After a very successful first full day in Atlanta with all of our primary objectives completed both in merch and experiences, we start the day with a largely freeform scheudle with mainly just the Georgia Aquarium being the main attraction for today and a couple of choice food places that we would like to try. Let’s see how today turned out.
Yes, your eyes are not mistaken, there is a Tim Hortons near the corner of the block near our hotel, very close to the Varsity burger place that we had for lunch yesterday. Wow, I had no idea Tim Hortons had expanded this far out, even to the deep South in the US. We decided to check it out.
Wow, this seems very familiar indeed, it’s like going going to get timbits from down the road. They even matched correctly the experience the best they can as well. They had three employees working, one was mexican, the other two were brown/Indian. Wow, Tim Hortons, you truly replicated the Canadian Tim Hortons experience at home in Atlanta.
Even tho it looks like from the outside a stand alone Tim Hortons, it seems they are bundling them as convenience stores associated with gas stations which is the case here. I also had to wait for my order of large dark roast coffee because they ran out and had to brew more, truly the Canadian coffee experience.
We walked back to the coke world museum area, which also is the same area as the Georgia Aquarium. Noice brown family there in my photo.
Being a Saturday, it was very busy inside, more than I thought it would be. It was also probably the largest aquarium I have ever been too as well. Cool. It certainly makes our Ripley’s aquarium in Toronto look really shit.
One of the main attractions of the aquarium is that they have a couple of whale sharks, apparently the largest fishes in it’s class and a pretty rare creature in modern times. On the way they have a standing conveyor belt thing where you just stand and you go underneath this tunnel thing, pretty cool.
You eventually get to a large viewing area with steps/steps where people just sit and awe the giant tank with the whale sharks. Pretty good shit. I was quite impressed with the quality of their setup and their fish game. The whale shark is cool and big. They also had some guy narrator telling people sitting there about the animals and how they got to Atlanta and from Taiwan etc via transport by plane and etc.
Another area had choice spongebob animals of varying kinds like this jellyfish. It was nice. This photo is nice. I can take decently good sea creature photos, noice.
They also had a few Japanese/Asian garden eels in the area too. These are the same creatures famous at the Sumida aquarium at Tokyo Skytree, the aquarium that me and my sister, did not visit but ended up buying a plush anyways because sure.
My sister proudly shows her fulfillment of finally seeing the garden eels for real. It was most appropriate that she wore this t shirt that I gave her for Christmas, with garden eels on them. There was much rejoicing, kinda.
The entire aquarium is divided into regions like, arctic cold waters, jungle, forest and deep sea. Noice. As it can be seen, it is quite busy everywhere.
A delicious red octopus is on display with some nice Patrick starts in the background and walls, noice.
They had ample of places for choice photos and selfies but this area in partiluar had muc better lighting and was made for this kind of thing. Doing as needed I suppose with the hands.
This penguin was just standing here in his exhibit from the rest of the penguins, not moving at all, exerting his dominance like a boss. No one got near him, nor did he move or flinch, what a boss.
After a decent amount of time in the aquarium and some time in the gift shop we head out and towards our lunch destination. Along the way is the Atlanta Olympic park where they had various sculptures and stuff on display to commemorate the event. Not bad.
Due to the volleyball tournament during this weekend which also contributed towards the fuck up at my hotel, a large gathering of high school girls and teams were surrounding the Olympic rings in the area as it can be seen. Wow.
Honestly this park and the rings were the most populated place in all of Atlanta that we experienced outside of the Aquarium, Coke world and Nier concert. The lobby of our hotel is just filled with groups like this like at all hours of the day. I have no idea how many other hotels are effected by this tournament with this mass of kids and their supervisors/parents.
In the downtown ‘core’ of Atlanta, which honestly is not very busy at all is our lunch destination, Gus’s World Famous Fried chicken. The south knows how to make fried chicken, let’s put that further to the test as it’s one of the most highly rated mini franchises in the south/Atlanta.
While a bit more pricey than most fried chicken, shit’s pretty good. My sister got a two piece dark meat meal that comes with two sides and a drink which I think was about 14ish dollars? Expensive yes, but totally worth it in my opinion.
I on the other hand, was far less conservative in my order and got a half chicken meal, contains one of every piece of chicken for about $23 dollars about. The chicken was very crisply, juicy and not that greasy at all, very well seasoned, it tasted spicy when you first try a bite but after a few more bites it’s not spicy at all. The sides were good too, coleslaw and the baked beans, good shit. Would eat again at Gus’s fried chicken, probably one of the best fried chicken’s I’ve ever had, considerably better than pop eyes or other major chains that’s for sure.
The building that has Gus’s was also a food court, despite it being a Saturday, the traffic was very minimal and dead. Interesting. They also had this Japanese food take out place which is interesting, aside from like tempura and stuff, they treated the food very much like a manchu wok kind of fare except with Japanese food. They even had an area where they had premade rolls and you can just take whatever rolls you want to fill up a box and pay for it, haven’t seen that before.
The food court also had Korean food and even Vietnamese food like pho. For some reason there is a sizable population of koreans in Atlanta, I’m not sure why that came to pass but the fact they have food places like this and the workers are actually Asian/Korean gives some cred to this fact.
So after about more or less two full days in Atlanta, we have come to the conclusion that it is a city where no one actually lives there and is only for business and events/conventions/sports where everyone drives to everything. Most of the streets are empty without a single person in sight and hardly any traffic on roads outside of the main ones. There isn’t any shops on the street or ‘mom and pop’ shops like at all, you would be hard pressed to find any food places just by walking because they are just so far apart from each other. I took this picture in a outside patio public seating area with chairs and tables, there was like at least 7 or 8 sets and we were the only ones around sitting in them, looking up at the ‘center’ of the downtown core known as the ‘peach tree center’ is where we came to his conclusion.
A map of the Atlanta city area looks promising which looks like there is things to see and do, the reality is that the majority of these districts have nothing in them really and no people there either. A high number of the buildings on the ground level are vacant and or not even open because they don’t care. It feels like a city/town that hasn’t gotten back to post-COVID norms and may never will due to remote work and our current working patterns.
We decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a couple of hours before heading back out to walk to our dinner for the night. A place which I called ‘not bubba gump shrimp’ called the Steamhouse lounge which serves what I can describe as a better not-red lobster like seafood restaurant that is highly rated on google reviews. The outside of the building itself looks nice and old and with a lot of personality.
Inside is something of a cross of red lobster and a bar with some stuff on the walls, nice. “Take any seat you want” which is something that we are not quite used to, as this is like the third place which we were told to choose our own table and seats. Hmm.
We started our meal with a couple of apps, first one being “John’s famous cold crab dip and pita”. Shit was pretty good and well worth it for only like $7.
Our second app that we ordered was stuffed shrimp with crab above. It was good, while tasty, it wasn’t that special, cost $10, a bit overpriced compared to the excellent crab dip.
My main meal was blackened catfish, with my choice of two sides, I choose spinach and hush puppies. Wanted a change from all the fried food we have been eating lately, although they do have the good old fried fish and shrimp stuff. Pretty good shit. Cost about $17.
My sister’s meal was very decadent and full of butter and fat. Lobster roll with a side of pepper jack grits, filled with butter. The container on the side also contained melted better for whatever fat consumption of the diner. Noice, full of flavor, full of fat, no regrets. Delicious she said, I’m sure it was. Cost about $23.
We also had an order of lobster bisque, it was filled with chunks of real lobster. Good shit, very tasty rich and creamy. Cost like $10. All in all we had a very nice seafood focused meal, a welcome change from all the potatoes and fried foods that we have been eating recently, especially today’s lunch and yesterday’s wing dinner.
After a solid meal we headed back to our hotel to end the day far earlier than the past two days were. Hence why this post is coming much earlier than before. Tomorrow is our last full day in Atlanta and we have a few last chill things to go to and visit, but in either case, this trip has already been a great success; anything that we do or buy after day 1 is bonus. Good shit.