In Sydney for 3 weeks

A few Sydney-side memories

I returned home to Sydney for 3 whirlwind weeks, my calendar booked in for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes all three in the one day!

I had a lovely flight in, my nicely rounded front-end affording me a bulk-head seat and an empty seat adjacent. I got off the plane relatively rested and super-excited to see everyone.

I ticked off about a 100 people on day two. My mother having scheduled her annual alms-giving on that day. A small lunch time dane’ followed by a dinner of mega-proportions at night. While I was feeling tired by the end of the day I was greatful that in one fell-swoop I’d managed to accomplish seeing so many family and family friends.

That Saturday was Event One, Ruvi’s Hens. My sister and her boyfriend had to take me to KMART so I could find a 1950s outfit appropriate for a modern-day pregnant woman. I ended up buying a pair of jeans for 15 dollars and wearing them with white sneakers, Pabs called the look “1950’s soccer-mom”. I called it Happy Days fallen from grace.

The best part? A chicken kebab from the Casula Kebab shop! I couldn’t have sauce or tomatoes but even without those all important condiments it was like a taste explosion in every bite.

We spent the night eating, doing dares like calling my mum and asking if she was an alien (apparently she is not) and then dancing the night away to jukebox tunes. My sister took her amazing chicken wings and ever the marketer managed to foist them off to everyone, even though there was a surplus of food.

I thought I’d chart the rest of my journey with the food I ate and the restaurants I visited.

We went:  to Newington Armory – Pabs and Thil

We ate: The menu had changed since Nuwan and I had been but I really enjoyed the Garlic herb bruschetta w/ roma tomato, Persian feta, pesto, crispy prosciutto, w/ red wine balsamic syrup. Pabs had some Fried pistachio crumbed polenta fingers served with gorgonzola saunce  and the sizzling hot pot of garlic prawns, octopus, green olives, feta, tomato puree, chilli served w/ toasted casa panotte.  Thil had some Salt n pepper squid with Wanida's thai sweet chilli sauce, with an Asian coleslaw with crispy noodles and a breakfast trifle w/ layers of poached fruits, lemon myrtle yoghurt and Brookfarm Macadamia Muesli (toasted)

I have always loved the sticky date pudding there and saved my appetite so I could order one at the end.  Gosh it was good, though I eventually did have to stop eating because I ran out of ice-cream, and sticky date pudding without ice-cream is really no fun!

We discussed: A good-bye of sorts to Thil who flew out to Europe a few days after I landed. 

T2 – Pabs and Thil

Not really food but I did by 6 types of tea….cannot wait to get stuck into these! Oh and by the way, if you visit I will totally share these with you!

We went : In the Mood for Thai with Gunjan and Shuo

We ate: A Thai place in Parra which I suspect is a bit of a chain now. Had a great chicken and garlic stir fry with rice over a lovely catch up. Then drove home to their new apartment, well new to me and had a delicious vanilla pannacotta with strawberries

We discussed: Pigeon proofing balconies, neighbours that yell “ Facebook” at all hours and why the Americans really shouldn’t be so hard on Communism

We went: Holy Basil  with The fam + Shelton Mama

We ate:  Highlights were the; Nok Tod, the marinated crispy fried quail served with this amazing chilli sauce. I braved my reflux to double dip into this little wonder! YUM PLA MUK (Calamari Salad) Calamari tossed in Chef’s special dressing of lemon juice served on a bed of lettuce, tomato, Spanish onions and mixed with coriander, shallots, chilli and mint leaves. There’s nothing as amazing as well cooked calamari!  And of course the amazing Holy Basil fried ice cream, served with a gorgeous caramel sauce. None of this thick layers of battered coconut.  The two males in the group drank a bottle of wine between them and rendered themselves unable to drive. Pabs and mum stuck to beer  Me? Well, water when the waiter remembered.

We suspect it was his first day on the job. He forgot to ask which parts of the meal we wanted first, he kept forgetting to refill water and our entrée came right at the end of the meal. Having said that it was delicious, especially the deep fried quail and the squid salad!

We discussed:  We took a roundabout way of getting to Canley Vale, via Glendenning to deliver some fabric to a friend of the family who had offered to make curtains and cushions for the baby’s room. Poor Pabs missed out on the luxury of being late and had to wait in the cold outside. We were of course very grateful because 5 minutes after we arrived we were ushered in thanks to Pabs’ diligent waiting.

The HWPS Musical

A lovely day spent exploring the school,  watching my old students performing  and spending time with my former colleagues. The school has been refurbed and rebuilt and it’s beautiful. The kind of classrooms that make you want to teach in them. Pin-board walls, neutral colours just asking for posters and work to be hung up!

Mary also mentioned the Green Peppercorn, the new Holy Basil at Fairfield, another one to add to the next time list.

Athula Mama’s Birthday- Home cooked meal

Ruvi and I cooked at my place and took the food to West Pennant Hills. So focused were we on making sure to remember the recipe book we took some of the recipes from we ended up leaving half the food behind.

We ate: Spicy Balinese fish in banana leaf, chicken rendang and Malaysian pickled vegetables.

We discussed: Weddings, wedding preparations and assassinating your character on Facebook

The wedding!

The next couple of days were punctuated by wedding events and filled with eating lots of junk food, sandwiches on the run and a sit down Lankan meal from Spoons.

Wedding Photos

Brunch with Nicole

We went: New Shanghai dumpling house

We ate: Stir-fried baby bok choy with garlic and pork dumplings

We discussed: all things baby of course, now that we’ve found ourselves up the duff and due within a month of each other!

Lunch with Jess

We went: Sahara Grill Parramatta

We ate: Chicken schnitzel and the grilled chicken wrap. I drank the mint tea and it hit the spot…..mmm yum!

We discussed: Timor time, America the great and how everything keeps changing

Dinner with Anna and Kim

I should pre-face this with the fact that my sister and I were watching the Lebanese episode of food safari when Kim messaged and asked where I wanted to go. Lebanese I said. When Anna suggested Newtown, Arabella’s seemed like a good choice.

We went: Arabella

We ate: The highlights, everything actually. The falafel, ladies fingers and haloumi were are good as expected. The fried eggplant served with yoghurt were a new dish, but surprisingly good! Of course we had the tabouleh, a must whenever I have Lebanese. We satisfied our meat cravings with lamb kebabs and chicken shewarma off the grill.

We discussed: Schizoprenia, Genetics and wanting to eat a lot of meat. Funnily enough I think we ordered just about every veg dish on the menu!

Lunch with the school crew and the very handsome Anthony Lahood Jr

We went: Al Aseel’s in Greenacre – yes Lebanese again but who’s complaining

We ate: The best fatoush you’ve ever had, amazing baba ganoush, falafels and a never-ending platter of meat. For the garlic fans amongst us garlic chicken.

It’s an unassuming little place but full of people who obviously know their food, and it’s recommended by two Lebanese women with exception taste.

We finished up with a coffee down the road at a Macaron shop, totally out of place in Greenacre but still served delicious salted caramel and pasisonfruit Macarons. There was a lovely guy behind the counter who heard my friend Kathleen say she ordered the wrong thing and bought her out a strawberries and cream Macaron on the house. That’s what I call service!

We discussed: School and men and bullies and what to do with all three.  The bane of new teachers; accreditation. We discussed the amazing teachers we know and revelled in Kathleen’s ability to spin a tale.

Dinner with Jill and Cynthia

During the particularly bad days of all-day sickness I dreamed of going to Flemington and getting a bowl of soup. They just do it better. Even though I wasn’t particularly sick I still wanted to satisfy this little hankering, I won’t use the word craving.

We went: Cao Thang Noodle House

We ate: Crispy chicken noodle soup for me, Beef Pho for Cynth and Pork chop and broken rice for Jill

We discussed: Being grown-up physio’s with actual students, what to do with incompetence, submissive women and people who are ruthless in getting ahead.

Lunch with the MTeach Crew

We went: Ampersand Café in Surry Hills. A book store/ café, appropriate for a bunch of book-mad primary school teachers

We ate: Corn fritters, banana bread and the daily special Sweet potato soup with chorizo and capsicum served with warm bread…truly delicious

We discussed: News of the baby kind x 3 and the wedding kind x 1.  Steiner schools and whether we can shelter children from technology or whether we should. Starting our own school that teaches children that taxes aren’t to be feared and neither are socialists. Our jobs, our schools and our families and why Australia seems to be emulating the American model of education.  Really…why?

Bourke St Bakery

A little trip that had to happen

We went: Bourke St Bakery

We bought: 3 ginger brulee tarts, 2 chocolate raspberry tart, 1 chocolate tart and a sausage roll.

Coffee with Holly

We went: Oliver Brown Café – Rhodes

We ate: Hot chocolate and tea, friend and a strawberry dip

We discussed: Where in the world our physio friends are? Baby showers and plans to visit the US

BABY SHOWER: I’ll post on this later

Yum Cha

If you’ve been keeping up with our blog...

We went: Iron Chef Cabramatta

We ate: Peking duck pancakes, salt and pepper squid,  dumplings of just about every variety and description,  suckling pig, bbq pork and Peking duck. We also had plenty of Mango Pudding.

We waited : Only an hour thanks to Ruvi’s professional nagging techniques. We did end up with 2 tables but I guess that’s okay.

We discussed: Not much actually…too busy eating!

Yum Cha Photos

Girls night out

We went: Different Drummer on Glebe Pt Rd and San Churros

We ate: Marinated swordfish skewers with peppers and button mushrooms, good. Naughty chicken – Spicy southern style with lime aioli, not naughty enough – could have done with a bit more spice. Spicy three bean nachos, served in an egg carton. Chorizo, pan fried with cherry tomatoes & basil – amazeballs. Haloumi skewers with semi sun dried tomatoes – delicious! We also grabbed some garlic bread and chips with aioli.

All went well until we filled the tiny table with 6+ tapas dishes, chips, and 8 cocktails glasses. This is how we ended up with aioli scented mojito, and caparinha marinated chips. Not our finest moment.

We drank: 2 for one cocktails so just about everything on the cocktail menu for the girls and mocktails for me.

We discussed: Pffft….sif I’d tell!

Masala Dosai

We went: Hemani’s in Liverpool, unfortunately the only place open on the public holiday.

We ate: Masala Dosa, Goat, Chicken tikka and Gobi Manchurian. The Garlic Naan we ordered never came and we ate cold plain and chili Naan. Then there was the cold rice.

We discussed: The drunk patron picking fights, and scaring all the children in the joint.  Whether he was married to our waitress who spent nearly all her time trying to get him to follow her instructions and not join other customers of dinner. Why all of our food was coming out cold and how we might never come back again.

Nearly three weeks of awesome eating later – I’m back here again. Was good while it lasted. 

The Nursery

Gosh it's easy to spend money when you're pregnant! Especially when Amazon is only a click away and there's the promise of free shipping.

We, by that I mean me, decided pretty early on where our nursery would be, but what to put in this momentous room!

We decided on a few things
- no pink and blue themes (even if we knew the sex)
- we wanted animals
- we didn't want to paint; we're renting and while they let you paint here, we would have to paint it back.

While browsing the internet for inspiration I had a bit of a brainwave. Back in the day of old-school Better Homes and Gardens, Tara Dennis had once transformed a nursery, and it didn't look awful. I remembered it mainly because she'd used this beautiful wall-paper that had a John Lennon link.

During Sean Lennon's first year of life, John had paid a photographer to take a picture of him every day. He also made a collection of drawings, and added funny captions they used when they played together. During their short time together, John used his drawings and captions to express his real-love for Sean. After his death it was put together in a book.

It's a beautiful book filled with John's artwork, during the time he was a stay-at home dad for Sean.

I loved the pictures and was excited to find that the baby brand Carter's had commissioned a whole range of baby gear with the pictures as inspiration. Of course in true Yoko fashion there's controversy around the range, apparently Julian is being screwed out of the money and the bloggers that be advise you to never pay retail. Fine by me, it was phased out over 10 years ago, everything is on ebay. Oh and by the way - here is everything

I didn't go quite that mad, but wanted some signature pieces to make the room distinctly John Lennon like.

I had some great inspiration

Nursery 1

Nursery 2

I had to trawl through the Amazon and ebay to collect some signature pieces. Of course, nothing here has been easy. I signed up to Amazon from scratch, that was easy. Unfortunately I had an Aussie ebay account. When I tried to change my address, it let me change everything by the country. When I asked HELP why it said it's against pay-pal policy to change the billing details. I had to set up another pay pal account. In I went to try and close my existing account, alas, it was attached to a credit card that I had had before I came here, and one which had been thrown out after it expired. The only way to close the account was the provide the credit card details. After email paypal they sent me a mountain of information about how I could prove my identity to them, applying for my VISA to the states was easier!
So I asked Nuwan to help, he set up a new account and subsequently made our puchases.
Wanna see?

A set of book-ends. This child will have more books then clothes if Mrs Ginige has anything to say about it!

Wall paper border, we're going to turn this into some custom prints.

A wall organiser, not sure what I'm going to do with this, but it was just so darn cute!

My favourite, the lamp :)

We also purchased a smashing rocking chair from craigslist, 35 bucks and all it needs are some cushion covers! It's actually called a glider, and even has a footstool that goes with it.

Looks something like this, just a little more worn

Glider

The rest of our furniture has come from ikea. While I'm living the high-life and stuffing my face in Sydney, my dear husband, armed with his brand new drill, will be assembling all of said furniture.

Its a ......

When we decided to make this move to Seattle our plan was that I would take some time off. Six months to cool my heels and figure out what I wanted to do.

On our week-long break in Hawaii, the unraveling of said plans began. I developed what I thought was food poisoning; nausea and the occasional bout of vomiting.

Unfortunately I’ve flown nauseous one too many times and this experience wasn’t any better. The first four days in Seattle I was still battling my ailments, eating sporadically and trying to find something to ease my symptoms. Alas nothing worked and Nuwan hadn’t started at work…we were stranded with no health insurance. On his first official day at work I went to see the doctor, thankfully just down the road. It took a quick pee in a cup and the verdict was in… no food poisoning, I was well and truly PREGNANT! Sure was a way to make Nuwan remember his first day at work!

A baby was always in the plan, the timing was a little unexpected! We’ve spent the last couple of months settling in, finding a house and telling people our exciting news… what fun. Unfortunately it’s also been a 10-week stint of morning (should be called all-day) sickness, keeping secrets from our family till the magic 12-week mark and ultrasounds on a pregnant, full bladder!

20 weeks + 2 days pregnant!

So now the work plan has gone out the window, for the time being at least. Instead I’m trying to finish off a semester of my masters so that I can defer for the arrival of our little-man or little lady.

He or she is due, ironically enough on Australia Day, 2013. All the way on the other side of the world, we’re going to have ourselves a Yankee baby hopefully born on Australia Day.  Of course, a few weeks early or a week late he/she might impinge on a few family birthdays.

I don’t think we ever expected to raise a baby in another country, least of all America. I think there are going to be challenges… big challenges but hopefully we’re strong/stubborn enough to raise an Australian on this side of the Pacific.

So here’s to Nuwan and I on our quest to raise a free-thinking, liberal-minded, peace-loving individual who judges people on the content of their character not on their age, sex, race or who they choose to love. Oh and with excellent taste in music of course (at least that part will be easy in this city).

Our bub at 12 weeks, very stubborn and wouldn't move for the sonographer to see. 

At our 20 week scan bub came in perfect. All the right bits in all the right parts and the right number of everything! Oh and by the way in the words of our dear friend Rose,  The peanut has a penis!

An Asian foodie quest

Happy long weekend everyone! Labor Day (note the US spelling) is this Monday 3 September, and the long weekend presents us with a great opportunity to continue our gradual exploration and discovery of Seattle. As with all of our adventures, it all revolves around food, and looking for new and interesting places to eat. Given that we're in a new city, everywhere is new and interesting!

We were at a housewarming last week for one of our fellow Aussie expats, and met some locals who had a pretty extensive knowledge of the local Asian food scene. They had lived a significant part of their lives in Hong Kong, and their consensus was that Asian food in Seattle isn't quite what it is back in SE Asia, although it wasn't too bad. We've also had some experience of that here too - the Malaysian food has had an interesting twist to it, the Vietnamese hasn't had quite that fresh kick that we're used to back in Sydney. Nonetheless, we decided that this weekend was when we'd venture out for first yum-cha experience.

First up - finding a place for yum cha. More commonly known as dim sum here, we found a place in the International District (the politically correct name for Chinatown), which rated pretty well on Yelp. First impressions were pretty consistent with our Australian experience - a chaotic waiting room, a piece of paper with our names and table sizes written haphazardly on it, and restaurant staff yelling at each other incomprehensibly... could almost have been the Iron Chef in Cabramatta!

From here though, things started to deviate a little from the expected script. First up, we only had to wait 20 minutes for our table for two, as opposed to the customary hour-long wait, before we were ushered to our table (not a bad thing, I must add). Then came the next strange deviation - all of the establishments that we were familiar with (Iron Chef, Marigold, the Phoenix franchise, even Maxim's in Hong Kong) have one thing in common - all the tables were set up in a large auditorium-style area, allowing the carts to duck in and out, serving their wares. They could very easily start from the kitchen, work their way around the room, and then retreat back to the kitchen for restocking once the food had been depleted. This restaurant however was cramped, had tight corners, and ramps (?) connecting different levels (??) together. Something wasn't quite right here...

And then we walked up some stairs to get to where we would be sitting, at which point our immediate thought was - so how do the carts restock from the kitchen, which was located on the lower level? Within minutes of being seated, the question was answered for us...

First up - we had plates, and not bowls. A little disconcerting, but not overly terrible. We were offered the usual dumplings, dim sum, greens and footballs (I'm sure it's not actually called that, but it's mushrooms and minced pork battered and deep-fried into the shape of a football) from the two carts immediately next to us. And then... the carts didn't move! They stayed there! They didn't traverse the room! At this point, we were looking at each other, a little confused as to what was going on... why weren't the carts circulating? The answer was almost immediately revealed - someone came from the kitchen with fresh dim sum baskets, and loaded them onto the cart! We were slightly horrified, think of the baskets at the bottom of the stack! One could only imagine how long they had been there.

Interestingly, we didn't order anything off the carts after our initial raid... we quietly finished up, and headed out the door. While the range of food was pretty run-of-the-mill (nothing particularly exotic in the selections), the overall experience left a little to be desired. Unfortunately, at this point we have to concur with our newly found local friends - not quite what it is back in Asia, or even Sydney. It also reinforced the fact that we were ridiculously spoilt for food while growing up.

After leaving, we spent a bit of time walking around the ID, where we found a place that sold both roast duck (including the head), as well as BBQ pork. We walked away from that store with a whole duck, chopped up (sans head, we weren't that game), and found a place that did bubble tea which wasn't loaded with sugar - quite a find for here!

Later that day took us out onto Lake Washington for a cruise kindly gifted to us by one of Chath's friends from school. It departed from Kirkland, and took us past the houses of the rich and famous, including my big boss (in spirit, if not organisation) Bill Gates. Apparently he pays $1.1 million in property taxes annually! Chump change for someone like him I'd suppose. Interestingly, all of those details are on the public record, not sure how the rich and famous feel about that.

On the way back to the car, the end of our Asian foodie adventure - we stumbled across a banh mi shop, selling all manner of Vietnamese rolls. We figured - why not, let's take the punt. Would it stack up to the Vietnamese pork rolls of home? Things started well - grilled pork, cucumber, pickled carrot, radish, cilantro (it's called coriander people!), bathed in a secret sauce (secret = proprietary of course). All in all - pretty good, the roll was a little disappointing, but otherwise the flavours were pretty good. Have to say, enjoyed it a little more than the morning's yum cha experience...

So, an interesting day on the food front - some hits, some misses and a continuation of our foodie education. The day really reinforced the fact that we were incredibly spoilt for choice when it came to Asian food in Sydney, I think that's one thing the both of us miss a lot.

Some photos from the cruise, to finish up what was a slightly longer than expected post:

Kirkland Foreshore

Civil War Re-enactments

One of the more exclusive Seattle waterfront locations

A week of "foodie" adventures

I should probably start this post with my husband's amazing achievement; finishing his first 10k run!

About to ready,set,go!

All finished!

Go Nuwan! I'm super proud! Besides it was a lovely way to spend the morning, lapping up the Seattle sun and clear blue skies.
However, this is more the story of how we decided to celebrate.
Stuff ourselves with pies and sausages rolls of course!

You see, Washington does pretty well by food standards... but we're spoiled in Australia. The more we eat the more we realise that Australian food, regardless of nationality is pretty amazing.
We've had Thai here, it's pretty good but lacks the variety. The Malaysian restaurant has Nasi Goreng but it's doesn't hold a candle to anything at Temasek. We're a bit wary of Chinese food, every dish seems to start with some form of deep fried, battered meat in a sweet sauce. Vietnamese food is good but lacks the subtlety of the food we had almost daily at Flemington. There are no Hong Kong style BBQ houses and unfortunately Mediterranean style meat and bread combos, like kebabs, are nowhere to be seen.

Bill the Butcher. Can we fix it?....apparently not.
We had a rather comical trip out to Redmond and the famous Bill the Butcher. You see, butchers are something of a rarity here. They just don't exist, much like green grocers and fish mongers. They're all packed into supermarkets and packed in plastic. Since we were having people over for dinner we wanted to do a pork roast. Now in Australia if all else fails I know that Coles will bail me out, not so here. Even the biggest supermarkets don't have roasts. So we Bing-ed and found Bill the Butcher. A lavish establishment saying all the right things like free-range, organic and hormone free. We wandered in on Wednesday after work and were greeted with perhaps the saddest looking meat counter I have ever seen. A few steaks, some sausages, a whole lot of meat wrapped in plastic (at a butcher...really?) and about 1/2 a kilo of what they claimed was pork shoulder. It looked porky but try as I might I couldn't find skin... I'd never made pork roast without skin.

"Is that all you have in the way of pork?" I asked.
"Yes". Unperturbed I powered on.
"And do you ever get it with the skin on?" The men behind the counter seemed puzzle by this comment.
" Not unless we get the whole animal." Whaaaat...... how exactly do you get the meat otherwise???? I  was truly puzzled, if they didn't get the whole animal, then what exactly were they doing calling themselves a butcher? They were basically selling pre-cut meat! I mean, you could order a whole goat for special holidays at the butcher in North Strathfield....a whole goat!
"We do have some excess skin.....but it's frozen."
"Errr....no thanks" and we high-tailed it out of there and went and go eat burgers...at least they are half-way decent!

The Aussie Pie Company

The pie in all it's un-adorned glory!

and with lotsa tomato sauce. 

So, when one of Nuwan's work mates mentioned the Aussie Pie Company we were excited. True, the last time I ate a pie in Australia might have been from the school canteen but that point seemed irrelevant. Here was Australian food, made by Australian people.....in Seattle.

We thought the 20 minute trek from the race location out to Burien was well worth the effort. In we went and we were immediately greeted with decor reminiscent of the corner milk bar, nice touch.

Behind the counter are silver warmers with over 10 different meat and veg pies. There's a sweet counter with Lamingtons and apple turnovers and on the left a shelf of imported goodies; Weetbix, Cottees cordial, pavlova magic, Vegemite and even passionfruit pulp!

Nuwan opted for a pie, I went for a sausage roll. We grabbed our loot, armed ourselves with sauce, plates and spoons and headed for the park across the road. They were both delicious. The sausage roll was full of good pork sausage (some of the ground meat here is very suspect) and flaky pastry, just a little burnt at the edges. The meat pie was oozy, packed full of more gravy than meat, as it should be. After trying some of Nuwan's pie I got food envy and decided I really wanted some. So it happened that in the space of 20 minutes we had to wander back into the pie shop to get me another meat pie and grab a couple of frozen ones for later. On good days they even have a meat pie and Bundy ginger beer combo.

Suffice it to say the frozen ones didn't last the day either!

It only took a trip to the other side of the world to figure out that Aussie meat pies really are something special!

We have met some people who've pointed us in the direction of

• good yum cha
• Din Tai Fung

and told us to head to Vancouver if we want real Asian food.

Until next time xoxox

Visitors!!

What a busy few months and and even busier few weeks. Summer's out in Seattle and it's spectacular!
I've finished Summer school and Nuwan is well and truly settling into work. I've got a few more weeks before I head back to windy Sydney and see all you wonderful people. Phew....madness.

Our house looks like a house now, about two weeks after we moved in our furniture and other worldly possessions arrived. It was like discovering old friends as we unpacked all 127 boxes and pieces of furniture. Everything arrived in one piece except poor Nuwan's 10 year old study desk, thankfully all it'll take to replace it is a trip to Ikea!

We've been lucky enough to enjoy the last few weeks of summer with some great friends.

Sandeep visited us 3 weeks ago, arrive late on Friday night from work in California.

His timing couldn't have been better, boy did Seattle put on a show. Not only was the temperature consistently above 90 Fahrenheit but it was Seafair weekend.

Pike Place Market and Starbucks

So what is Seafair...more on that later. First let's talk about what we did over the two days!
We headed to the city the first day and explored Pike Place Markets. We watched fish being thrown and headed over to the first Starbucks ever...still proudly standing at Pike Place markets.

We did buck the trend though and decided to indulge in non-coffee drinks! Of course the boys we far more amused by the giant that was standing in line infront of us, I came up to his elbow....apparently this was hilarious.

Olympic Sculpture Park

We then headed to the Olympic Scuplture Park, part of the Seattle Art Museum. In retrospect we might have appreciated it a little more if it weren't so hot.
The sculptures are all huge and outside, you walk along a path and just absorb the sculptures. No David's here, it's all abstract.
For example, Sandeep is standing between a four-legged orange, metal sculpture. We all guessed, dog, giraffe, cat....apparently it was an eagle.

Here's a photo of the city....just for kicks.

The park is located right next to trains as well....kind of an urban wasteland turned good.

Two daughters sitting at a fountain celebrating father and son

Museum of Flight

On Sandeep's list of things to do was the "Museum of Flight". Located a little ways out of Seattle it's like a chronology of flight. We walked around exploring for a little while but had the most fun when we signed up a 1/2 hour tour. We were guided around the huge museum by a former pilot and scientist who had unlimited knowledge about all the planes, the changes and even the great aviation companies of the day. It was totally free, and went for double the allotted time, score!

SR-71 Blackbird

We headed home, exhausted by the heat and food and general activity. Are we getting old?

I was exhausted, but the boys were up for more, heading to a Jazz club for big bang musical show.

The next day we headed to Seafair -

It’s Seattle’s traditional summer festival. A month-long, region-wide barbecue, that brings an entire community together in celebration. For over 60 years Seafair has been about community events, parades, Miss Seafair, the Navy and Coast Guard, amateur athletics, airplanes and of course, boat racing. But most of all, Seafair has been about people and it continues to be.

Getting to Seafair was a drama in itself. We parked in the city, caught a light rail (did you know Seattle had light rail....we certainly didn't) and then a shuttle bus to the park where Seafair was at.

We got there around midday...I got a snowcone and then we found a spot by the water to watch the Blue Angels. 

The Blue Angels is the United States Navy's flight demonstration squadron. It was formed in 1946,^[1] making it the second oldest formal flying aerobatic team (flying under the same name) in the world, after the French Patrouille de Franceformed in 1931. The Blue Angels' six demonstration pilots fly the F/A-18 Hornet in more than 70 shows at 34 locations throughout the United States each year, where they still employ many of the same practices and techniques used in their aerial displays in 1946.

The boys got up close and personal, I found a shady spot, finished my snow-cone and watched the planes fly by. Even I had to admit they were pretty impressive.

It was certainly an action packed weekend!

Niki came the next weekend, a little later than originally planned: a 7.30pm flight ended up arriving at past 9:30pm! That didn't stop us all sitting down to a later dinner and discussing Niki's travels over 6 beers or so.

In the morning we had a problem....you see Niki is a coffee drinker....Nuwan and I don't even have coffee in the house. When Niki woke up and asked for Coffee, Nu volunteered to do a Starbucks run. There was an unexpected benefit of this trip, poor Niki who has been drinking filtered coffee for 3 weeks finally found out that the long sought after "long black" was called an Americano this side of the Pacific.

We started the morning off with a trip to the markets (it's a good thing we like this place) and Starbucks!

Then we went out for lunch....and boy was it an experience.

Being a fan of Man vs Food, Niki had all the Seattle spots down as must dos. First on the list was the Crab Pot.

The Crab Pot is located on one of the piers on Seattle harbour. The tables and chairs are plastic and the menu quite limited. In the middle of the colourful menu is the 'feast option". Here you have 4 different seafood smorgasbord options; crab, salmon, prawns, mussels, clams, oysters, sausage etc. You choose for the table and some magic seafood fairy inside steams the seafood with a mixture of spices and brings it to your table. They then pour is straight onto the plastic table, laid with butcher's paper. You get a board, a hammer, a fork, some lemon and clarified butter. That's it. Trust me...it's enough. 

Niki enjoying a beer

Lunch.....oh so good!

Oh...I forgot about the bib. Kinda critical

I can't describe how amazing, fresh and delicious the food was. The crab was kind of the best part, juicy, white and plenty of meat. 

After lunch we headed up to Kerry Park, a lookout point on top of Seattle to get a good vantage point for a photo and a little exercise after eating a gallon of ghee!

We spent that night eating yet again, but this time french baguettes from the french bakery, italian salami, french cheese and olives from the Pike Place deli. Arnotts crackers and a delicious drop of white from right here in Washington!

The second day of eating saw us heading to Red Mill Burgers....the home of the best burgers in Seattle. I tend to agree. Despite having to wait in a line heading out the door of this tiny shop and then having to wait another 1/2 hour for our food the burger was the perfect balance of vegetables, meat, mayo and sauce. This is the kind of burger dreams are made of!

So here's the deal, our spare-room is empty, we've washed the sheets, aired out the pillows and it's feeling a bit sad. Hopefully now you'll decided to come and visit! We can take you to Pike Place Markets, the Crab Pot, Red Mill burgers and if we love you a lot we'll even take you to Starbucks!

xoxox

Chath