Seattle

  Seattle, Washington, United States
Saturday, July 5, 2008

Canberra to Seattle
Saturday 5/7/08 

We've arrived safely!!  

We made the long-haul Sydney to San Francisco flight, then transferred to Seattle.

Boeing 747-400

  Crossing the date line meant that we left Sydney at 2:40pm Saturday and arrived in Seattle at 2:15pm Saturday!

And for future reference, we've learned to not say
"You're not interested in any drugs, are you?"
to Customs officers!  Luckily this was to the Australian customs officers, and not the other end of the journey.

It's currently the Independence Day long weekend in the USA, and people are relaxed and friendly.  South in California, they're fighting some fairly aggressive bushfires, but here in Seattle there's a lot of rain - it was even sprinkling as we came in (and it's mid-summer).  There is so much green here and so many trees even in the middle of the city (they don't call it the Emerald City for nothing!).

Baseball - Mariners v Tigers

We decided to ward off the jetlag by staying up (does that even work?) and so we headed downtown to catch a baseball game.

Selling 'cotton candy'

  We cheered on the home team, the Seattle Mariners, who ended up narrowly defeating the Detroit Tigers 3-2 in a thrilling eighth innings!

Atmosphere at the ball game

(http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=sea)  It was still light past 9:30pm!
I've never really seen much of baseball before, but it was a great atmosphere and really enjoyable.

Seattle is famous for its coffee, its computers and its aircraft (and I believe Grey's Anatomy? - need someone to check up on this for me).  While we haven't yet been to an authentic Seattle Starbucks, it can't be long...  And tomorrow we're planning to visit the Boeing factory.

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'Ride the Duck' Tour Vehicles

Today we took a 'duck' (I think it's from "DUKW", but it's an amphibious vehicle) tour of Seattle, starting with a commentary on the downtown streets. 

The "Seattle Grace Hospital" aka Fisher Plaza

I was right - Grey's Anatomy is set here, but the building they use for the hospital is in real life actually a ABC (American Broadcasting) Radio building.

Familiar to any Frasier fans?

Also Frasier rated a mention (the skyline in the title screen is Seattle's skyline, the tall building is Seattle's Space Needle). 

Then it was into the water for a tour of all the houseboats and looking back to the city.  The changeover was pretty cool, just drove down a ramp and it floated.  The tour guide was a bit of a jokester, and held up a plug as we went into the water, saying "ooops!".

In the afternoon, we headed to the Boeing factory for a tour.  Everything about it was IMMENSE - the hangers where they build the 747s, 777s and the new as-yet unreleased 787s (starting from $146m and a 9 year waiting list) are the world's biggest buildings.  From the viewing platforms the assembly lines are so intricate.  Unfortunately no photos as all electronic equipment was banned from the tour (including cellphones, which was a bit of a shock to some people on the tour!)

This evening (it's now 8:30 and still light) we headed down to the waterfront for prawns/clam chowder, and Starbucks for coffee and dessert (had to be done!).  Absolutely everything about the food is so much larger (have you ever seen an American "venti"-sized coffee at Starbucks??) and fast food is so much cheaper - I had forgotten how cheap (considering the exchange rate at the moment, even more so).

It's not hot here, about 20 degrees Celsius during the day, but sure warmer than Canberra at the moment!  I believe it will get much warmer in the next leg of the trip - Calgary.  For now though, we'll just be doing a bit more sightseeing in Seattle.

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We took the double-decker "hop on hop off" tour of Seattle, stopping off at places of interest among the way.  One of the highlights was the Pike Place markets (lots of fresh produce, gorgeous CHEAP flowers, arts and crafts, and the original home of Starbucks).  Pike Place markets have no chain stores, except for Starbucks which became a chain store after it began there!
We also stopped off at Nordstrom where I almost bought ruby slippers (very fitting, I thought, for the Emerald City!).
There are lots of public artworks in Seattle, there are laws that enforce a certain percentage of all development be devoted to public space and art.
The view from the Space Needle at sunset was beautiful we had a good couple of hours up there admiring the view then warming up with coffee.  Sunset was late - about 9:30pm!!
We took the underground tour, Seattle for a time was much closer to sea level (which was bad for tides).  When 60-odd square blocks of Seattle burned down in the late 1800s they rebuilt the city metres above, but in the meantime trading had to continue, and so there was a whole underground city!  Seattle claims therefore that they had the first shopping mall.
An exciting shop in Pioneer place called "Utilikilts" - google their website and you'll see what I mean.
We also went to the Experience Music Project (Jimmy Hendrix was born in Seattle) and the Science Fiction museum (lots of Asimov, Star Wars, Star Trek, Jetsons, Matrix... you name it, they've got memorabilia!)
We also visited the world's smallest national park - a building in Seattle city dedicated to the Klondike and the gold rush to Alaska.
In the Seattle airport now - see you in Calgary!!

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Pike Place Markets

The original Starbucks (Pike Place)

Shoes!

The Experience Music Project (EMP)

Seattle's Space Needle

View of Seattle's cityscape

View over Capitol Hill at sunset

Getting dark in Seattle

City lights