Seattle Trip - Part Three

On our last day in Seattle we took the underground tour. It was super fascinating and fun to take. My only regret is that we didn't take the "Nightlife Underground Tour" which covers some of the "working women" and how they helped to shape Seattle but that tour is only in the evening and we were leaving Seattle that afternoon.

The underground tour starts in an old bar and you walk in and out of old abandoned buildings but Seattle literally has an underground. I'll probably do a horrible job at explaining but basically the government decided to re-grade Seattle so it wouldn't have as many problems with the tide flooding the area and in order to re-grade businesses would have to close for 10+ years so the business were allowed to stay open but as the city was regraded the business would end up being at basement level. and they couldn't build tunnels at intersections so if you got the end of a street there would be a ladder that would take you to the new ground level - which was anywhere from like 5 feet - 14 feet. Yowza! Needless to say - I'm glad I didn't live in Seattle in the 1800's!

Not only would it suck to climb down 14 feet to get to my grocery store but this was what the plumbing was like a wood pipe!

Loved this hotel sign for $.75 rooms!

Certain areas of the underground had skylight areas to help the shops not feel like they were underground. The city has kept a lot of them!

A beautiful archway that stands outside of where the underground tour starts


Apparently, in the late 50's-60's Seattle didn't see much use in the former shops and street alleys that used to be the underground of Seattle so people started dumping things there when they would remodel such as this piece of molding.

Now, there isn't much cool stuff because antique collectors have gone threw and salvaged what they could. Some of the "antiques" that are down there were donated.

After the underground tour we went to another old Art Deco building. You get to take an old fashioned elevator ride to the top floor.

The view from the top is amazing! From one side you could see straight to the Ocean.

The other side looked over the stadium


After the underground tour we did one last walk threw of the Pike Place Market and hit up the original Starbucks.



In the background you can see Starbucks. We were lucky and there wasn't a line to get in so we quick grabbed some warm drinks. Unforunately, we didn't really get any of the inside of the store but it wasn't like a regular starbucks. It was filled with Starbucks mugs in the shelves and it was pretty open inside to accommodate the large crowds that filter in.

One last picture in front of the famous sign

and I even got my picture taken holding my original Starbucks drink!

If you're planning a trip to Seattle in the future and want some great restaurant recommendations please let me know. I didn't cover a lot of the places we went because I didn't take pictures.

Seattle Trip - Part Two

The Space Needle was constructed for one of the World's Fairs and is an amazing sculpture. I like to refer to it as the Seedle (Seattle) Needle. I think its catchier.

I highly recommend taking the time to check it out if you're in Seattle. We waited maybe 30 minutes to get to Observation deck and the majority of the wait is inside. We arrived at the needle just as the sun was setting. It really made for some stunning photos but some of the photo's turned out blurry. Le Sigh. I happen to love this one of me walking up to the ticket office.

Proud owner of two tickets to the observation deck!

Cool structures that are around the Needle

Same Structure but all lit up in the dark!


The view from the top was stunning! In one direction it was just the ocean and the coast

and the other direction was a lit up city. I love Seattle. It is so beautiful


A quick picture before the sun set. It was soo cold up there!

We had to get a picture of us both at the top too!

When we left the needle it was so dramatic against the very black night sky. Its really nice that the surround area isn't polluted with lights and businesses. It makes the Needle really stand out!


After we were all done in the gift shop we took the mono rail back to downtown which was only a few blocks away from our hotel!


More to come tomorrow!

Seattle Trip - Part One

Last month, Jack and I flew up to Seattle for a mini weekend trip. We celebrated our ninth anniversary! A little bit over 2 years ago we had planned a trip to Seattle and the day that I bought plane tickets I was also laid off. Needless to say we cancelled our trip so Seattle has been on my hot list for years!

We booked our hotel thru Orbitz's priceline negotiator. We "negotiated" a deal of $80 a night for the downtown Seattle Westin. I'm kind of hooked on this negotiating deals thing. It's quite fun!

We were only a couple of blocks away from Pike's Place Market and we were in perfect walking distance for a lot of restaurants, bars and events. Plus our hotel was the double round towers so it made it easy to figure out where we were supposed to be headed too!

We arrived really late Friday night so we got up early on Saturday morning and hit Pike's Place Market. We were starving so we hit up a Piroshky Piroshky for a cup of borscht and a piroshky.

Borscht and piroshky were both phenomenal!

After getting breakfast we walked into the main building of the market and looked at all the goods that people were selling!

There are a few fish mongers in the market. I wish we had a kitchen while staying in Seattle. I would have loved to cook something up on my own!


These homemade pickles looked to die for!


I'm guessing February is off season in Seattle but the market was packed wall to wall on Saturday.

We took some corny tourist pictures in front of the iconic market sign!


We also tried some of the famous Beechers homemade cheese curds.

We're both from Wisconsin and so we naturally had to see if they lived up to what we both grew up with.

They did not but the mac and cheese was the best mac and cheese on the planet. Inside the Beechers store you can watch them make cheese curds in different stages which is rad.

Seattle is a very hilly city if you're heading down to the market. I would assimilate it to San Francisco's streets. Maybe not quite as bad! Jack would stop to take pictures of the little oddities on buildings like this rain gutter with plants growing out of it

and I would power through and wait for him at the top!


I'm not sure if everyone knows this but Seattle is apparently one of the biggest chocolate shop cities outside of Europe!

I think they have something like 50 different chocolate shops! So we tried a few when we happened on them! There is even a chocolate walking tour if you're up for that sort of thing. Yum.

The first shop which I can't remember the name we ordered a little sampler platter of chocolate.


Starting with the yellow and going right was : a mimosa truffle, dark chocolate raspberry, the plain chocolate was a balsamic strawberry truffle and a gray sea salt caramel truffle.

Another one of the advertised chocolate shops was selling chocolate stuffed figs. I definitely had to try that out!


The tiny truffle was an earl gray tea truffle and the big truffle was the chocolate stuffed fig. They basically hollow out a fig and shove it full of chocolate and then dip it in chocolate to seal the goodness in. The more see thru the chocolate inside is the less fig filling there is. We had more fig/less chocolate combo.

I think tomorrow I'll continue up with another portion of our trip!

Back from Seattle

and I am exhausted. We spent the few days we were there walking everywhere and eating some amazing local food. I am in love with Seattle and will add it to my list of potential places to live!


More pictures and stories later when I'm awake!

One more day!

Till we fly out to Seattle. I absolutely can't wait! EEP!

on my list :

1. Coffee from THE Starbucks
2. Pike's Place Market
3. Delancey Pizza
4. Shopping!