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Catherine at Safeco Field
Catherine at Safeco Field holding her JJ Putz bobble head figurine. We couldn’t have asked for much more from the Seattle weather, serving up both ends of the spectrum in a week. We’ve had whole days of black skies and dreary rain, which is what we were expecting, followed by four consecutive days of fine, clear and warm days, including one day of 30+ degrees. Everyone we spoke to couldn’t wait to tell us how good this weather was and how very rare it was for Seattle.
We had our first live baseball experience at Safeco Field where the Seattle Mariners took on the San Diego Padres. The Padres are crap, and as three hours of baseball would highlight, the Mariners are too. After the Mariners put on 4 home runs in the first 2 innings and the Padres 5, it looked like we were going to see a shootout. The Mariners did not get another player home in the next 7 innings. The Padres were triumphant 6 - 4. It was great to be at the game though, 35,000 fans booing the other team’s successes, booing their own team’s failures, eating a massive hotdog, drinking beer and generally just soaking up the atmosphere. The Friday night game we went to
Olympic Sculpture Park
Lok in front of a giant cone marker at the Olympic Sculpture Park. Beautiful shorts and t-shirt weather. (16 May) was JJ Putz bobble head night, so the first 25,000 people through the gates got a bobble head figurine of Mariners player JJ Putz. We got ours and are we are chuffed about it.
Seattle is very proud of its musical heritage, which is understandable, and they celebrate this in part through the Experience Music Project (EMP) located at the Seattle Centre (where the Space Needle is located). The EMP is housed in a typically abstract Frank O. Gehry designed building and is part museum and part interactive music space. After looking through the Jimi Hendrix celebration and the history of Seattle music section, you can go to the sound lab and play drums, keyboard, Guitar, Bass and sing along to your favourite Seattle music. They give you pretty detailed basic instructions on how to play the instruments and we both realised (or maybe reinforced) that our many talents do not extend to music - our singing was woeful and guitar playing even worse.
We have tested each of Seattle’s home grown coffee chains - Starbucks, Tully’s and Seattle’s Best - experiencing the ambience at the original Starbucks and Seattle’s Best in the Pike Markets. We’re
Where it all started
Lok drinking a coffee from the original Starbucks in the Pike Place Market. Note the cold and dreary weather attire. not sure where the original Tully’s is, but we’re sure it’s around the place somewhere.
On one of the drearier days in Seattle, we thought that an indoor experience was in order. Although information about how to get there is limited, it is possible to get to the Boeing factory and tour (around 30 miles north of the City) by public transport. It may have taken an hour and a half, but it did save us at least $40 by not going with a crappy tour company (yep, tightarses). The Boeing factory is the biggest building in the world (by volume as they kept telling us, which we assume means that there is a bigger one by surface area somewhere). It’s amazing to see the size and scale of the operation. I guess you need a factory that big to build a piece of machinery that has over 274 kilometres of wiring and over 6 million individual parts (half of which are rivets).
After an unseasonably warm day yesterday, we decided that fish and chips by the harbour would be lovely. After watching the sun set, we decided that another beverage before bed was in order, so we stopped by Kells Irish bar on the way home for a quiet beer. While we were both amazed and delighted to break our month long football viewing drought as a result of the Swans vs Bombers game being telecast live on TV, there was much amusement as we realised that we were in Seattle’s version of Canberra’s O’Malleys. The only difference was that Kells was filled with very beautiful, young people. No Annie and the Armadillos there, but there was an acoustic set from Liam Gallagher (not the one of Oasis fame unfortunately) which consisted of Irish ballads and a Neil Diamond cover. We were amused, but the crowd seemed to love it. We did try to get our dose of original music the other night by making our way to a gig by the The Kills, but unfortunately it was a sellout before the night, so we walked away a little disappointed but confident that the live music scene was alive and well. Our subsequent experience at Kells made us question whether that was really the case. Because we like it, I think we’ll give the City the benefit of the doubt.
Seattle also has some great new architecture, the city library is the coolest library I’ve ever seen and unlike a lot of public city libraries it is really user friendly and has a coffee shop inside.
We’re crossing the US - Canadian border tomorrow and holing up in Vancouver. See you later USA, it’s been fun!
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Kate
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Blog on!
Hi guys, thanks for sharing your travels with us- loving it. Seattle sounds awesome (haven't been to the States) BUT I did spend a lot of time in Vancouver 99-00 and absolutely LOVED IT- reminds me a bit of Melbourne. Be sure to hire a tandem bike to ride around Stanley Park and keep your eye out for a game of cricket in the area. Sit on a log at English Bay and enjoy the sunset over the harbour....and definitely get to Vancouver Island if you have time. Looking forward to the next instalment! Kate x