Day 1 (Saturday): My friend, Ivy, picked us up from the airport and took us a popular park. We found a bakery on the way and bought some pastries and ate them at the park. The park is called Gas Works Park because of the lovely rusted pipes of an old gas refinery or something. (pic. 2) From this park I took a picture of the skyline. (pic. 1) After hanging out in the park and watching sea planes take off and land, we drove a little further west and visited the locks. This is where the boats exit Lake Union and head out to the Puget Sound. It was interesting to watch this process. We got there just as the boats were being lowered and then we watched the huge gates open and off they went. The exciting part was when a sailboat, with an unskilled driver, got sideways and nearly backed into a ginormous yacht. The yacht crew was working like crazy trying to protect their boat, while the men running the locks were yelling desperately at the driver of the sailboat. Pretty intense! (pics. 3, 4, 5, & 8) My friends, Kayleen & Gary Kamikawa, met us at the locks and we went out to at a popular Seattle restaurant, Ivar's. We decided to do the walk up window opposed to the sit down restaurant. We ate outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather and fish & chips...I, of course, had chicken. Ivy left us at that point, and Gary & Kayleen and their 2 youngest kids took us on the ferry to Bainbridge Island.(pic. 6, 7, & 9) Once on the island we walked through some shops and ate ice cream at the popular Mora's. Then we headed back to Bothell to the Kamikawa's house to stay the night.
Day 2 (Sunday): We went to church with the Kamikawa's and since Charl's conference started at 1:30, when we got home we quickly ate lunch and snapped a few goodbye pictures (pic. 1, 2) before Gary drove us to our hotel. While Charl was in his classes, I took a nap. After the the classes there was a mix-n-mingle for the conference attendees and their spouses. We went to that for a short while, and then Ivy picked us up and took us to see her friend's new sailboat. He bought the boat from a man in Maryland and he had just gotten the boat and was in the process of cleaning it up and getting it ready for the 4th of July sailing excursion. Ivy prepared fried chicken and snacks so we enjoyed a picnic on the the boat. (pics. 4, 7, 8) Close to where the boat was docked is a famous Seattle tourist spot. It is a "troll" built under a bridge on Troll St. Pretty bizarre if you ask me. We drove by it on Saturday, but we didn't get out and take pictures because there was a performance of "Taming of the Shrew" going on. (pics. 3, 5, 6)
Day 3 (Monday): This was the day we did the Space Needle. We went with Charl's co-workers. After the Space Needle we went a restaurant called "Crow". Everyone really enjoyed the food...which was good because it was a place I suggested based on the recommendation of the hotel concierge. I took some pictures of Lake Union from the top of the Needle. The grassy hill at the north part of the lake is Gas Works park. We tried getting a picture of us with Mt. Rainier in the back, but Charl's head covers most of it. It was quite impressive to see it from the airplane as we flew right over it on our way back.
Day 4 & 5 (Tuesday/Wednesday): Tuesday I met Ivy for lunch again. This time I walked down to Pioneer Square where she works and then we headed to Chinatown. It was quite the long walk for flip flops. My calves were killing me by the end of the day....and the next day, too. On the back to the hotel, I stopped and Pike's Market to see if I could see them "throw the fish". I did get to see this, but it was hard to capture it on camera. I did, however, get a picture of a dude in a kilt. (pic. 1) A worker at the market was holding up an octopus for some kids and just as I snapped the picture, a lady stepped in my way and the man turned to put it back (pic. 2). So i just got the octopus "chillin". (pic. 3) Later that evening we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant with Charl's co-workers. I thought the food wasn't as good as the previous night. My meatballs were red in the middle...so I quit eating them. Charl's bosses wife ordered them as well, and hers were worse than mine. They assured us that they were fully cooked and that it was just the kind of meat they use. We were still skeptical. We skipped on dessert at that place and grabbed a slice of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory instead...always delicious!Wednesday morning I stayed in the hotel and watched a Federer Wimbledon match while I packed up our things. It ended perfectly at noon...checkout time. I met Charl in the lobby and we ate lunch at a sport's bar so we could watch more tennis. After that, we had a few more hours to kill, so we walked through the market, since Charl didn't really get to see it yet. I took another picture of creepy sea life (pic. 4). After walking down the waterfront, we headed back to the hotel to catch our airport shuttle. (pics. 5 & 6)
