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Published: September 21st 2011
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We arrived in
Seattle and headed straight to the nearby
Pike Place Markets, a labrynth of difference levels of markets culminating in a huge fish market at the top. The shops in the lower part of the market were mostly arty types and I really liked the ones with the old posters and magazines.
Next to the market is also a chewing gum wall, where people just put their chewing gum on the wall, just for fun, and now it is completely covered in gum. Rather disgusting, but in some way art. Only in Seattle could they pull this off as art!
The next morning we headed straight to the
Space Needle to get the overall view of the sprawling city that is built around Lake Union. At the top of the Space Needle we learn just what an ambitious project this was in 1962 and how many speed bumps they encountered along the way - including the fact that nobody wanted to fund it and the engineers had to change the design to make it earthquake proof. The Space Needle is symbolic to Seattle in that it help put them on the map of internationally recognised cities.
We then headed for lunch at an unusual destination, the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is a massive new building next to the Space Needle. Of course, it isn't open to the public, but we have a friend who works there so this was a great place to catch up!
From there we went to the coolest museum I have ever been to, the
Experience Music Project, which started out as a Hendrix museum, but given the amazing Seattle music scene it has now become a massive music museum. We spent 3 hours there and I could have easily spent another 3 hours - a lot of which could be spent watching old concert footage in the huge auditorium room that makes you feel like you are there.
With the 20 year anniversary of the release of Nirvana's highly influential
Nevermind album, there was a massive Nirvana exhibition, which contained many brilliant pieces as well as some interactive videos and music and interviews with key people in the scene. The exhibition was incredibly detailed and well done. As someone who grew up in the Grunge era, I found it fascinating.
But the coolest part of the
museum is the top level though, which contains a recording studio where we belted out
Wild Thing (with the help of a sound engineer and a backing tape). There was also a room that had a stack of instruments which you could play and there was instruction on how to play. Being able to play a little guitar, I was loving all the effects you could add to the guitar and played for ages! There were some people there that could play really well and it was great to watch them too.
After that we were excited to meet up with Maureen who took us to her neighborhood, Capitol Hill, where we checked out a bar and then went to an awesome oyster bay for dinner.
The next day, we got the inside tour from Maureen, who started us with an epic breakfast at
Portage Bay, a great cafe with a huge berry bar. Their motto is "eat like you give a damn" and we sure followed that!
Fueled up, we went to
Kerry Park in Queen Anne Hill to get the panoramic view of the city. Kerry Park is the only view where the Space Needle
actually looks like the highest building in the city. Unfortunately the cloud cover means that we can't see the mountains in the distance.
We then went to
Fremont, which is a really cool suburb of Seattle with lots of random artwork. Fremont is also home to Theo's chocolate factory, which was great. Although I still don't get the American's fascination with mixing sweet and salty things! We get some salted almond chocolate to see if we can be converted. We then checked out some of the random pieces of artwork - most notably the troll under the bridge, the massive Lenin statue and the fake bus stop.
Continuing around Lake Union, we stopped off at
Gasworks Park for more panoramic views of the city and the park is popular for kite flying.
We then went to a food cart rodeo for lunch. Food cart restaurants are extremely popular in Seattle and the rodeo is a huge hit with the locals. We sample from 3 different food vans and the food is amazingly gourmet considering the size of the vans.
We then drove through some other nice suburbs such as Green Lake before doing a quick drive
by Kurt Cobain's house, which has a high fence and security cameras around it, but next door is a park which has a bench in it that people have turned into a small memorial, leaving messages on it.
From there we drove out of Seattle and to
Snoqualmie Falls, one of Washington state’s most popular scenic attractions with more than 1.5 million visitors every year. At the Falls, we walk out to the observation desk to check out the impressive 270 foot waterfall, which also is a hydro power plant.
Our last night in Seattle was interesting. Having had a full-on day with Maureen which culminated with a beer at the classy bar
Spur off 2nd Avenue with our other friend, we got back to our hotel around 1am in need of sleep. Just before 2am, the fire alarm was triggered and our whole hotel had to evacuate onto the street. By the time the (false) alarm turned off we finally got to bed at 3am, meaning that we left on our early morning flight to Hawaii in a very sleep-deprived state!
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