bicoastal babe: chapter four
so loving on ice hockey was pretty much the perfect mentality to leave montreal with, considering the fact that we were flying to seattle via chicago the next morning, and there were huge posters of all the blackhawks at ord. :D :D :D there isn't a better way to start a trip, let's be honest. even the crappy airport sandwich i had for lunch, and the fact that my runny nose was turning into a runny nose and a hacking cough, couldn't sour my mood. it was a really long flight, though, and when we finally got to seattle we'd been on planes and in airports for just about 11 hours. ouch. thankfully the apartment i'd booked on airbnb was less than half an hour from the airport, in the gorgeous queen anne neighbourhood - which i only learnt later is one of the most sought after, for the view - and i had asked our host to recommend a bunch of nearby places we could head to for dinner. we settled on a thai place just a block or two down the road, and it was pretty authentic, though the waiter did play his "i speak terrible english here have another terrible pun" card about sixteen too many times for comfort. on the bright side, that meant we left the restaurant pretty quickly, and called it a night early, which left me plenty of time to finish watching the second half of the first season of the bates motel.
(i have been so remiss in my tv watching i don't even want to think about how much i have left to watch. plus all the news about the cancellations and the renewals lately have been both heart-shattering and palpitation-inducing all at once, and i'm just not equipped to deal with that while i'm sick and travelling.)
ANYWAY. it was slated to be rainy every day we were in seattle (bummer, but not unexpected), but we woke up the next morning to a pretty sunny sky and the promise of a couple hours' of good weather. we were eager to take advantage of it, so we walked over to the seattle center, stopping along the way to see the little waterfall display thingy.
singapore is so full of high-rise buildings that views from conservatory decks honestly don't do much for us anymore, so we skipped the needle and headed straight for the monorail to westlake centre. from there, we walked to pike place market, and we were so glad it was an indoor market because it started to rain on our way over. we had a TON of fun in the market regardless, and tried everything from spam sushi (so good), to fried gizzards (SO SO SO GOOD), fresh fruit (less good), and ghost pepper salt (SO INTENSE). we stopped for a quick bite at the athenian, which was pretty good, as well, and then we decided to check out the aquarium.
fun fact (which we only found out later, but whatever, i make my own timeline): the aquarium once housed a giant pacific octopus, but released it a few years ago, when they realised it was climbing out of its tank at night, climbing into other tanks, and EATING ALL THE FISH THERE. national geographic caught wind of this, though, and, because there had never been footage of a giant pacific octopus eating fish caught on screen before, asked the aquarium to let them film the event before the release. on the night of the filming, the aquarium left the octopus in a tank full of other fish and left the film crew to it. but, rather than just eating all the fish, the octopus ALSO ATE ALL THE SHARKS. W H A T. AND ALL THIS WAS CAUGHT ON CAMERA AND HOW IS NATURE SO AMAZING I JUST DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND IT SOMETIMES. this story blew. my mind. idek.
so they don't have that octopus anymore (o b v i o u s l y) but they have this one instead!
ANYWAY. the aquarium itself isn't very big, but i loved a lot of their exhibits, and the way they presented the exhibits, and also ALL THE OTTERS. oh my gosh i have never seen such big otters in my life, IT WAS SO DELIGHTFUL.
probably not worth $22, but with the citypass, we got a good deal for it, so i'm not complaining. we had a bit of a scare when my dad thought he lost his phone, though, and if we'd been in new york, or back in singapore, i don't think we'd've seen it again, but we were in seattle, and i kept calling it, and two adorable little kids heard it ring and picked it up and gave it back to me and :D sometimes the world is a good place to be.
after that, my parents headed back to the hotel for a rest, but i wanted to see little shop of horrors, so my godbrother and i walked over to act to see if there were tickets left. i'd been googling for information on rush tickets since i saw they were staging lsoh here, but i hadn't found anything, so IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when the lady at the counter not only told us that she had fifth row seats right in the centre, BUT THAT THEY WERE ALSO $20 RUSH TICKETS. SCORE! that did leave us with a couple of hours to kill before the show, though, so we headed over to cheesecake factory, and despite being stuffed to the gills, managed to share a fried mac and cheese balls, a garlic spaghetti (SO SO SO SO SO GOOD) and a strawberry shortcake + strawberry cheesecake. it took us just about two hours, but we finished most of it, and then spent the next half hour trying in vain to walk it off.
i was still full when we went in for the show, though, and i was a little worried i wouldn't be able to enjoy myself that much because of it, but the show was so much fun and the songs were so ridiculous, and the melodies were just so good, that i wound up forgetting all about my bloated stomach and enjoying it to the last, tragically comedic minute. best $20 investment ever? i think so. and the weather was so lovely after the show that we decided to take the monorail back home to extend the duration of our walk a little bit, which was really, really nice.
we had a full day planned the next day, too, so we woke up a little later to give ourselves some recovery time, before heading to pioneer square for our walking food tour. walking food tours are my favourite, and we hit up a bunch of really interesting places, and heard a bunch of really interesting facts, on our tour. the guide wasn't the best at engaging everyone, but she showed us a couple of lovely hidden spots, like the waterfall garden by ups, and the most delicious chocolate shop ever: basil, mocha, curry maple. and there were sake and qwine tastings to boot.
prettiest garden ever! good job, ups
a sake master who's actually been to japan!
unfortunately, the food portions were pretty tiny, which was the only thing i felt could've been improved. the company on the tour was great, as well, just the most perfect, friendly group of people ever, and we met so many people from so many places, each of them just as lovely as the last (:
after the tour, we needed something to pad our stomachs, so we wandered into gaba sushi. and oh my gosh their rolls were delicious. so fresh, and so tasty, and because they were closing they offered us free spicy miso soup and wakame salad (MY WEAKNESS) and we just gobbled it all down.
hysterical signage we saw on our walk to the sushi shop
the ridiculously delicious and cheap sushi!
then we headed over to the emp museum, where we wandered through the horror film exhibit, and the sci-fi exhibit, and the fantasy exhibit (WITH GAME OF THRONES COSTUMES ON DISPLAY) and had fun tinkering around on the instruments on the third floor.
after, we took a bus back to the apartment, and just lazed around for a while, till our parents felt ready to leave for dinner. we went to a little shop nearby called toulouse petit and my parents almost ruined the night with their ridiculous petty childish squabbling, but i was so determined to have a good time that i just ordered for everyone over the sound of their bullshit and IT TURNED OUT SO. SO. SO. GOOD. the lamb burger was the most delicious thing i've had since norway (though norway trumps it, hands down) and the rabbit salad was really light and refreshing. the duck confit was perfect, and the gumbo was thick and spicy (which i would've enjoyed so much more if i wasn't still down with my cough).
it was pretty late by then, so my godbrother and i headed over to the space needle to get a look at the night view (we wouldn't have, but it was included in the city pass, and it seemed silly to pass it up). i'm so glad we did, because the seattle skyline is the prettiest one i've seen so far, and i've seen quite a few. it just is ridiculously gorgeous, especially when everything's all lit up at night. it was so cold i could barely lift my hands to take photos, never mind a panorama. still. it's just one of those things you have to be there to enjoy, i think.
the next day was our last day in seattle, anad it was pretty laidback. in the morning, we headed to the pier to take our one hour argosy cruise tour of seattle, during which we heard plenty of delightful stories about seattle (and i somehow managed to not lose my lunch over, yay me).
then we headed to lunch at the pink door, a place that we'd found out about through one of the locals on our food tour. the weather was delightful, and i'm so glad we got a seat outside, because it just felt like the most perfect day. i had the spring lemon risotto, and that was just--mmmm, hands down my favourite meal in seattle. i practically licked my plate clean. (i mean, i scraped it down with my knife and fork, but the principle's the same.)
then my parents headed back to the apartment while my godbrother and i went to the pacific science centre. we totally missed our stop, which delayed us by like forty minutes, and in the end we had to rush through the spy exhibit (which was the only thing we wanted to see, really) in about forty five minutes. which was seriously cool, and if i'd been a spy back then the spring cosh would've totally been my weapon of choice ( check it), but mostly was full of uncle sam propaganda that sort of made me want to throw up in my mouth. still cool, though.
ANYWAY. we had a dinner theatre reservation after that that we had to make by 6.15, and it was 5.20 when i called my parents all, "hey guys, so maybe you can hop in a cab with a change of clothes for us and get on over here, because there's no way we're making it home in time?"
we did make it in time for the dinner show, thank goodness (or maybe with how it turned out it would've been better if we hadn't). we had to give ourselves aliases at the door (and i chose "ace" for mine, though i was also toying with calling myself "tweedledum", my godbrother "tweedledee", and my parents "alice" and "white rabbit". HOW MUCH FUN WOULD THAT'VE BEEN?) (hint: much more fun than the night actually was.) to be fair, the show itself was weak, but not terrible. it was campy, cheesy fun, but i've come to learn that any kind of activity that makes you rely on your fellow audience members for a good time is usually a bad idea. we had a group of four at our table who were rowdy, obnoxious, and drunk. i'm talking full out heckling the actors all night, sulking at the table when they were then ignored, amd basically ruining the night for themselves and the rest of the table in general. the other couple we were seated with were even worse. they were so frigid, and they hogged the clues, and overall just made me want to pumch them every time i thought i'd be able to get away with it.
thankfully, we still had a good time conversing amongst ourselves about how much the rest of our table sucked, and we were so happy to get home that packing to leave the next morning wasn't as much of a chore as it should have been. ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT PORTLAND WAS NEXT UP AND PORTLAND MEANT SEEING SNACKBREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(i have been so remiss in my tv watching i don't even want to think about how much i have left to watch. plus all the news about the cancellations and the renewals lately have been both heart-shattering and palpitation-inducing all at once, and i'm just not equipped to deal with that while i'm sick and travelling.)
ANYWAY. it was slated to be rainy every day we were in seattle (bummer, but not unexpected), but we woke up the next morning to a pretty sunny sky and the promise of a couple hours' of good weather. we were eager to take advantage of it, so we walked over to the seattle center, stopping along the way to see the little waterfall display thingy.
singapore is so full of high-rise buildings that views from conservatory decks honestly don't do much for us anymore, so we skipped the needle and headed straight for the monorail to westlake centre. from there, we walked to pike place market, and we were so glad it was an indoor market because it started to rain on our way over. we had a TON of fun in the market regardless, and tried everything from spam sushi (so good), to fried gizzards (SO SO SO GOOD), fresh fruit (less good), and ghost pepper salt (SO INTENSE). we stopped for a quick bite at the athenian, which was pretty good, as well, and then we decided to check out the aquarium.
fun fact (which we only found out later, but whatever, i make my own timeline): the aquarium once housed a giant pacific octopus, but released it a few years ago, when they realised it was climbing out of its tank at night, climbing into other tanks, and EATING ALL THE FISH THERE. national geographic caught wind of this, though, and, because there had never been footage of a giant pacific octopus eating fish caught on screen before, asked the aquarium to let them film the event before the release. on the night of the filming, the aquarium left the octopus in a tank full of other fish and left the film crew to it. but, rather than just eating all the fish, the octopus ALSO ATE ALL THE SHARKS. W H A T. AND ALL THIS WAS CAUGHT ON CAMERA AND HOW IS NATURE SO AMAZING I JUST DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND IT SOMETIMES. this story blew. my mind. idek.
so they don't have that octopus anymore (o b v i o u s l y) but they have this one instead!
ANYWAY. the aquarium itself isn't very big, but i loved a lot of their exhibits, and the way they presented the exhibits, and also ALL THE OTTERS. oh my gosh i have never seen such big otters in my life, IT WAS SO DELIGHTFUL.
probably not worth $22, but with the citypass, we got a good deal for it, so i'm not complaining. we had a bit of a scare when my dad thought he lost his phone, though, and if we'd been in new york, or back in singapore, i don't think we'd've seen it again, but we were in seattle, and i kept calling it, and two adorable little kids heard it ring and picked it up and gave it back to me and :D sometimes the world is a good place to be.
after that, my parents headed back to the hotel for a rest, but i wanted to see little shop of horrors, so my godbrother and i walked over to act to see if there were tickets left. i'd been googling for information on rush tickets since i saw they were staging lsoh here, but i hadn't found anything, so IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when the lady at the counter not only told us that she had fifth row seats right in the centre, BUT THAT THEY WERE ALSO $20 RUSH TICKETS. SCORE! that did leave us with a couple of hours to kill before the show, though, so we headed over to cheesecake factory, and despite being stuffed to the gills, managed to share a fried mac and cheese balls, a garlic spaghetti (SO SO SO SO SO GOOD) and a strawberry shortcake + strawberry cheesecake. it took us just about two hours, but we finished most of it, and then spent the next half hour trying in vain to walk it off.
i was still full when we went in for the show, though, and i was a little worried i wouldn't be able to enjoy myself that much because of it, but the show was so much fun and the songs were so ridiculous, and the melodies were just so good, that i wound up forgetting all about my bloated stomach and enjoying it to the last, tragically comedic minute. best $20 investment ever? i think so. and the weather was so lovely after the show that we decided to take the monorail back home to extend the duration of our walk a little bit, which was really, really nice.
we had a full day planned the next day, too, so we woke up a little later to give ourselves some recovery time, before heading to pioneer square for our walking food tour. walking food tours are my favourite, and we hit up a bunch of really interesting places, and heard a bunch of really interesting facts, on our tour. the guide wasn't the best at engaging everyone, but she showed us a couple of lovely hidden spots, like the waterfall garden by ups, and the most delicious chocolate shop ever: basil, mocha, curry maple. and there were sake and qwine tastings to boot.
prettiest garden ever! good job, ups
a sake master who's actually been to japan!
unfortunately, the food portions were pretty tiny, which was the only thing i felt could've been improved. the company on the tour was great, as well, just the most perfect, friendly group of people ever, and we met so many people from so many places, each of them just as lovely as the last (:
after the tour, we needed something to pad our stomachs, so we wandered into gaba sushi. and oh my gosh their rolls were delicious. so fresh, and so tasty, and because they were closing they offered us free spicy miso soup and wakame salad (MY WEAKNESS) and we just gobbled it all down.
hysterical signage we saw on our walk to the sushi shop
the ridiculously delicious and cheap sushi!
then we headed over to the emp museum, where we wandered through the horror film exhibit, and the sci-fi exhibit, and the fantasy exhibit (WITH GAME OF THRONES COSTUMES ON DISPLAY) and had fun tinkering around on the instruments on the third floor.
after, we took a bus back to the apartment, and just lazed around for a while, till our parents felt ready to leave for dinner. we went to a little shop nearby called toulouse petit and my parents almost ruined the night with their ridiculous petty childish squabbling, but i was so determined to have a good time that i just ordered for everyone over the sound of their bullshit and IT TURNED OUT SO. SO. SO. GOOD. the lamb burger was the most delicious thing i've had since norway (though norway trumps it, hands down) and the rabbit salad was really light and refreshing. the duck confit was perfect, and the gumbo was thick and spicy (which i would've enjoyed so much more if i wasn't still down with my cough).
it was pretty late by then, so my godbrother and i headed over to the space needle to get a look at the night view (we wouldn't have, but it was included in the city pass, and it seemed silly to pass it up). i'm so glad we did, because the seattle skyline is the prettiest one i've seen so far, and i've seen quite a few. it just is ridiculously gorgeous, especially when everything's all lit up at night. it was so cold i could barely lift my hands to take photos, never mind a panorama. still. it's just one of those things you have to be there to enjoy, i think.
the next day was our last day in seattle, anad it was pretty laidback. in the morning, we headed to the pier to take our one hour argosy cruise tour of seattle, during which we heard plenty of delightful stories about seattle (and i somehow managed to not lose my lunch over, yay me).
then we headed to lunch at the pink door, a place that we'd found out about through one of the locals on our food tour. the weather was delightful, and i'm so glad we got a seat outside, because it just felt like the most perfect day. i had the spring lemon risotto, and that was just--mmmm, hands down my favourite meal in seattle. i practically licked my plate clean. (i mean, i scraped it down with my knife and fork, but the principle's the same.)
then my parents headed back to the apartment while my godbrother and i went to the pacific science centre. we totally missed our stop, which delayed us by like forty minutes, and in the end we had to rush through the spy exhibit (which was the only thing we wanted to see, really) in about forty five minutes. which was seriously cool, and if i'd been a spy back then the spring cosh would've totally been my weapon of choice ( check it), but mostly was full of uncle sam propaganda that sort of made me want to throw up in my mouth. still cool, though.
ANYWAY. we had a dinner theatre reservation after that that we had to make by 6.15, and it was 5.20 when i called my parents all, "hey guys, so maybe you can hop in a cab with a change of clothes for us and get on over here, because there's no way we're making it home in time?"
we did make it in time for the dinner show, thank goodness (or maybe with how it turned out it would've been better if we hadn't). we had to give ourselves aliases at the door (and i chose "ace" for mine, though i was also toying with calling myself "tweedledum", my godbrother "tweedledee", and my parents "alice" and "white rabbit". HOW MUCH FUN WOULD THAT'VE BEEN?) (hint: much more fun than the night actually was.) to be fair, the show itself was weak, but not terrible. it was campy, cheesy fun, but i've come to learn that any kind of activity that makes you rely on your fellow audience members for a good time is usually a bad idea. we had a group of four at our table who were rowdy, obnoxious, and drunk. i'm talking full out heckling the actors all night, sulking at the table when they were then ignored, amd basically ruining the night for themselves and the rest of the table in general. the other couple we were seated with were even worse. they were so frigid, and they hogged the clues, and overall just made me want to pumch them every time i thought i'd be able to get away with it.
thankfully, we still had a good time conversing amongst ourselves about how much the rest of our table sucked, and we were so happy to get home that packing to leave the next morning wasn't as much of a chore as it should have been. ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT PORTLAND WAS NEXT UP AND PORTLAND MEANT SEEING SNACKBREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!