Loving Seattle

Glass Galore in Seattle

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending a private event at the Seattle Glass Blowing Studio on 5th Avenue. It was a lovely experience. The event had a holiday theme and so all of the attendees got to blow their own ornament. The idea seemed quite dangerous to me at first but they have great instructors and are very cautious. The ornaments made great parting gifts. I would highly recommend this place for a private event or just to check out the items that they have in their store.

We also got to watch them create one of their specialty bowls and make a few horse figurines. The horses were really amazing. It took the artisan all of 4 minutes to create the horses and it had such intricate details.

http://www.seattleglassblowing.com/

This would be a great place to go on a rainy day.

-D

Bar/Restaurants: Txori Opening November 26th

This week a new neighborhood bar featuring small bites from Northern Spain is opening in Belltown called Txori (pronounced "chor-ee"). It is located in a cozy 900 square foot space off 2nd Street between Blanchard and Bell Street (near Zoe Restaurant).

Txori will be open from Monday to Friday's 11am - 1am and on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 1am.

Di and I will be sure to give it a go this week and report back. Anyone else who has a chance to check it out, drop us a comment and let us know what you think.

Txori
Monday - Friday 11 a.m. - 1 a.m.
Saturday - Sunday 9 a.m. - 1 a.m

2207 2nd Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98121
206.204.9771

Christmas in Seattle: A few ideas

Pacific Place Mall is the place to be this holiday season. Not only is it one of the better malls in downtown but they have some great holiday festivities.

I was there last night for happy hour and had a few drinks at Gordon Biersch. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the food and the service. The house salad and bruschetta were pretty tasty for a corporate restaurant. Happy hour runs from 4-6:30 monday through friday. It did seem though that because of the holidays there would be limited happy hours.

The best part of last night however, were the snow machines that filled the atrium with snow at 6 pm. They also had some wonderful carolers singing all of the holiday favorites. Everyday these festivities will be happening at 6pm at Pacific Place through Christmas Eve. It would be very easy to plan your shopping trips so that you could enjoy this experience. This is great for all ages.

http://www.pacificplaceseattle.com/home.aspx

Also I did come across another treat in the mall. On the third floor near the elevators there is apparently a place called Ticket/Ticket where you can get tickets for all of the theatre productions in the Seattle area at a discounted price if you wait until the day of the show. There are also other locations in Seattle. I haven't tried it yet but will let you know how that goes.

The Ticket/Ticket booths sell half-price day of show tickets.

LOCATIONS
Broadway Market on Capitol Hill 401 Broadway East

Tues - Sat 12 PM - 7 PM
Sun 12 PM - 6 PM

Pike Place Market, 1st and Pike in the Pike Place Market Information Booth at the main entrance to the Pike Place Market.
Tues - Sund 12 PM - 6 PM

Meydenbauer Center 11100 NE 6th St., suite 2 Bellevue

Tues - Sun 12 - 6 PM

Events: Seattle Macy's Parade - Friday November 23rd, 2007

For those interested, the Macy's Holiday Parade is this weekend in downtown Seattle just around the corner from us. The parade is on FRIDAY, November 23rd and kicks off at 8:45am at 7th and Pine.

From Macy's site:

MACY'S HOLIDAY PARADE DOWNTOWN SEATTLE Friday, November 23 8:45 am Downtown Seattle Presented by The Seattle Times and KING 5 TV. Co-sponsored by STAR 101.5.

Everyone loves a parade! Join us for the festivities leading to Santa's big arrival.

The parade begins on 7th Avenue, heads west on Pine Street, turns south onto 5th Avenue to University Street, west to 4th Avenue, and north on 4th Avenue to Macy's doorstep.

If you can't be at the parade, watch the live broadcast on KING 5 TV at 9 am. Or sleep in and catch the later broadcasts on NWCN at 11 am or KONG 6/16 at 6 pm.

Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the lighting of the Macy's Holiday Star at Westlake Park at 5 pm, followed by a spectacular fireworks display. To help us illuminate the sky, receive a light-up star wand from 2 - 5 pm on the Main Floor of the Downtown Seattle Macy's; while supplies last.

Questions? Give us a jingle at 206-506-4FUN

Amazon Kindle: Seattle Company Launches E-Book Reader

Saw this launched on Amazon.com today with a letter from Jeff Bezos. Thought it would be of interest to avid readers and technology enthusiasts alike. Taken from the Amazon.com homepage:

"Today, we at Amazon are excited to announce Kindle, a wireless, portable reading device with instant access to more than 90,000 books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers."

The device itself is very cool. It sports a high-readability black-and-white screen, wireless (not Wifi, but true wireless access), and a nearly full keyboard.

You can check out more information on Kindle from Amazon here.

Belltown: Happy Hour Favs

For anyone looking for affordable happy hour in belltown I highly recommend these places.

I have tried many places in the Belltown area and these are the few I have found that give you the best bang for your buck.

1. Brasa

http://www.brasa.com/

Great bar food that is half price with any drink purchase from 5-7pm daily. Although the drinks are rather expensive the food is extremely well priced for happy hour. The hummus, steak frites, and fig pizza were amazing. The atmosphere is lovely. The acoustics are rare for a happy hour spot, you can actually hear the person sitting across the table from you.

2.  WANN

2020 Second Ave
Seattle, WA 98121
Phone: (206) 441-5637

This place is the best deal in town for great happy hour and delicious japanese food. You can order a huge variety of cocktails for under $5. Then they offer a happy hour food menu that includes several sushi rolls that are extremely delicious. I have tried the california roll, shrimp tempura roll and the firecastle. This is a great place for first time sushi eaters to be able to try a variety of items. I also love the contemporary japenese inspired interior and the friendly staff.

Sun-Wed 5pm-12am, Thu-Sat 5pm-2am

3. Black Bottle

http://www.blackbottleseattle.com/

Simple, elegant and delicious. Black Bottle is known for their shareable plates. Their flatbread pizzas are amazing and extremely well priced. The best deal is to get wine by the bottle and share that as well. This is place you will want to get to early because it fills up quickly but it is well worth the wait. Also a great place for an after dinner drink.

206.441.1500
2600 1st avenue + vine
belltown seattle

Restaurant Review: 14 Carrot Cafe

14 Carrot Cafe is one of the best kept secrets in the city. I stopped there for lunch last week and was pleasantly surprised. The food was great and so was the price. My favorite part of this cafe though was the idea of having breakfast for lunch. My friend had the sweet tooth breakfast and I had an American breakfast. Everything was well cooked and very tasty. The coffee cake was delicious and was served warm. For anyone looking for some great breakfast food at a great price, I highly recommend this place. They do offer a full lunch menu as well, however I have not had the pleasure of trying any of their lunch specialties.

The service was good also. The food came out in a timely manner and our server was very friendly.

14 Carrot Cafe

2305 Eastlake Ave E
Seattle, WA 98102
Phone: (206) 324-1442

Mon-Fri 7am-3pm, , Sat-Sun 7am-4pm

-- Diana

News: Seattle Man Jailed for Taking Pictures Awarded $8,000

In a piece of bizarre news, an amateur photographer who was taken into custody last year after shooting pictures of two Seattle police officers making an arrest on a public street received a settlement for $8,000,  the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington announced Thursday.

Here's the excerpt from the story in the Seattle Times:

During a news conference Thursday, Mohora, 26, said he was walking on Pike Street near Second Avenue on Nov. 2 when he saw two Seattle police officers arresting a man.

Mohora said he snapped a few shots of the arrest from a distance of more than 10 feet and was walking away when he was approached by a female friend of the man being arrested.

Mohora said the woman told him she believed the arrest of her friend was wrong, and that he was being arrested on a warrant that had been quashed. She asked Mohora about obtaining copies of the photos, he said.

Two officers, James Pitts and David Toner, then ordered Mohora to hand over his camera, according to ACLU staff attorney Aaron Caplan, who handled the case. Mohora said that when he asked what he had done wrong, the officers handcuffed him and took his camera, wallet and satchel. They then drove him to a holding cell at the Seattle Police Department's West Precinct, Mohora said.

When he was released about an hour later, he said, he was told that he could be charged with disturbing the peace, provoking a riot or endangering a police officer.

Mohora was not charged and, in violation of department policy, police did not write up an incident report on the arrest, according to ACLU Legal Director Sarah Dunne.

"Being arrested for simply being a witness to police activity was frightening and humiliating," Mohora wrote in a claim he later filed against the city. "It bothers me to think that police can abuse their authority by arresting innocent witnesses and then not even make standard police reports to document what happened."

After the ACLU intervened on Mohora's behalf, the city's claim department agreed to pay Mohora $8,000.

You can read the full story in the Seattle Times here.

News: 22,000 Seattle Residents Without Power

KIRO is reporting that about 22,000 Seattle Puget Sound residents are without power this morning after 90mph winds ripped through the area yesterday.

Apparently Whatcom and Thurston counties were hit hardest, and Whatcom customers should have their power back up and running today.

From KIROTV.com:

One of the earliest outages was before dawn around Monroe, where about 8,000 customers lost power for a time after three substations went off line, said Neil Neroutsos, a spokesman for the Snohomish County Public Utility District.

That problem was resolved fairly quickly, but later storm-related problems cut power to about 1,400 customers in the Lake Stevens area, Neroutsos said.

The region's largest utility, Puget Sound Energy, had roughly 37,000 customers in the dark in nine counties, spokeswoman Christina Mills said.

More than 15,000 customers were without electricity in the Grays Harbor County Public Utility District, spokeswoman Liz Anderson reported.

"We don't have an estimate on restoration time," Anderson said, "but it's going to take hours, not days, and should be well into the evening for some customers."

At least 9,300 Cowlitz County PUD customers were in the dark, along with 8,000 in the Clallam County PUD, utility officials said.

Seattle City Light reported nearly 3,900 customers without power in the Burien area because of a failure in a feeder line and more than 100 within Seattle for other reasons.

Windy weather was blamed for outages that hit about 2,000 homes and businesses north of Vancouver, Wash., mostly in and around Yacolt, Amboy and Ridgefield, said Mick Shutt, a spokesman for the Clark County Public Utility District.

You can check out the full article here.

Fire at the Whiskey Bar?

I write this entry having just been awoken from the sound of 3 fire trucks, 2 police cruisers, and a barricade blocking off 2nd street between Lenora and Virginia. It seems there was a fire in the building above the Whiskey Bar at 2nd and Virginia, though looking out the window I can see smoke from the roof (and fire men with flashlights examining it) but it seems people are still in the building (they don't appear to be in any kind of trouble). No flames as far as we can see.

Anyone know what happened?

For reference, here's a link to the Whiskey Bar from City Search.