Weekend in Seattle
Last weekend we took a short trip to visit Seattle. I'd never been there before, and we had lots of people to visit. We had 3 full days in Seattle for which Yuxi graciously hosted us.
It was actually sunny on our first day! We took advantage of the weather and spent the day at Mt. Rainier. Ironically, the only cloud in the sky was the one small cloud around the base of Mt. Rainier, so we spent our time there in the cloud. We couldn't go very far with the car since going further required tire chains, which we did not have. Still, I don't think we could have gone high enough with the car to reach above the cloud. We walked around on the trails for a few hours. It was surprising how different the weather was on the mountain. At the bottom, the forests were completely green and there was no snow. As we drove up toward the parking lot we stopped at, there was gradually more and more snow. The trail we walked on was very snowy and slippery, so we couldn't go as far as we had wanted. As we drove back to Seattle we could see the sun setting on the mountain, which was very pretty. By the time we got back it was quite late and well past my usual dinner time even in local time. We met up with Greg, Sarah, Theresa, and Graeme and went out to a really nice Fish restaurant. The food was excellent, but I was far too tired to eat. The restaurant had a really nice view overlooking Lake Washington. During our dinner there was a Christmas parade of boats on the lake - there was a long row of boats going across the lake with lots of lights on them.
On our second day in Seattle it was actually snowing in the morning! Another oddity for the area. We spent the day in downtown Seattle touring the city. We had breakfast at a really good French bakery in Pike's Place Market. The market is known for "flying" fish. Besides the fish, I thought the market was very similar to the St. Jacob's farmer's market. We also stopped in at the first Starbucks, which wasn't anything special. We walked around downtown Seattle with Yuxi and Graeme, circling it twice actually. We saw the Space Needle, although we didn't go up top. It is a neat looking tower, but it's actually not very tall. The most interesting building we saw downtown was the library. Monica suggested a really good Thai restaurant in downtown Seattle for dinner, and then she took us on a tour of some neat places in Seattle including Kerry park (which has an amazing view), another park on the other side of the bay for another nice view, and some neat sculptures around the city including a Troll under a bridge. During our tour it had started raining, and we were pretty cold, so we went back to Monica's place where we had fun playing with the Wii.
Our final day in Seattle we spent touring some of the suburbs of Seattle. We visited the Nintendo customer service center, the Microsoft visitor's center, and walked around the Microsoft campus. We had Mexican food for lunch in Redmond, then walked around Bellevue Square in Bellevue. We stuck around to see the drummer show in the evening. They had people dressed up as tin soldiers playing drums to a soundtrack, and there were lots of lights on the buildings and fake snow falling. We were planning to have dinner in Bellevue, but we were too full from our big Mexican lunch. We ended up having Cheesecake for dinner from the Cheesecake Factory at Greg's place while watching some cool demos of BioShock and Mass Effect on the XBOX 360. I was quite impressed with Mass Effect. Watching it on the Hi-def TV I felt like I was watching an interactive movie.
I was surprised by how small Seattle actually is. We had no trouble walking around the downtown, twice. I also got the impression that it is very sprawled, and it seemed like everyone there spends a lot of time in their cars. They didn't have very much in terms of decorations for the holidays. I did see one Christmas tree in downtown Seattle, and Macy's had a giant star on their store, but they didn't have the pretty windows. Bellevue was a little more decorated around Bellevue Square, but there wasn't nearly as much to see as in New York or Chicago. I think the best thing to see in Seattle is the mountain scenery. Mt. Rainier was very nice and really tall. Of course my favorite thing to see in Seattle was all our friends. :)
It was actually sunny on our first day! We took advantage of the weather and spent the day at Mt. Rainier. Ironically, the only cloud in the sky was the one small cloud around the base of Mt. Rainier, so we spent our time there in the cloud. We couldn't go very far with the car since going further required tire chains, which we did not have. Still, I don't think we could have gone high enough with the car to reach above the cloud. We walked around on the trails for a few hours. It was surprising how different the weather was on the mountain. At the bottom, the forests were completely green and there was no snow. As we drove up toward the parking lot we stopped at, there was gradually more and more snow. The trail we walked on was very snowy and slippery, so we couldn't go as far as we had wanted. As we drove back to Seattle we could see the sun setting on the mountain, which was very pretty. By the time we got back it was quite late and well past my usual dinner time even in local time. We met up with Greg, Sarah, Theresa, and Graeme and went out to a really nice Fish restaurant. The food was excellent, but I was far too tired to eat. The restaurant had a really nice view overlooking Lake Washington. During our dinner there was a Christmas parade of boats on the lake - there was a long row of boats going across the lake with lots of lights on them.
On our second day in Seattle it was actually snowing in the morning! Another oddity for the area. We spent the day in downtown Seattle touring the city. We had breakfast at a really good French bakery in Pike's Place Market. The market is known for "flying" fish. Besides the fish, I thought the market was very similar to the St. Jacob's farmer's market. We also stopped in at the first Starbucks, which wasn't anything special. We walked around downtown Seattle with Yuxi and Graeme, circling it twice actually. We saw the Space Needle, although we didn't go up top. It is a neat looking tower, but it's actually not very tall. The most interesting building we saw downtown was the library. Monica suggested a really good Thai restaurant in downtown Seattle for dinner, and then she took us on a tour of some neat places in Seattle including Kerry park (which has an amazing view), another park on the other side of the bay for another nice view, and some neat sculptures around the city including a Troll under a bridge. During our tour it had started raining, and we were pretty cold, so we went back to Monica's place where we had fun playing with the Wii.
Our final day in Seattle we spent touring some of the suburbs of Seattle. We visited the Nintendo customer service center, the Microsoft visitor's center, and walked around the Microsoft campus. We had Mexican food for lunch in Redmond, then walked around Bellevue Square in Bellevue. We stuck around to see the drummer show in the evening. They had people dressed up as tin soldiers playing drums to a soundtrack, and there were lots of lights on the buildings and fake snow falling. We were planning to have dinner in Bellevue, but we were too full from our big Mexican lunch. We ended up having Cheesecake for dinner from the Cheesecake Factory at Greg's place while watching some cool demos of BioShock and Mass Effect on the XBOX 360. I was quite impressed with Mass Effect. Watching it on the Hi-def TV I felt like I was watching an interactive movie.
I was surprised by how small Seattle actually is. We had no trouble walking around the downtown, twice. I also got the impression that it is very sprawled, and it seemed like everyone there spends a lot of time in their cars. They didn't have very much in terms of decorations for the holidays. I did see one Christmas tree in downtown Seattle, and Macy's had a giant star on their store, but they didn't have the pretty windows. Bellevue was a little more decorated around Bellevue Square, but there wasn't nearly as much to see as in New York or Chicago. I think the best thing to see in Seattle is the mountain scenery. Mt. Rainier was very nice and really tall. Of course my favorite thing to see in Seattle was all our friends. :)