Being a tourist in Seattle

Is it ok to be a tourist in your home state?  Growing up on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, you were never very far from home, so tourist kinda stood out.
I am not a "World traveler", although I have been fortunate to have visited a lot of places.  Today my wife and I took a trip to Seattle (a little over an hour north of us).  Our main goal was to go to kitchen store there.

 We parked in this small lot that cost us $10 for 4 hours.  Neat little lot, though.  A little leery about leaving the car there...














The first place that we visited was City Kitchen.

 Nice store, good layout, good selection.  Not so sure about the friendliness...

  
When we walked in I decided to take a few pictures.  When a member of the staff saw me doing this she said " Can I help you?".  The tone said " What are you doing?"  I said "I'm taking pictures and I'm going to blog this"  I thought this might change their attitude, nope.  My wife and I left and thought "Huh..."

After this we decided to go get some lunch.  I am not racially biased, but I had Cajun food served to me by 2 asian people... it may as well have been a "Chinese" plate.  Don't get me wrong, it was good, it just didn't taste the least bit "Cajun".







 

 After that we hit up another kitchen store.  Sur la Table.  What a difference!

 No questions when I took some pictures!  Our experience here was much different.  The store is packed!  Very busy and limited space, but still very helpful.

 Oooh, so much to look at...Barbara was the associate that helped us look for a new saute' pan.  Nolan talked to me about  some knives.








After maikng some purchases we decided to look a little more (parking time was running out).  Of course we had to hit Pikes.





My wife wanted to look at the flowers...so we did.

  

  




Down near Pikes is always crowded, but who cares...?

Today there was  some singing action going on in front of the first 
 Starbucks...

I love how the layout and natural setting of the city dictates how the buildings are placed.

I also loved the architecture of some of the buildings.

We did the usual tourist things...like take pictures of iconic stuff...

There is also always the fun big city stuff to see, like people...I wish I took more pictures of some of the people.

 After we left the main area we wanted to hit, we went to our secondary place to visit...Uwajimaya!

Apparently you're not supposed to take pictures...oh well, I did!

When we got home I used the new Demeyere stainless saute' pan to cook some chili...







Anyway, we had a blast together today.  Don't be afraid to be a tourist in your own home state.  In fact we want go back (yes we have been there before), to spend even more time to look at other things.
Anyway, enough rambling for today, tomorrow is just a short sleep away...