July 23rd & 24th - Toilet-less in Seattle

It was Dan's 3-day-weekend in Oregon, so we were off to the city that's famous for its seafood and chick-flicks - Seattle!

We got up early on 23rd July 2010 and drove for a few hours to Seattle. The weather was incredible and we were both as excited as monkeys with a big basket full of bananas.

The first stop for us was Woodland Park Zoo. We read that they had snow leopards there so we didn't think twice about spending some decent hours taking photos of those beautiful creatures.

 

 

Then we arrived at our hotel - The Mediterranean Inn Hotel. Seattle hotels were all quite costly (compared to what I usually look for = $100 per night) so when I found this place for about $250 for 2 nights, I was sold.

  

It was already getting late, so we left our hotel room in a search for a good seafood restaurant. Most of the famous restaurants seemed to be fully booked, so we asked Lonley Planet and headed over to Queen City Grill. Thankfully they had one table available, so we raced over to browse through their menu.

  

For appetizers I got "Penn Cove Manila Clams" $12, and Dan got the Soup of the Day $4. The clams were perfectly cooked, and the combination of tomato, vermouth, and clams was just ingenious.
For mains we ordered "Grilled Alaskan King Salmon" $27 and "Fresh Rainbow Trout" $17. They were both incredible. We left the restaurant completely satisfied.

Next day we needed to do everything that Seattle was famous for. We started with Pike Street Market.

The market atmosphere was sensational. Dan was feeling a bit overwhelmed by such a huge crowd of people, but it was still a really exciting experience to be smelling fresh produce amongst screaming people.

   

  

Dan quickly dragged me out of the market to escape the craziness and we ventured onto the Gum Alley.

All the colourful chewed up gum that is now a part of what makes Seattle so unique could be seen here at the Gum Alley.

 

And here is Seattle Starbucks!

The seafood restaurant Tom Hanks was filmed at for Sleepless in Seattle.

And the crazy Crab Pot where people line up for hours to eat at.

And it was well worth the wait. The amount of seafood you get is very very grand. And it's just fun to smash your food with a mallet before eating it with your hands!

  

After that shock to my stomach with monsterous amount of seafood, we tried to walk it off. The night scenery in Seattle is gorgeous. 

However I found it too touristy and superficial for me. Seattle didn't have enough of its own personality.

We did have a great weekend, but I think 2.5 days was long enough to spend in Seattle.

One thing I might add about Seattle that doesn't get brought up in conversations is it's absolutely impossible to find a public toilet. There doesn't seem to be any. The one at the market closes when the market closes, so when you are out and about in the evening and you just had spicy seafood curry, then you will need to bid farewell to your pants. (This is a particularly vexing problem in a town that's known for its coffee - Dan).  Our best bet was ordering a soft drink at a nearby Subway and using their one and only LOCKED bathroom while their staff was chasing the flies with rolled up newspaper. Sanitary.