Sleepless in Seattle!

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Seattle
Day 3
Seattle is a little weird but a cool city nonetheless. The first thing that struck me was the 'bus tunnel' the buses are sent underground almost like a subway system underneath downtown. Arrived at the hostel with few navigation hiccups from my part and they let me check in straight away - GREAT!
Locked my stuff up abd headed straight out. After getting my bearings in town, i headed down to the waterfront to see what the story was down there. Its pretty cool, all the piers are there (surprisingly!) and loads of food places! Just kept walking as i had no idea where i was going or what i wanted to do so as soon as things start looking a litte less busy i would just make a change in direction. This brought me (accidentally) to Occidental Park and the Pioneer Sq area. Story goes this is where the original settlers wanted the city to grow from but it didnt. Story over. Theyve got these little crazy totem pole things and some weird wooden wacky totem-statues. Ill post the pics when i get chance. From there i headed back towards downtown are and then jumped on the bus to the Seattle Center and the Space Needle. Went up to the top of the Needle and some some amazing views from the 590' feet in the air. All downtown, right across the different neighbourhoods to the north side of Seattle, great views of the Olympics National Park and the mountains and even Mt Olympia in the far distance. To the S you could see the 14,500ft Mt Rainier towering over Seattle. It truly is an amzing sight to see one mountain, sorry volcano, so high right next to a city skyline.

From the needle i headed off back to downtown area walking...much longer walk than i expected! Got back to the hostel, started chatting to a few people in the common area and all of a sudden we were getting ready to go out drinking. So me, Mike from Ohio and Nicolaj and Soeren from Denmark went out on the razz! Good night, hit a couple of cool bars, then this seedy little dive place that stayed open til...well, the last person left!

Day 4
Next morning, we actually managed to get up for breakfast after all 4 of us made a point of knocking on each others doors! So this is today.
Intention today to go exploring the neighbourhoods on foot and maybe take a boat cruise later. So headed up to 5th Av to have a quick look at some shops and also to find me a sleeping bag and some hiking boots for Yosemite. After that, started my own little hike to the International District via the Public Library. Now this has to be the most interesting Library i have ever seen!!! AGain i will put up pics but this is the most amazing, modern pice of architecture i have ever seen and be called a Library!!! It looks like something out of Star Trek, yet is perfect in its location!

Finally arrived at Chinatown after passing the Bank of America building (tallest building in Seattle) and could i find the central area to China town...nope! Ended up in some seedy neighbourhood that i soon realised i shouldnt be there and so quickly made my walk back towards the skyscrapers...not actually knowing what road i was on...but also not wanting to pull out the map and scream "IM A TOURIST!!!"

Arrived back into town and went down to Pioneer Sq again where i stopped off and learnt about the Klondike Gold Rush at the museum. From here i headed off back down to the water side and strolled leisurely along Alaskan Way, stopping off and taking photos from the piers of the Olympic mountain ranges. I intened to jump on the Argosy Harbor cruise but they fully booked the boat as i got there so i stopped off for some proper "fish and chips" and headed back to the hostel after contemplating the aquarium. Walked through the Pike Place market where i discovered its a HELL of a lot bigger than i thought yesterday!!! Its a really interesting kinda place but i was hot and bothered, felt a bit ill, so just wanted to get out. Back to my room to find ive got a guy from London in my room who seems cool and weve already agreed were going out tonight, and then weve also got 2 scottish guys as well!! Much better than the Mexicans and Americans that were in there last night!!!

So that brings me to here and now...it was a bit of a novel and im sure half of you wont read it all but its all gonna be available online as well at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/andykirkman/ As for now, me and Mike are gonna go wake Steve up (the English guy) and head out for some food and drink!! Kelis Irish Pub here we come!!!!!

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