Years ago we randomly decided to visit Seattle for a vacation cos hey, why not? And it turns out that we sort of love it there. So we've been back a few times. Basically any time we find ourselves in the vicinity of the west coast, and this trip was no exception.
I have the most photos from this leg of the trip, probably because it was the part we weren't with friends and I tend to forget to take pictures when people are around. Except at the zoo. I have about a million from there.
I have the most photos from this leg of the trip, probably because it was the part we weren't with friends and I tend to forget to take pictures when people are around. Except at the zoo. I have about a million from there.
First stop:
Paseo OBVIOUSLY. There's been lots of drama around Paseo and the new restaurant (which is run by the son of the original owner of Paseo) Un Bien and I could GO ON about this. But I won't. I'll just tell you that we landed in Seattle, picked up our rental car and went straight to Paseo and it was just as I remembered. Amazing. We headed to Kerry Park to enjoy our sandwiches. I don't have any pictures before I started eating, because that would have required me to hold off on digging in, but I did get one mid-way through.
We then enjoyed the beautiful weather and view.
We were trying to decide what to do for the evening when we saw that there was a production of the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time going on. And they had tickets available. I had read the book back when it first came out but Tom didn't know anything about it so surprises for him. BTW it was very good and if you get the chance to see, I recommend.
The next day we decided to check out the Chihuly Garden and Glass near the Space Needle. Cos we've done the Space Needle and the MoPOP (formerly the EMP, Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum) a bunch of times. Well we've done EMP a bunch of times. Anyway, we wanted to see something new and glass art is pretty.
We made our way over to the Market for some lunch (Country Dough, homemade Chinese noodles) and wandered around the stalls. We did our mini-shopping: picked up some tea from MarketSpice, Rainier cherries from one of the farm stalls, Chinese pastries from a place I should prob remember the name of, and some homemade pepper pasta from another stall I should prob remember the name of but I am a bad shopper.
The weather, which had been overcast and drizzly in the morning, improved in the afternoon so we drove up to Snoqualmie Falls and did a little hike. I mean, we hadn't totally planned the hike. It was more like "Hey, let's walk down this path and see the waterfall from a different angle" and then we realized we'd have to come back UP the path to get back to the car. But it sounds better if I just say "And then we did a little hike." There were notices to watch out for mountain lions and bears and I wouldn't have been super surprised if there was a Bigfoot out there.
We ended the day meeting up with some friends for dinner (at which point Tom coined the term Satellite Seattelite and he's very proud of this) before heading back into the city.
Cities tend to have tall buildings with observation towers, and Seattle is no different. We'd done some of them on previous trips but Tom found one in the Smith Tower, which was originally built in the 1910s. What it lacks in height of some of the newer buildings it makes up for in having a whole bunch of history (which they tell you buy way of a mini-scavenger hunt type thing where you pretend to be a bootlegger from the '20s. Or like a cop or something, but I went bootlegger), a cool old fashioned elevator and a really pretty observation room. And so pretty views of the city.
We went to Il Corvo for lunch. It's this place that makes homemade pastas. They only have a few options each day and the line is insane.We'd been a few times before, including when they had a location at the Market and lines weren't so long, but word got out that the food is delicious so it was about an hour wait. We were prepared and the food was worth it.
After lunch we wandered around Chinatown for a bit before heading to the Underground Tour. Which we've done before BUT it's a neat tour, all about the history of the city and the fact that they had to build everything up a level and also "seamstresses" (aka hookers) were really responsible for a lot of the success of the city. Our tour guide wasn't plastered like the last one we had (who we noticed was now working for a rival underground tour group) but entertaining nonetheless.
Finally we went to a Mets/Mariners game because of course there's gotta be baseball. Tom got some great seats and the Mets won AND it was fireworks night so good times.
(I'm almost done, I swear).
Our last day, we had a red eye leaving around 10pm so we had one final day in the city. We met up with a coworker of Tom's who was in the city for Mets stuff. After breakfast, as it was another beautiful day, we decided to drive around a bit. We went through some new neighborhoods, making our way to Un Bien because we HAD to compare Un Bien to Paseo. It was amazing and delicious and trying to choose between the two is like trying to choose between children. We ended up at Woodland Park to enjoy our epic sandwiches (they were so good) and watch some LARPing (not planned but it was happening), then headed over to Gasworks and the Ballard Locks before picking up some more Un Bien sandwiches (IMPORTANT) and heading to the airport and back to the real world.
West Coast, you were pretty swell.
Cities tend to have tall buildings with observation towers, and Seattle is no different. We'd done some of them on previous trips but Tom found one in the Smith Tower, which was originally built in the 1910s. What it lacks in height of some of the newer buildings it makes up for in having a whole bunch of history (which they tell you buy way of a mini-scavenger hunt type thing where you pretend to be a bootlegger from the '20s. Or like a cop or something, but I went bootlegger), a cool old fashioned elevator and a really pretty observation room. And so pretty views of the city.
Finally we went to a Mets/Mariners game because of course there's gotta be baseball. Tom got some great seats and the Mets won AND it was fireworks night so good times.
(I'm almost done, I swear).
Our last day, we had a red eye leaving around 10pm so we had one final day in the city. We met up with a coworker of Tom's who was in the city for Mets stuff. After breakfast, as it was another beautiful day, we decided to drive around a bit. We went through some new neighborhoods, making our way to Un Bien because we HAD to compare Un Bien to Paseo. It was amazing and delicious and trying to choose between the two is like trying to choose between children. We ended up at Woodland Park to enjoy our epic sandwiches (they were so good) and watch some LARPing (not planned but it was happening), then headed over to Gasworks and the Ballard Locks before picking up some more Un Bien sandwiches (IMPORTANT) and heading to the airport and back to the real world.
