Weekend Wanderer: Seattle

Our time was brief in Seattle (try all of 12 hours), but we made the most of it. Our train arrived pretty late at night, the night before we took off for our cruise, so we found our hostel in the dark. We were lucky--it was only three blocks away from the train station.

These two lovely cardboard women greeted us at our hostel, located in the heart of Seattle's Chinatown.  We found a restaurant, the only one open in the vicinity, and it turned out to be awesome! Although Little Bro got some sort of cream of corn soup, everything else was fantastic--and cheap, to boot. That night, we went to bed full and slightly uncomfortable on the hostel's bunk beds.

The next morning, we woke up and headed straight for Pike's Place market. Lucky for us, the bus/subway station in Chinatown is manned by the nicest security guards on the planet. One of them saw that we were clearly tourists and showed us where to get on the bus and showed us on a map where to get off and how to come back. When we came back from Pike's, he remembered us and asked us how our sight-seeing went.

The fish market was very unique, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. While we were there, the fish guys acted out the introduction to The Real World: Seattly, throwing around the fish and singing the song. They had everyone laughing and giving them extra tips--smart boys.












Now, I didn't realize this before going there, but Pike's Place market is a whole lot more than just a fish/farmer's market and the very first Starbucks (with the naked lady logo). All along one side, the side closest to the water, is the fish and farmer's market where people hawk everything from handmade goods to flowers. Across the street, stall storefronts sell piroshky's (large Russian pierogi), handmade cheese and cheese curds, flourless cookies, "conscious" meats, etc. It's a funky area and I can definitely see why people are so drawn to this place.

After exploring, we returned to our hostel, grabbed our things, and navigated the Seattle bus system to find our way to Pier 93 and the MS Oosterdam.

All in all, a very doable trek, thanks to Seattle's awesome self-explanatory bus system. Tune in next time for my Weekend Wanderer all about our cruise, starting on Friday!