Reno Family Trip - June 2013

Even though Jaime calls Reno the "armpit" of ..., we managed to have a great time there with the family. Here are the photos and highlights

• We stopped by Sac on the way up to break up the drive.   Drive up to Reno after ward was only another 2.5 hours
• We went to Funderland which was great.  a small place with a ton of rides just for small kids.  What's great is you can pay a la carte instead of one entrance fee.  So we played there for 90 min and had lots of fund
• Lunch at Akebone nearby Funderland in Sac - I highlight recommend.  Great Tonkatsu Chashu ramen and sashimi as well.   It's 4 stars in SF standards which is high praise
• We stayed at the Peppermill Casino and it was okay in general but we loved it because
• I was able to get a cheap rate - We had 2 joining rooms for $260 for 2 nights + lots of hotel comp credits and free arcade play.  It was very good value.  
• 3 pools and perfect depth for the kids to play (Pool food was good just pricey.  good thing we had comp credit)
• arcade was very modern - we spent hours here - morning are the best as there are not a lot of people.  so much so Isabel won almost 1500 tickets to get a new princess backpack.  I love the motorcycle game here, Jaime played football and Agnes / Isabel played everything
• beds were super comfortable, comparably if not better to Westin's heavenly beds.  We stayed at the Peppermill tower and it was fine.
• club edge is in the hotel - it was an okay club.  we went to ladies night where there were free drinks for me until Midnight.  can we say another Mandarin tonic pls? ;-).  Music was really good even though the crowd was somewhat trashy.  The funny thing is Jaime knew the DJ playing that Friday night.  They haven't seen each other for 15 years.  We get this a lot in SF as Jaime grew up there but what a coincidence for Reno.  Best part is it's so convenient
• Don't need to go through casino to get to the pool.  Jaime doesn't gamble and I don't really so it was nice we don't have to trek through there to get to Pool, Arcade, or Club.
• Not smoke filled - we stayed on a non-smoking floor and it was great.
• Duck house and Naan & Kabob outside the hotel are where we ate for dinner Friday and Sat night.  Food at the hotel was rated overpriced and subpar by Yelp so we yelped and found two 4 star ones outside.  Duck house is Chinese and nothing special.  Food was decent enough.  We got fried rice for late night hungers.  Naan & Kabob was quite yummy. My seabass was pretty divine and so was the Safron ice cream dessert :-)
• Circus Circus - good old reliable entertainment.  We drove and spent 90 minutes there.  I think the adults had more fun trying to get the stuffed animals for the kids.  We all loved placed the race games whether it was shooting water or rolling a ball into a set of holes with numbers.  We ended up with 6 more dust collectors, I mean stuff animals - a fuzzy ball that Ling loves to throw, a fish called Lori by Isabel, a Minion, a shedding dog, and two others. 

Will we be back?  Not sure.  the drive back was a little bad.  5 hours due to two traffic points. Jaime drove the whole time except for the last 40 minutes.  Thanks honey.  We will definitely visit Funderland and Sac again as that's only 1.5 hours away.

Lei