Tokyo in Tulsa, day 1

[telophase]

Drove 5 hours to Tulsa today. Managed to find my hotel, no thanks to Google Maps who route you around downtown as if there weren't this GIANT NEW CONVENTION CENTER right on top of the streets they tell you to drive down. Was not expecting my hotel to be quite this nice, as I bid $50/night on Priceline and got it. :D I'm at the Crowne Plaza. After checking in, I went down to the (old) Convention Center where the con is being held, and checked in with no fuss. Stayed a couple of hours but between having found parking in a garage that was closing at 6:30 and being incredibly tired and hungry, I decided that cutting out early and heading for food and sleep was the better pat of valor, as if I ende dup with a migraine from lack of food and sleep, I wouldn't be able to sell on Saturday.

Sold 3 things right off the bat before I finished setting up, then ... nothing. Ah well. The person next to me said that last year, Friday was really busy, and it was very quiet today*. I suspect it's having the same problems as all cons are this year. We'll see how I do Sat and Sun - I'll decide later if I think it'll be worth coming back next year.

Just had dinner in the hotel restaurant. Was expecting the hotel prices. Was not expecting the amazingly good food. I had chicken piccata, and it was the best-cooked chicken piccata I have ever had in my entire life. And while I paid almost $10 for a glass of wine, it came in a little carafe that held a bit closer to 2 glasses than 1.** So while I paid hotel prices for the meal, I ended up with fine-dining quality. I may have dinner tomorrow here - there was a skirt steak on the menu that I decided not to get for fear of it not being cooked correctly (it's tough if you don't get it right), but now I have a lot more confidence.

The exhibit hall with the dealers' room and artist alley opens tomorrow at 10, but we can get in at 9. My entire goal for tonight is to stay awake until 9PM, then crash. I may even indulge in breakfast tomorrow down in the restaurant. :D



* Except for the guy who drove a motorcycle around the exhibit hall. The inside of the exhibit hall. There was, inexplicably, some sort of motorcycle display on the other side.

* My Washington, DC and NY readers are now laughing at me for thinking $10/glass of wine and $20/entree is extremely expensive, :D It is, down here in the heartland!

Comments

[morineko]

re the motorcycle guy: last year's Worldcon in Denver shared the Colorado Convention Center with a meeting of statisticians...and the annual meeting of John Deere dealers. Yes, farm equipment was on the move.

[thistleingrey]

:) And SF, which is the second most expensive area to live in the U.S. (after NYC, of course). heh. But I'm glad the food was good!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I had a shockingly good entree from room service last night. Granted, I'm staying at a fairly fancy hotel, but I've stayed in nice hotels for conferences before and still gotten the awful hotel food.

I had a roast chicken and it came actually roasted, on a bed of smashed potatoes, and was covered in actual REAL GRAVY. ZOMG good. Nom nom nom. I did not mind that it was twenty-something dollars.

Tomorrow morning I am nipping into the exhibit hall with the rest of the pack of slavering hyenas here at ALA and I am going straight for the graphic novel section of the exhibits. I'm crossing my fingers for free manga.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If I get a free moment, I may nip over to the dealers' area and see if I can get Fruits Basket 23. Other than that, unless I sell better than I did yesterday, I'm not buying stuff. XD

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hey, I live in NY, and would think $20 for an entree to be pretty expensive. Not unreasonable, maybe, but definitely not the kind of restaurant I patronize on any except the special-est of occasions. So I'm glad the food was good!

[blades-of-ice.livejournal.com]

I find $20 for an entree expensive. Of course, I rarely go to sit-down restaurants. I'm more of a Chipotle-Panera-Noodles & Co. kind of girl. Getting a meal for both my boyfriend and myself for $18 is always nice.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The older I get, the more food-snobbish I get. Luckily, it was fairly easy to push my boyfriend over the edge into being a foodie. (Most of my other friends tend to go to Olive Garden, Chilis, etc when they go out.) At the moment, we live near an area that has a lot of nifty little local restaurants so it's pretty easy to be a foodie here.

[mothoc.livejournal.com]

I think the Crown Plaza is where Travis and I stayed back in 2007 when we went up to Tulsa to see a Flogging Molly concert. They were beginning some extensive renovations at the time which are most likely done by now. I remember it being a really nice place that was within walking distance of the concert venue. :)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd detected signs of recent renovation! Overall it looks nice, but then you start seeing little details that they didn't finish - the room has a trendy brown color scheme and dark molding, and the bathroom counter is a console cabinet type, but the toilet seat vinyl is cracked and the bathtub hardware is old. XD

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

The sort of restaurants I usually eat at are about $10-15 for an entree at dinner. A glass of wine averages $8, I think.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

In the Fort Worth area, the non-chain restaurants we tend to eat at are more like $7-12/entree and $5-6 for a glass of wine, but we go over that price mark at times. If it's $18-30 for an entree, like the hotel here, it's something reserved for special occasions.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Seriously, if I'm paying $20 for dinner it had better be the sashimi selection at my favorite Japanese restaurant here in town. :P I'd consider $20 in Tulsa to be extravagant, but on the other hand, I remember going to a couple of really good restaurants with kyspaz' parents there, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were around the same price range. I'm just a rampaging cheapskate and don't pay $15 for an entree alone, even in California, unless it's a special occasion.

I hope everything goes really well!

[espion.livejournal.com]

The nicest restaurants I've been to up here in Philly are more like $50 (on average) for a steak, then a la carte sides from $8-15. Don't even get me started on the wine. You have to pre-game to go out to dinner up here.

[espion.livejournal.com]

(And obviously, you can still get a cheesesteak for $6.)