It has been so long that I’ve been able to write about one of our fabulous adventures because we HAVEN’T BEEN ON ONE IN OVER A YEAR! Dave and I finally saved up some time and money and went away together for the first time since LA last December. What a nice and much overdue treat.
Why Seattle for such a short trip? Dave’s new job has him traveling quite a bit in the next few months. His first business trip this season was scheduled for Seattle on a Friday morning. Friday morning… how perfect. We decided to make a vacation out of it, especially since Seattle is just a train ride away from his family in Vancouver.
My adventure started at 4:00 AM on Friday. EW. I had to catch a bus at 4:30 to catch another bus to the airport for my flight out of Philly at 7am. All went well and after a VERY LONG day on airplanes (I finished reading Paterno -loved- and started -and finished… and also loved) Gone Girl- I arrived in Seattle at 3pm. I met Dave who had already finished up working for the day at our amazing hotel, the Edgewater.
The Edgewater is a waterfront hotel that was made famous by this picture of the Beatles fishing outside their room in 1964…
“Fab Fishing” Photo Cred: BeatlesInterviews.org
…and more recently, was featured on “The Layover” with my all time favorite foodie Anthony Bourdain!
#OMGWeStayedAtTheSameHotel!!!??!?
Photo Cred: HotelChatter.com
Dave and I had a room with a balcony overlooking Elliott Bay, with a fancy bathroom, fireplace, and even this little guy to keep us company (they sell them in the store… I WANT ONE!! duh).
Loved our friend in our room! So cute
The view from the lobby. Just amazing.
We dropped off my luggage and got started with some sightseeing right away… we had to take advantage of what ended up being the clearest, nicest day during our time in Seattle!
We walked down the pier and took a ride on The Seattle Great Wheel which provided a beautiful view of the city.
Dave on the Ferris Wheel
Pretty view from the ferris wheel
Next, we decided we were going to walk through the city to the Space Needle. The quick ride in the elevator brought us up to the observation deck which gave us a 360 degree view of the city… 520 feet in the air. OMG! The scenery was beautiful and this was the only day we could see the towering snow-covered Mt. Rainier. I was awestruck by this mountain… I could not believe how big and gorgeous it was.
Space Needle!
GORGEOUS view of Mt. Rainier from the Space Needle.
After the space needle, we made a pit-stop at the Pike Place Market. You got it… the place where they throw the fish 
We munched on some smoked cheeese “trail mix” (YUM) and walked around to check out all of the fresh fish. We ended up grabbing a small bite to eat at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese store… wow! We had a few samples, tried out a fancy grilled cheese, and munched on their famous Cheese Curds.
Lobster!
I wish I could have gone shopping at the market! Check out the size of that shrimp…
Smoked Cheese Sticks & “Trail Mix” … nom nom
Fiiiiish
Rows and rows of fresh flowers
As if our day wasn’t already jam-packed enough, we then headed over to Safeco Field to watch the Seattle Mariners get crushed by the Angels. We had such a fun time and tried some local favorites suggested by my friend Heather… Grounder’s Garlic Fries (OMG GARLICC!), Cheddar/Caramel Popcorn (I didn’t let Dave open this until we got back to the hotel for a midnight snack!), and later on, a Seattle Dog (Cream Cheese… whaaaaat?!). We didn’t realize until we left, but at the ballpark in Seattle unlike in Philadelphia, you can leave the stadium and come back in! I love it! They have lots of shops and food vendors lined up outside the stadium so I imagine this would have been really cool to do. Nice touch, Seattle.
Go Mariners!
Devoured this Cheddar-Caramel Corn … yum!
Pretty view from the ballpark.
YUM! Garlic fries! We both agreed that Philly’s Famous Crab Fries from Chickie and Pete’s is better though
Enjoying the baseball game
Next, we walked back to our hotel, stopping at a few bars along the way. We dropped by a place that looked pretty cool called 1000 Spirits. This would be the first of THREE times we’d visit this cocktail bar during our short stay in the city. Dave and I loved this place! With $5 martinis, two different happy hour times, a Happy Hour Wheel, and free drinks with a #1000Spirits tweet… we ended up having six delicious cocktails and an appetizer for only $24. WOW!
Cocktail bar! Got Dave into Dirty Martinis… mmm!
This is only about 1/3 of the bar! OMG.
Delicious cod cake. Only $5 during Happy Hr.
The next day, we had until our 6pm train to Vancouver to explore the city. It was a little bit on the chilly side this day, so we decided to hit up the EMP Museum. First, for breakfast, we stopped by The Five-Point Cafe as suggested by the Layover & Anthony Bourdain. I obviously super-stalked the menu and decided we had to go here. I mean, they have a “breakfast happy hour”… how could it be bad? Boy was I WRONG! BOO Anthony! Boo! Here’s the story:
We had an incredibly disappointing meal at Five-Point Cafe. The service was just horrible. I’m always the type of person to be super-sweet to servers, always understand, rarely complain, etc. The first bad sign was how long we had to wait for our food. It was maybe about twenty minutes before I started looking around for our food. I noticed a few plates up by the kitchen window just sitting there waiting to be delivered to their tables. Ten minutes passed. They were still there. Praying those plates weren’t ours, I asked another server (ours was nowhere to be found) to check on our orders. They weren’t ours. Whew! Another ten minutes passed before our food came out (it’s now been about 40 minutes since we ordered BREAKFAST… this should not take that long). I had ordered one of their famous Benedicts, the “Californian” with avocado and grilled tomato. I was STARVING at this point and could not wait to dig in. It looked delish. I cut into my benny only to see no runny egg. Whatttt? My dish had been sitting so long that the egg turned hard… a hard boiled egg smothered in hollandaise. I’m sorry, but this is just UNACCEPTABLE for a Benny, right?! I had to flag down our server only to have her roll her eyes at me. Great. They brought out another dish for me 10 minutes later, having only removed the hard eggs and replaced with runny eggs and MORE hollandaise sauce. Gross. It was covered to the point where I couldn’t taste any of the food except the sauce. Dave’s Corned Beef Hash (his version of my benedict… the “I don’t care about calories” breakfast-go-to) was served to him cold, which at this point was the least of our worries. BOO! What a disappointment.
What I thought would be a delicious benedict from 5-Point Cafe…
Ended up disgusting. I couldn’t eat anything under all of that gloopy sauce.
Ready for a GOOD TIME after our terrible breakfast, we headed over to the EMP Museum of Music, Sci-Fi, and Pop-Culture. This wasn’t only the coolest looking building ever… it was the coolest museum ever. We absolutely loved it.
The EMP Museum is one funky building! Photo Cred: Journeysinlightphotoblog.com
They had exhibits about Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Sci-Fi movies and TV, Video Games, Fantasy, Horror Movies, and even an entire area where you could play around with music. Dave was the happiest person ever being able to go into a sound proof room and play the drums for the first time in years. We also got to try out sound mixing too. This place isn’t just for kids, it’s for big kids like us!
Center of the EMP Museum… so cool
Dave’s replaced King Geoffrey in the Game of Thrones in the fantasy section of the EMP Museum.
Caught in the reflection of the funky EMP Museum building
My favorite picture of them all… the reflection of the space needle outside the EMP Museum
We stopped by a coffee shop for a pick-me-up and went back to the Space Needle. Our train at 6pm took us to Vancouver to visit with Dave’s family for a few days. I could not believe how much sightseeing we got done in just over 24 hours!
Our 3-Day, 3-Night visit to Vancouver was amazing. I have lots to tell you and tons of pictures to share of our amazing food adventure… so that will have to wait until later. We arrived back in Seattle for one last day on Tuesday morning.
After checking into our hotel, we took a nice long walk through the city, bringing us back to the Pike Place Market again. This time around, we were able to buy some souvenirs and iced coffees at the very first Starbucks! I was one happy, perfectly caffeinated girl. We satisfied our hunger and oyster craving at Emmett Watson’s Oyster Bar which was a tiny little hole in the wall place near the market. Oysters were slurped and a super-garlicky salmon soup was shared. Yum.
Watson’s Oyster Bar menus are printed on brown paper bags. Love.
Amazing soup at the Oyster Bar!
Happy to be in the very first Starbucks.
First Starbucks Store
Our last dinner in Seattle ended up bringing us back to 1000 Spirits (why not?!) for some more drinks and grub. Dave and I are absolutely going to miss this place!
I didn’t get my normal “OMG I want to move here” feelings when we were leaving Seattle. Maybe it’s because I’m just loving our new place in Philly? Or maybe it’s because we had a few days in Vancouver (the most beautiful city on earth) sandwiched in the middle? Regardless, I had such an amazing trip and would love to visit again! Who’s with me?
I woke up on the plane to this unbelievable view of Mt. Rainier… wow!
