After another gorgeous train ride up the coast, I checked into my Seattle Airbnb in the neighborhood of Hillman City, which is quite far south of downtown. My time in Seattle was split into two distinct halves; I would alternate between unknown, local spots in Hillman City and touristy places in the city center. For the first 36 hours, as I was developing photos and working on my Portland blog post, I stayed entirely in the neighborhood, quite content to explore the nearby cafes, ethnic restaurants, and alehouses.
On Thursday night, I met up with Craig and Yoko, a lovely couple I had met in Chiang Mai while we were all volunteering. They happily gave me a car tour of most of the city en route to a great Thai restaurant, where we had a delicious and nostalgic round of khao soi. For dessert, we walked to Hot Cakes, a "molten chocolate cakery" that is so popular that the line extended down the block. Once I realized they had boozy shakes, I couldn't help treating myself to the "Drunken Sailor": ice cream, peanut butter, caramel, and whiskey. (Well, I guess technically it was a "Vegan Drunken Sailor" since I opted for coconut ice cream.) Let me tell you, it was $10 very well spent.
The following morning, in addition to publishing my blog post and knocking out a few other errands, I needed a haircut, so I walked over to the only barbershop close by, which just happened to be a black barbershop. (I guess now's a good time to mention that, according to NPR, Hillman City's zip code is the most diverse in the entire country. White, black, Asian, Indian, Muslim, Italian, African, you name it.) As I got my hair cut, we all watched the latest Ferguson news - the protests had been happening for a few days by this point - and talked about what was happening. I wish I could say it was a barrier-breaking interracial exchange, but in reality it was mostly informative, as some people in the shop didn't know all the details and had to be caught up by everyone else.
With all my work out of the way, a haircut and a shower completed, and a sunny Friday afternoon to look forward to, I made my way downtown. I walked around SoDo, downtown, the waterfront, and anywhere else that was easily reachable on foot. As I walked around the stadiums area - which is very much the lions' den for me since I'm a Niners fan - I noticed that it felt too energetic, active, and populated for a random Friday, until I looked up at the huge banner on the side of the stadium and noticed that the first preseason home game was happening that very evening. I glanced down at myself and realized that, between my clothes and my sunglasses, I was wearing Seahawks colors. I left immediately to avert any awkward (and potentially turbulent) situation involving lingering, unrequited high-fives from Seattle fans.
In direct contrast to the very local experiences of the previous day and a half, Friday afternoon was a lot of very touristy sightseeing, for better or worse. In addition to the stadiums, I wandered through all of downtown, walked through all the floors of the public library, dipped briefly into the chaos that is Pike Place Market, and walked along the waterfront.
In the late afternoon, I met up with a new friend for coffee at the market. She had just moved back to Seattle from Canada and within a couple weeks had already been offered a great job (way to go Jenny!), so to celebrate we went to a local sports bar for beers and food and to watch the game. I was happy to set aside our gridiron differences - she was sporting her Seahawks jersey - in the name of celebrating her recent good news.
That same afternoon, after posting something on Facebook about being in Seattle, I received a message from Aisha, an old SF friend (who now lives in San Antonio), saying that she would be in Seattle for the weekend with her friends. Not five minutes after Jenny went home for the evening, Aisha and her friends showed up and we went barhopping for a few hours, ending up at a Chinese restaurant in the ID (International District) at 2:30 in the morning.
Not surprisingly, Saturday morning was slow and lazy, and it was already early afternoon before I reached the Columbia Center, my first stop of the day. It's a much better lookout and photo-taking spot than the Space Needle; it's 50% taller, half the price, and much less popular with tourists. Plus, how are you supposed to get photos of the iconic Space Needle if you're inside of it? I'm still not sure why every tourist goes there.
Afterwards, since it was gorgeous day, I walked over to Seattle Center, where I ran into Aisha and her friend, an unlikely event considering we had no plans to meet during the day and there are literally millions of people in Seattle. I got the feeling they had just been talking about me because as I walked up and said hi, Aisha turned to me and said: "Oh my god, why are you here? This is creepy."
It turned out to be a perfect chance meeting, as her friend Zoe lives in Seattle and drove us around for the rest of the afternoon so we could visit several of the important sights: Gas Works Park, Ballard Locks (and the fish ladder), and Kerry Park at sunset. The locks were easily my favorite as they're a really interesting and impressive feat of engineering. They were also quite busy while we were there, so we watched lots of boats quickly rising up in the locks as they passed from the saltwater of the sound to the freshwater of the lakes. There was even a massive piece of construction (highway or bridge or maybe even both) - conveniently sized to fit precisely in the locks - being pushed through by a tugboat.
That night, Monty Banks, a New Orleans jazz musician/entertainer and, more applicably, a friend of Craig and Yoko, was playing at Vito's, an Italian restaurant and lounge, so I sent out messages to all my Seattle friends in the hopes they would all converge. I arrived early and sat with Craig and Yoko, Monty's mother (who was a delight), and some of their friends, chatting, ordering drinks, and listening to the music. One by one, my friends started showing up as well, and the task of introductions became exponentially more difficult as I tried to connect the dots for everyone. At one point, Craig and Yoko (Chiang Mai volunteers), Aisha (SF) and her friends, Karan (a cousin of a good bay area friend), and Eric (another friend I met in Chiang Mai, albeit for only 20 minutes at a bar) and his girlfriend were at the table together. It was really fun to have so many different people in one place; Monty's music and the ambiance at Vito's combined to make the perfect backdrop too. As we were saying goodbye, Craig reminded me and all others within earshot that I used to pull the same shenanigans in Chiang Mai too. What can I say? I like having fun with all the people.
After a full two days, Sunday was really lazy, consisting mostly of photo editing and trip planning on my laptop, which was more stressful than usual after my third consecutive Airbnb request for Victoria had expired. I grabbed some beers with Jenny in the afternoon sunshine, but other than that, nothing too noteworthy happened beyond sleeping for about twelve hours that night. It was nice to rest up before starting a new city (and country) the next day.
I've been trying to come up with a deep or profound assessment of Seattle, but my thoughts keep coming back to the same place: it's so much like San Francisco! Actually, more accurately, it's just like San Francisco + Oakland. A friend of a friend that I met in Portland, who has spent significant time in the bay area, Seattle, and Portland, warned me that I would find Seattle to be very similar to SF, and he was dead on. Downtown areas with skyscrapers, lots of coffee shops, water on multiple sides, aggressive hills, a touristy seafood-based area on the waterfront, large tech companies outside of the city proper with shuttles and millionaires, a very diverse population and food culture, a section of downtown with lots of vagrants and homeless people, a big Asian neighborhood, proximity to the Pacific Ocean, and even an iconic tall landmark with a pointy top. Sound familiar?
Of course, I realize that if things had been reversed - namely, if I had lived in Seattle before ever visiting San Francisco - I'd think that San Francisco is the Seattle of California, rather than thinking Seattle is the San Francisco of the Pacific Northwest. As they say in Thailand, same-same.
The one difference I noticed is that packs of tourists seemed to be everywhere in downtown Seattle. In SF, if you avoid Union Square and the cable car turnaround, you'll hardly see any tourists downtown. I asked a Seattle friend about this and he confirmed that yes, there are lots of tourists in Seattle and somehow they are present year-round, even during the rainy season. I guess that's one point for the bay area. Another point would be a hell of a lot more Super Bowl trophies and World Series championships. Oooohhh, Seattle sports slam!
All that said, I had a great time in Seattle, especially with all the people I know, and was a bit sad to leave. Monday was a travel day, so I packed my things and went to the waterfront to catch the Clipper, a high-speed ferry that travels between Seattle and Victoria. The ride was smooth and beautiful, unlike the last time I took a high-speed ferry to an island. And on top of that, I got to use my passport again!
Full photo album: Seattle
On Thursday night, I met up with Craig and Yoko, a lovely couple I had met in Chiang Mai while we were all volunteering. They happily gave me a car tour of most of the city en route to a great Thai restaurant, where we had a delicious and nostalgic round of khao soi. For dessert, we walked to Hot Cakes, a "molten chocolate cakery" that is so popular that the line extended down the block. Once I realized they had boozy shakes, I couldn't help treating myself to the "Drunken Sailor": ice cream, peanut butter, caramel, and whiskey. (Well, I guess technically it was a "Vegan Drunken Sailor" since I opted for coconut ice cream.) Let me tell you, it was $10 very well spent.
The following morning, in addition to publishing my blog post and knocking out a few other errands, I needed a haircut, so I walked over to the only barbershop close by, which just happened to be a black barbershop. (I guess now's a good time to mention that, according to NPR, Hillman City's zip code is the most diverse in the entire country. White, black, Asian, Indian, Muslim, Italian, African, you name it.) As I got my hair cut, we all watched the latest Ferguson news - the protests had been happening for a few days by this point - and talked about what was happening. I wish I could say it was a barrier-breaking interracial exchange, but in reality it was mostly informative, as some people in the shop didn't know all the details and had to be caught up by everyone else.
With all my work out of the way, a haircut and a shower completed, and a sunny Friday afternoon to look forward to, I made my way downtown. I walked around SoDo, downtown, the waterfront, and anywhere else that was easily reachable on foot. As I walked around the stadiums area - which is very much the lions' den for me since I'm a Niners fan - I noticed that it felt too energetic, active, and populated for a random Friday, until I looked up at the huge banner on the side of the stadium and noticed that the first preseason home game was happening that very evening. I glanced down at myself and realized that, between my clothes and my sunglasses, I was wearing Seahawks colors. I left immediately to avert any awkward (and potentially turbulent) situation involving lingering, unrequited high-fives from Seattle fans.
In direct contrast to the very local experiences of the previous day and a half, Friday afternoon was a lot of very touristy sightseeing, for better or worse. In addition to the stadiums, I wandered through all of downtown, walked through all the floors of the public library, dipped briefly into the chaos that is Pike Place Market, and walked along the waterfront.
In the late afternoon, I met up with a new friend for coffee at the market. She had just moved back to Seattle from Canada and within a couple weeks had already been offered a great job (way to go Jenny!), so to celebrate we went to a local sports bar for beers and food and to watch the game. I was happy to set aside our gridiron differences - she was sporting her Seahawks jersey - in the name of celebrating her recent good news.
That same afternoon, after posting something on Facebook about being in Seattle, I received a message from Aisha, an old SF friend (who now lives in San Antonio), saying that she would be in Seattle for the weekend with her friends. Not five minutes after Jenny went home for the evening, Aisha and her friends showed up and we went barhopping for a few hours, ending up at a Chinese restaurant in the ID (International District) at 2:30 in the morning.
Not surprisingly, Saturday morning was slow and lazy, and it was already early afternoon before I reached the Columbia Center, my first stop of the day. It's a much better lookout and photo-taking spot than the Space Needle; it's 50% taller, half the price, and much less popular with tourists. Plus, how are you supposed to get photos of the iconic Space Needle if you're inside of it? I'm still not sure why every tourist goes there.
Afterwards, since it was gorgeous day, I walked over to Seattle Center, where I ran into Aisha and her friend, an unlikely event considering we had no plans to meet during the day and there are literally millions of people in Seattle. I got the feeling they had just been talking about me because as I walked up and said hi, Aisha turned to me and said: "Oh my god, why are you here? This is creepy."
It turned out to be a perfect chance meeting, as her friend Zoe lives in Seattle and drove us around for the rest of the afternoon so we could visit several of the important sights: Gas Works Park, Ballard Locks (and the fish ladder), and Kerry Park at sunset. The locks were easily my favorite as they're a really interesting and impressive feat of engineering. They were also quite busy while we were there, so we watched lots of boats quickly rising up in the locks as they passed from the saltwater of the sound to the freshwater of the lakes. There was even a massive piece of construction (highway or bridge or maybe even both) - conveniently sized to fit precisely in the locks - being pushed through by a tugboat.
That night, Monty Banks, a New Orleans jazz musician/entertainer and, more applicably, a friend of Craig and Yoko, was playing at Vito's, an Italian restaurant and lounge, so I sent out messages to all my Seattle friends in the hopes they would all converge. I arrived early and sat with Craig and Yoko, Monty's mother (who was a delight), and some of their friends, chatting, ordering drinks, and listening to the music. One by one, my friends started showing up as well, and the task of introductions became exponentially more difficult as I tried to connect the dots for everyone. At one point, Craig and Yoko (Chiang Mai volunteers), Aisha (SF) and her friends, Karan (a cousin of a good bay area friend), and Eric (another friend I met in Chiang Mai, albeit for only 20 minutes at a bar) and his girlfriend were at the table together. It was really fun to have so many different people in one place; Monty's music and the ambiance at Vito's combined to make the perfect backdrop too. As we were saying goodbye, Craig reminded me and all others within earshot that I used to pull the same shenanigans in Chiang Mai too. What can I say? I like having fun with all the people.
After a full two days, Sunday was really lazy, consisting mostly of photo editing and trip planning on my laptop, which was more stressful than usual after my third consecutive Airbnb request for Victoria had expired. I grabbed some beers with Jenny in the afternoon sunshine, but other than that, nothing too noteworthy happened beyond sleeping for about twelve hours that night. It was nice to rest up before starting a new city (and country) the next day.
I've been trying to come up with a deep or profound assessment of Seattle, but my thoughts keep coming back to the same place: it's so much like San Francisco! Actually, more accurately, it's just like San Francisco + Oakland. A friend of a friend that I met in Portland, who has spent significant time in the bay area, Seattle, and Portland, warned me that I would find Seattle to be very similar to SF, and he was dead on. Downtown areas with skyscrapers, lots of coffee shops, water on multiple sides, aggressive hills, a touristy seafood-based area on the waterfront, large tech companies outside of the city proper with shuttles and millionaires, a very diverse population and food culture, a section of downtown with lots of vagrants and homeless people, a big Asian neighborhood, proximity to the Pacific Ocean, and even an iconic tall landmark with a pointy top. Sound familiar?
Of course, I realize that if things had been reversed - namely, if I had lived in Seattle before ever visiting San Francisco - I'd think that San Francisco is the Seattle of California, rather than thinking Seattle is the San Francisco of the Pacific Northwest. As they say in Thailand, same-same.
The one difference I noticed is that packs of tourists seemed to be everywhere in downtown Seattle. In SF, if you avoid Union Square and the cable car turnaround, you'll hardly see any tourists downtown. I asked a Seattle friend about this and he confirmed that yes, there are lots of tourists in Seattle and somehow they are present year-round, even during the rainy season. I guess that's one point for the bay area. Another point would be a hell of a lot more Super Bowl trophies and World Series championships. Oooohhh, Seattle sports slam!
All that said, I had a great time in Seattle, especially with all the people I know, and was a bit sad to leave. Monday was a travel day, so I packed my things and went to the waterfront to catch the Clipper, a high-speed ferry that travels between Seattle and Victoria. The ride was smooth and beautiful, unlike the last time I took a high-speed ferry to an island. And on top of that, I got to use my passport again!
Full photo album: Seattle
