I made the long flight from Korea to Seattle today to start a 9 day adventure with my mom, my sister, Lori, and my niece, Lauren on the Carnival Legend for a cruise to Alaska. After waiting for my luggage forever, because apparently there was a jam in the carousal, I finally got out of customs. I turned left and my mom comes running down the hall! We give each other a big hug, and exchange hellos and I’ve missed yous. I find out that she’s been there and waiting at the airport for more then 2 hours - so awesome mom! Gosh I feel bad about that, nothing fun about sitting around in an airport waiting.
We catch our free shuttle to our hotel and I’m able to drop off my bags. It’s about 1:00 by now and I’m getting hungry, so we decide to catch the shuttle to the light rail in search of food. We figure out how to get the tickets and quickly catch the light rail. When we get on, four Seattle Police officers were standing there in our train car, so mom starts asking them about the area where our hotel is. They all then have a discussion and dispute as to where the hotel is, phones are brought out and addresses are swapped around and police stories are shared. In the end we hear about a few murder cases and shootings in the area and across from where we are staying, and it is decided that we should not go out after dark. After about a half hour, the officers get off, and we are still on. This thing is taking forever, and I’m getting even more hungry. We look at the map and realize there are still six stops and we aren’t even halfway. Holy cow, when I heard the word light rail, I was thinking 10 minutes to food.
An hour later we get off at Waterfront, and start searching for a Mexican restaurant. We head to Pikes Market and the Public Market because that is where the Police Officers said food would be. I really want good Mexican, since Korea has nada! We go to the first one on our map and it is closed. We start walking more and ask two more people, without any luck. It is now about 2:30, and the last time I had food was on my plane, who knows when, so I have reached the point of no return, and I’m past Hangry. I storm away and walk in the first restaurant because my insides are beginning to digest themselves, and order the first thing that looks edible. I bark at mom that we are eating here, and slam myself down in a chair. I feel real bad now, but at the moment all rational thoughts are gone and it felt as if my body and mind were shutting down. I didn’t get any sleep on the plane, I was in a middle seat and it was a terribly uncomfortable chair. So not only was I hungry, but I was super tired too.
After feeding the beast, my mind slowly started to return to normal, the Hulk was suppressed and we continued with exploring Seattle’s Waterfront. We enjoyed walking around and seeing the different art work along the streets. There were some neat murals and modern art found everywhere.
We then went exploring in the market. I felt as if I was in Thailand at the markets that line the streets by the Silver Temple. There were booths after booths of knick knacks and other sellable items. There were tons of people and tons of seafood. There was this super random wall featuring The Tallest Man and the largest shoes. You put money in the slot and it would open up the binoculars so you could view the item. We especially loved the flower market section and it was such a treat to see the booth owners making beautiful flower bouquets.
We came to a lookout point and saw the Seattle Ferris Wheel and mom lights up and we decide our next destination is the Wheel. We make our way to the wheel and follow the signs in search of the entrance.
We get to the Wheel and buy our tickets, mom is just smiling from ear to ear so excited she almost can't contain herself. It makes me laugh and we get into our own gondola for the Ferris Wheel ride. The Wheel goes right over the bay, and we go around 3 times and mom starts chanting, “don’t stop, don’t stop”, and sure enough the Wheel keeps going and we get four full rotations around the Wheel. I felt just a tiny bit motion sick, but it’s not horrible. It was totally worth it seeing the pure joy in mom.
We get off the Wheel and then spend the next half hour in the Miner's Landing. There’s mostly just shops, games and food. We picked up a magnet for me and a post card for Jonathan.
We walk up two hundred and something stairs and make our way back to the market. We continue on to the mall, where we stop at Old Navy in search of pants for mom, and Sprint for me so I can get my phone working. It’s almost 5:30, and since we have an hour ahead of us on the light rail, we decide to head back to the hotel. When we get off the light rail, we decide to walk to the hotel instead of calling the shuttle, in hopes that we will walk past a restaurant for dinner. As we cross the street, we see Las Palmas, and stop happily for dinner. We order some awesome Mexican food to take back to our hotel room with us.
We are back to our room about 7:30, so we eat our dinner. We chat for a while, then get ready for bed. It was a fun day spent with mom in Seattle. My mind was struggling, since I was so tired. I couldn’t formula coherent sentences and I felt like my brain was stuck in mud. But I stayed awake and made it through the day. I made it a personal goal to make it past 9:00, so I would be able to sleep and hopefully kick jetlag in the butt. Jetlag is so real, and it sucks.
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