5 Things That Make Seattle Great

Dear Frontier: even with your awful bag pricing policy and your weird pricing for individual seats, I’d like to thank you for having $50 round-way flights to Seattle so I could visit my brother in Seattle over my short, four-day fall break. While this isn’t the first time I’ve visited Seattle, the short time that I spent there gave me a greater appreciation for Seattlelites’ incredible abilities to parallel park on the steepest, slopiest streets I’ve ever seen, among many other things. In no particular order, here are the 5 things I love the most in Seattle.

1. Can-Am Pizza

Can-Am Pizza stands for Canadian-American Pizza, but if you order anything less than the butter chicken pizza here, you are throwing away the opportunity of a life-time. I’m salivating just thinking about it: perfectly crispy crust slathered with butter chicken curry, huge chunks of bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, and super tender chicken, and stringy cheese, this pizza is definitely the best pizza I’ve ever had in my entire life. Nothing else will ever compare to it. All those meals I ate at fancy restaurants with cloth napkins and fancy silverware can’t even touch the glory and satisfaction that the butter chicken pizza brings.

2. Pike Place Market

Perhaps it’s just because I needed to fulfill my desire for typical touristy areas, but Pike Place Market’s hustle and bustle was a welcome environment. Sure, I forked over $7 for a cup of mediocre (but apparently organic) spiced cider before I realized that it was a total rip-off, but other than that, I enjoyed wandering around the multitudes of shop-lined labyrinths and taking mental notes of all the delicious things I wanted to come back to. Unfortunately I made the big mistake of eating a huge meal at the famous Beecher’s Handmade Cheese right upon arrival. Definitely one of my biggest regrets. I was too full for far too long to enjoy all of the other tasty foods that Pike Place offers.

3. The Water, the Sea, the Humidity

As a Colorado resident who is perpetually landlocked (though I can’t complain about the mountains), I envy Seattle’s close vicinity to multitudes of lakes, beaches, and harbors. I accidentally ended up adventuring past a yacht club—you can’t say that often in Golden—and ended up at the shores of the ocean. Not only that, but the humidity in Seattle isn’t that heavy, suffocating wetness like say, the humidity in Malaysia. It’s just enough to make your skin all soft and happy and allow myriads of green, gorgeous foliage to grow throughout. The water Pokemon are just a bonus.

4. The One Fudge Store In the Alley Behind the Street Above Pike Place Market

Aka, the candy store with the name I can’t remember. This hidden gem unassumingly nests in an alley way and it is pure luck that I fell upon it. While humble and quaint, the trays of fudge stacked in the display case boast extravagant flavors like raspberry cheesecake and pumpkin spice. I can’t even describe the magic of the dark chocolate salted caramel fudge. It was so gooey and rich, with chunks of salt hidden between the layers of chocolate and caramel that cut through the sweetness so perfectly. 10/10 by far the best dessert in Seattle.

*Edit: Name found, it was called Gosanko!

5. My Brother, Ze-Hong Ping Pong Ong

Yeah, so maybe he got us lost when we were trying to find our airbnb in Vancouver, and maybe he played kids show tunes and the game song from Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo, but overall he was as accommodating as it gets. By that I mean he brought me enough delicious food that I wasn’t hungry for even a second of the trip, and he taught me how to play sing-song (a squash-ping-pong hybrid that involved using the living room floor as a court, a couch as a net, and ping pong paddles and a ping pong ball). So that’s nifty. Dear brother, I guess you’re pretty cool. I definitely didn’t tear up while saying bye and leaving. Thanks for being so hospitable and for making my fall break chock full of food, fun, and food.