I try to visit somewhere I haven’t been before for several days at least once a year, and this year the choice was Seattle. I got back late on Wednesday night and thought I’d write an entry to sort of sum up my trip and provide links to the places I visited, as well as the photos and videos I captured while I was there.
The first day was mostly a travel day– we got into Seattle in the afternoon, avoided the Jewish Center shootings which were only a few blocks away from us, and headed down to the Pike Place Market but didn’t stay too long. We were very hungry and ended-up grabbing some dinner and beers at the Pike Place Pub– I ended-up having a Pub burger which was honestly not that great, and Lindsey had some sort of chicken pizza which was delicious. Before heading back to the hotel for the evening, we took a water taxi to Bremerton Island and back just to get out in Elliot Bay and see the skyline of Seattle.
On Saturday, we headed down to check-out Pike Place Market again and took some time to stroll through and check-out more stuff there. From there we headed to the Ivar’s Fish Bar for some cheap seafood eats and to feed the gulls. On a side note, it was interesting that one of the few places around Seattle to see Seagulls was at Ivar’s. After eating at Ivar’s, we took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. We mostly browsed around on Bainbridge Island for a few hours, then headed back to Seattle. We didn’t plan ahead very well for an evening meal and had to settle for a late dinner at Ill Fornaio, which was probably the worst meal of the trip. For spending about $30 a piece, the food was terrible, and the service was even worse.
Sunday we went to check-out the Ballard Locks, which apparently are the second busiest locks in the US. I think the coolest part of the locks is the Salmon ladder. We were there during the peak of Sockeye Salmon season, so there were swarms of them swimming up the ladder to Lake Washington to spawn and die. After visiting the Locks, we walked down the street to visit Archie McPhee’s. A small part of the loads of stuff they have in there is not on their website, and I have NO idea why it’s even there. Examples include taxi fare boxes, welding gloves, and various sizes of O rings.
Sunday evening we went to the waterfront and dined at Typhoon!, a local Thai restaurant chain which had many good reviews. I had the Balinese Pork Tenderloin with a Sapporo, and Lindsey had the Five-Spice Crispy Duck. Both meals were perfect, and I’d go back to Seattle again just to eat there.
Monday we headed to the Museum of Flight to check-out an impressive display of aircraft. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t get to see as much of the museum as I would have liked, but I got to check-out a lot of jets in person that I’ve always wanted to see– a Concorde, F-14, the first Air Force One, and an SR-71. I also got a chance to sit in the cockpit of an F/A 18 Hornet, and an SR-71 Blackbird. Cool stuff! From the museum we headed to the Seattle Aquarium which was pretty cool, and much better than the crappy restaurant / tourist trap Denver Aquarium. I think my favorite part was watching the various types of Otters swim and play. From there we proceeded to The Fisherman’s for a typical tourist desire– a seafood dinner on the pier overlooking Elliot Bay. I had some delicious fresh Salmon, though I doubt this would be a place I’d regularly visit.
On Tuesday, we did a fairly disapointing tour of the Boeing factory. It basically consisted of getting on a bus, being driven to the HUGE building that they assemble 747’s, 767’s, 777’s, and soon 787’s in, going up to an overlook for 10-15 minutes, and then getting bussed back to where we started. That was literally it. It was cool I suppose, but there was probably a better use of time and money, especially considering that no photos were allowed. Once we got back from the tour, we headed up further into Capitol Hill to grab some Dick’s Burgers and walk around a bit. Dick’s is probably my new fast food burger favorite– while they don’t have the “secret” menu like In-N-Out, their burgers and shakes are simply delicious. Capitol Hill in Seattle is very similar to Capitol Hill in Denver– lots of hipsters who need a hug, a shower, and drug rehab / therapy, though I didn’t see any crack dealers. From Capitol Hill, we went back and chilled-out in the hotel for a bit.
Tuesday evening we headed-out to West Seattle for Sushi at Mashiko. Notice the URL for Mashiko is sushiwhore.com– awesome! I started off my meal with a bowl of the Miso vegetable soup, then split Charlie’s Angels Roll, Temptation Island Roll, The Red Violin Roll, and a Bowler Roller roll with Lindsey, and washed it down with my favorite Sushi beer, Sapporo. All of the rolls and soup were delicious, and I’ll definately go back again.
Wednesday was basically a travel day. We checked-out of the hotel, grabbed some delicious sandwiches from the Baguette Box (owned by the same guy who owns Typhoon!), and headed to the airport via the Gray Line Airporter to fly back to Denver.
What is Seattle like compared to Denver? I’d say they have a lot in common– both are the most populous areas of the state surrounded by mostly small cities and towns, they are similar in size (the population of Seattle proper is around 500,000, and the Seattle metro area is 3 million). I like the climate in Seattle better than Denver– it stays around the same temperature year round (60’s-70’s), and doesn’t rain nearly as much as it has a reputation for. It seems that typically the summer mornings are overcast, then the clouds are mostly burned away by the afternoon. Seattle doesn’t have nearly the suburban sprawl problems that Denver has, though the traffic is probably just as bad because of all of the water they have to go around/over. They are currently building out a light rail system, and the bus system itself is excellent. Other than a tour and transportation to and from the airport, we pretty much used the bus system. A couple of times we did take a Taxi to get from place to place downtown, but mostly a $5 fare was worth not having to climb from the waterfront back to our hotel after a long day on our feet. Denver has great restaurants, but it seems like Seattle has more great restaurants to choose from. Denver people are usually pretty friendly, but literally everyone there were really nice, and not in a “please leave me alone” overbearing Southern nice way. Speaking of Southerners, I only encountered one Texan/Southern/White Trash couple there (I really can’t stand, racist, sexist, white trash, homophobic, uneducated rednecks). Who else would wear a shirt that looked like a big Texas flag? Sheesh.
Because of the influences of successful tech companies such as Microsoft and Amazon, there seem to be a lot more tech jobs in Seattle, as well as money being poured into projects like The Experience Music Project by people like Paul Allen. The downtown area is also more active– after 6 PM on the weekdays in Denver, downtown is pretty dead aside from lodo. I couldn’t tell you which is more bike friendly between Denver and Seattle– some of the hills are so steep there I’d only want to ride one way and then bus back the other way. I didn’t see many people attempting the hill climbs, but there were a few. Bainbridge Island seemed like the place for more flat landed bike riding. It did seem relatively dog friendly– we saw tons of people with dogs, and some people even took them on the ferry, etc.
In short, I’m pretty sold on Seattle and think I’d probably like living there more than Denver– perhaps I’ll even move there someday. The metro area is just a bit bigger than Denver with more things to do and in general offers all of the amenities of a bigger city without all of the problems of a bigger city.
Part of the appeal of the McPhee store is all the cool stuff they have in quantities too small to go in the catalog! Denver has a cool place that sells used and surplus medical supplies and Chicago boasts a fabulous American Science and Surplus store.
Most aquariums in the US are better than Colorado’s Ocean Journey, in my opinion. Maybe I’m just skewed because I spent a recent weekend afternoon in the Dallas World Aquarium making faces at the animals. (:
Another cool thing about Seattle: bus transfers will get you everywhere. One of my friends regularly goes from Bellingham to Seattle for around $3 in bus fare each way.
If you’ll still be in Colorado next year, we should have lunch — we’re on track to move there next summer.
Funny, the one night I spent in downtown Seattle, it seemed completely dead after 6pm.
@Melissa — Yeah, I’ve never thought it was that great necessarily, but it has gotten much worse over the years. Now it’s somewhere to go look at crappy fish exhibits and then go eat crappy seafood. Definately a tourist trap.
I’m sure I’ll still be around next year. It would be a long term goal for me to move there given that I like my job, have a mortgage, need to finish my degree, etc.. so maybe in a few years. So yeah, lunch sounds good.
@Jake — It was busy even on weekday nights, and we didn’t even end-up in Pioneer Square at night (an area just South of downtown where everyone goes for nightlife.) While there were a lot of people out, nothing was overly crowded either. We almost always got seated at restaurants immediately, etc.
A few clarifications:
Typhoon! actually started in Portland. And the founder/owner/chef is a *she* — Bo Klein.
It actually *does* rain as much as they complain about in Seattle. You just visited during the dry season.
I left Portland, OR (same climate) in January, after not seeing the sun for literally 40 days and 40 nights.
And after making the ‘all texans/southerners are rednecks’ comment, you’re now required to make next year’s trip to Austin, Texas. And to stop painting with such broad brushes…!
Karl,
I grew-up just a stones-throw away from Texas, have a lot of family in the South and have spent many vacations there, etc. It’s just not for me, though I know Austin has a cool scene. I have a friend that lives there that I keep meaning to visit, but it hasn’t happened yet I guess…
Thank’s for sharing your experience. we currently live in sunny Los Angeles area, people claim that the weather here is perfect. However people in Los Angeles don’t engage in outdoor activities, air conditioning is a plus everybody stays indoors with the A/C running high, summer is way too hot. remember the song nobody walks in L A. Well it’s thrue also crime is a serious problem in the L A area. it’s really bad in L A. No activities whatsoever there’s no evening life here. We’ve been thinking about moving away from L A far away from here, after some research we’ve chossen the Seattle area, weather being a big factor, quality of life and most of all the school system seems to be among the best. so of course education is on the top of our list. People we speak to claim that it rains too much in Seattle but as far as we know rain itself does not kill people on the other hand in Los Angeles there was a heat wave in 2007, according to reports killed 30 people, so we choose rein over heat.