No Rain

The past two days have been packed with fun. Yesterday we actually visited the Space Needle and got to see the Seattle sites from 605 feet in the air. The Needle was built in 1962 for the World's Fair. There are 3 elevators and 3 floors. The second floor houses an over-priced rotating restaurant and the top floor is the observatory with indoor and outdoor areas. You can almost see Canada!

Next to the Space Needle is the EMO Museum containing pop culture history from music, TV, movies and more. They have an extensive exhibit dedicated to local alternative rock band, Nirvana. Pictures, instruments, hand written notes and lyrics, videos etc. all dedicated to the beginning to end of the band. We also enjoyed the Infinite Worlds exhibit that displays memorabilia from sci-fi movies and television shows. It was our nerdy paradise!

Guitar tornado inside the EMP

Hoverboards from Back to the Future

Dalek from Dr. Who

Last night we ended up at a restaurant specializing in clam chowder. Served in warm sourdough bread bowls they didn't skimp on the servings. We also tried their fried salmon bites. I'm not a huge fan of salmon, but having fresh, fried salmon did the trick and I'm in love. Afterwards we walked through the city back to our hotel.

First thing this morning we headed to the pier to get booked on a harbor tour. While we waited for the tour to begin we wandered over to check out Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. It's been a part of the pier for over 100 years. We met Sylvester, a mummy discovered in the Arizona desert. We also saw shrunken heads, a female mummy from South America, the preserved body of a two headed cow, and many other curious objects.

The harbor tour gave us more information about the piers and West Seattle. The West Seattle neighborhood was the landing place for the first white settlers, although they quickly realized that it's not well protected and, upon Chief Seattle's urging, moved the city to where it stands today. Seattle is a hub for crate shipping, so parts of the shore are lined with huge crates. The Port of Seattle bought cranes from China, for $10 million a piece, to help unload large barge cargo!

After the cruise we walked up to Pioneer Square and grabbed some lunch at an Irish pub.

Totem at Pioneer Square

 Right around the corner is Bob Spiedel's Underground Tour. We walked under Seattle for an hour to learn about some of the city's history. A huge fire burned 33 square blocks of the city in 1889, causing them to decide to level out the city and require buildings be built with brick or stone. I'm sure there is much more rich history to be had from the Emerald City, but the tiny bits we did hear were fascinating.

Toilet on the Underground Tour

The evening brought us to Columbia Center, containing the tallest observation deck in Seattle. 73 stories up you get a 360 degree view. The night lights of the city are beautiful!

Our night ended with Chinese food in the International District. I thought the food would blow me out of the water, but, honestly, it was just okay.

The people were very friendly which helped the overall atmosphere. I wish we had more time to spend in this area of the city, but it will have to wait for another time.

One more day and many more adventures to go!

My 90s Dream Come True - Seattle

This is our first time to Seattle, Washington in the upper northwest of the US. A few months ago we decided we needed a trip and this just fell in our lap.

Frontier Airlines had cheap tickets, of course they are a budget airline, but we thought it was worth it. We were delayed because of Seattle's weather, so we landed a little late. It had been almost 6 hours since we had eaten and getting to the hotel might take an hour so we decided to eat before grabbing our baggage, bad idea! Apparently, Frontier has very few flights out of Seattle so once their flights are done everyone disappears. Our baggage had been cleared away from the luggage carousel so we spent a good hour on the hunt through the airport and on the phone with the airline. By the luck of it, we walked by a lady pulling a bag out of a cage behind the carousel, come to find out our bag had been there the whole time! It was a lucky thing and we were finally on our way into town.

Monorail from below

Seattle's Link Light Rail goes right into the city, where we connected to the monorail to take us near our hotel at the Seattle Center. The monorail was built for the 1962 World's Fair to ferry people between downtown and the fairgrounds (that also contains the Space Needle). The monorail is 3 stories off the ground and starts at a mall. The monorail trains still look very '60s in design and the creaking doesn't give much confidence, but we made it safely to the drop off point. I guess 50 years of ferrying people back and forth can't be wrong!

It was a short walk to our hotel from there. Unfortunately, the Space Needle was closed for a private event so our plans to see Seattle at night are on hold, but the view from our hotel is amazing! The Seattle City Pass allows us to visit the observation tower on the Needle twice, once during the day and once at night, so we anticipate incredible views.

Space Needle from our hotel room

For dinner we decided to partake in Seattle's fresh seafood. Cutter's, near Pike's Place Market, served up fresh crab, salmon, and prawns to satisfy our craving. This was a short start to a highly anticipated trip. Thanks for reading :)