The first day of any trip is always a mixture of excitement and being so bloody tired that you need to really think when crossing the road, especially when cars are now coming from the other way. Thus this morning was a little bit of a write off as I wandered around in a jet lagged haze trying to avoid the rain as much as possible. The first point of call for the day was ensuring I would be able to stay dry and thus a quick trip across the road to the local drug store provided a nice yet relatively expensive cheap umbrella – an item carefully placed by the front door which many tourists from nearby hotels were snapping up. Seattle locals seem to prefer the hooded jackets, at least I presume they are locals as they seem completely unphased by the rain.

Armed with my newly christened umbrella and a strong Aussie dollar I headed out to purchase a good wind and water resistant jacket and a pair of comfortable and dry walking shoes. I checked out the Westlake center without much luck so decided to grab a quick burrito for lunch before some more shopping across the road at Macy’s. Unfortunately I didn’t time my visit to coincide with the Nov 1 sale so the sales associate (yep that’s what they are called over here) provided me with a different type of discount for out of towners like me – another 10% off. Trap for new players tho, remember all those price tags do not include tax – which was 9.5% in this case – so my 10% discount quickly became 0.5% off the sticker price. Oh well, still cheaper than back home and at least I’m dry now.

After shopping I gave in to my jetlag and decided to have a quick nap, which ended up being 2 hours. Feeling a little more refreshed I headed down towards the waterfront to check out the Pike Place Markets at night. Unfortunately its all a little quiet down there at night, with the exception of some restaurants  that mainly seemed fish/seafood oriented (funny that being by the sea and the fresh fish markets). It was still pretty cool as the neon lights look impressive and the view (although a little obstructed by the haze of the rain, or maybe that was jetlag) of the sound and the port lights is pretty cool. The view of the Seattle Giant Wheel is pretty cool at night too, and from this distance it doesn’t look at all scary (i have an unnatural phobia of ferris wheels)

Walking back up towards the city I found a cool shop well suited to Seattle’s reputation for the rain – Bellas Umbrellas. Unfortunately it was closed but looking in the windows the displays of every possible type of umbrella imaginable was pretty impressive and made a very interesting shop corner.

The streets look pretty cool at night with many trees lined with fairy lights which in some streets reflect off the wet roads to make quite a pretty. Although occasionally pretty, those wet streets, and especially the sewer caps are very slippery. At one stage earlier in the day I felt as if i was on an episode of Punkd or something as three people fell over around within about 2o mins.

For dinner I stumbled across a Cheesecake Factory and could not resist. I love the TV series “Big Bang Theory” and thus the opportunity to eat in one, albeit not in Pasadena was too great to resist. I was a bit disappointed as it looked nothing like on the show (really I hear you saying) and Penny didn’t serve me or threaten to spit on my burger.  There wasn’t one table full of 4 nerds either or any cheesecake. Despite all that, the burger I had was ok, although ordering food in the US is a long process, and I’m convinced servers are all interrogation agents in training as there are so many questions for every menu choice.

After dinner I had a quick walk around the city again before heading back to the hotel for a Skype chat with home and to post a few blog articles. Tomorrow I aim to have defeated this Jet lag and spend a full day out on the city, potentially ending in some sort of Halloween festivities (if i can find any) in the evening.

I probably should have said this upfront, but you may not have read all this if I told you the cliff notes version is all summed up in the video I’ve attached below. Talk to you tomorrow with another update – Enjoy and Share 🙂