Whoo, I've got lots of pics of my vacation to Seattle and Portland (more on that city in another post), so bear with me. I was just so excited to finally get to Seattle and Portland, two cities that I have never been to, but have been on my destination wish list forever.
When I go into an unknown city, I love to play tourist and hit up all the cheesy tourist stuff. Might as well admit what you are and own it! Soooo, I made a Google map (lord, I love Google Maps) of all the tourist highlights I wanted to hit, as well as threw tons of restaurants on the map just in case I was suddenly stricken with hunger while standing on an unknown corner. I didn't visit many of the restaurants on my map, though, instead just rolled with it.
And, I made an itinerary. Yeah, I did it all, baby! OK, not all. Not even close.
Fresh off the plane, kayaking at
Aqua Verde Paddle Club on Lake Union was on the itinerary if the day was nice, and it was! We actually had pretty good, sunny, non-rainy weather for most of the trip.
After kayaking you need doughnuts! These are from
Top Pot Doughnuts. I managed to hit three of the four doughnut shops on my list. More on doughnuts in another post.
When walking around the Capitol Hill area of town, we randomly passed by the
Cake Spy Shop run by Jessie Oleson of the blog
Cake Spy, so I poked my head in. This is one of those crafty, cutesy stores filled with wares from mostly independent artists. Jessie was in house, and she is super duper nice. She has a tiny area set up where she paints her cupcake and confection character illustrations (I am in such awe of artists). You can pick up
her work in her store, as well as online.
We were staying at a friend's house in Seattle that wasn't too far from the
Space Needle, so we walked over one morning to give it a gander, but didn't go up. The Space Needle is too expensive at $18 per person, plus, I'd done my research and we were headed to Columbia Center downtown for a better view.
Columbia Center is the tallest skyscraper in downtown Seattle at 76 stories. There are no signs outside of the building encouraging tourists to go in, but they have an observation deck on the 73rd floor that anyone willing to pay $5 can visit. The observation deck is only open Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. To get to the observation deck you take the bank of elevators in the North Lobby to the 40th floor, pass by the Starbucks (also with great views), then take those elevators to the 73rd floor. Follow the signs for the observation deck to the left. You don't get a full 360-degree view, but you can see all the important stuff — Puget Sound, downtown, the Space Needle, Mt. Rainier.
Of course, we did
Pike Place Market, which is to Seattle what Reading Terminal is to Philadelphia. A handful of eateries in and around Pike Place Market are getting their own post.
On an absolutely gorgeous and clear day we took the
Bainbridge Island Ferry over to
Bainbridge Island. The ferry is only a thirty minute ride and they leave almost every hour. The ferry also is great for views of Seattle (the opening photo of this post was shot while on the ferry).
Take the Bainbridge Ferry across for the view and to walk around the island, although there really isn't much to do over there other than visit some shops. There is the
Bloedel Reserve at the top of the island if you're into gardens, but we didn't have a car. We did luck out when I was researching a list of gardens in the area that a friend recommended (mostly private gardens), and one of those gardens on the list happened to be open to the public while I was out there. So, we hiked it about 1.5 miles over to the
Little and Lewis Garden. Well, their new one. They moved a couple of years ago, and have started a new garden. Cute and lush, but still in progress, and tiny considering their house sits only on a third of an acre, and they only let the public visit the front yard.
The skies were clear and the sun was shining, so we walked the shores of Bainbridge Island back to the ferry. Mt. Rainier was in clear view that day.
The same day we went to the Columbia Center observation deck, we did a good deal of walking downtown. Ran into this colorful yarn bombing at
Occidental Park, which is near a bunch of art galleries. As much as I like the injection of color, when your job is to care for plants you can't help but think about all the harmful insects the yarn sheath around the trunks of the trees could possibly harbor. Hope someone rescues those trees soon.
We made it down to Chinatown where I visited
Daiso, the Japanese dollar store (really $1.50 and above), but was very disappointed. I wanted cute overload, but got toilet seat covers, food containers, and nail polish.
The
Uwajimaya grocery store in Chinatown did not disappoint. It's the cleanest and most organized Asian grocery store you've ever been too. And there are "regular" grocery store items, too. It's like an Asian grocery, Superfresh, and Whole Foods had a baby. Jealous of the one-stop shopping, not to mention that you can get beer and wine there, just like you can at most any grocery store in the Northwest. PA, you suck balls.
Theo Chocolate is the first organic and fair trade certified bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the US, and you know I did the tour! It's getting it's own post.
After the stressful (not kidding) chocolate tour we really needed some wine, so hit the road about thirty minutes northeast of Seattle to the town of Woodinville, WA where it's a
wine room tasting mecca. Woodinville has made the best of the suburbs by turning industrial parks and strip malls into wine tasting rooms for Washington area wineries. Above are just some of the signs for the more than 30 tasting rooms in the
Woodinville Warehouse District, where you just walk 15 feet from one tasting room to the next, over and over until you must call it quits.
There are also stand-alone wine tasting rooms on beautiful, shaded private properties, like the
JM Cellars tasting room above. We tried to go to
Chateau Ste. Michelle, one of the more well known tasting rooms in Woodinville, mostly because of their gorgeous grounds and chateau, but the line of cars into that place was out of control.
Don't you wish all strip malls had industrial styled wine tasting rooms like
Darby Winery? Seriously, do we need another Old Navy or CVS?
I noticed the wine tasting rooms in Washington had a more hip vibe than those in PA and NY. No one was playing jazz or classical music to set the mood; more like TV on the Radio and Talking Heads.
Played some pinball at
Shorty's. I'm kicking myself for not noticing that they have an extensive hot dog menu (just ate sushi and wasn't thinking about food).
But that's OK, because I ended my last night in Seattle in style with some street meat — a Seattle dog. That gets it's own post, too.
One of the first things we put on our Seattle vacation itinerary was a visit and factory tour of Theo Chocolate, the first organic and fair trade certified bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the US. Factory tours always remind of the good ol' days of grade school field trips, plus you don't have to twist my arm to get me to eat chocolate!
Why do you want to visit the store? Because they put out samples of almost every bar they create! You can easily eat a few bars worth of chocolate just circling the room tasting here and there. They recommend you hold off on sampling the chocolate before going on the tour because you'll sample chocolate on the tour as well, and they don't want you to spoil your palate. You don't even know the self control involved in that request! 
A group of about 20 followed our tour guide into a room with chairs where the guide enthusiastically, clearly, succinctly, and sternly told us the story of Theo, explained chocolate plants, and chocolate politics while passing around props and bowls of chocolate. Like school children, we could barely contain ourselves from giggling and making faces as we flashbacked to dominating, authoritarian teachers of past. Our tour guide (there are others) was actually very good, but just didn't give off warm fuzzies. Pretty much the antithesis of Willy Wonka.
Here you see an 1930s era German ball roaster in the background, and cans filled with raw cocoa beans in the foreground.
It was in this room, where the beans are roasted then put through a winnower that separates the outer husks of the cocoa beans, that we were given samples of bitter, crunchy cocoa nibs, which are roasted, crushed cocoa beans.
And, here's the kitchen where truffles and confections are made, and flavors like curry and coffee are added to chocolate before being molded into bars. I really would have liked to have seen some workers scurrying in the kitchen, tempering chocolate on the large, slab marble tables.
A few more stops at some machines and work stations, and the tour was over.
Back in the store front, I went crazy and ate multiple samples of everything they had on the floor. Then I bought a can of cocoa nibs (so good in oatmeal cookies), and a variety pack of their flavored bars (gone in a week!).
I'd recommend the tour if you have older children, or for yourself if you are on vacation (or staycation) and want to goof around and do something you wouldn't normally do. But, I highly recommend you visit the store, and eat your way around the room. Buy a bar or two, too. They're quite good!
