A short Seattle Break, without Coffee!

3 October, 2015 by madnoor 2 Comments

This was a morning shot from the hotel room. Its autumn now and the morning sun making a tentative peak is really beautiful. As luck would have had it, I was looking out of the window right when the morning Emirates flight, EK 227 was making an approach to land at Seattle-Tacoma airport

I couldn’t get any leave for Eid this year 😦

The thought of being away while the kids are at home wasn’t a nice one. Thus, the next best thing, I thought, was to bring the kids with me. If the mountain won’t come to ….and all that. Thus, what I did, in a stroke of genius if I must say, was to request for a flight that will allow me to take them for a short break. Looking at the options available, we settled on Seattle. It is one of the longest layovers for us. Plus Linda has some friends here as well that will allow them to stay an extra day to maximise the school holidays and make the tickets cost worthwhile.

Not too many pictures this time as unfortunately, while the weather was wonderful and the place beautiful, it was too short of a break to really travel away from town. I rented a small car for us to get around the place and do a little shopping.

We did however spend quite a bit of time at Pike Market, finding a nice small diner/cafeteria (Jake’s) that you can sit on bar stools and have open oysters, fresh as fresh can be. That is one place that I will visit again for sure!

The last couple of times that I had been in Seattle, I had brought the family back fresh crabs, oysters and mussels for the family to eat back in Dubai. While the food was fresh and sweet, the 24 hour packing that was required for the 15 hours plane trip back, did somewhat have an impact. This time around, since we were here, the first thing that we did after we settled downed at the hotel was to visit a seafood restaurant. They all agreed that the impact was certainly discernible on the taste of the food.

The one we went to is the tourist friendly Crab Pot by the Alaskan Way, a brief 10 minutes walk from the hotel. We ordered crabs for a late lunch, even though our bodies were probably wondering why we are having seafood for a really early breakfast!

The initial order was for 2 crab and seafood meal. But that was soon proofed to be not enough and we had to top it up with another order of crab and prawns. Linda had black coffee while the kids shared a strawberry lemonade and a Root beer between them. Linda kept on ordering her standard drink, a flat white, only to be given blank looks. Apparently the home of Starbucks have no idea what is a plain white coffee with milk.

The twins loved the bibs that they  gave to protect our clothes, and they loved the little mallets that they passed on to us even more!

We also went to another famous seafood restaurant for dinner, a place called Salty’s by Alki Beach.We met up with some friends who were in Dubai previously but have returned back to Seattle. It was nice to catch up, they invited us over to their beautiful home the next day. Salty’s was a more proper restaurant per se, but I think the kids enjoyed the Crab Pot a little more. In fact, the next morning, after breakfast, which we had at the Pike Market, they wanted us to have lunch back at the Crab Pot!

Iced posing with a lobster at Salty’s. The guy had so much seafood over the 4 days that we were there, that he had a small allergic reaction on his lips!

It was a very short 3 days trip. But it was enough of a teaser of Seattle that the family has ranked it as no 1 destination for them to visit the next time we are planning a State side visit. The weather was beautiful, the people friendly, the sights amazing and the food was glorious. Plus the shopping options was not bad.

After breakfast jaunt. The twins found a Totem Pole by the Pike Market. They had never seen one before and I had to explain what it was.