Escape Rooms - A New Experience

Escape Rooms   

Have you ever been to one?

                                                           Do you even know what it is?

                Do you like to be scared?

                                                     Do you like to be trapped?

Are you good at figuring out puzzles?

                                                     Do you overthink the obvious when it comes to a mind challenge?


If you said YES to any one of these, you would love the Escape Rooms.

I've just learned about them and have now had first hand experience at one in particular.

My girlfriends invited me, so there were 4 of us.

"Sure"! I said, "Lock me in a room with 3 of my friends and keep the key!"

In London, Kipps Lane, on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 5 pm we met.

                                                      We walk down a narrow cement well-lit walkway to an entry door.

The door has a window but it is dark and we can't see inside.

On the door is a combination challenge which we need to figure out in order to key in the code to

unlock the door. After a few minutes of 7 heads brainstorming, (others were trying to enter when we arrived) together we succeeded.

                                       And so it begins!!

Unfortunately, we had a bit of a language barrier between us and the Asian host but we got enough from his instruction to understand he was locking us in a cold dimly-lit room with two doors. 
We were each "armed" with a flashlight (oh no!) and a walkie talkie to call for help/hints/freedom if we needed it (yikes!). Our phones and cameras were seized upon arrival so we could not take photos so the ones I have posted here are from their web page only.
Not much in the line of explanation, really.

It is a see it to believe it kind of experience and our challenge in particular placed us in two rooms which needed to be unlocked.

We brave gals chose  INVERSE WORLD

In a galaxy far far away, there exists a secret, isolated planet unknown 

to mankind. Coincidentally, your friends and you have been 

transported into this world. You find that everything in this 

strange planet is upside down so you decide to call it “Inverse World”. 

How to get out of this strange world remains a puzzle!

This theme is recommended for 4-10 people: Panicking and in despair, 

you are desperate to find a way to escape this strange, unforgiving 

world!

Now doesn't that just get your anxiety up?  The good news is that we didn't chicken out. We entered, we bumped heads, we muddled, we laughed, we complained, we called for help our allotted 3 times and finally opened the doors for release.

Lost City Escape Room in London, On

There were combinations to be unlocked, signs on the wall, puzzles to decipher, ropes to configure and boxes to open. Good thing we had a direct line to the front desk.Luckily we had no need to stand on our heads (inverse, get it?) although yes, we tried!

Would we do it again? Absolutely! We had fun and we succeeded! It was a great way to spend time with friends and to celebrate our escape we went out to dinner.

My partners in crime, Laurie, Heather and Laurie.

Thank you for reading about our adventure and if you are so inclined, check out an Escape Room in your area.

Here is a link address to the site: 
http://www.lostcityescape.com/portfolio/saw-2/

Step Challenge

Nothing gets some of us moving like a challenge.

It could be an eating challenge, we've all seen those gross displays of people mowing food into their mouths at a county fair or on television.  Ew!

                                

It could be a foot race. 5 k, 10 k, running or walking. These are usually truly dedicated movers. My hat is off to them!

It could be a political debate, and these are almost as silly as the eating ones above, in my opinion.

This week, a few people at the south end of our building have been invited to participate in a Step/Pedometer Challenge. This invite did not come without some grovelling on my part that went something like this "We want to play tooo, please let us play, we'll behave, we won't tell anyone else!" Yah, something like that exactly!!

I wore better clothes though.

The Education Centre, we call it The Big House because it is where most of the bigwigs have their offices, often holds contests, sales, bake sales, charity events etc. within their four walls. To me, someone always has their hand out for something! Things are just different in that building, not better or worse, just different.

I've been quite happy in my own personal space.

 This time, however, an email mainly directed for Education Centre staff was received on a few of our monitors. Bling "You've Got Mail". We started chatting to ourselves about the contents and it involved a delightful little step challenge they are holding, amongst themselves. Awards and prizes and cake, oh my!

This kind of challenge is right up my alley ever since I got my Fitbit. So! On behalf of 10 interested walkers, I did the grovelling in such a manner that they allowed us to participate provided we didn't invite anyone else. 

For 12 days all we have to do is our regular daily activities plus any extra curricular activities we want to do to increase our daily steps. With Mother Nature playing havoc with our weather, we have really had some challenging days to increase our steps, let me tell you! 

The spring days are really encouraging and not only do I get out myself at lunch and break times but I see other leggers getting out for theirs too. I walked further and down new paths just to add to my count.

On the extra icy and wintry days, I mostly choose to stay indoors and catch up on my reading instead. 

Safe rather than sorry. On the days I do need to bump up my steps, I put on my Sorrels with an extra grip. I don't need to be slip sliding away!

I made up our cheat sheets and as the self-named Captain of our team I named ourselves aptly after our street as The Leathorne Leggers. (Don't laugh! I was under pressure!)

We are doing remarkably well, all of us. Some are not as pumped as others but that is okay, we each have our own agenda.

The "official" challenge is drawing to a close but I have heard from 2 or 3 already that are so pleased with themselves, how this has encouraged them and that they want to continue in our own little world. 

Here is a picture of our group.............as many as willingly showed up for a photo shot!
                                        

So, we'll see at the end of the day tomorrow who wishes to carry on and I'll update my board. I've got 17 days left to be their guide/Captain/secretary. :)

Fitbit Challenges

Well folks, I, too, can easily get caught up in this new modern technology. I'm not good at keeping up with many of the new media fluff, electronics, cell phones and what-have-you-isms but when our very fit friends showed us their wrist Fitbits, I wanted one. Just to note......they were fit before they bought them so I wasn't fooled there.

My Fitbit

I wanted it for a different reason than what it ended up I did. Wha??? I was basically curious how much sleep I was getting in a night and even more so how much sleep hubby-dearest was getting. Bill can drop off to sleep for an easy 20 minutes yet when he wakes up can tell me "oh, I just dozed for a couple of minutes". I know he doesn't get (nor need, obviously) the same number of hours that I get in a day but at the same time I knew he got more than he thinks he does. A Fitbit would prove or dispute that. It would be interesting to know either way.

So, I started searching Best Buys and Future Shops to see what the prices were, chatted with Kathy about what kind to get and began to save my fun money. Lo and behold, before too many wishful days had passed, a lady on our work Swap Shop was selling one at a great price. It was only a couple of months old and she had decided she didn't like it as much as she thought she would. Yay for me!

Get that little band on my wrist, sync it with my phone app and away we go! The first night I slept, as usual, like a baby and with 8 hours my goal, I have been reaching around the 96% mark every night. I let Bill wear it one night and as we expected, his goal of 6 hours wasn't too far off what we suspected. Between 5 and 6 hours sleep, hmm, how he survives on that I'll never know but his EverReady batteries just keep on ticking. It also explains how he can drop off so quickly at the end of a day.

So, the interest grew and I was enjoying my new toy. Bill naturally got interested and was curious as well about his sleep patterns, his heart beat and distance travelled in a day. Within 2 weeks he had one of his own. Our friends, upon realizing, we had one sent us a weekly step challenge. That was the first time we really started paying attention to how any steps we walked in a day. The race was on!!
                                                      


Now mind you, this couple work out every day, walk and bike on the weekends so I knew I'd never have a hope in you know what to beat them but I could sure die trying! What great encouragement it was for both of us. We don't walk during the day, other than at our job and my job is 50% on my butt. I was lucky to be getting 5,000 steps in in a day with a worldwide recommendation of 10,000. Bill was surpassing me by the thousands, meeting 10,000 steps by 3 pm, 2 pm then 11 am!!! Before long we found ourselves going out after supper just to increase our steps. See what I mean? It is addicting!

Now I'm walking at noon every day, as long as the weather is holding and the sidewalks are clear for walking, I take 30 minutes and walk around various blocks on my lunch period. I can easily add 3,000 steps and feel really good about myself for doing it. I've met the quota and passed it more than a handful of times and I know when I'm retired the push will be on to challenge myself even more.

My Fitbit is also my watch, 
gives me my heart rate at a touch and calculates my calories and number of miles walked on a daily or weekly basis. I love it!

It was the encouragement I needed to get moving!

Thanks for reading.