Day 2: We can't Escape!

So, faithful reader, I begin the day with the photo link, since I forgot to put the hyperlink in yesterday. ):  Sorry.

Big day in Toronto.

Bing and I went to the ballgame with Barb and K -- he got to sing several times (maybe that was the reason for going in his mind, though it said it was the food!).  First time at the Rogers Centre: we had great seats, two rows up behind the rightfielder, and saw a great game, with the Jays coming back from 2-0 down against the Yankees to win with a homer in the bottom of the 8th, 3-2.  Josh Donaldson hit the homer, and it was his bobblehead day.  But, despite getting there 40 minutes before game time, for the 2nd game in a row, K and I didn't get the publicized souvenir. ):

Meanwhile, EH went to the Royal Museum.  Which explains, at least in part, why she's EH and the rest of us act like she knows a lot. :)

BTW, this is a photo from our apartment.  Yes, we are right under the CN Tower, the iconic symbol of the city.

After some discussion, and my "adventure at Starbucks" (there's one conveniently in our building on the ground floor) -- the woman two in front of me in line swooned (good word) and we spent some time trying to figure out what happened.  She was pretty non-responsive, rather peaked...they called the EMTs and dug through her pockets to find a credit card and her phone and they called someone on it and told them she was there and what was happening.  This morning I was told it was low blood sugar...explaining, I guess, why I made sure I got Timmy Ho-Hos for breakfast (the Canadian national donut, a la Dunkin, for you rookies).

We decided on dinner at the nearest Chinese place with good ratings.  On the way we passed a rack of t-shirts.  I got the sexual innuendo of it, but I missed the literal level, it turns out (BJs, Yanks...). Two hours later, in the men's room, Michael finally got me to understand what it was supposed to mean about baseball.  They all thought this was VERY funny.   Ha ha.

Dinner was excellent.  We were having what EH called choice fatigue when the waitress said we could have everything -- she'd just bring out a sample and...

First, there were their dim sum, or classic apps -- this is a lobster roll:

Then there was this lobster dish --

Then this seafood in a rice basket (the seafood was mildly spicy):

I don't seem to have a pic of our favorite (as I was taking it), the finale, which was a vermicelli with crab meat dish (ending with noodles).

I have not included the duck, the crab ravioli, the ginger covered shrimp...

It was the best meal so far and will hard to top.  Michael kept making "mmmm" noises. :)

Then, via Uber SUV (there are 5 of us, remember) to the escape house.

If you've never done this, this was our first time, too.  Barb and K wanted to do this.  This house is a 19th century historical mansion where they have shot episodes of the Murdoch Mysteries (called something else in the states), which are set in ca. 1900 Toronto.  We were greeted at the door by a rather tall fellow in tails and a bowler hat, who kept calling us constables.  Insert appropriate joke.

The waiver we signed was funny (something about not suing for emotional distress, for one), as was his list of things NOT to do while in the rooms.  He was particularly concerned with acting like actors were REAL people (with two theatre people with us, we knew better) and not to prod, poke or hurt them.

What happens in an escape room is you are locked into a room with a bunch of clues that you have to solve to get out of the room.  In our scenario, we had to figure out where 5 murders took place (there was a map of Toronto with locations on it) and find 4 keys to unlock a desk that...well, that was what we were told to do.   We had an hour.  We were told though there were only 5 of us, that it was usually 12, and that the solve rate was 10%.  Sounded like a challenge, it was.

The next 60 minutes was rather crazy.  Ok, EH has accused me of spending half an hour playing with a cabinet to get one key, so maybe it wasn't so much.  (In the end, a la James Kirk, I cheated, opened the cabinet and took the key).  There was a suspect in a jail cell, who Barb decided was the real detective -- not the guy in the bowler hat -- and early on got the jail cell key out of his pocket and got them to switch places.  I was in the wrong room when this happened (of course). Oh, yes, it took a series of clues to open the secret second room -- I have no idea where the first three badges came from but the last clue was fire...

EH and Michael spent a long time first finding 6 bells with symbols on them, then deciding that a tune on the radio-- a six note chime -- was the order of the bells.  Someone found a locked box with six (huh, funny that) rotating rings on it, with symbols like the ones on the bells.  Eventually they got the bells in order, and the symbols, opened that and found a key.

Barb and I worked too long on a series of chemical bottles that ended with us discovering a key in the arsenic bottle.

K and I worked wayyyyyy too long on 3 telegrams that you had to use a decoder to decode 2 of them, but then a typewriter to decode the third -- giving us one of the murder addresses.  Clever.

We ran out of time just as we got the desk unlocked to find six charts, numbered from crime 1 to six.

Our detective explained how well we did for just 5 of us (sure, sure) and that Det. Murdock was saved anyway (did I forget to tell you we were to get out to save him from the serial killer?).

It was great fun and we talked and talked about the things we did and shouldn't have done.  And how clever several of us (not me) were.   I did not have a clever day.

Then, it being a nice evening, we started the 20 minute walk back to the apartment.  We stopped and an ice cream place named Sweet Jesus (we're not sure why), which featured a picture of a nun smoking, reading the Bible and flipping the photographer off on the wall.  There was a huge line.

Another in joke: as we were looking for places to eat, EH suggested, prefacing with "none of you will want to do it," a "sushi burrito place."  It turned out to be next to Sweet Jesus.  Here's the sign:

Michael reads it and says, aloud, "Swedish burritos."  Which is a whole different fusion, but, no, not the same thing! :).  To make him feel better and distract everyone, I then tripped over the flower bed out front, managing to stay on my feet and say "I was just speeding up awkwardly." :)

Sweet Jesus was a bit of a disappointment -- it was decent soft serve, but the "Pimped Out" (their words) creations were limp, if you get my drift.  The "Sweet Jesus" signature ice cream turned out to be vanilla with chocolate, peanut, and caramel on the outside, not something more luxurious.

We finished with cards -- euchre, with K and EH taking on Michael and I.  At one point, the wicked women made a sound like "eh-heh" in almost unison -- at my expense -- and we all laughed at the  two of them being so much alike.

Final one-liner: yesterday we were talking about what we brought and Michael said, all I brought was blah-blah and ben-gay.  Barb says "old man cologne."  LOL.  None of the other 3 of us had ever heard it before.

Ben-gay.  Old man cologne.  Funny.

Till tomorrow, from Toronto...