Thursday 3rd of June - Seattle

Oh forgot to mention that yesterday I tried to go to the science centre which is in the same park as the space needle, unfortunately their computers were down and they were unable to let me come in :-(

Awoke at about seven, I guess I am getting into US time! Bathed and tidied, and set off to the restaurant for breakfast, it seems odd to be paying for a breakfast in an Hilton, however I suppose I have to get used to it now :-( They did a version of Eggs Benedict with crab and spinach that I tried, they served it with Hash browns (rosti) which was a little odd, but quite useful to sop up the extra sauce and egg yolk! It was a nice idea.

Then walked down to Pioneer Square to catch the bus. Back with the same driver as yesterday who remembered me! And a new guide, which is always interesting as he focussed on different things, rode the bus all the way around again which took about an hour, but flew past. Did meet up with a Puerta Rican family who were quite entertaining, I eventually got off the bus at the Miners Pier, where I went into "Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe" which was a standard tourist shop with a number of strange things in it, shrunken heads, mummies, hunting trophies, guns, various parts of whales (including a penis, which was smaller than I was expecting). An odd thing, but quite interesting.

Pootled around the pier for a while, and then got back on the bus and rode it almost all the way round to Pike Market where I walked round all of the market, including popping into the first Starbucks where I purchased a travelling coffee mug with the original logo on it, although they did take a loooong time to make my coffee, which surprised me.

Then back on the bus again and back to the waterfront, popped into a restaurant, called Ivars which had the motto "Keep Clam" I wasn't feeling that hungry, hardly surprising after all I have eaten! So I ordered the mixed seafood cocktail, which contained two crab claws, two big prawns, a lot of small prawns two pieces of avocado and two of (unripe) mango, along with a spicy tomato ketchup, it was nice, however I was still a little peckish afterwards so I ordered the Calamari! Unfortunately they were severely breaded, and the oil they were cooked in wasn't hot enough so they were greasy, claggy and unpleasant :-( left most of it, and paid up and left the restaurant.

There is a free bus that goes along the waterfront in Seattle, called the 99. I then caught that to Chinatown, it dropped me off at the top of a hill, a couple of steps away was the Wing Luke museum which showed the Chinese experience in early America, and a lot of interesting stuff on the Asian experience in the US and was very interesting, then I walked down enjoying looking in all of the shops and restaurants, at the bottom was a gate, although it didn't have any Fu Dogs, just through was the station and I walked down past that to the Gold Rush museum, which was fascinating it showed the lengths that people had to go to in order to get to the Yukon, the amount of stuff that the Canadians insisted everyone carry with them was quite amazing, enough to last people for a year. They illustrated this with five peoples stories, which really helped in being able to imagine their experiences. In the window they had a mock up of a ton of gold, it is a lot less in size than one might think.

Then popped into the Zeitgeist coffee shop, which had some wonderful Art Deco woodwork, a clock I would kill for, and a large collection of coffee pots, took a cup away from there, and waited for the 99 bus, and waited, and waited, my thighs were killing me by the time it eventually turned up, I rode it up to Chinatown and waited 10 minutes for it to turn around, got off when it reached the miners pier, my thighs having recovered, caught the double decker up to the square (on their last run of the day) bid the driver a fond fairwell and walked up the hill to my hotel.

After a period of recovery I then walked to McCormicks fish restaurant, which was just above my hotel, had singing pink scallops! in a chardonnay sauce, they were a little smaller than I was expecting being the size of my little finger nail, and were something like a cross between a scallop and a clam, the sauce was a little sweet for me, however it was a nice change I ordered a glass of A by Acacia wine which was OK, but a little rough around the edges. I ordered a mixed seafood thingy for my main, I always seem to do this I cannot bear to miss out on something so I order the combo. It was salmon, halibut, mussels, mini prawns and cockles (although they called them clams) in a sauce that was surprisingly similar to the scallops sauce, the salmon was good, the halibut was heavenly and the shellfish was good, wish I had just ordered the hallibut though!

Then back to the hotel, and sleepytime.