Seattle, Day 3 : February 19th, 2011

Our last day we took a stroll down to Seattle Glassblowing. They offer classes that would be cool to take. I will have to look for something similar here.

Afterwards, we continued down to the Pacific Place mall, were we found a number of stores to visit. Inori purchased some girl stuff at The Body Shop and got some free brushed.

Before we left the mall, knowing it was quite windy, we stopped at the Starbucks inside the Barnes and Noble. They did not accept my Starbucks card! What the hell?! I am a gold member after all :)

That night we tried a Thai place near the hotel, which was mediocre. I tried pineapple curry with tofu – I do not recommend it.

The following day we headed home. The concierge told us that their free shuttle would take us to the light rail, where for $2.50 each we could ride it (45 minute) all the way to the Sea/Tac Airport. If we had known about the light rail previously we could have visited some other city locations.

I will note here that once again, when we go through airport security Inori always gets a friendly greeting in Japanese. Isn’t she special.

I had my first encounter with the new scanner machines. I opted out because there is no real proof yet that the machines are safe. They had me stand to the side. When a male frisker came over, he pulled me to a side station where we asked me if I had any sensitive areas he should know about. He came close to making me uncomfortable when he ran his finger inside the top of my pants. After he finished I had to wait a minute while he tested the gloves he ran over me.

The plane ride back was quite bumpy as we started our decent. We lucked out this trip, as there was no rain in Seattle, but back home in Sunnyvale it rained hard.

Seattle, Day 2 : February 18th, 2011

We decided to explore the Queen Anne area. Reaching the bus stop was a short walk through Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is. A short bus ride later ($2.25) found us at Queen Anne and Boston.

We found a nice sandwich shop called Homegrown. We each had a very good veggie sandwich, along with a tasty soup and some very short fries. Seattle has a lot of seafood, coffee, and soup.

After lunch we strolled back towards the hotel. We found All the Best Pet Care shoppe. It is a vey nice store that sells quality products. We found a new bowl for Chu-Chu, and a matching bowl for Pumpkin. The store had a “toy test area” where dogs were playing. I purchased a shirt, “I love dogs. It is humans that annoy me.”

We next found Chocolopolis. Inori found some good chocolates for To-san. Followed by Wink Cupcakes. Very good frosting.

We came to the end of the Queen Anne shop area and hopped back on the 13 bus to head back to the hotel. Pretty easy to navigate the area.

We rode the bus back to Pike’s Place and worked our way back to the hotel, stopping Tully’s along the way.

Later that night we tried a Mediterranean restaurant (Petra Bistro) a few blocks from the hotel. We left satisfied and quite full after Mediterranean Salmon and Mediterranean Pawns.

We have not found Chu-Chu on the doggie daycare web cam. Has he charmed his way into the office?

Seattle, Day 1 : February 17th, 2011

We dropped off our doggies at the daycare in the morning, went home and left our place at 11:00am to San Jose International Airport via Cab (15 min. drive!).

Space Needle view in the cab

It was raining so I was a little nervous to fly since I’m not so found of airplain. First time on Alaskan Airline. Pretty nice seats. The flight was kind of bumpy in the beginning and at the end but we landed on 2:13pm!

 

Got a cab from the airport and after 25 min. got to our Hotel. Hyatt Downtown. Pretty nice!

After a little break we headed to the city. We first walk about 15 min to go to Pike Place Chowder. Had some Chowder and sandwich. Hard not to eat Sea Food here in Seattle! Chowder was awesome! After that we walked around the area. There are a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits, fish, bakeries, cute little shops etc. It would be great to live around here. I would love to come here to shop for fresh ingredients for that day or two worth of groceries.

We continued our walk around the neighborhood and found nice little cafe and bakery called “Marcrina Bakery/Cafe” and had some cafe coz we are just hip like that. Apparently that cafe was voted one of the Top 10 Bakery in the America by Bon Appetit Magazine and I’d say that’s a quite an honor! I had VERY delicious Mexican Dark Chocolate Mocha that was not too sweet. Yum! Aaron and I shared a cup cake too :-b

Thank you year 2010!

It’s sad that our last post is done in year ago! Though I have some posts saved in the “Draft” about our past travels, haven’t updated any of them.

Just want to say we had a very good year 2010! We have our good health, a lot of fun memories. I’m sure 2011 will be even more exciting.

THANK YOU YEAR 2010! Hello year 2011!

What am I thankful for…

Wow, 2009 is almost over.

Is it just me or everyone agree that a year passes so fast and the speed gets faster and faster each year?

Year 2009 for me, personally was not just great but such a educational year.

What am I grateful for in my life… There’s so much!  My husband Aaron is the best thing ever happened to me~! Although I think i am a pretty good wife, if I may say so myself :-), sometimes it’s not so easy to be my husband because I tend to be bossy, say what’s on my mind, inpatient and hot headed but Aaron is man enough and secure enough to love me in the good and bad forms. He does not have one of those “Girl should do this and that” nonsense, thank God! We are just content to hangout with each other (with our doggies, of course). So I am most thankful for his company. The one I am hoping to continue in my next life time and one after that. I love you dude!

My best friend Y (remain anonymous ;-b) —She and I always got along for the past 10 years, but we grew really close over the past 2 years. She makes me a better person! So grateful for all the time we spend together on the phone (Thank God for Skype!), visits and in Kona Hawaii this past fall. I’m so looking forward to next meet back in Japan winter of 2010.

Of course family back in Japan. I love them and miss them. It was sooo good to see them in Hawaii. Especially my dad since last time we saw him was 5 years ago!!!

In 2010, I can already tell, it’ll be the most exciting one of all! So I am open to receive and grow. I hope your year will be full of exitement, joy, peace and prosperity.

My favorite pic of Chu-Chu

Aaron took this picture when Chu-Chu was sleeping…

This became one of my favorite picture of Chu-Chu.

ZZZ...

I cannot believe it’s already end of 2009! This year has been really nice. A lot of changes but all good one. We are open to more changes that’s good! Ever since Aaron and I met, there’s nothing but a great things. I feel real lucky to have the life we have.

Wishing all of our friends and family the safe, warm, peaceful and happy holiday season!

One evening…

Just one evening with family… Pumpkin will just stare at you with her pretty face… all day…literally.

Intense stare from Pumpkin.

We have moved our blog!

We just moved our blog to WordPress – moving forward we’ll post our “travel journals” here.

If you are interesteed in reading our past jerney, read our old blog “The Thies Travel Journal“.

We are going to blog about more than our travel experiences with the new one, so come visit again!

Pumpkin (left, new addition) and Chu-Chu

Indoor Skydiving

I travelled to Union City a last weekend to experience iFlySFBay.com. It was extremely cool. I have gone skydiving twice, and not the tandem, if AFF (Accelerated Free Fall). Skydiving is better, but indoor skydiving is a very close sensation to free fall. Next time I will close my eyes. The big issue with the sensations being different is visual. I can see the ground and a people around looking through the clear tube. I do not see the Earth rushing up at me, and I do not have the 15 minute flight before hand t build up anxiety, nor do I have to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. That said, I highly recommend indoor skydiving. If I lived closer I would definitely take the classed so I could advance in free-fall skydiving skill.

I payed extra to get a DVD of my flight. There are two rounds of flying, and then I kept in the instructor demo at the end. While waiting for the DVDs for our “flight class” to burn we sat outside a crowded In and Out Burger eating our fries (only good if you eat them soon after purchase) and the grilled cheese (a cheeseburger without the meat – it is not on the menu, but all stores know what if is if you ask). We witnessed and honest to goodness drug deal go down – do drug dealers read blogs? An expensive car, far too nice for the two punk teenagers driving, pulled up to the curb. The table next to us had three guys handing out. The table asked “are you parking?” “Yeah”, then someone from the table did the stereotypical lead on the car door and I saw his cupped hand slip over the car door, and draw back slyly. I spotted an extremely white something in his hand before it disappeared into the car. The passenger kid leaned forward for a minute before his head appeared again and settled into an extreme recline before they drove off.

After the rush of indoor skydiving, the drug deal was altogether humorous, sad, and surreal.

http://www.youtube.com/v/733ewcsNO7w&hl=en

How My iPhone Saved My Weekend

Friday afternoon my wife and I took our car in to check out an strange noise from the the front passenger side.  They told us it was bad.  The brake caliper had broken, unusual, but since our car is from out of state (Buffalo, NY) we had a lot of corrosion due to the salt the East Coasters lay down to melt the ice.  The problem with corrosion is adjacent parts meld together, so removing one part and force you to remove another, and another.  We left with low spirits.  Using our iPhone we found a Nissan dealer down the road.  After a call, they were closing (it was 4:45pm), but gave us the name of another place nearby.  Again to the iPhone to find this place.  They were closing, but could look at it at 8am Saturday.  We continued driving another mile to reach this place and leave the car.  That squared away, we again used the iPhone to find a car rental place.  Bingo, a mile down the road was a Hertz.  Humourously enough while walking to Hertz we passed an Enterprise office, which is more expensive, and we would have stopped at if he had not known about the Hertz.  The Hertz line was surprisingly long for a Friday at 5:45, but they had a vehicle for us.  It cost us an hour, but our weekend was salvage in large part to the iPhone.  BTW, our car was fixed by 2pm Saturday

A small additional thought.  I was recently at the DMV to obtain a CA driver’s license and register my car in CA.  I have hear several proposals for why you do not need a car for the benefit of the environment.  How about getting rid of your car for your own sanity; no longer having to deal with the DMV?