Saturday, August 16, 2008

Arriving at Seattle -Pike Market

It's always handy to have a friend in foreign city where you can bunk over. So we booked a quick shuttle coach and headed straight to Seattle for 2 days. It wasnt too bad a journey, about 4 hours bus ride inclusive of time across the US land border customs.

Surprisingly, we got a really nice and friendly custom officer. The whole process was a relative breeze. I had expected some major hold back like the JFK airport with shoes off xrays etc but there wasnt. We chatted abit about Singapore and he laughed when I smiled candidly for the webcam shot, stating that I was the first for the longest time he remembered. Apparently, most people have this impression that one has to have that solemn expression for shots as such. Before the bus herd us off, there was some mild drama with one guy being held back. We werent sure what happened but he couldnt clear the customs and his friend who did had to get off the bus and stay back as well.

The first pit stop when we arrived was straight to Pike Market. The first thing I saw was obviously the space needle which was cute but isnt as impressive. Seattle obviously hasnt caught up with technology at their carparks. Suffice to say, it was backward and utter waste of time to try to get the ticket and back to car to place the ticket. You would expect such a heavily visited place to have better system...



Pike Market was less interesting than I had imagine. It's just another fresh produce place and tourist trap/ junk place. Apart from seafood and some fruits, we were not interested to check out other stuff on display. The scallops were huge though! Gia-normous! Some were even the size of my palm!



There are multi-levels and basement but it was an utter waste of time.

We walked along the shops and our friend showed us the very FIRST starbucks location. Even the logo is distinctive different and its brown in colour!





However, lunch was good. We had seafood at Ettas and the mussels and dungeous crab crabs were yummilicious! However, the fish and chips were pretty lame sad to say...I have never seen such soggy overcooked fries in my life!

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