Sunday, June 3, 2012

Seattle Day 1 and 2

We left NewJersey Tuesday morning and flew out of Philadelphia to Seattle. When originally booking the cruise (which sailed out of Vancouver) we looked at flights to both Seattle and Vancouver. Well, it was several hundred dollars cheaper to fly into Seattle, so we took that money and made a pre-cruise vacation out of it in Seattle.

Our flight stopped in Minneapolis and then we arrived in Seattle at 8pm. From the airport we took the Seattle light rail (walk through the airport parking lot) almost directly to our hotel. We used priceline and the winning bid got us the Mayflower Park Hotel (4 star seattle downtown) The hotel was in a great location for all the walking we planned to do. By the time we got to the hotel (around 10pm) not many restaurants were still open. We walked around for a little bit and ended up at the PF Changs around the corner from the hotel. (Note there are many homeless people in the area and they will talk to you) They had a great late night happy hour ( a lot of seattle restaurants have happy hour from 3-6 and again 10-close) and we talked to many locals to get tips of what we shouldn't miss in our limited stay in the city. The bartender (Jason) was very helpful. We asked about local beers and he was more than willing to let us sample all of them.

(picture is bedlam coffee)

Still on east coast time we woke up pretty early the next day and headed out towards the Seattle Center. We started by walking north to the Olympic Sculpture Park. We stopped at a coffeeshop and picked up two lattes (bedlam coffee, our best lattes of the trip) and then grabbed a scone from macrina bakery a few blocks north for breakfast. We knew the museums didn't open for a few hours so we took some time walking through the sculpture park and the other nearby park. One tip, make sure you go to the bathroom before leaving your hotel- it was very difficult to find a public restroom early that morning.







 (the park nearby- it had a walking trail)

After the Olympic Sculpture park we walked to Seattle Center where we went to the EMP museum which opened at 10. You can buy your tickets online ahead of time at a discounted price. This museum was a lot of fun- and I am not even a huge music fan. My husband, who basically grew up with Nirvana and is a drummer absolutely lover it. The downstairs areas have a room of quitars, tributes to nirvana, jimi hendrix and ac/dc and a bunch of other musical stuff. The upstairs area also has "jam rooms" where you can play instruments, and even purchase your own recordings. Attached is the science fiction museum which is small but has a cool tribute to horror films tucked in the back.




 After the EMP it was lunch time so we walked through the seattle center area to see the fountain and then up to sushiland for lunch. At sushiland you sit at the counter and plates of sushi go by on a conveyor belt- just pick what you want. Each plate is a different color that corresponds to the price (ie orange plates one dollar, green plates $1.50) no plates cost more than 3 dollars. We were able to have lunch for 7 dollars.


After lunch we went back to Seattle center and went to the Pacific Science Center. I was really looking forward to some of the outdoor exhibits such as the bicycle and hampster wheel, but both were closed due to cold weather. If you have been to some of the major science centers (NY, DC, Philly, even NJ's liberty science center) don't waste your time here. The body works exhibit is almost identical to franklin institute. The one nice part was the butterfly garden was included in admission and not an extra charge.





We walked back to the hotel from here, first stopping for another latte...can't have enough caffeine when in Seattle. Our hotel had a wine tasting that night in the restaurant (Andaluca) except it was more of a please drink free wine for one hour instead of a true tasting. Based on a recommendation from the bartneder the night before we ate dinner at the TapHouse which had a wall of beers on tap (over 90)



Tip of the day: The ferry boats are viewable from the sculpture park and what you may think is Mt. ranier off in the distance in the north is actually the cascade mountain range.

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