We started our day (Brandi’s 30th birthday) by leaving our hotel and going to pick up our friend Chris from the bus station. He’d taken the bus down from Vancouver for the day, to hang out with us. He knows Seattle a little better than we do, so he was able to point us to some fun places.
Chris took us to a random little place called 13 Coins for an amazing breakfast of the house specialty – Dungeness Crab Eggs Benedict’s and a round or two of Mimosas to celebrate Brandi’s birthday.
This place was fun as its role had been reinvented and it is now a 24 hour diner, but used to be one of those steakhouses from the 70′s with big wood and leather furniture – lots of brass rivets, and though we didn’t see red velvet, we fully expected it around every corner. And each table had 13 coins inlaid into it.
Even the waiters dress formally in long aprons and bow ties and are very formal but still approachable.
After breakfast we headed back downtown and parked the car and walked over to the famous Pike Place Market to check it out and see if there was anything we wanted to buy.
While we were there we had to stop by the Starbucks. Wonderfully, it’s the location of the 1st Starbucks (started in 1971). Obviously we had to go in, get some of coffee roast that is only available at that location.
After the market we walked around the downtown area checking out the local architecture including the Seattle monorail. Not without a plan Chris steered us toward Top Pot Donughts. This is the same place that Barack Obama made one of his campaign stops. If it was good enough for the president of the United States then its obviously going to be good enough for us (and a lot less secret service needed).
To get a different perspective on the city we went to the observation desk on the Smith Tower to check out some great vies of Seattle. It was Seattles original skyscraper in Pioneer Square completed in 1914. The 38 storey, 149 m (489 ft) tower is the oldest skyscraper in the city and was the tallest office building west of the Mississippi River until 1931. It remained the tallest building on the West Coast until the Space Needle overtook it in 1962.
The Chinese Room is on the 35th floor, which also has a wraparound public observation deck. The furniture and the hand-carved ceiling were gifts from the Empress of China,Cixi. They include the famous Wishing Chair. It is said that a single woman who sits in the chair will marry within a year. The legend came true for Smith’s daughter, who married in the Chinese Room itself.
Before heading out to dinner at Lecosho we took the monorail over to the Space Needle and the EMP (formerly known as Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame or EMP|SFM)
