thurday report

as you, the regular reader, knows, thursdays are 'sploring days here in seattle. (although that may be changing to saturdays soon since leff is now working in his new office space! w00ty w00t! his boss went with the space that we all loved!)

this thursday, leff and i decided to visit the international district. we'd driven through the edge of the neighborhood when leff interviewed in pioneer square back in august but hadn't made it back until yesterday. which sounds crazy, i know. esp since the international district is home to one of the uwajimaya stores!

anyway, we decided to take the monorail downtown. yes, you read that right. the monorail.

mmmmm, touristy goodness!

the trip from seattle center to fifth street (right next to the nordstram's flagship store) only takes 90 seconds. it might possibly have been the cheesiest 90 seconds of my life! (leff should be posting a movie of the trip soon. can you stand the excitement?! seriously though, it's tasty like velveeta. you gotta' watch the movie when it's posted.)

but moving on, the monorail station is about 10 blocks from the international district. thankfully this is all level or slightly downhill so it wasn't that bad of a walk in either direction. (not, saaaay, like when i take the 15 or 18 bus downtown and then have to hike up the freakin' alps to get to the main library. *sheesh!!*)

the first place that we stopped in the id (internationl district is henceforth referred to as "id" since i'm lazy.) was at the kinokuniya bookstore. i'd heard about this chain on super eggplant's page but didn't realize that i was at the store that she had recommended until after i'd bought a tiny hamster eraser and a miffy puzzle.



it's a fantastic bookstore! there are TONS of japanese craft books and manga and cute stationary and A TOTORO CALENDER FOR 2006 that i simply MUST OWN!!

so i'm going back to kinkuniya soon!

the bookstore connects to umajimaya which has to be the biggest and coolest asian grocery store/gift shop that i've EVEREVEREVER been in! and that includes the lottes on the east coast. lotte gets pwned by umajimaya!

ok, so at the supermega wonderful umajimaya, i FINALLY got my hands on some men's pocky



(that photo has the hamster eraser from kinkuniya in it.)

and some pocari sweat.



mmmm! it's so tasty and citrusy!

leff went a bit nuts buying tofu, ramen and kim chee but he always goes nuts buying tofu and ramen and kim chee, so that's nothing new.

the gift shop had the cutest maneki neko i've ever seen in my entire life!



the one with the heart and the bow? it WILL be mine soon.

and that was our day. we pretty much spent it shopping, eating and riding the monorail.

oh! i finally snagged a photo of the pac man car.



this guy has to live in my neighborhood because i see his car *all* the time.