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Published: December 3rd 2010
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Craig and I have had a great couple of days in Seattle. The city has a really good feel to it, and the people are friendly. Unfortunately we don’t have many stories or photos to show for our time here. So this will probably be a short blog.
On our first day in Seattle, we started out with an Underground tour. We didn’t know too much about what we’d be seeing going into the tour, and we were fascinated to learn about the history of Seattle. When the city was growing during the gold rush years, the settlers needed more land that just wasn’t there due to the sea water from the bay and nearby high cliffs. So they used sawdust from a nearby mill to build new land - not the best material to use! As a result, the city was slowly sinking. The also had a problem with sewage, which was back flowing when the tides came in. So the city built new roads - a couple of metres above street level. They reinforced the roads with beams going deep into the ground, which helped with the sinking issue, and with the sewage pipes being higher that problem
was fixed, too. But now people had to climb up steps on one side of the road and down steps on the other side of the road to get from shops on one side of the road to the other side. There was also the problem of people falling off the sides of the road in the dark and while drunk, and of horses being tethered on the road weeing on the people walking along the sidewalks below. So the city built a roof over the sidewalks. This meant that the street and sidewalks were now even, but the entrances to buildings were now through the second levels of the buildings, and there was an underground walkway below the street for people to come in and out of the first floors of the buildings. But the people of Seattle loved these underground walkways, as they could shop without getting wet in the ever-present rainy conditions of Seattle. (Not only could they shop down there, a lot of the businesses down there were illegal gambling venues, bars & many brothels too. - Craig)
I hope I’ve explained that all in a way that makes sense to the reader back home.
I’m not nearly as good a story teller as the man who ran the tour. He was fantastic! When he found out that we were from Australia, he talked excitedly about having been to Melbourne nine times and travelling around the rest of Australia many times and loving it. It turned out that he was part of Tom Jones (the singer)’s entourage, and they would come across to Australia frequently to play on the Don Lane show.
But back to the underground. Eventually the underground walkways were sealed up, but we were still able to walk through some of them on the tour. There wasn’t a lot down there, as antique dealers had come along throughout the years and stripped the walkways bare. But it was still very interesting being down there, and you could still see some of the storefronts of the buildings. You could also see parts of the concrete on the floor that had sunk at least a couple of feet due to being built on sawdust. So Craig and I found the tour very interesting!
After the tour we went for a walk to check out the Pike Place markets. They are very well
known and there were so many stalls and shops to have a look at. Some parts of the market even had shops underneath street level, so we spent a long time looking around there.
On our next day, which was yesterday, I started the morning at the Harry Potter exhibition. Craig stayed in bed to have a sleep in, as he had no interest whatsoever in a Harry Potter exhibition. He’d well and truly had enough of Harry Potter after Florida! (Stupid Harry Potter! - Craig)
The Harry Potter exhibition was done really well. They had many, many props and costumes from all the movies, including some things from the newest movie that’s just come out. I was lucky that I was able to see it, as it wasn’t going to be in Seattle for much longer. I hadn’t even known it was there either, we only found out about it by reading one of those travel magazines on the plane trip from Alaska. Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take photos so I have nothing to show, but I did buy the official exhibition book so I could remember what I’ve seen.
I then dragged Craig out
of bed and we went to check out the Experience Music project and the Science Fiction museum. The Experience Music project had a lot of things that someone who played music would find awesome, but as Craig and I don’t we didn’t really spend too long in there. They had an exhibition on Jimi Hendrix, and they had all different instruments that you could play either by itself or with a soundtrack of your favourite artists. They also had a stage on which you could play and pretend to be in a band playing a concert with a crowd screaming for you. So like I said, I could see someone who had more of an interest in that absolutely loving the place.
Craig and I spent a bit more time in the Science Fiction museum. It was pretty small, but they had some cool stuff from the Star Wars movies, Star Trek, the Matrix, Battlestar Gallactica, ET, Planet of the Apes and a lot of other TV shows and movies. We both enjoyed having a look around there.
We then went up the Seattle Space Needle. It was a foggy day, but we still had pretty good views
of the city. Craig particularly enjoyed it, he loves being at the top of buildings on observation decks.
There’s not too much more to say about Seattle. Craig and I are currently waiting at the Greyhound bus station in Vancouver. We caught a bus from Seattle to Vancouver this morning, and we have a two hour wait here before hopping on a bus up to Whistler. We’re both very excited to be going snowboarding and skiing tomorrow!
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