After doing some quick research, we ended up booking a room in the Warwick Seattle Hotel. The primary choice for the Warwick was it’s location right in the heart of downtown and easy walking distance to the major shopping areas and the big department stores on Pine Street.

We checked in to the Warwick around 4PM and dropped our stuff in the room and headed out to Pine Street to check out some stores. As most of the stores were open until about 8PM, we had more than enough time to browse leisurely through them. As is our custom, we split up and agreed to meet back at the hotel several hours later. We have learned long ago that nothing good ever comes of us doing anything other than the briefest of shopping together. When we go our separate ways, Barb can take her time unhurried and I can see what I want (usually taking about 1/3 of the amount of time that Barb needs) and I can then decide to just relax somewhere having a cool drink or go back to the hotel and relax.

Along Pine Street in Seattle are two large department stores Macy’s and Nordstrom’s in addition to a plethora of other smaller stores. I found that there were several well-stocked kitchen stores in the area like Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma and a place called City Kitchens (sorry, no web site)located on 4th Ave. We ended up buying a few new gadgets for the kitchen including this really cool soup ladle. The ladle has a spout on one side and the other it has a number of holes. The holes on the other side are used to serve just the non-stock part of a soup into a bowl so you can serve an even amount for each guest.

After we had finished shopping for that day, we ended up going for dinner to a place just across the street from the Warwick Hotel called the Dahlia Lounge. Very hip and trendy, Dahlia Lounge offered a simple but mouth watering menu and Barb and I both ended up ordering their Peking Duck. Along with our duck, we ordered a bottle of Spanish Rioja red wine which we both had taken a liking to on our trip to Spain in 2003.

The Peking Duck was great but it took all of my effort to finish it as the dish comprised of two full duck legs including side vegetables. We’ve noticed this many times when we have been to the U.S. that the portion sizes in many restaurants are often quite a bit larger than we are used to. Sometimes excessively large.

Being stuffed aside when we walked home, we found the entire experience at the Dahlia Lounge extremely satisfying.

While we were walking from our hotel out to dinner and all through the night, we saw many young people walking around downtown dressed in gowns and tuxedos, no doubt celebrating their high school graduation. We discovered later on that about 20-30 of them were staying at our hotel and much of the night (and I’m talking between midnight and 6AM) included hearing people running through the halls of the hotel hootin’ and hollerin’. I actually didn’t hear any of it as I’m a pretty heavy sleeper but Barb said that she was woken up several times during the night from the noise. We found out the next morning during breakfast that the police were called in to try and settle things down.

The previous evening’s excitement notwithstanding, we had a great breakfast in the hotel restaurant this morning and did some walking around the Pike Place Market afterwards for a few hours. The Pike Place Market is perhaps best known for the numerous fish markets located there. The market was more crowded than normal due to the Pike Place Market Street Festival taking place today.

After we had spent a bit of time exploring the market and the goings on in the festival, we packed up our belongings and headed back home for the 3 hour return drive. Needless to say, we’ll sleep well tonight after a great weekend experiencing some of the flavour of Seattle.

Baden