June 2005 - Pre-cruise visit to Seattle

We spent less than 24 hours in Seattle as we arrived Friday June 18th 11pm and the cruise departed June 19th 4pm so we had very limited time to see the sights Despite only having literally a few hours in Seattle after getting a good nights rest we met up Doug Smith and his family. Doug is a former colleague of Bill's that worked in Jakarta from about 1999-2002. We started out with lunch at the 13 Coins restaurant which came highly recommended from another of Bill's colleagues (thanks Larry for the recommendation). Over lunch we reminiscence about our shared experiences in Jakarta and caught up on life events since Doug returned to the USA. After lunch we headed to the Seattle Space Needle where we took in the fantastic views of Seattle and the mountains beyond. We were very fortunate as the sky was clear and blue so the viewing was very good. After spending about an hour at the Space Needle Doug gave us a quick tour around downtown Seattle. We drove past Pike Place Market but didn't stop and go in due to limited time. Doug dropped us at the cruise terminal where we said our goodbyes and boarded for our Alaska cruise. Despite only having a few hours to visit with Doug and his family it was a good start to our vacation.