So Seattle, Much Con, Very Rain. Wow.

Space Needle, Key Arena to the right

My boyfriend and I just had a fun-filled, packed weekend of fun in Seattle! We were there from Thursday to Sunday, and it rained every day except the day we left!



Our weekend started out on several good notes. First, we spotted Alan Tudyk, aka Wash from Firefly while waiting to board our plane at LAX. Then when we got on the plane, we saw that Michael Biehn of Terminator & Aliens fame was seated just a few rows in front of us, and just one row in front of Alan!! Plus, I saw a blob of a rainbow upon exiting the Seattle airport. I think that's a good sign!

The Fairmont Olympic

We stayed in the lovely and ornate Fairmont Olympic, in downtown Seattle. They had a ton of restaurants and cafes, as well as a bunch of little shops on the lower levels where you could buy clothes, get souvenirs, or get your tailoring done. The lobby was gorgeous, with a bunch of seating areas and a piano player serenading the guests with instrumental versions of contemporary songs. Our room was fantastic, and even had a little powder room!

View from RView

That night, we went to RView for dinner. It's located on the 28th floor of the Renaissance Seattle, with a beautiful view of the Seattle skyline. It was very cozy and surprisingly empty. We sat on comfy couches instead of at a table. I had a pretty great burger with goat cheese.
From there, we went for a couple drinks at Purple Wine Bar. They have this great cement bar situated around a two story tall spiral staircase filled with bottles of wine!

On Friday, we headed over to the famed Pike Place Market, home of a ton of dead fish and rows upon rows of tulips. There were also a lot of vendors selling artisan crafts and whatnots, handcrafted thingamabobs, and the like. We sat at a non-Starbucks coffee shop for a while, ironically just a few doors down from the very first Starbucks location ever. I saw SO many Starbucks while we were there. There must have been one every 10 feet! 

Also on Friday, we indulged in an daytime drink from the hotel bar. I got a lavender martini, possibly the most beautiful drink I've ever had. This picture doesn't even do the color justice. And it was delicious, too!















We had dinner at an Irish pub called T.S. McHugh's before heading over to the Key Arena for the Kings of Leon concert! We don't go to very many live shows, but Kings of Leon is one of my favorite contemporary bands, so it was really great to get to see them live. They put on an amazing show! On a huge screen behind the band, they had all kinds of moving images in the background to complement the music, and each song had a whole different thing. One of my favorite parts was when they asked people to light up their phones and hold them up. The stadium looked beautiful with all the little dots of light!

On Saturday, we headed over to the Washington State Convention Center for Emerald City Comic Con! This con was a pretty good size, not San Diego Comic Con sized, but actually much larger than I thought it would be. Their exhibit hall was spread out over several floors, which was very confusing, especially to someone as directionally-challenged as I am. They had a lot of great booths, with a good variety. Lots of great artists in the Artist's Alley, tons of unique crafts, and clever t-shirts and pins galore! I didn't want to buy too much, since my suitcase was pretty packed to begin with. I did get some really awesome pins from this one booth that had pins of all sizes, including extra extra large!

They had a pretty good programming line up, though we didn't make it to any panels. There was also a Game of Thrones art exhibit, and a huge set-up of Lego scenes, like huge Avengers, a Rivendell, some Batman stuff. I didn't actually get a good look, the line was pretty long. Cleverly, they also had several Lego-related booths in the same area.

There was even more stuff than that going on, both in and out of the convention center. We spoke to a Seattle local while waiting in line, who said that it's been doubling in size the last few years. I thought it was a great show; I just wish they'd had better signage for all the different areas of the con. There were lots of visible volunteers sprinkled around, but they didn't always know much more than we did.


After the con, we met back up with our friends and went out for sushi at Moshi Moshi Sushi. We also went to a combination pinball/ice cream place. I shoved some children out of the way and played a couple games of Lord of the Rings pinball! Then it was back to the hotel for a couple more drinks in the lovely lobby before bed!

Our weekend of Seattle fun ended with brunch before the airport on a very sunny Sunday. Back to the real world!