Hi everyone!
I hope everyone is enjoying the month of October as much as I do! 🙂 I love running in crisp and cool air. I also love how the beauty of foliage – bright yellow, orange and red leaves, make an amazing view for a run. Not to forget, pumpkin pies and Pumpkin Spiced Latte (Mmm). I love everything pumpkin!
If you follow me on Instagram, you probably knew already that I strained my IT band. Yup! I am in the process of recovering right now. I am doing lots of stretching, deep tissue massage, and strengthening exercises the past few days. I firmly believe I will recover quick and be back to running soon! Wuhoo!
So while I take my much needed days off from running, allow me to share with you my next adventure after the Jackson Hole, WY trip.
Our next stop…
Orlando, FL {recap here}
Los Angeles, CA {recap here}
Boulder & Las Vegas, NV (& a little bit of Arizona 
) {recap here}
Jackson Hole, WY —> BREATHTAKING!!! {recap here}
> Seattle, WA
Spokane, WA
Vancouver, BC (Canada)
Seattle, WA
Seattle is indeed an exciting Pacific coast town with unique views, the freshest seafood imaginable, and yes, soggy weather.
While in Seattle, we took a road trip to Spokane and Vancouver (which I will have to share on a separate post), so, we planned our sight-seeing in this city efficiently. I thought the title would be fitting for this post because literally, we didn’t get much Zzz’s on this trip. Every minute we were on the go. 🙂
This was my first time ever visiting Seattle, WA and couldn’t wait to explore. Below are the places we visited:
1.) Pike Place Market.
I loved the sheer insane energy of this place. It’s famous for it’s seafood market where fishermen toss their freshly caught fish of the day. There were restaurants, French cafes, and street-corner musicians. There were also plenty of locals selling their trinkets and artwork for the tourists. And oh, we tried the Rainier Cherries! They were delicious!
2.) Original Starbucks!
I am a huge Starbucks girl. It was neat to go here since I have given them so much of my money over the years. From my college allowance I got back in the days when their coffee was the only thing that kept me awake during my endless study nights, to my post-run reward these days. Yes, I embrace my coffee addiction!
This is the busiest Starbucks out there and the line was out the door when we got there. There were actually more Starbucks a few blocks away (with less crowd) but we chose to endure the long line of this particular Starbucks. Well, heck yah! It’s the “first ever Starbucks”! This had to be done!
I like this brown setting of the original Starbucks much better than the green motif they use for all their other stores. It had a classic feel and appeal, and reminds you of what you are there for, COFFEE!
My husband getting his souvenir tumbler.
I chatted with one of the baristas while waiting for my coffee and he told me an interesting fact – they are the only ones who still grind their coffee beans manually, unlike other Starbucks that use fully automatic grinders.
I must admit it was very special and cool to enjoy my grande cup of Pike Place, the real thing at the real place 🙂
If you’re a fan of Starbucks like me, it’s worth visiting this place just so you can say that you’ve been to the original Starbucks. 🙂
3.) Crab Pot.
We had to look up online for a nice seafood restaurant to eat for lunch and we chose Crab Pot. This restaurant is right by the Waterfront and is right around all the touristy stores/spots in downtown Seattle.
It was actually a little difficult to find the entrance to the restaurant. The restaurant in the photo above isn’t actually The Crab Pot – confusing huh? We had to walk down inside a hall of shops to the right and that’s where the actual entrance was.
We ordered one of their seafests, which is apparently their specialty and was good for 2! We got The Alaskan which had king crabs, dungeness crabs, snow crabs, shrimps, clams, mussels, sausage, corn on the cob & red potatoes.
For two people, they gave so much food! Seafood was fresh and since this place was just right next to the water, makes you feel like they just caught them that day haha. Who knows if they did, but it felt that way. Overall we had a lot of fun smashing the crab shells.
Plus we got to do this:
I’m not a seafood expert. I’m sure there’s much better seafood place in Seattle, which I would not be surprised at all, but their crabs were sweet and succulent and both my husband and I had no complaints. Afterwards, we got to stroll along the waterfront and the day was all just super nice. 🙂
4.) Seattle Waterfront.
It was a surprise for me as how much waterfront land Seattle has. Everything is right on the water! There are places that you need to ride a ferryboat in order to get there.
Then my husband and I saw this Ferris Wheel (they call it Great Wheel) and decided to ride it.
After the ride, honestly, I wasn’t that impressed in terms of the view we got. The Ferris wheel was nice and I think it’s a beautiful addition to the Seattle waterfront, but I think you get limited views of the city on board and walking by the waterfront gives you pretty much the same view. I think you’ll get much better views of the city from the ferry ride tours and the Space Needle, since they have pretty much the same price.
View from the Ferris Wheel.
5.) Alki Beach. I love this location. The view of downtown Seattle from this area is wonderful.
We bought the Seattle CityPass for this trip which includes admission to 6 must-see Seattle attractions. We got to visit only 4 of them but I still think it was worth it and cheaper rather than paying for them individually. We did the Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour, Space Needle, The Museum of Flight, EMP Museum. We skipped Seattle Aquarium and Pacific Science Center because we didn’t have enough time to do it.
6.) Argosy Arbour Cruise.
This was my favorite portion of the Seattle City Pass. I love that the sun was out when we rode this. It’s a 2-hour harbor tour where a tour guide tells you full of entertaining facts about Seattle. The tour guide we had was very informative and really enthusiastic. It’s the day I found out that Seattle doesn’t really get that much rain compared to most U.S. cities. It only drizzles a lot in Seattle but the amount of rain they get is less compared to other U.S. cities.
I love that you can see Mount Rainier from every part of this city. It was very pretty. It was like a painting in the background.
The tour provided a great view of the city. It’s definitely a perfect way to see the Seattle Skyline.
7.) The Museum of Flight.
This place was great! We got to climb onto the former Air Force One, Concorde, the first Boeing 747, into cockpits of fighters, and a satellite launchpad!
8.) EMP Museum.
This place is a music-geek-nerd lovers dream! The place took me back to my high school days with Nirvana. The sound lab was neat and my favorite part of the museum where you can play on your own in a booth. It was a lot of fun!
And last but not the least, the iconic….
9.) Space Needle.
It was certainly on our list of things to do. We waited until night time since we preferred seeing the city lights of Seattle.
The 360-degree view was cool.
view from the Space Needle
However, I got pretty nauseous up there. I’m not afraid of heights by any means, but there was something about the sloped floors that really disorientated me. All in all, it was ok. I’m glad we went up the Needle but the Arbour Tour was still my favorite. 🙂
One of the main point of this trip was to decide whether or not to move here someday. So other than the touristy stuff, we also went to a few suburbs close to Seattle and visited neighborhoods to see what it is like to live there. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a thing that really influenced us to move. For one, the weather. We were there for 3 days and only saw the sun just a few hours in the afternoon. It was gloomy for the most part in the morning and gets gloomy and dark again in the late afternoon. Notice how people were wearing long sleeves and jackets in my pictures for the most part and we were there in the middle of the summer. We had a great stay. Seattle is nice and is a unique city in its own way, and the fruits, and seafood (OMG!) are superb! But I don’t think I will ever get used to mostly overcast weather forecast for most of my days.
Have you ever been to Seattle?
Xoxo, Ja
Ja on the RUN 