Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Day 4 (Part 2 of 2): The Compound
Saturday, April 14, 2007
My friends in Atlanta had never reserved a VIP table in Atlanta before, and since I was in town and since most of us had working professional incomes (as opposed to student incomes), we decided to go nuts and get a table at a popular club called The Compound. $640 paid for admission for 10 people, a reserved seating area, $500 towards bottle service, tax, and gratuity. We had 8 people in the party and counted on having at least 2 bottles of liquor so we were looking forward to this evening with a sort of nervous excitement; we knew it was going to be fun, but that our livers would have to pay.
Before heading out to the club, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Figo. There, you order and pay for your food prior to getting seated. I didn't bother to ask what the deal with that was because I was so anxious about our impending doom. I also neglected to take pictures but the food was excellent and the restaurant was very charming. In fact, Stephen recommends it as a dinner date restaurant preceded by a stroll through the park of course. Coincidentally, Stephen had taken us to the park earlier in the day and now we're eating dinner with him... and then he took us to his place. Wow this date really works!
In Atlanta, people don't really start heading out to the clubs until midnight, so Stephen insisted that we just wait at his place until at least 11:30 PM. Some of us got anxious and figured we'd get seated for our VIP status earlier so we got there around 11:00 PM. Once you enter the compound, you go through a courtyard area with a serene look and zen like feel. With techno music.
Although we were able to get into the club, the VIP area wasn't open until 11:30 PM so we just sat around one of the smaller wings of the club:
We were literally counting down every minute. In my entire life, I don't think I had ever been this anxious to drink. It felt very... alcoholic. When the time finally arrived, our waitress seated us and explained the bottle prices. A bottle of hard liquor started at $300 meaning getting two puts us over the $500 tab amount. F*ck it, lets do it! We got a bottle of Southern Comfort and Stoli Vodka:
"You bitches are going down tonight!":
"Ready?":
"Game face!"
"Carol, are you drunk already?"
Early on they were playing mostly electronic music so the VIP area and dance floor were relatively empty save for a couple of exhibitionist girls dancing in their scantily clad outfits. It wasn't until the hip hop music started playing when the room started filling up and the real Atlanta nightlife reveals itself.
You have your wannabe go-go dancers...
...the old guy at the club...
...and the old guy at the club dancing with the old lady in a leotard and cape at the club:
Just when our alcohol supply seems to be tapped, Jason does the unthinkable: orders another bottle. zoMg!
He needed it anyway to handle girls like this:
oh hai! who r u?
It was really fun and surprisingly, we weren't all that drunk. Except for Carol.
We all went back to Carol and Julia's where Jason went from after hours Iron Bowler to Iron Chef cooking up some mean fried rice, pizza rolls, and ravioli.
Of course, every night has to end with drunken Wii:
Oh yeah, $640 tab was now $1120! lawl.
My friends in Atlanta had never reserved a VIP table in Atlanta before, and since I was in town and since most of us had working professional incomes (as opposed to student incomes), we decided to go nuts and get a table at a popular club called The Compound. $640 paid for admission for 10 people, a reserved seating area, $500 towards bottle service, tax, and gratuity. We had 8 people in the party and counted on having at least 2 bottles of liquor so we were looking forward to this evening with a sort of nervous excitement; we knew it was going to be fun, but that our livers would have to pay.
Before heading out to the club, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Figo. There, you order and pay for your food prior to getting seated. I didn't bother to ask what the deal with that was because I was so anxious about our impending doom. I also neglected to take pictures but the food was excellent and the restaurant was very charming. In fact, Stephen recommends it as a dinner date restaurant preceded by a stroll through the park of course. Coincidentally, Stephen had taken us to the park earlier in the day and now we're eating dinner with him... and then he took us to his place. Wow this date really works!
In Atlanta, people don't really start heading out to the clubs until midnight, so Stephen insisted that we just wait at his place until at least 11:30 PM. Some of us got anxious and figured we'd get seated for our VIP status earlier so we got there around 11:00 PM. Once you enter the compound, you go through a courtyard area with a serene look and zen like feel. With techno music.
Although we were able to get into the club, the VIP area wasn't open until 11:30 PM so we just sat around one of the smaller wings of the club:
We were literally counting down every minute. In my entire life, I don't think I had ever been this anxious to drink. It felt very... alcoholic. When the time finally arrived, our waitress seated us and explained the bottle prices. A bottle of hard liquor started at $300 meaning getting two puts us over the $500 tab amount. F*ck it, lets do it! We got a bottle of Southern Comfort and Stoli Vodka:
"You bitches are going down tonight!":
"Ready?":
"Game face!"
"Carol, are you drunk already?"
Early on they were playing mostly electronic music so the VIP area and dance floor were relatively empty save for a couple of exhibitionist girls dancing in their scantily clad outfits. It wasn't until the hip hop music started playing when the room started filling up and the real Atlanta nightlife reveals itself.
You have your wannabe go-go dancers...
...the old guy at the club...
...and the old guy at the club dancing with the old lady in a leotard and cape at the club:
Just when our alcohol supply seems to be tapped, Jason does the unthinkable: orders another bottle. zoMg!
He needed it anyway to handle girls like this:
oh hai! who r u?
It was really fun and surprisingly, we weren't all that drunk. Except for Carol.
We all went back to Carol and Julia's where Jason went from after hours Iron Bowler to Iron Chef cooking up some mean fried rice, pizza rolls, and ravioli.
Of course, every night has to end with drunken Wii:
Oh yeah, $640 tab was now $1120! lawl.
Day 4 (Part 1 of 2): Flying Biscuit and Dogwood
Saturday, April 14, 2007
I woke up relatively early and not hungover which was good because while there wasn't much left to do on the tourist agenda, we had a crazy night at The Compound to look forward to ($640 crazy for our table fare).
We started our day with brunch at a local favorite The Flying Biscuit [insert fanfare music here]. There was a line when we got there though so we got some coffee at Caribou Coffee which is a popular coffee shop in the area. The wait was shorter than we thought which was good because we were hungry:
I got their breakfast special which consisted of 3 eggs, tomatoes, bacon, potatoes, and of course, a flying biscuit [insert fanfare music here]:
After clogging my arteries a bit, Stephen, Heman, and I took a stroll through Piedmont Park while Julia took Carol home because she was still feeling hungover. They were in the midst of setting up the Dogwood Festival, and though the weather was muggy, the park was still very scenic:
Stephen gave an excellent tour of the park and surrounding areas. "And here we have... more trees!":
In a couple of years, this view probably won't be the same because according to Stephen, the city plans to play Sim City between Atlanta's midtown and downtown to combine the two areas into downmidtown:
Once we reached the other side of the park, we rendezvoused with Julia at a nearby parking lot where dozens of n00bs got their cars booted for parking there for the festival.
After the park, we headed over to the Lenox Square mall for Stephen's new glasses, attempted to buy Guitar Hero 2 for XBox 360 (sold out ftl), and to browse around at Urban Outfitters. We were probably too tired to shop though so we just went home to rest up for the crazy $640 night.
I woke up relatively early and not hungover which was good because while there wasn't much left to do on the tourist agenda, we had a crazy night at The Compound to look forward to ($640 crazy for our table fare).
We started our day with brunch at a local favorite The Flying Biscuit [insert fanfare music here]. There was a line when we got there though so we got some coffee at Caribou Coffee which is a popular coffee shop in the area. The wait was shorter than we thought which was good because we were hungry:
I got their breakfast special which consisted of 3 eggs, tomatoes, bacon, potatoes, and of course, a flying biscuit [insert fanfare music here]:
After clogging my arteries a bit, Stephen, Heman, and I took a stroll through Piedmont Park while Julia took Carol home because she was still feeling hungover. They were in the midst of setting up the Dogwood Festival, and though the weather was muggy, the park was still very scenic:
Stephen gave an excellent tour of the park and surrounding areas. "And here we have... more trees!":
In a couple of years, this view probably won't be the same because according to Stephen, the city plans to play Sim City between Atlanta's midtown and downtown to combine the two areas into downmidtown:
Once we reached the other side of the park, we rendezvoused with Julia at a nearby parking lot where dozens of n00bs got their cars booted for parking there for the festival.
After the park, we headed over to the Lenox Square mall for Stephen's new glasses, attempted to buy Guitar Hero 2 for XBox 360 (sold out ftl), and to browse around at Urban Outfitters. We were probably too tired to shop though so we just went home to rest up for the crazy $640 night.
Day 3 (Part 3 of 3): K-Town In Atlanta
Friday, April 13, 2007
Although Atlanta's Koreatown pales in comparison to Los Angeles', it was still fun to have the Korean food, drink, and karaoke experience in another city.
The night started with dinner at Chung Dam with more guests making an appearance. Here's Sun, Heman, Jason, me (Joe), Carol, Stephen, Julia, and Devon:
Dinner was good, but it was finally time to drink! A quick jaunt from the restaurant took us to Debut, a pretty trendy looking Korean bar where we were seated on impractically stylish and accordingly uncomfortable lounge furniture. We quickly opted for some standard tables with four legged chairs instead. When our drink order came up, I showed everyone how to play 'Titanic', a drinking game that when in Korean bars due to the dimensions of Korean beer glasses in relation to Korean shot glasses.
How2Play Titanic
1. At a Korean bar, order beer and soju. The beer glass should be short and narrow and the shot glass should be wide mouthed.
2. Pour enough beer to fill half a glass. Float an empty shot glass in the half filled bear glass.
3. Each participants takes a turn pouring as much soju into the shot glass as they like. However, whoever causes the shot glass to sink must drink it all.
It's really not too bad since it's effectively just a soju bomb (called bokchan in Korean).
We actually thought Carol would sink it but she actually did pretty well. Look at that concentration:
The big winners (or losers) of the evening were Sun, Heman, and Devon. The last round we played seemed to have no end but Devon was finally able to sink it:
Once we were sufficiently buzzed, we headed down the street to a karaoke room called Luxor. The interior walls had Egyptian hieroglyphic molds which were pretty cool, and colored lights shot around the room making the ambiance fun and cheesy.
What to sing, what to sing:
What to drink, what to drink:
When does it end, when does it end:
Stephen and Jason representing Triage:
Heman representin' his namesake:
There was a smaller screen mounted above on the opposite side so that you can be an awesome karaoke superstar:
Towards the end of the evening and on my way back from the bathroom, I passed by another party's karaoke room that had been vacated only minutes before and noticed that a carafe of whiskey had not been finished. Asian frugality took over and I performed a salvage operation on it (I took the bottle back to our room) which was convenient because Luxor decided to stay open longer for us.
After we finished, Jason really wanted to go bowling, so Stephen, Devon, Sun, and I joined him. Stephen hurt his wrist as he bowled into his leg instead of the lane, I'm left handed so I'm handicapped from the start, and Jason wtfpwned all of us.
After bowling, I had to work. I wasn't drunk, but I was pretty tired. It was 6:30 AM when I finally slept.
Although Atlanta's Koreatown pales in comparison to Los Angeles', it was still fun to have the Korean food, drink, and karaoke experience in another city.
The night started with dinner at Chung Dam with more guests making an appearance. Here's Sun, Heman, Jason, me (Joe), Carol, Stephen, Julia, and Devon:
Dinner was good, but it was finally time to drink! A quick jaunt from the restaurant took us to Debut, a pretty trendy looking Korean bar where we were seated on impractically stylish and accordingly uncomfortable lounge furniture. We quickly opted for some standard tables with four legged chairs instead. When our drink order came up, I showed everyone how to play 'Titanic', a drinking game that when in Korean bars due to the dimensions of Korean beer glasses in relation to Korean shot glasses.
How2Play Titanic
1. At a Korean bar, order beer and soju. The beer glass should be short and narrow and the shot glass should be wide mouthed.
2. Pour enough beer to fill half a glass. Float an empty shot glass in the half filled bear glass.
3. Each participants takes a turn pouring as much soju into the shot glass as they like. However, whoever causes the shot glass to sink must drink it all.
It's really not too bad since it's effectively just a soju bomb (called bokchan in Korean).
We actually thought Carol would sink it but she actually did pretty well. Look at that concentration:
The big winners (or losers) of the evening were Sun, Heman, and Devon. The last round we played seemed to have no end but Devon was finally able to sink it:
Once we were sufficiently buzzed, we headed down the street to a karaoke room called Luxor. The interior walls had Egyptian hieroglyphic molds which were pretty cool, and colored lights shot around the room making the ambiance fun and cheesy.
What to sing, what to sing:
What to drink, what to drink:
When does it end, when does it end:
Stephen and Jason representing Triage:
Heman representin' his namesake:
There was a smaller screen mounted above on the opposite side so that you can be an awesome karaoke superstar:
Towards the end of the evening and on my way back from the bathroom, I passed by another party's karaoke room that had been vacated only minutes before and noticed that a carafe of whiskey had not been finished. Asian frugality took over and I performed a salvage operation on it (I took the bottle back to our room) which was convenient because Luxor decided to stay open longer for us.
After we finished, Jason really wanted to go bowling, so Stephen, Devon, Sun, and I joined him. Stephen hurt his wrist as he bowled into his leg instead of the lane, I'm left handed so I'm handicapped from the start, and Jason wtfpwned all of us.
After bowling, I had to work. I wasn't drunk, but I was pretty tired. It was 6:30 AM when I finally slept.
Day 3 (Part 2 of 3): Westin's Sun Dial
After our trip to the Georgia Aquarium, we went to the Westin hotel's rotating rooftop bar on the 73rd floor, Sun Dial.
Getting up there required the use of an escalator, elevator, and Carol's priceless expressions:
Once we reached the top, we were seated on some chairs on the rotating platform which circled around offering some nice views of the city:
Carol thought she left her ID behind so rather than complicating things, she just ordered a water while I got their Friday martini (Carol in deep thought thinking if she'll ever find a keep-able guy):
I'm sure the nighttime view was more stunning, but we had plans in the evening so this was good enough. Here's a tip if you plan to visit: each person in the group must spend a minimum of $8. The waitress was kind enough to let us go with my single drink, but gave us a stern warning about it for future reference.
As we were leaving, Carol found that she had her ID. How convenient.
Getting up there required the use of an escalator, elevator, and Carol's priceless expressions:
Once we reached the top, we were seated on some chairs on the rotating platform which circled around offering some nice views of the city:
Carol thought she left her ID behind so rather than complicating things, she just ordered a water while I got their Friday martini (Carol in deep thought thinking if she'll ever find a keep-able guy):
I'm sure the nighttime view was more stunning, but we had plans in the evening so this was good enough. Here's a tip if you plan to visit: each person in the group must spend a minimum of $8. The waitress was kind enough to let us go with my single drink, but gave us a stern warning about it for future reference.
As we were leaving, Carol found that she had her ID. How convenient.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Day 3 (Part 1 of 3): Georgia Aquarium
As far as tourist related activities go, I looked forward to visiting the Georgia Aquarium the most. It's supposedly the largest aquarium in the world and I like aquariums in general so I was really excited. I even held back on the drinking at Tongue and Groove so that I wouldn't be hungover for the experience. Morning came and I woke up feeling fine. The same couldn't be said for Carol, my host, transportation service, and tour guide.
She felt drunk when she woke up so she drank her beer + Clamato concoction hoping to counter an impending hangover (it tastes better than I expected, but... it's beer and Clamato and that's just wrong). To make her feel not so alcoholic, I had a beer myself. It was 10:30 AM. She estimated that she'd be fine around 1:00 PM and so I just waited it out playing Wii, surfing the internet, and working. When she finally got up feeling mostly recovered, we got ready and headed out. We were running a little behind schedule, but Carol claimed that it'd only take two hours or so for us to see everything. We'll see...
Even from the outside the aquarium looked huge:
From the inside it looked bigger:
The aquarium was separated into separate wings based on themes and we decided to traverse them in clockwise order. The first area called the Georgia Explorer had petting pools where you have the opportunity to touch rays, sharks, crabs, shrimp, etc.
Carol actually shrieked out loud like the little girl she is when a shrimp she tried to touch darted away. An aquarium staff member reminded her, "yes little girl, they move." Next was the River Scout area where they had freshwater animals:
They had some impressive exhibits with one of them running along the ceiling:
Afterwards we headed toward the Coldwater Quest area which starts with a kelp forest exhibit (fobby pose ftw):
The beluga whales are in this area which is one of the aquarium's main attractions:
They're very graceful animals. The rest of the exhibits were of seals, otters, and penguins that weren't as graceful making the task of photographing them in action extremely difficult. After many failed attempts at taking their photos, we headed on down to the other main attraction, the Ocean Voyager exhibit which starts in a tunnel view with a conveyer belt to pace you along:
I've been through other aquarium tunnels before often featuring sharks and rays, and the sheer variety of life they had in this one was impressive. When we rounded the corner, I was thinking to myself, "is that it?" when we reached the main viewing area:
It's actually bigger than it looks and I wish I had taken a picture of the seating, audience, and the exhibit to capture its enormousness. Although we saw it swim by in the tunnel, this is also the best place to view the largest inhabitant of this exhibit, the whale shark:
That was definitely the highlight of the trip. The last wing was the Tropical Diver which featured reef life. The website says, "we have saved the most relaxing for the end: tropical coral reefs," but I found it very anti-climatic. The last exhibit of the area was pretty good though featuring a large tank that curved overhead with artificial waves crashing over you simulating life in a coastal reef.:
Overall I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be, but it was still a very good experience that nobody should skip while they're in Atlanta.
She felt drunk when she woke up so she drank her beer + Clamato concoction hoping to counter an impending hangover (it tastes better than I expected, but... it's beer and Clamato and that's just wrong). To make her feel not so alcoholic, I had a beer myself. It was 10:30 AM. She estimated that she'd be fine around 1:00 PM and so I just waited it out playing Wii, surfing the internet, and working. When she finally got up feeling mostly recovered, we got ready and headed out. We were running a little behind schedule, but Carol claimed that it'd only take two hours or so for us to see everything. We'll see...
Even from the outside the aquarium looked huge:
From the inside it looked bigger:
The aquarium was separated into separate wings based on themes and we decided to traverse them in clockwise order. The first area called the Georgia Explorer had petting pools where you have the opportunity to touch rays, sharks, crabs, shrimp, etc.
Carol actually shrieked out loud like the little girl she is when a shrimp she tried to touch darted away. An aquarium staff member reminded her, "yes little girl, they move." Next was the River Scout area where they had freshwater animals:
They had some impressive exhibits with one of them running along the ceiling:
Afterwards we headed toward the Coldwater Quest area which starts with a kelp forest exhibit (fobby pose ftw):
The beluga whales are in this area which is one of the aquarium's main attractions:
They're very graceful animals. The rest of the exhibits were of seals, otters, and penguins that weren't as graceful making the task of photographing them in action extremely difficult. After many failed attempts at taking their photos, we headed on down to the other main attraction, the Ocean Voyager exhibit which starts in a tunnel view with a conveyer belt to pace you along:
I've been through other aquarium tunnels before often featuring sharks and rays, and the sheer variety of life they had in this one was impressive. When we rounded the corner, I was thinking to myself, "is that it?" when we reached the main viewing area:
It's actually bigger than it looks and I wish I had taken a picture of the seating, audience, and the exhibit to capture its enormousness. Although we saw it swim by in the tunnel, this is also the best place to view the largest inhabitant of this exhibit, the whale shark:
That was definitely the highlight of the trip. The last wing was the Tropical Diver which featured reef life. The website says, "we have saved the most relaxing for the end: tropical coral reefs," but I found it very anti-climatic. The last exhibit of the area was pretty good though featuring a large tank that curved overhead with artificial waves crashing over you simulating life in a coastal reef.:
Overall I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be, but it was still a very good experience that nobody should skip while they're in Atlanta.
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