Trippin': Seattle - Pioneer Square

Pioneer Square is a historic district and is Seattle's oldest neighborhood. It's filled with a bunch of tiny independently owned stores (I love those kinda stores!) and cool little coffee joints. Here you can also find loads of antiques (which I'm not a big fan of) and old book stores. It's like an art infestation. I read somewhere that this place becomes alive during the night with live music and other good stuff but of course, we were there during the day. Another name Pioneer Square could take on would be 'homeless central'. There are bums EVERYWHERE so you really have to be aware and careful of your surroundings. I didn't feel threatened at all but I was a little irrated at the bothersome spongers constant spanging for spare-change. Don't get me started on panhandlers because I will most certainly give you an earful. I wanted to visit many of the coffee places and other cutesy stores but it was the last day we were there and we were EXHAUSTED from all the walking from the previous days. Regular walking is no big deal, but Seattle has some serious hills! We found ourselves walking up 45 degree angles quite a few times. Buns of steel! So I didn't get to go to some of the places that I had noted down. But it's no big deal. My trip to Seattle has been very satisfying nonetheless!





The bummiest one of them all!!!

Oh Really?: Iomega

See this sucker right there on the left? Well, I was finally forced to invest in an external hard drive after all these years. I work on a laptop at home and this really annoying bubble kept popping up at the bottom right corner of my screen saying that my memory was almost full and that I needed at least 200MB of free space for my computer to work efficiently. I kept closing the bubble hoping that it was just being dramatic but I was fighting a losing battle. I keep having this nervous feeling about storing all my important photos onto this thing. Am I supposed to trust that this contraption will keep my memories forever?!? And not crash and burn and lose everything?!? So of course I went ahead and burned all my pictures onto DVD's just in case. I had some serious trust issues with the external that the bf suggested that maybe I just get another hard drive. Back up the back up. I didn't go that far but maybe I should have. I moronically decided not to spend top dollar for my external and now I'm sorta regretting it. As I was transferring a huge load of photos the other night, it started making this loud clicking sound, as if it were struggling to get everything into it's system. So I just turned my music louder so that it muffled the clicking sound. My bf taught me that move. His car has been making this clanking noise and instead of getting it checked out, he just tells me to turn the volume up on the radio. Crazy guy. Hah! So that's the excitement that's beeng going on for me. Jealous? Here's an example of the amount of memory I'm using. Just this past December, I took 2,857 photos which totaled to about 6.56G worth of memory. It took two dvd's to burn all the pics I took in December. As for my recent trip to Seattle, I ended up taking AT LEAST 1,600 photos. Crazy girl. I don't know much about external's so please feel free to leave me a comment on what you know about them, particularly on the one I bought. Or leave me a comment on suggestions for other externals that you think are of better quality because I may decide to back up the back up.

Iomega
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
500G
$119.99

Trippin': Seattle - Daily Dozen Doughnut Co.

Pike Place Public Market
93 Pike St
Seattle, Washington 98101

This Daily Dozen Doughnut stop was also a recommendation by my Seattle contact. They offer little mini doughnuts that you can have either plain, sprinkled, powdered or cinnamon flavored. If you happen to stop by, your best bet would be to get the variety combo. We made the mistake of getting 1/2 a dozen plain (very cheap! less than 2 bucks). I wasn't a big fan of the tiny morsels of fried dough mainly because I eat donuts purely for the sugar coated glaze, and their plain was just that. Plain! No sugar no nothing. The bf thought it wasn't too bad and I ate the entire thing himself. The donut kiosk is pretty small so be on a sharp lookout or you'll end up walking right past it like I almost did! Make sure you have your camera ready because the donut man puts on a show. It's not a big a show. All he really does is toss donuts into a bag ... but with a FLOURISH!

Daily Shots: Cay Mai's

I stopped by the Reliant Arena this past Saturday to help HI-15MM set up for their booth at the annual Tet Festival. Tet is the Vietnamese celebration of the Lunar New Year. It technically will begin on February 7 this year and generally coincides with the Chinese New Year. The group would be selling calendars as well as cay mai's (plum-flower tree) and all the proceeds will go to orphanages in Vietnam. My duty was to help put together as many cay mai's as I could. One of the members had already chopped down branches and all we would need to do would be to glue on flowers, leaves and attach the li xi's (lucky red envelope's). I'm not sure how much they sold for but I wish I bought one for myself because they looked so PRETTY!

Persona Grata: Derek Hess

The bf and I were glued to LA Ink for awhile. It featured Miss Kat von D and her tattoo biz and an incredible amount of amazing (as well as some not so much) sketching skillz. In one episode, we were introduced to Derek Hess, a rather well known artist himself. They brought this kid in who planned on getting inked with a drawing by Mr. Hess and the drawing was AWESOME! His style is mainly sketches in pen (ink!) and the results have been captured on many popular album covers. He now has his own clothing line called STRHESS that showcases some of his most noted pieces. So now the bf and I both want the same thing: a tattoo AND a shirt!

*photos courtesy of derekhess.com*





For Me:
STRHESS
Falling Feather
$28.00




For Him:
STRHESS
Flying Angel
$21




or
STRHESS
Foliage
$21.00

Trippin': Seattle - Purple Dot Cafe

515 Maynard S
Seattle, WA 98104

As stated in previous entries, the bf and I LOVE us some yum yum dim sum. A contact that we had in Seattle suggested that we try Purple Dot Cafe. She had a cousin from Houston who declared that the dim sum at Purple Dot Cafe rivaled the dim sum from Houston. And whoever her cousin is has great taste! The dim sum was mos def a treat from all the other over-priced restaurants that Seattle had way too many to offer. I think they over did the fine dining thing. In any case, the dim sum was good but it's too close to tell which city is better. It's a TIE! The outside of the restaurant gave it a hole-in-the-wall appeal until you walk inside and take in the trendy interior with bold purple's and yellow accents. They sat us right next to this beautiful fish tank with the coolest looking fishies!

Trippin': Seattle - The Original Starbuck's

This is the very first Starbuck's EVAR! It's located at the Pike Place Public Market on 1st and Pike. The area around the Pike Place Market is considered a historic district and therefore this Starbuck's has retained it's original look. It's hard to imagine that this place was able to blow up to be one of the largest and most recognizable coffee chains in the WORLD! Queue the "money" song ...

Trippin': Seattle - Red Mill Burger's

1613 W Dravus St
Seattle, WA 98119

312 N 67th St
Seattle, WA 98103

On an episode of Oprah, her besty Gayle was on a burger mission. GQ magazine came out with this list called The 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die and Gayle decided that she was going to go cross country and try out every single one of these burgers. Seattle's own Red Mill Burger's made the list and I think the verdict was a positive one however I'm not 100% sure since I didn't watch the show myself. But since it was showcased on this supposed credible show, I knew that I just had to try it for myself. The bf ordered their Red Mill Deluxe and I had the Red Mill Chicken Sandwich. We didn't feel as though the burgers were all that spectacular. Fuddrucker's is WAAAAY better! What was good though was their onion rings. They were SUPERB! It had this seasoning added to it that just made it better than your average onion rings. If it's any consolation though, Gayle had tried the Bacon Deluxe w/ Cheese so maybe that might have made a difference. I highly doubt it though. I have no pictures of the food itself because I was so hungry that I devoured my burger before I realized my mistake. Oops!