Seattle Day 2: All the Tourist Stuff

We woke up to a rainy, dreary day (it's Seattle after all) but that didn't stop us from getting started on our day. We suited up in our rain coats and walked the mile or so down to Pike Place Market. We were really excited to try out some of the recommended foods.

The first place we came across was Beecher's Homemade Cheese. It was 930 in the morning but you can eat salmon mac and cheese from this place any time.

They were making the cheese on site.

Alex was in cheese heaven and bought several of their handmade cheeses and we split a grilled cheese.

We left there and went into the main part of the market where we came across the famous fish throwers. They entertained us for a bit and I bought a shrimp cocktail made with huge, fresh shrimp.

I really wanted one of these giant, chocolate-covered donuts but I knew that was going too far.

We walked around for a while, taking it all in.

The last bite we could handle was a breakfast pastry for me and an apple filled pastry for Alex from Piroshky Piroshky.

Before walking back to the condo, we walked down to a store Alex wanted to visit. It turned out to be both entertaining and sad as we witnessed a homeless man getting kicked out of the store because his pants were so ripped that his entire butt was hanging out. He wasn't very cooperative but he finally left before it got too ugly. We walked the mile back to our condo and picked up the car. Alex had a COVID test scheduled for noon (required for the football game on Sunday) and it was too far to walk. Since we had the car anyway, we drove over to the Space Needle complex where we planned to spend the rest of the afternoon.

The first stop in this area, which I was really looking forward to, was the Chihuly Museum. I just love this kind of blown glass and I've wanted to see his work for years, since I missed his exhibit in Dallas.

Many of his pieces have an ocean theme.

I have a thing for anything octopus.

This was the ceiling of an entire room.

Other of his large scale installations.

There were also installations outside in the gardens, some with views of the Space Needle next door.

I was excited to see that the gift shop actually had smaller Chihuly pieces for sale. That excitement quickly disappeared when I realized that the cheapest one was about $8K. I bought a $50 replica instead.

From there we went to the Museum of Pop Culture. This wasn't as interesting as I thought but it was ok for an hour. There was lots of memorabilia related to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Jimi Hendrix as well as movie memorabilia.

These were all the hoverboards from Back to the Future.

And the props used in the Blair Witch Project, a movie that scarred me for life.

The final destination of the day was a trip to the top of the Space Needle. Neither of us really cared that much about doing this. We've both been to much taller buildings but it didn't seem right to go to Seattle and not do it. So up we went.

By now it was late afternoon and we'd spent all day out and about with lots of walking. We were tired so we went back to the condo to relax before dinner. We started watching "Clickbait" on Netflix which would become our Seattle series.

We did make it to our dinner reservation at 8 at Umi Sake House.

We had a nice dinner before stopping off at the pizza bar for a nightcap and to pick up calzones for the next day's lunch.