Justin and I enjoy getting to take trips every year. Instead of doing birthday, Christmas, anniversary gifts or whatever we like to take trips. We have been talking about going to Seattle for a couple years now, and we finally made it.
As this was our first time in Seattle we did tons of touristy things:
Argosy Harbor tour- little hour tour of the Harbor, you get to hear about Seattle get to see cool things. I would defenately recommend it.
Pacific Science Center- a hands on kid's museum with a little butterfly house. It was included with our City Pass, otherwise we would probably have skiped it. If you are going to Seattle with kids this is a great place to go. We also got to see an Imax about Lewis and Clark while there.
Seattle Aquarium- This is a small aquarium, but fun none the less. They had all sorts of sea life I hadn't seen before. If you are at the piers and have an hour and a half to kill, this is a good place to do it.
Space Needle- not nearly as big as I expected it, but fun thing to do. While there we got a really cool Lego Space Needle sculptor to remind us of our trip and because we like Legos.
Underground Tour- the tour of the not to clean/honest/moral starts of Seattle. We really enjoyed the tour. The jokes were pretty cheesy but it was really educational and fun.
The Locks- I am not sure how to explain the locks, but it's kind of a water elevator for boats. It's where two different bodies of water of different heights meet. The close off different sections so they can fill up to the same level.
It's also where the Salmon come back to freshwater to die.
Fremont Troll- cool sculptor under the Fremont bridge.
Pike's Market
The Original Starbucks
We also did other other things that were less touristy like:
The B&O Espresso - we had a great time at this bar/dessert place. This was a very entertaining place. Our bar tender as she was taking our order let us know that the manager was gone (we aren't sure if on vacation or really gone) and that she had been trying to keep the place together. She then told us she was not on cocaine. She forgot to put our order in, we later found out one of the bakers wasn't there either so now all their dessert were available. She then proceeded to dance around for a bit and try to get us to dance. She then announced she was going to buy us shots, and sent her friend Graham over with a new drink he was trying out. The chocolate covered strawberry was super tasty (I ended up ordering it the next night). We could tell she was having a hard time keeping things in order.
We had such a good time with her we told her we would come back the next night. So after having dinner at the lake Adam, Steph, Justin and I went to meet Dav at B&O. We got there to find Graham working the bar, up to this point we weren't sure if Graham worked there or not. We asked about our friend at it turns out she had lost her job as she had been a little intoxicated the night before. The service may not have been the best at B&O but they had pretty good desserts and really yummy drinks.
45 Guild theater: a really cool old theater that we went to see (500) days of Summer, which I really liked.
A couple mornings we had breakfast at Fresh Flours a little coffee shop 2 blocks from Adam and Steph's place.
We also went to this awesome Glass Blowing Studio on 5th, where Dav took glass blowing lessons. This place is really, really cool. You can just go to the back and watch them work on different projects. All the glass sculptures were amazing. As most things were really fragile I ended up buying a great flower pendant. I have gotten tons of compliment on it already :)
One night we went to Pyramids for dinner and to try some local beers. I tried 5 different beers and the one I liked most was the Apricot Wheat Ale. In general I am not a beer fan, but this was was yummy. It had a nice taste but it wasn't bitter.
We also went to Golden Gardens, which is not Golden or a garden but a beach.
We really enjoyed Seattle. The weather was not my idea of Summer weather, the high was in the 70s everyday, mostly cloudy. The day the boys went fishing Steph and I rode the bus downtown and went shopping. Shopping in Seattle was awesome. Tons of great stores really close together and really great sales! Over the weekend we went to Portland (Next blog) to visit my Uncle Mu, Midori and their daughter Myiuki.
So, my baking experiment of the week was making Myiuki's cake in Steph's apartment.
It turned out pretty well, and it gave me a new appreciation for my Kitchen aid. Making royal icing with a little hand mixer is a little challenging.
Thanks for reading!
After the birthday party, Adam, Steph, Justin and I headed downtown to check into our hotel and get dinner. My uncle suggested we go to Montague. It was a great little restaurant under a bridge right before you get to downtown. The food was really good and they make foil sculptures with your left overs.
Anyone who has ever been to Portland I am sure has been to Powell's. Powell's is a square block, 3 story, independent book store. They have a ton (over a million in this one location alone) of books new and used. I am a big fan of used books, specially cook books. Add that to Midori's employee discount and in not very long I had a pile of books I wanted. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of room for books in my carry on so I ended up narrowing it down to 5 books.
Miyuki called to see if we wanted to go to the Farmer's market with her, so we went after the gardens. After the farmer's market, which is only 2 blocks from their house! we went to Mt. Tabor Park.
