the night prior and waking up at 5am to catch the 7am flight, Kris and i headed to our hotel room to take a nap as soon as there was an opportunity. an hour later we were awoken by banging on the door. Pat came to tell us that he'd set up "flying lessons" in an Alaska Air Boeing simulator. uhh...awesome much?? Jenny, Pat's gf, took us to the Alaska Airlines training facilities and introduced us to their friend who generously took some time from his day off to allow us a chance at an awesome experience.

from the outside it looks like a gigantic virtual box that moves much like the Star Tours one at Disneyland. when you're in this moving contraption it actually feels like a real plane...well....except if you "crash." that wouldn't be so pleasant.

from the inside it looks like an actual plane. they've set it up so a screen through the window can display any airport and it's surrounding areas. because we're from SF that's what he chose. thank God we didn't actually have to deal with all of those intimidating buttons and controls!  we pretty much just handled the steering. i don't know if you know, but the foot pedals control the wheels and the steering wheel-like thing, called the yoke, controls altitude as well as the ailerons, which turn the plane left or right. 

i did pretty well on the take off and throughout my time in the "sky," however when it came time to land...let's just say i more than likely would have ended up in the ocean or landing my nose into the ground. you know, female asian driver. what more would you expect? i'm really not a bad driver in real life, i swear!

i can't go to a new city and not try to find something delicious to eat. it's just not me to pass up an opportunity to find something worthy of an edible pit stop. while we were driving towards our dinner destination i looked on Yelp and found High 5 Pies, which was featured on Food Network and i'm glad i did! i made Jenny bee line towards High 5 Pies before dinner so i could pick up some after dinner dessert.

this, my friends, is the peanut butter chocolate pie. it has a graham cracker crust and house made whipped cream. it was rich in flavor without being overly heavy. so SO good! i was pretty sad after i took the last bite. 

this is the cherry almond pie in a jar. their pies in a jar were the focus of whatever episode on whatever show they were on Food Network. initially i thought it was a cute idea. but personally, i found that shoving a pie in a jar means lots of crust and very little filling. i didn't love it. and i didn't love the cherry almond either, but that was the only option for the day for pie in a jar. no worries. that peanut butter chocolate pie made up for it. 

the last time i went to Seattle, i tried going to Paseo for their famous roast pork sandwich but they were closed for the winter. WHAT? what does that even mean? why would you close up for the winter? you're not an ice cream shop!! i digress. this time i made it a point to find my way to Paseo, but again i sadly did not get a chance to try the sandwich. they were sold out by the time i got there. i figured i might as well not waste my trip out there so i got the roast pork plate. whether it came in sandwich form or plate form, i thought i could grasp why others felt the roast pork was amazing. unfortunately it didn't wow me. if anything, it actually was a tad dry if you ask me. you know when meat sticks to your teeth when your molars dig in to them? yeah. that happened. 

after dinner, we met up with Pat's family and other friends to take the Underworld Tour. this underground tour took us throughout the portion of Seattle that was built on top of. apparently old Seattle used to reside below sea level. we figured that the "underground" tour was going to keep us dry, so we stupidly didn't pack umbrellas even though we all know that Seattle is known for their never ending rain. i mean seriously, a local told me that people up there need to take vitamin D supplements because they don't get enough sun. how depressing!!! again, i digress. 

so "underground" really means semi-underground or underground halfsies style. just about half of the tour was held outside in the POURING rain. initially upon stepping out in to the street we were instantly wet and by the time the tour was over we were soaked. this is the post tour picture of us unhappily soggy. if you didn't already notice, half an eyebrow had washed off. cool. i must have looked super put together with that wet hair and half brow. good thing we were headed for a club. haha!!

we tried teaching Pat how to dougie, but he pretty much looked like he was doing the robot the whole time. some people, you just can't help. ha!

by the time we finally dried off, we fortunately also had drinks in our system. sad faces turned into happy faces!

and then this happened!! i know you don't know what's going on here but i laughed hysterically for a solid three minutes as Kris danced up and down the back of this booth. 

we were told that we had to get the late night hot dog with cream cheese. we opted for a hot link to split and that bad boy was gone within two minutes. the addition of cream cheese made it creamy good. that was saturday in a nutshell.

sunday was the Day of Pat. he has spent three years (3? 2. no, 3. 3? i can't remember.) in Tacoma slaving away at school and at clinicals to become the next great physical therapist. he has spent lots of time testing his learned skills on friends and strangers and is now equipped to handle your physical rehabilitation and preventative needs. 

Pat and Jenny.

at the hooding ceremony. notice his name, Patrick Alan Toy.....and we call him Pat....P.A.T.  just an observation. we also call him Pattoy. that's way more fun. 

the hooding ceremony wasn't the end of it all. there was the school ceremony that was held outdoors on the field in the pouring rain. they called out 700 names over the course of three hours. i repeat seven hundred!!!! three hours!!!! needless to say Kris and i did not sit out there in the freezing wet to see Pat walk across the stage again. instead we took his car keys and took a nap in his car/watched the Simpsons on Kris' ipad. now before you all go thinking we're insensitive jerks for not toughing it out, remember that we flew all the way to Seattle to congratulate the new physical therapist. he knows we were up there for him and it didn't bother him that we didn't feel like being soaked two days in a row. 

CONGRATS PAT!!! you done did it!!!