shopping and other useless pastimes
Sep. 7th, 2002 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whispercricketI'm back in Boston safely now and only a bit jet-lagged, as I mainly stayed awake today by falling into a stupor everytime I was sitting down.
I did get time to visit the Wizards of the Coast store at the Bellevue Square Mall.
It's a nice, fairly large, fairly normal gaming store - when you enter the store, it's pretty obvious that they were bought by Hasbro, as most of the featured games are standard ones you'd find at places like Toys R Us (Candyland, Monopoly, Scrabble, that sort, I think - I didn't pay too much attention). They did have a decent collection of Mayfair, Steve Jackson, Cheapass, and other less mainstream gaming lines, however, which was nice - I ended up picking up a copy of Lunch Money finally, and I wrote down some others that I'd like to get in the future (I didn't have enough suitcase space and I didn't want to spend much more money). I also bought some more dice, so now I should have 10d6 to use in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arawen's game for one of my massive damage spells. :) The store also had a wall of gaming books and a section in the back for tabletop and computer gaming (the latter had built-in computer monitors, which was rather nifty). Unfortunately, as this is a mall store, it can't stay open as late as other gaming stores I know (like Danger Planet). Finally, the employees were great - very friendly and knowledgeable, especially the woman with whom I talked about playing different games (Lunch Money, Chez Geek) and the difficulty of rolling dice on carpet. Overall, a nice store, not really that special per se, so not deserving of a specific pilgrimage, but definitely worth the time spent wandering the mall.
The Bellevue Square Mall is probably one of the nicest malls I've been in. Not the ritziest (that's probably the Atrium Mall or something like it), but bright, airy, and having lots of interesting stores and places to eat. I noticed a French cafe that offered High Tea (including finger sandwiches, etc.) every day from 3-5, and a restaurant called "My Favorite Piroshky". I also stopped into a very nice store called Fireworks, which has unique and artsy objects for sale, including ones from Manhattan Toy. Fireworks has very little on their website right now, but the lady working at the counter said that should change by the holidays (but they will only be able to list about 1/5 of what you can find in the store, since their inventory changes so much).
Oh, and if my Seattle friend is reading this - yes, they do have a Swatch store at the mall (I walked by it). Good luck! :)
After I left the mall, I still had a ton of time before I had to be at the airport for my flight (a redeye, so leaving about 11:30 pm). A couple of my colleagues were going to be on the same flight, and they were perfectly happy to go downtown to the same area I wanted (Pioneer Square, or P-Square, as that's where the Eilliott Bay Book Company is located and I hadn't had time to research any other places to see). So I turned in my car to Avis and packed up my colleague's car (a Jaguar S-Type, so much nicer than the Grand Am I got), and off we went.
We ate dinner at an excellent (and fairly pricey) seafood restaurant in Belltown called Flying Fish. One of the side dishes to my meal was satsuma potatoes, or Japanese yams (white, not orange), which I'd never tried before and now is one of my favorite foods. Afterwards, we drove over to P-Square to save time and then walked around a bit. There's a beautiful park-like area right in the middle (not much grass, but trees and benches and an interesting iron and glass canopy) - I tried to take some pictures, but the lighting wasn't great so I don't know how they'll come out. I was able to find the Elliott Bay Book Company and bought one used paperback just for fun. Basically this is a nice well-sized independent bookstore with both new and used books (good-sized for being in the middle of a city) and friendly and knowledgeable staff.
Afterwards, I met my colleagues and drove to the airport. Since one person had a 10pm flight, we were there very early...[to be continued]
I did get time to visit the Wizards of the Coast store at the Bellevue Square Mall.
It's a nice, fairly large, fairly normal gaming store - when you enter the store, it's pretty obvious that they were bought by Hasbro, as most of the featured games are standard ones you'd find at places like Toys R Us (Candyland, Monopoly, Scrabble, that sort, I think - I didn't pay too much attention). They did have a decent collection of Mayfair, Steve Jackson, Cheapass, and other less mainstream gaming lines, however, which was nice - I ended up picking up a copy of Lunch Money finally, and I wrote down some others that I'd like to get in the future (I didn't have enough suitcase space and I didn't want to spend much more money). I also bought some more dice, so now I should have 10d6 to use in
arawen's game for one of my massive damage spells. :) The store also had a wall of gaming books and a section in the back for tabletop and computer gaming (the latter had built-in computer monitors, which was rather nifty). Unfortunately, as this is a mall store, it can't stay open as late as other gaming stores I know (like Danger Planet). Finally, the employees were great - very friendly and knowledgeable, especially the woman with whom I talked about playing different games (Lunch Money, Chez Geek) and the difficulty of rolling dice on carpet. The Bellevue Square Mall is probably one of the nicest malls I've been in. Not the ritziest (that's probably the Atrium Mall or something like it), but bright, airy, and having lots of interesting stores and places to eat. I noticed a French cafe that offered High Tea (including finger sandwiches, etc.) every day from 3-5, and a restaurant called "My Favorite Piroshky". I also stopped into a very nice store called Fireworks, which has unique and artsy objects for sale, including ones from Manhattan Toy. Fireworks has very little on their website right now, but the lady working at the counter said that should change by the holidays (but they will only be able to list about 1/5 of what you can find in the store, since their inventory changes so much).
Oh, and if my Seattle friend is reading this - yes, they do have a Swatch store at the mall (I walked by it). Good luck! :)
After I left the mall, I still had a ton of time before I had to be at the airport for my flight (a redeye, so leaving about 11:30 pm). A couple of my colleagues were going to be on the same flight, and they were perfectly happy to go downtown to the same area I wanted (Pioneer Square, or P-Square, as that's where the Eilliott Bay Book Company is located and I hadn't had time to research any other places to see). So I turned in my car to Avis and packed up my colleague's car (a Jaguar S-Type, so much nicer than the Grand Am I got), and off we went.
We ate dinner at an excellent (and fairly pricey) seafood restaurant in Belltown called Flying Fish. One of the side dishes to my meal was satsuma potatoes, or Japanese yams (white, not orange), which I'd never tried before and now is one of my favorite foods. Afterwards, we drove over to P-Square to save time and then walked around a bit. There's a beautiful park-like area right in the middle (not much grass, but trees and benches and an interesting iron and glass canopy) - I tried to take some pictures, but the lighting wasn't great so I don't know how they'll come out. I was able to find the Elliott Bay Book Company and bought one used paperback just for fun. Basically this is a nice well-sized independent bookstore with both new and used books (good-sized for being in the middle of a city) and friendly and knowledgeable staff.
Afterwards, I met my colleagues and drove to the airport. Since one person had a 10pm flight, we were there very early...[to be continued]
