We swam through the crowds at Pike Place Market where folks (including us) line up for fresh-fried mini doughnuts and a view of flying fish. Pike Place is also the home of a wonderful busking duo who play Pink Floyd favorites on acoustic guitar and accordion with much passion. Awesome.
We sat in a mess of weekend + downtown + midday + sunny day + construction traffic, where we moved three blocks in an hour. Less awesome.
We tried to ride the Duck - an amphibious craft seen all around the city during the summer, full of tourists and an obnoxious driver/tour guide in fuzzy floppy hat. The tourists all have bill-shaped horns around their necks and are instructed to "quack quack quack" at the locals, much to the uptight locals' collective chagrin. The Duck was booked. I'll admit I kind of wanted to ride it once, just to know what it's like from the other side of the plastic quacker.
We went to the Bodies exhibit downtown to see Chinese political prisoners playing soccer and tennis without their clothes or skin. Some aspects of the show were fascinating - especially the displays of the vein systems - like this one of the lungs - colored bright red or blue and suspended without any other tissue - just a delicate, intricate web of brightly-colored threads. Overall, the show had more of a circus sideshow feeling than a medical exhibit. It might not have helped that the "docents" were young kids with shaggy beards and piercings and high leather boots - and white lab coats. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against piercings (had one), beards (see previous post) and leather. But they don't really project medical knowledge at first sight.
We rode the monorail from Seattle Center to downtown and back. A neat ride on a groovy vessel through towering buildings, but it lasts only two minutes. The monorail achieved international fame with its supporting role in the locally-made film Safe Passage.
We took the great glass elevator up up up 540 feet to the tippity-top of the Space Needle. Though it was a bit overpriced and heavily-touristed, this excursion was amazing. You can walk outside to feel the rush of the wind and look down down down to the ground below (always the savvy marketers, you can see the golden arches painted on the roof of a nearby McDonald's) and you can stay inside where they provide tables with Seattle's best view (except that it's missing the Space Needle) and plenty of screens with interactive displays and cameras where you can control the angle and zoom. And you can buy coffee. We lingered up there for quite a while. After living in Seattle more than a year and slowly becoming familiar with different neighborhoods, it was incredibly interesting to stand up there above the city and look at it all patched together in 360 degrees. It was vast and beautiful and intricate and felt like home.
From the observation deck - you can almost see our house from here. No, really! It's across the lake near that tall white building by the base of the long bridge.
Looking east to Capitol Hill, Bellevue and the Cascades
It's windy out there! There's one upper lip that's not feeling the cold.
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