After rainy Denver, I was hoping for some sunshine. So where better to go than Seattle, notorious for its almost British levels of annual rainfall? (Side note: apparently it doesn’t rain there as much as everyone thinks).
This was the first place we would be Couchsurfing too, after staying in a hostel in Denver. I was slightly nervous about it, as I had no idea what to expect, but he was really lovely and his flat was within walking distance of pretty much everything.
The best thing about Couchsurfing was finding out the best things to do. I didn’t really know much about Seattle before I arrived there, so if we had stayed in a hostel or a hotel, I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do or where to go!
One of the first things we did was to walk down to the docks and visit Pike Place Market. It is one of the oldest continuously running farmers markets in the US, having opened in 1907. And despite the fact that I had never heard of it before I arrived in Seattle, it is actually the 33rd most popular tourist attraction in the world, with over 10 million people visiting every year.
Although the market is looks pretty small from the outside, it spread out over several floors, all stacked on top of each other and filled with everything you can possibly imagine! Emma and I walked around all morning, looking at every stall we could. We saw fish, clothes, Seattle-themed trinkets, fruit, books and the first ever Starbucks. Our Couchsurf host told us later that evening that the original Starbucks burnt down a few years ago and the one that we saw earlier was actually a few store fronts down from the very first one, but it was still pretty cool to see where the now omnipresent chain began.
Our host also recommended that we walk up to Kerry Park one evening, as the view from there is spectacular. What we didn’t take into account is that in order to get a great skyline view, you need to walk up a lot of hills! As I had come to expect from America, it was drizzling as we hiked our way through the city and up Queen Anne, stopping only to complain about how unfit we were. By the time we reached the park, I was thoroughly convinced that no view was good enough to make up for how terrible the journey was.
Needless to say, the view was utterly spectacular, even in the rain (please excuse my terrible iPhone quality picture, if you want to see what it looks like if you have an actual camera, try here).
The next day, we didn’t need anyone to tell us what we should do – we were going to the Space Needle! Originally built for the 1962 World Fair, it has since become an iconic Seattle landmark. It takes 41 seconds to get to the top in an elevator, during which time your guide reels off a perfectly timed list of interesting facts and figures. The view from the top is pretty great (what do you expect from 500 feet in the air?), and they have updated the technology inside a lot since the sixties – now they have interactive maps, so you can see where visitors have travelled from, and even outdoor cameras where you can take selfies.
We went old fashioned and took it ourselves though – after all, is it really a selfie if you don’t take it yourself? (Always asking the big questions, I am)
After the Space Needle, we decided to take the water taxi across the bay to West Seattle. This is something I almost definitely wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t recommended by our host, and I’m very glad he did!
The water taxi itself was exciting, as someone who doesn’t go on boats very often. However, there were a lot of commuters on board, who didn’t seem to find it quite as thrilling as I did!
The day we went across the bay was by far the nicest day we had had since Tennessee – I was resolute that the sun was going to go away after an hour or so, and dressed accordingly in jeans and a jumper. Emma was more optimistic and wore shorts, something that I was very envious of after a while!
Observe my wonderfully summery fashion choices (and actual blue sky)
East Seattle (mainland Seattle/ other Seattle?) is great, with fantastic architecture in the city centre, and amazing public art around the Space Needle, but West Seattle was something else entirely. On top of getting the most amazing view from across the bay, you also get a miniature beach and houses that look straight out of somewhere wonderfully warm and sunny like Malibu.
Emma and I had been debating for the entire journey across the bay what the big yellow tower that we could see was – neither of us had any idea at all.
Once we got to West Seattle, we managed to work out that it was one of the oil rigs that Shell wants to move to the Arctic in the next few months to drill for oil. We spoke to a few people about it, and from the sounds of it, even the mayor of Seattle didn’t want the rig to dock in Seattle, but Shell seemed to have carried on anyway (what else would you expect?).
Luckily, my faith in humanity was slightly restored by the sheer number of protesters that we saw that day. When we were getting the water taxi back to the other side of the bay, we saw hundred of kayaks paddle out towards the rig with banners and signs (you can read a BBC news article about the protest here).
On a slightly lighter note, our host recommended that if we were in West Seattle, we should go to Marination ma kai for dinner, and I can only agree. Marination started off as a food truck in 2009, and now they also have two permanent restaurants, one in Capitol Hill, and the one that Emma and I went to on the other side of the bay.
I was eager to try something new when I was in America, and I had certainly never had Hawaiian-Korean fusion before I went to Marination, but if you ever see it, I highly recommend getting it! I went for kimchi enchiladas, as I had been introduced to the wonders of kimchi whilst at university (the menu on their website says that what I had is actually a kimchi quesadilla, but either way it was divine). Emma went for something called ‘Loco Moco’, which consists of a beef patty (like a burger) served on rice with gravy, and topped with two fried eggs. As someone with a deathly egg allergy, her dinner sounded horrific, but she insisted that it was delicious.
We finished our dinner with two servings of traditional Hawaiian shaved ice, which I want to try and recreate now I’m back – it managed to simultaneously satisfy my dessert cravings and cleanse my palette, which I’m sure you’ll agree is an impressive feat.
thisisisrachel 