Seattle - Umbrellas and Dim Sum...

I have traveled on occasion with my job in the past but recently I have spent quite a bit of time on the road. Between Thanksgiving and mid-May I spent 9 weeks in Seattle over 5 trips. These were the first times that I had ever been to Seattle (other than a airport stop on a flight many years ago).

Seattle was very nice though I am not sure that I would want to live there due to the weather. The stereotype of frequent rain is no stereotype. It rained probably over half the days that I was there and was cloudy many others with no sight of the sun. The only good thing to say about the rain is that it is typically just a drizzle and you can often walk in it without an umbrella. Though it was interesting that there were "public" umbrellas that Microsoft had donated to the mall area where my hotel and work location were located. You just grab an umbrella whenever you leave a place and then drop it off in a bin at your destination for someone else to use later.



One thing that I really did enjoy in Seattle was the food. There were a number of very good restaurants but my favorites were a couple of Dim Sum (Chinese dumpings) places. These restaurants (The Noble Court and Din Tai Fung Dumpling House) were both in Bellevue, WA. I went to both of these restaurants with a large group of coworkers. This is the best way to eat Dim Sum as you can order a large number of dishes and everyone gets to try all the different types of dumplings. The Din Tai Fung restaurant is a chain of restaurants that started in Taiwan and has since spread to China, Japan, ..., Los Angeles and recently Seattle. Here is the process (in the "fishbowl") where the dumplings are put together:



And here is what the final product looks like (image from Din Tai Fung website):