Seattle

Off to Seattle

 

I thought our flight was going to be grounded for sure ... but luckily we did make it out (with some minor delays) and seconds later we were out of the fog ...

A few in-flight movies and snacks later, we arrived in Seattle Tacoma, a little later than the scheduled time so Bung had to wait ...

We dumped our stuff at Bung's place, pissfarted about, then headed out to dinner at some Thai restaurant in a shopping mall in Redmond. After that we headed to Wholefoods and bought ingredients for our Christmas dinner. Later that night, we amused ourselves with Guitar Hero.

Heading Downtown

Woke up sometime in the arvo, and made Bung drive us around Lake Sammamish ...

 

After that we made him take us Downtown, to check out Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the pier ...

 

Yes, those heads were individually hand crafted back in the days where shrinking the heads of your enemies were all the rage.

We continued wandering along the pier and found the Crab Pot restaurant where they tip a bucket of seafood on your table and hand you mallets.

We wandered onwards to the Pike Place Market ...

 

We spent a while gawking at the seafood stalls, then when the novelty of seeing fish being thrown around worn off we decided to go find some coffee ...

Later that day we headed to the cinemas to watch I Am Legend then headed home to cook our turkey dinner with ham, garlic prawns, rice and steamed veges.

 

Merry Christmas!

We woke up, looked outside ... and saw that it was snowing! Well, lightly, with some rain ... good day to veg out at home! Spent the day playing Guitar Hero II, and eating leftover turkey ...

Later that day we watched Sweeney Todd: The Barber of Fleet Street.

Twin Peaks

We had to get to Twede's Cafe in North Bend before they stop serving breakfast at 12pm ... and made it there on time for ... a stack of pancakes with strawberry, blueberry and I had French Toast. All washed down with coffee (wasn't "damn fine" as I hoped). Didn't have room for cherry pie!

After that we made our way to Snoqualmie Falls in an attempt to burn off our excessive breakfast. Unfortunately the route down to the bottom of the falls were closed so we had to contend with crappy pictures instead ...

Monks and Ange arrived later today so we picked up extra food from the shops (pizza) for dinner.

Shopping Downtown

Got Bung to drop us Downtown to get a bit of shopping and sight-seeing done ourselves.

Ate at Cafe Champagne -- a smart French cafe -- I had a nice mushroom quiche, and Muffin had a apple soup and a Croque-savoyarde.

 

We walked about trying to find a post office -- but the stamps they had were pretty boring. We walked onwards towards the shops near Westlake Center -- bought a phone and SIM, had a bubble tea, then ducked into Macys and Nordstrom. Muffin bought ... two pairs of shoes and a pair of Levis, and I bought a pair of canvas shoes. So cheap!

We walked onwards towards the International District. As it was raining we had to duck into the Central Library for shelter. At Chinatown much later, we ducked into Uwajimaya Village for a quick snack and a hot drink while we waited for Bung to pick us up.

When Bung arrived we had dinner at Kaname-Izakaya (the one we wanted was too full).

Here's a few blurry camera phone pictures of what we ate:

Science Fiction Museum and Experience Music Project

We did a bit of shopping, and had pho for lunch.

After that we headed to Seattle Center and looked at some costumes and memorabilia at the SFM and EMP.

Later for dinner that night we made a steam boat.

Pigging out

Had breakfast in Brown Bag Cafe, then headed to the Pike Place market again, this time to look for the cafe where Tom Hanks ate in Sleepless in Seattle.

 

After that, we split up -- us to the Bug Safari to ogle at some bugs and Muffin bought a t-shirt with bugs on it, and then to the Seattle Aquarium where we saw a presentation on sea otters and sea lions. It's not one of the best aquariums we've been to, but still entertaining enough.

Later that night we went out to watch Charlie Wilson's War.

Eating Vegetarian ...

Bung took us to Teapot Vegetarian House for lunch. Food was really tasty ... I'm sure carnivores would agree!

We headed to Discovery Park to walk off our gluttony later -- and to view the sunset.

Northern Exposure!

We did another touristy round at Snoqualmie Falls, this time bringing Monks and Ange along.

After that we headed on towards Roslyn -- the drive there was spectacular. The views ranged from this:

 

To this ...

 

And suddenly we were in a snowfield!

 

After throwing a few snowballs we decided to press onwards ... and slowly slipped and skidded towards Roslyn.

 

After about TWO MINUTES in Roslyn, despite protests from us, Bung decided to bring us all home ... possibly because he has food on his mind again ..

Happy NY!

We had to drop Monks and Ange at the airport today ... so spent the rest of the day shopping, eating, and watching a movie (National Treasures ... eek!!)

Underground Tour

We made a booking for the 3pm tour of Seattle Underground. Since we got there a bit early, we had some coffee from Starbucks ...

 

The tour was quite interesting, and gave us an insight into the early inhabitants of the region.

 

We needed to tick "Eat at Seafood Restaurant" off our to-do list whilst in Seattle, so we wandered down to the pier in search of a seafood restaurant. We intended on eating at the Crab Pot, where they tip a bucket of seafood on your table ... but when I took a peep thru the large windows of Elliot's Oyster House I couldn't resist just walking by.

Last shopping day

My new DSLR was finally delivered! After I set my Pentax K10D batteries to charge we went out for lunch (pho again!) and to do a last round of shopping -- bought a pair of warm furry boots, a 40mm lens for the new camera, spare battery and UV filters.

Pancakes, Woodland Park Zoo then heading home

We decided to have pancakes for one last time ... so drove to the Family Pancake House.

After that we headed to the Woodland Park Zoo to test out my new camera. Within 2 mins of walking into the zoo, Bung had dropped his camera lens cover into the animal enclosures ...

 

The Woodland Park Zoo is pretty well laid-out ... so you could take nice pictures of the animals without seeing bars or wires. Nothing beats seeing them out in the wild tho.

Later in the afternoon we set off towards Tacoma for home!