Welcome to part 2 where I give you a review of the Pike Place Public Market, the Seattle Aquarium, and I’ll tell you why I’m glad I brought my long lens for the Argosy Harbor Cruise.

Now the first day was a long one!

Our flight was scheduled to leave Boston Logan airport at 6:30am, which meant we had to be up at 3:30am. And if you know me, I always wait until the last minute to pack.

LOGAN AIRPORT SUNRISE

But I knew I was able to stay up late as we were fortunate to fly in Jet Blue’s first class service they call “Mint”. I didn’t get to enjoy all of the amenities as the seats lay down almost completely flat which meant I slept the entire 6 hour flight.

One cool thing (and I’m not sure if other airlines do this) is that you’ll get your luggage before other people. This is awesome as sometimes waiting for your luggage can be time consuming and after a long flight you just want to get to your destination.

We decided not to rent a car and used Lyft to get around town. Since we were staying in downtown Seattle everything is walking distance, or either close to public transportation.

Being a passenger for a change gave me opportunities to take photos while on the move!

Plus parking at the hotel was something crazy like 50$ a day so we figured we’d troop everything. And for the record I didn’t miss having a car – until we got to Kerry Park (which I’ll get into later).

After dropping our luggage off, we were starving! So what’s one to do while staying in downtown Seattle?

PIKE PLACE PUBLIC MARKET IS THE PLACE TO EAT!

Read or watch any travel documentary and you’ll see Pike Place is at the top of the list. Pike Place is a public market located right by the water on Elliott Bay.

You’ve probably seen people over at the fish market throwing fish. It’s kind of gimmicky but people really go crazy overt it. Check out the video clip below…

If you love seafood – you’ve come to the right place!

Aside from the countless food options, you can find some of the most beautiful flowers you’ve ever seen! The crazy thing is, they’re not even expensive.

Bouquets cost no more than 20 dollars and in NYC these same flowers would probably go for 80 bucks!

You’ll also find a lot of touristy gift shops if that’s your thing.

We didn’t have an exact plan for today, but we knew some of the locations we wanted to visit were in that general area. We noticed that the Seattle Aquarium was about a 10 minute walk so we figured why not?

THE SEATTLE AQUARIUM

When I was at the register I paid $60 bucks for 2 tickets. But when I looked up I saw that they offer a CityPASS which included several of the spots we wanted to check out, so I ended up purchasing it as it was a good deal.

seattle citypass price

The aquarium looked small from the outside and they did a great job maximizing the space. I didn’t take many photos as I was more focused on capturing videos.

And it’s funny, during our trip the things I was really looking forward to turned out to be underwhelming – and the things that I had low expectations really blew me away. And one of those things was…

ARGOSY HARBOR CRUISES HARBOR TOUR

If we didn’t purchase a CityPASS I would have never gone (especially not for $34). But I’m glad we did! I was also glad I had my long 70-200mm lens as I was able to get nice shots from the boat.

I don’t know why, buy I really enjoyed seeing the massive gantry cranes, dry docks and shipping containers. I guess it’s because it’s something you don’t see everyday and these things were huge!

After the cruise I took a long exposure of the bay. I didn’t bring my Lee Filter system as it would have taken too much space, but I did bring my Sing Ray Variable 8 stop neutral density filter.

I’m sure I’m speaking Greek right now (lol) but what an ND filter allows me to do is shoot a long exposure in the day to get shots like this…

Verses a “regular shot” like this…

Notice the effect ND filters have on water. It takes a while to setup the shot but it’s worth it. And speaking of “taking a while to setup”…

TRAVELING WITH PEOPLE IS ALAWYS A BALANCING ACT

When traveling with my wife, it’s always a balance of spending time with her verses taking photos. Over time I’ve gotten better as when you become a pro – you know if it’s worth “taking the time to get the shot”.

I have to pick my battles but it’s worth it in the end. I’ll write a separate blog post in the future, but let’s just say it was during this exact shot…

twin peaks san franciso night shot long exposure

…that I learned I’m always better off venturing out by myself to take photos.

I don’t think we ate anything else that night as we covered a lot of ground on our first day and we were beat. Plus factor in the 3 hour difference and it was time to hit the sheets!

Part 3: Space Needle, Chihuly Garden & Glass, Kerry Park and more!