Ghoulish Delight
01-18-2005, 03:02 PM
Man it's hot here.
This will be pretty short. Most of our time was spent with family, celebrating my aunt's 100th birthday, plus we were at the whim of either my parents or my cousins for transportation since we didn't rent a car of our own. As a result, we didn't do a whole lot, but we enjoyed what we did.
First off, it was cooooold. When we landed on Saturday (about 2PM), it was rainy. That quickly turned to ice pellets. When we got to our hotel, the fountain out front was beginning to freeze over, and we saw a few flakes of snow (never hit the ground though). Coooold. We stayed in Redmond. What a different town than 5 years ago! The Redomond Town Center has gone up, and it's really quite nice. Some unique little eateries (we had late lunch at a family run Turkish restaurant), and things to do. But I think the holiday weekend and the cold kept people away 'cause it was kind of quiet the whole time. But it's nice to see SOMETHING in Redmond.
Unfortunately we went to Pukea di Bepo for dinner. There really aren't many choices when trying to have a dinner out with 22 people. Man do I hate that place. At least the food was better this time than the last time we at at one, but it's got to be the tackiest restaurant on the planet. I don't get it. Who enjoys going to dinner, and then getting into the bathroom to find it covered in photographs of little kids pissing and old men mooning (and you could see more than the moon between the clouds in some of the photos, if you catch my drift)? Or advertisements for home enema kits on the wall? What?!?! People are crazy.
For desert we headed to my cousins place which is in the hills on the northwest side of things (Lynnwood, if I remember correctly). THAT was a fun drive as up there, the roads were slushy and icy. Made all the more fun by my dad's wonderful driving philosophy of, "slam on the brakes for everything" and my mom's navigating philosophy of, "start yelling any time I don't know exactly where I am." I was really hoping the only fish tails I'd experience were at Pike's, but no such luck.
From there we headed down into the Pioneer Square area with my cousins. Our original plan was to hit up this place (http://www.seesoundlounge.com), but my cousin was driving, it was rainy, it was getting late, we got a little lost because people stopped listening to my directions, and one of my cousins was cranky and car sick.
So we just kind of gave up and hopped into the first bar with a decent crowd that we saw. I didn't have much hope for it, it just looked like some lame bar. But once we got it, we started to notice the building. It was old. Real old. Ornate carved ceilings, gorgeous woods. There was one little alcove that they had hung a bunch of mirrors in a really interesting way. I wanted to take pictures, but decided against it 'cause I didn't want to seem too much like a tourist. I did get one, of the mirrors, I'll see if it turned out well or not. It turns out that the building was built in 1889, right after the fire that destroyed the area. The music wasn't my favorite (90s hip-hop mostly), but as bad music goes I can deal with that, and it was live DJs so that's always a plus. We hung out, had a drink. The people were a little pushy, so we bailed after not too long. We probably should have tried to find somewhere else, but the cold rain and whiney cousin sort of just made us head back to the car. Oh well.
The next day, there wasn't a drop of rain all day. A nice change. The highlight of that day was our tour of the new library downtown. The place is a marvel, I'm sure CP will fill you in on the details as well as post the photos she took. It's huge, gorgeous, and functional. I'm glad we got around to that. After that we just kind of met up with my cousins, and rode the monorail back to their car.
One of my cousins, who was supposed to fly back before everybody got bumped from her flight so instead she was staying an extra day. Isntead of paying for a hotel, she actually has a friend from college who just moved to Sumner, so we tagged along to drop her off. Got a nice view of the new football stadium, it's gorgeous, really adds a nice touch to the skyline. And oh man, my cousin's friend got a mansion of a house, 3 car garage, right on the edge of the woods for $450k. Of course, you have to live in Sumner, but man what house!
And that was the end of our excitement. The rain returned the next day. Nothing drastic, just steady rain, no harder than what we'd been getting down here in SoCal. The airport was on the edge of getting fogged in, though, so that was a nail biter, but we made it out with no problem. And after 2+ days of 30 degree weather, it was sure nice to step off the plane in Long Beach!
I do so love Seattle, I could definitely see myself living there, rain and cold be damned.
This will be pretty short. Most of our time was spent with family, celebrating my aunt's 100th birthday, plus we were at the whim of either my parents or my cousins for transportation since we didn't rent a car of our own. As a result, we didn't do a whole lot, but we enjoyed what we did.
First off, it was cooooold. When we landed on Saturday (about 2PM), it was rainy. That quickly turned to ice pellets. When we got to our hotel, the fountain out front was beginning to freeze over, and we saw a few flakes of snow (never hit the ground though). Coooold. We stayed in Redmond. What a different town than 5 years ago! The Redomond Town Center has gone up, and it's really quite nice. Some unique little eateries (we had late lunch at a family run Turkish restaurant), and things to do. But I think the holiday weekend and the cold kept people away 'cause it was kind of quiet the whole time. But it's nice to see SOMETHING in Redmond.
Unfortunately we went to Pukea di Bepo for dinner. There really aren't many choices when trying to have a dinner out with 22 people. Man do I hate that place. At least the food was better this time than the last time we at at one, but it's got to be the tackiest restaurant on the planet. I don't get it. Who enjoys going to dinner, and then getting into the bathroom to find it covered in photographs of little kids pissing and old men mooning (and you could see more than the moon between the clouds in some of the photos, if you catch my drift)? Or advertisements for home enema kits on the wall? What?!?! People are crazy.
For desert we headed to my cousins place which is in the hills on the northwest side of things (Lynnwood, if I remember correctly). THAT was a fun drive as up there, the roads were slushy and icy. Made all the more fun by my dad's wonderful driving philosophy of, "slam on the brakes for everything" and my mom's navigating philosophy of, "start yelling any time I don't know exactly where I am." I was really hoping the only fish tails I'd experience were at Pike's, but no such luck.
From there we headed down into the Pioneer Square area with my cousins. Our original plan was to hit up this place (http://www.seesoundlounge.com), but my cousin was driving, it was rainy, it was getting late, we got a little lost because people stopped listening to my directions, and one of my cousins was cranky and car sick.
So we just kind of gave up and hopped into the first bar with a decent crowd that we saw. I didn't have much hope for it, it just looked like some lame bar. But once we got it, we started to notice the building. It was old. Real old. Ornate carved ceilings, gorgeous woods. There was one little alcove that they had hung a bunch of mirrors in a really interesting way. I wanted to take pictures, but decided against it 'cause I didn't want to seem too much like a tourist. I did get one, of the mirrors, I'll see if it turned out well or not. It turns out that the building was built in 1889, right after the fire that destroyed the area. The music wasn't my favorite (90s hip-hop mostly), but as bad music goes I can deal with that, and it was live DJs so that's always a plus. We hung out, had a drink. The people were a little pushy, so we bailed after not too long. We probably should have tried to find somewhere else, but the cold rain and whiney cousin sort of just made us head back to the car. Oh well.
The next day, there wasn't a drop of rain all day. A nice change. The highlight of that day was our tour of the new library downtown. The place is a marvel, I'm sure CP will fill you in on the details as well as post the photos she took. It's huge, gorgeous, and functional. I'm glad we got around to that. After that we just kind of met up with my cousins, and rode the monorail back to their car.
One of my cousins, who was supposed to fly back before everybody got bumped from her flight so instead she was staying an extra day. Isntead of paying for a hotel, she actually has a friend from college who just moved to Sumner, so we tagged along to drop her off. Got a nice view of the new football stadium, it's gorgeous, really adds a nice touch to the skyline. And oh man, my cousin's friend got a mansion of a house, 3 car garage, right on the edge of the woods for $450k. Of course, you have to live in Sumner, but man what house!
And that was the end of our excitement. The rain returned the next day. Nothing drastic, just steady rain, no harder than what we'd been getting down here in SoCal. The airport was on the edge of getting fogged in, though, so that was a nail biter, but we made it out with no problem. And after 2+ days of 30 degree weather, it was sure nice to step off the plane in Long Beach!
I do so love Seattle, I could definitely see myself living there, rain and cold be damned.