Impressions of Seattle

I was lucky to spend a weekend in Seattle recently, and it was my first time to really experience the city. I found it to be a really lively, quirky, and eclectic place. It seemed to have so much condensed in so much less space than I'm used to, which was cool.

I liked the huge variety of restaurants (I heard they even had several chocolate and bakery tasting tours in the city). I loved the arrays of quirky shops one after another (like Bella Umbrella [an umbrella store], a hat store, an Afghani clothing store, a lavender store, a magic shop, a dog shop, a Mexican folk arts store [all around the same block]). I thought the fish throwers in Pike Place were cool, and I liked the first Starbucks with the original, more risqué, logo. It was sad how the first Starbucks was so packed with tourists that it didn't even have tables to enjoy your coffee there.

Tea tasting at a Chinese tea shop was fun. The actual tea was pretty inexpensive.

I saw several "teriyaki + nails" places: Japanese food on the first floor and nail salon on the second floor (but sharing the same banner space in the window making it look like it was teriyaki nails).

Aqua Restaurant and Steelhead Diner: mmm good.

Post alley: Got to add some gum to the famous (and slightly disgusting) gumwall and caught a really funny improv comedy show by Unexpected Productions.

Space Needle and monorail were cool.

Grayline Bus Tour and Underground Tour (showing the city fire and reconstruction) were cool.

Fran's Chocolates: Loved the chocolate portrait that was 5' x 7' made of chocolate. Had the best hot chocolate I've ever had in the U.S. at this place. Salted caramels were great too.

Lots of dogs everywhere! I heard about some area within Seattle that has a 2:1 dog:kid ratio.

Chihuly garden and glass exhibit: Really cool museum.

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