Around Town

It has been raining a lot lately - supposedly November is a pretty wet month - but it pretty much comes down to the fact that if you don't go out because of the rain, you won't go out. So I took one of my days of last week and did some exploring with my new boyfriend Tom. Oh, didn't I tell you about him? Well, Tom is great with directions! He knows his way around like nobody else. I like his name so much, that I say it twice. I tell my TomTom to take me lots of places. And he does! Continuing on, Tom and I did some exploring. We found China Town aka "the International District" and I finally had me some dumplings! Yum Yum! They weren't as Earth-shatteringly good as in Toronto, but they are better than nothing. And we went to REI. I know there are lots of REIs around these days, but it originated in Seattle and so I wanted to check it out. I love outdoorsy stuff and since I am looking forward to snowboard season and hiking and biking, I was excited to see it. And really, it's just an outdoor store, but the thing I thought was cool was that they had a bike testing track outside with hills and "trails" and in the shoe department they had a faux hiking track with hills and rocks that you could try out hiking shoes on. I thought that was pretty neat. They also had a really pretty waterfall outside along the bike trail.



That day I also saw a touring former Broadway show at one of the theatres in downtown - The Drowsy Chaperone. It was a shorter show, which they presented with no intermission, but overall it was great fun and entertaining. The theatre was quaint and very different-looking and I took some illegal pictures before getting "spoken to".





Today there was some sunlight and I wanted to take advantage of it. My friend Natalie wanted to see the Space Needle and I didn't mind doing it again but by the time I headed out there was this weird cloud overhead. It was almost circular, thick and dark but it didn't cover the whole sky and the sun was kind of peering out around it. It was so weird. (And of course I did not take this picture while I was driving on the interstate. Who would do such a thing?)



Luckily, by the time we got to the Space Needle the weird, round cloud had dissipated and we got to see an awesome sunset from the top.









This picture almost captures this sort of phenomenon that I saw while we were at the top. The cloud was kind of reflecting the setting sun's light from one side and then reflecting the moon's light from the other. I don't know how it happened but the light was literally split almost straight down! It was so cool!



And then, to our glorious surprise, we got to see a full moon rise! It was so amazing!



Then we rode the monorail to a great downtown shopping area, had some Godiva, and walked around downtown. Then I met my friend RR for dinner in my downtown (the mini-downtown that is my neighborhood). Aaaaah, good days in Seattle!!