Seattle for Valentine's Weekend

What a time!  I got back from Seattle on Sunday.  Thankfully had Monday off (Presidents Day), because I have two days at work to keep my head in the game and try to get things as much together as possible before I am back on a plane and off to Hawaii.  It was a nice breather to get away for the weekend.  My husband was already in Seattle, so I met him there on Friday (Valentine's Day).

WESTIN HOTEL

We stayed at the Westin hotel.  It's a fairly large hotel with two circular towers, and is located on 5th Avenue.  It is super close to the Westlake Center, and about four blocks from Pike Market.  When you walk in you are greeted firstly by the concierge desk.  The front desk is actually off to the right and further back.  The staff is super friendly and very quick to get you put together.  We were offered to join the usual hotel membership, which we did, and it gave us free internet for our room.  There is also the Relish Burger Bistro (not bad) and a lounge which seemed popular, but I did not try.

We got a deluxe room on the 24th floor.  It was shaped like a wedge and didn't seem very spacious.  It did include a small love seat which acted as our catch all for our bags, a chair and small side table, a desk, and a stand with a TV.  The TV stand was were the fridge was.  All of the space was taken up by the drink and food items, so there was no space for leftovers from the restaurants.  My husband said that everything was on the weight activated system, so it was best not to move anything in order for us not to pay for it.  There was a small hidden coffee maker above the fridge which we did not bother trying out.  The room came with two free water bottles daily, which was appreciated.  The toiletries were green tea scented, and we had two bars of leaf shaped soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and one packet with a makeup remover towelette.  The shower had a weird square shower head and a rectangular hand held.  The water pressure was much better in the hand held, and we had to have the water on almost maxed out on the heat to get it warm.

The bed was super soft, and my husband and I both slept very well.  My husband likes five million pillows, so we got the two spares from the closet.  The only thing that wasn't great about our sleep was that we were experiencing high winds and it makes the window creek.  the hotel was designed this way, which I found out by reading the letter under the desk glass.

KASTOORI GRILL

We had our Valentine dinner at Kastoori Grill.  It's just up the street from the Pike Market, and one of our favorite places to go when in Seattle for a weekend.  They have a fairly good sized menu, and I haven't had anything here that wasn't delicious.  I like to get the the vegetable samosas (HUGE), garlic naan, and the kastoori curry.  Service here is always friendly and generally prompt.  They have a very large vegetarian list too.
 
We happened upon this place when I was trying to talk one of my girlfriends into going to the Japanese food place next to this, and this place was the compromise.  My girlfriend keeps talking about this place and the curry.

WESTLAKE CENTER

We were over at the Westlake Center quite a bit, especially because it was so close.  Zara just opened up and surprisingly wasn't overrun with people.  I also like to go to Daiso (Japanese 1.50 store), Lush, and the Nordstrom Rack.  I go to a couple of Nordstrom Rack's but this one always seems crazy.  I did get a couple of deals, so I was happy.

The Starbucks, which is in a small unattached building in front of the Westlake Center, is packed.  It's also fairly small, so there's not much place to stand and wait for your coffee.  We were heading off to Snoqualmie Falls and coffee was necessary and this was the last place before our car.  The wait was pretty long, the people were nice.  My husband decided to get a cup of ice water, and it had to go through the line and would not be placed with my drink order.  When I was told this they assumed that I wouldn't want it, but as this was the last stop, it was necessary.  And I didn't want to deal with an unhappy husband.  He was about to give up on his water when it finally showed up.

SNOQUALMIE FALLS

OMG!  I've been here before when some friends were having a wedding and were staying at the lodge there.  It's a super pretty waterfall, and it's pretty big.  There is a small gift shop there and that's about all.  On this day that we went (2/16/14), it was super windy and rainy.  My umbrella kept getting blown backwards, and I thankfully also had a raincoat on.  We couldn't bare to stay for very long, and I somehow was able to get a semi decent picture, which I will try to add to this post later.

OUTLET COLLECTION

We went to the Outlet Collection to waste some time, and hopefully get a bite to eat.  There is a reason that this place is rated 2 1/2 stars.  It's bland.  There is no decent food.  The food court is a joke.  There is no decor to speak of.  The customers appear to have just come from Walmart.  There are a couple of decent stores, and I was about to score a couple of Banana Republic pants for 10.99/ea until my husband gave me a hard time about the amount of clothes.  Not that I'm holding a grudge.  We decided we needed to go somewhere else and start thinking about food.

SOUTHCENTER MALL

The parking here is ridiculous.  We had to go around multiple times to find a spot.  Even the spots out in the boondocks were taken.  I have no idea how this occurs, as it has parking lots and parking garages.  Are there really that many people going crazy for this place?  We finally found a spot and lucked out with one up front.  We needed food.

We went to Blue C Sushi and were there in time for a  late lunch.  The place wasn't deserted, but there was not much going around on the sushi belt.  So we had enough to tide us over and did a little shopping.

There are a ton of stores here and a great selection.  I ended up with a great dress from one of my favorite stores, Anthropology.

My husband, for some unbeknownst reason wanted to eat at the Rainforest Cafe.  After I had gotten to torture him with sushi, which failed, it was only fair.  We made our way over.  There were five million barely attended children running amok.  The wait time was 40 minutes, no matter that were were only a table of two. We had a drink at the bar, which was well made, and the bartender was friendly yet sassy.  Apparently, a drink didn't cut the wait time.  I ended up checking twice to see where we were on the list.  When you have to go back three pages and then tell me that there are five people in front of me (?) there's something wrong.  Finally we got in.  Um yeah.  A LOT of seats were empty.  What the heck?  We got placed by a fish tank, which was awesome, because we had a bunch of unattended children come up and slam their dirty hands on the glass at the fish.  We felt bad for the fish.  My husband ordered the cheese sticks as an appetizer.  They were so generic, you could have gotten these at Costco.  The marinara sauce tasted the same.  I ordered the bbq bacon burger, and my husband ordered a bacon burger.  They made his a bbq one too, which he did not want.  The hamburger itself was okay, but it only came with one piece of bacon, and about a cup and a half of shredded lettuce on the bottom.  The fries were okay but bland and unsalted.  We will never be visiting one of these restaurants again.  Not because of the wait or the children, but the food wasn't worth it.  We both understood what a great place this would be for children.

From here we went to the airport for the great wait to get home.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

10 Weeks BodyChange Changetime Review

Centr Fitness App Review

131 Method Diet Review