5th and Pine Street

It's almost 11am. Time to get going on my exploration of Seattle. A very aimless one, this time.

Cousin Charles stays with his soon-wife-to-be, Leanne (a very sweet lady I've met for the very first time last night and who's already cooked me a dinner), in a house of his own. He moved down from Vancouver, where he was born and grew up in, about three or four years ago when he got a job with Microsoft. Charles, of mixed Chinese and Indian parentage, is gorgeous, and I've never thought I had such gorgeous cousins till I met him for the first time maybe five years ago. This is the third time I've visited him in Seattle, and the last time I popped by (that was in February '04) after my meeting in Portland, things were so different. He was staying in the same house, but single then, with his brother Mark and girlfriend. Now, Mark has moved out together with his girlfriend right across the (big) street, and Charles is... well, you know, getting married on Saturday.


Charles' house, a neat little 4-storey townhouse, in the quiet area of Fremont.

Took a bus downtown. Very short ride, but I almost had no money to buy a ticket. And I realized that only upon reaching the bus-stop. Dang. Had to walk back to some small grocer, buy a small bottle of juice before I had some small change in my pocket. The timing was perfect though; the bus came the minute I got back to the bus-stop. The intervals between each bus arrival are incredibly long in the US - like 20 minutes? Again, I would've died if I stayed here and had to take a bus everyday. That said, the bus schedules given out here in brochures are pretty accurate. Good sense there.

I decided I should stop at 5th and Pine Street (yes, this is American-speak; the streets here are all matrix-like, so describing a place usually entails decribing the two intersecting streets). I knew this was just a downtown-shopping area, and I wasn't quite interested in this, but I thought I should find a cafe somewhere.



Westlake Center - a pretty small mall, but hey, it's downtown area.

Ok, I admit. I was looking for a Starbucks. There are no small cafes to be found in downtown areas, so given all the coffee chains there are, I'd rather put my money on Starbucks. Plus, I can use my computer, complete with power adaptors provided. How 'cool' is that?



There is no alfresco seating in this Starbucks cafe, but strangely, there is a huge open window inside along some seats. I have absolutely no idea what that is for - for patrons to steal a puff on the side?


See the huge open window... and my pbook friend?

Nothing great for breakfast - or is this my lunch? Just my grande skinny latte and an awfully cold ("sorry ma'am but we don't have a toaster here" - ???) bagel. Yucks.