The Girls Go to Seattle: Pike Place Market, Seattle Aquarium and Wild Ginger

In lieu of a full-on family vacation this summer (HH and Hat Dad's loss!), Gardening Mom came up with the great idea of a little girls trip.  Our destination needed to be somewhere relatively close (we didn't want a whole day of travel), and preferably a new place.  While I've been to Seattle to visit Best Friend Cute Apartment before, Sisters Singer and Swimmer and Gardening Mom had never seen the city, so off to Seattle we went!

We flew in late on a Thursday evening, with an uneventful (in a good way!) flight and transport to our hotel.  We stayed at Hotel Monaco, which was lovely, but seriously needs to revamp their Room Service procedures.  Other than that, I would highly recommend this hotel.  We all bunked up in one room (something that HH and Hat Dad both scoffed at), and it was nice and roomy, with lots of space for all of our crap.

On Friday morning, we took our time getting up and getting ready, and started to head down to Pike Place Market for the day.  We stopped for breakfast on the way, and soon we found ourselves in front of the big sign that everyone equates with the city of Seattle.

Unfortunately for us, we got some pretty typical Seattle weather on our first day in the city, so we headed directly inside the Market to get some cover from the spinkling outside.

Upon entrance, we were greeted with a strong stench of fish and realized we were at the very iconic fish market already!  It was super crowded, so we didn't stay long, but I remember watching them catch fish (and even getting to go behind the counter and catch a few myself!) during my last trip when visiting Cute Apartment.

 

We weaved in and out of stores and shops looking at little treasures, but it was the floral area that really had us all impressed.  The bouquets they had were so beautiful, and so insanely CHEAP!  We're talking $15 for a bouquet I would see sold for $150 here!  We were all struck, and so badly wished there was a way we could take some of these pretty flowers home with us.

They even had $5 smaller bouquets!

After spending an inordinate amount of time flower-gasing, we stepped outside and headed into the First Starbucks Store!  Sister Swimmer and I were excited to pick up a souvenir for our beaus - Sister Swimmer's BF YOLO is a 'Bucks employee himself, and my Handsome Hubs is a big fan.

Coffee and hot chocolate in hand, we wandered around the Market a bit more, stopping for some macaroons and meringues to take back with us for a sweet treat at the hotel later.  We headed down an insane amount of stairs to the Seattle Aquarium where we got to come face to face with some colorful fish, a creepy looking octopus, a couple cute sea otters, and my personal favorite - the river otters.  After a hellish hike back up those stairs (I thought about quitting half-way through, but realized I'd be forever stranded in the middle of an outdoor staircase in Seattle), a quick stop for lunch at a local Brewery, and a pitstop at Target for the necessities (toothpaste, pretzels, and Hot Tamales, obviously), we were back at the hotel for a few hours of downtime before dinner.

For dinner, we went to a very highly rated downtown restaurant, Wild Ginger (which of course had me thining of my very own wild ginger at home - my sweet HH).  Wild Ginger's food was fantastic, and by the end of the trip, we all rated it our favorite place we ate the entire trip!

Next?  We do some shopping, hop on a ferry boat, and see Bainbridge Island!