Tag Archives: Seattle

Jul14

A Washington Adventure – Exploring Seattle

Posted on by
Standard

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday – 16-June-2022 through 18-June-2022


It’s been a while since I’ve had an adventure like this, hasn’t it? One big adventure with a few different blog posts dedicated to it? Well… Here we go! Adventure to Seattle, solo-style!

A while back, I was granted citizenship to Austria, through an update to the Austrian Constitution allowing repatriation for descendants of those displaced by war. I compiled paperwork over six months, sent it all in, and then waited almost nine months. Then, out of the blue, I get a package in the mail – a very official package with my “Bescheid” included – my new citizenship!

Now that I have it, though, I need a passport… and the closest consulate is in Seattle. I haven’t been for a few years, and I’ve never had an opportunity to either explore the city on my own or to go backpacking in the Olympic National Forest… which happens to be right across Puget Sound from Seattle…


I’ve listened to the entire Halo soundtrack, every single game, through. 27 hours of orchestral glory, start to finish.

I’ve rocked out in the office to 10-hour playlists of techno, and I’ve burned gasoline to the discography of Angels and Airwaves, Breaking Benjamin, and more.

Somehow, I’ve never listened to a single complete album by Pink Floyd.

I mean, I’ve listened to Roger Water’s solo album, Radio KAOS, countless times… but the band that made him famous? Never listened. So that’s what I did on the drive up to Seattle. Listened through Pink Floyd, cruised the I5, and enjoyed the wind in my hair.


I arrived in Seattle almost exactly when I aimed to, thanks to some lovely lack of traffic, and quickly got myself checked into the hotel I’d booked. Now, I could have gone with a standard Hyatt or Marriot… and I could easily have booked some fancy penthouse suite on AirBnB… but frankly, both of those would have been expensive. I was hoping to just enjoy a relaxing adventure where I could get a sense of Seattle itself, and sequestering myself away in a fancy apartment or a sterile hotel didn’t quite do it for me.

Instead, I’d booked a room at the Panama Hotel – A hotel, to be sure, but one with an interesting history… It was a cornerstone of the “Japantown” district of Seattle, from before World War II. Which, if my dear readers remember their history, was emptied of its populace during the war. Those people were sent to internment camps in the central United States under the (hopefully) now infamous Order 9066.

When they were removed, many couldn’t carry all their belongings… and so stored them in the Panama Hotel. Many of those belongings are still on display at the hotel, in a small tea shop below the rooms. Their previous owners never able to collect them.

When I saw this hotel, I knew it was the right place to stay. It was perfect symmetry – I was in Seattle to reclaim what was taken from my Grandfather… so it was right that I at least pay homage to a group that suffered a similar fate.


Without diving into a history lesson (Feel free to review the links below, if you’d like more background on the Panama Hotel), the hotel was perfect. It was lived-in! The room was small, but comfortable. It had a shared bathroom and shower, and I felt like I was back on the road again during my earlier adventures, staying in small hostels. The tea shop was a perfect morning haunt, and it was perfectly located so that I could wander around town when I wasn’t at my Passport appointment.

And did I wander! I tracked over 7 miles every day of simple walking.

I wandered the waterfront, explored small parks, and appreciated the interesting graffiti art that I found all over town. I followed whatever path I felt at the time, and reveled in the freedom from timelines and tasks. The simple joy of wandering, and enjoying the world around me.

Two places of note that I want to mention specifically, though:
– Whiskey Bar. Aptly named, I went here two nights in a row to sample there amazingly impressive selection. Whiskey and scotch all the world over… including a brand-new Israeli distillery that ages their whiskey in the dead sea!
– Fuji Sushi. A restaurant right across from the Panama Hotel, they had amazing sushi! I mean… just enjoy the photos. I can’t even describe how good it was, and how full I felt by the end!

I don’t have too much else to add, here. I enjoyed, I wandered… what I said above. It was lovely!


As an extra – Some of the street art that I saw!



And, an extra-extra – but more somber extra – a beautiful memorial that I found one evening while wandering the city. A collection of names, but also of quotes from the past… a reminder that any conflict is always about death, and that each tallied death in a conflict is a unique life lost.





Interesting Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Hotel_(Seattle)
http://www.panamahotelseattle.com/

Apr20

The beginning of 2019 – Visiting Seattle with my Mom and Steve!

Posted on by
Standard

Sunday and Monday, 03-Feb and 04-Feb-2019

 

Well, 2019 is turning out to be a pretty family-centric year, isn’t it?  We started out with Sarah’s family in Australia, and now my Mom and Steve are coming to visit!  Out plan was pretty ambitious, I’ll be the first to admit… but ambitious plans are the most exciting, right?

Our plan was to rest in Portland for a day, and then take the car up to Seattle for a few days, before heading back in Portland for a bit of rest and downtime before they had to fly back home.  Busy, but it’d be a chance for my Mom to finally see Seattle, and was a good way to make sure that we didn’t stagnate in one place too long.  And I’m happy to report that it went quite well!

 

Episode 1: Portlandian Adventures

Sunday and Monday, 03-Feb & 04-Feb-2019

 

The adventure began, as if often does, in the airport with a furry Wonder Woman walking at our heels.

Ollie doesn’t know that the airport is where people get on metal machines to thunder through the sky – all she knows is that the airport is a friend store.  We go there, and either pick up a friend who we haven’t seen in a while, or return a friend who’s been staying with us.  Either way, it’s a trip in the magic adventure box (the car), so she’s excited.  She’s less excited about the Wonder Woman costume that she has to wear… but I think she’s become accustomed to it by now.

 

My Mom and Steve landed in the evening on Sunday, so there honestly wasn’t that much for us to do that evening – aside from picking them up from the airport, the biggest excitement was making a quick dinner… which wasn’t that huge of an excitement, since they’d already had a snack before getting on the plane in San Francisco, but still.  Home cooked meals by Ben and Sarah!

 

The main game plan for the week was to relax, unwind, and go to Seattle!  My Mom and Steve hadn’t ever been there, so we were all super excited to spend some time exploring and seeing the sights.  Unfortunately Sarah had to stay home, in order to catch up on some work projects, but we still found a way to enjoy Seattle while staying out of too much trouble…

 

What’d we do in Seattle, you may ask?

  • Chihuly Museum!  This was our main target for the trip – The famous Chihuly museum!  I’ll be honest and admit that I hadn’t heard of Chihuly before planning the trip, but once I looked into him I realized that I’ve seen his work everywhere!  Getting to see a full museum dedicated to his work, and specifically designed to showcase it, was an amazing experience.
  • Space Needle!  We didn’t go up it, thanks to a slightly-ridiculous ticket price, but we wandered around the gardens at the base of the needle, and enjoyed the views that we got.
  • The Seattle underground tour!  Bill Speidel, the probably-famous tour owner, puts on a great tour.  Or, I should say, his tour guides put on a great tour.  Our tour guide was amazing, is what I’m getting at.  The underground tour goes over Seattle’s history, including how the ground level was raised after a huge fire, and a tour of the secret tunnels underneath the city!  Though, there wasn’t a single necromancer, Chaos cult, or rum-running operation, so it was a bit of a bummer.
    Our tour guide rapped for us though, so that makes up for the lack of treasure I’ll say.
  • Pike Place!  We explored Pike Place, and I learned that I was DECEIVED!  When Sarah, David and I went there I was lead to believe that it was only one level… conveniently the level with the flower vendors that Sarah wanted to see.  What I didn’t know was that there’s multiple levels underground!  With a comic book shop!
  • So much food!  We ate a lot, and we ate well.  From diners to German breakfasts, from fancy coffee to awesome fancy dinners, we ate good food.
  • I also got to play on the playground that Sarah and I played on when we were there – it was excellent, and I loved swinging around and climbing all over everything.  Obviously.  Because I’m me, and I have an inescapable need to climb everything all the time forever.

May31

25, 26 & 27-March; adventurous in Seattle! (Exploring Seattle)

Posted on by
Standard
25, 26 & 27-March; adventurous in Seattle! (Exploring Seattle)

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 25-March through 27-March, 2016

We went to Seattle!

A friend of Sarah and I, Dave, lives part time in Seattle.  Seattle is a place that I haven’t been before, but that Sarah thinks is wicked cool (to visit, a little large to live in we think).  If it’s a place, and there’s a reason to go, and it’s only 3 hours driving away…

What I’m getting at, is we went to Seattle!

 

The main goal of the trip was to explore and climb at a place called Frenchman Coulee, outside of the town of Vantage.  But this post is about the adventuring around Seattle that we did, not the climbing.  See how I mimic’d the start of my last post?  That’s ’cause I’m an awesome author.  Totally.

 

Anyways.

We stayed at our friend Dave’s place – a nice apartment right near the center of the Ballard area.  Which, perfectly, was right near some rather awesome bars and at least one really cool restaurant.

Specifically, an amazing South American joint that made amazing… ahh… well. They were sort of like enchiladas? I definitely did the whole, “I’m crying because it’s spicy and awesome but I refuse to stop eating because it’s so good!!” thing for most of the meal. 

 

But that was only one meal – the others were burgers at home (didn’t work out super well, since the grill that we’d planned on using was locked up) and then… the Seattle Pike Place Market!

From what I hear, Pike Place is kind of famous… and from what I saw, for damn good reason.  Seriously… they had everything there, twice.  Delicious food on a stick (that we had for lunch) beautiful flowers (that I got for Sarah) and tons of neat knives / tchotchkes (that we admired… but didn’t buy).  it was like Fanieul Hall in Boston… but a bit bigger, and with fewer insane tourists.  I mean, probably more tourists total, but a larger space, so… fewer tourists per square foot?

 

But so we explored and enjoyed.  We didn’t quite make it up the space needle, thanks to some rather exorbitant prices barring our entry, but we did explore the whole area around the needle.  Especially the fun play park, where we all snuck into the kids area.  It had climbing!  What do you want from me, huh?  Not to climb?  And not to go down a massive slide?

 

Ohh, we also saw the house from UP!  Turns out: it’s a real thing.  Kinda less exciting though… noticable less old men, and very few balloons.  Turns out – it wasn’t an old guy at all.  Instead, a badass woman named Edith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Macefield

 

Then, it was time to leave Seattle (though clearly not forever!).  We took the long way home – stuffing Dave, Sarah and myself into the car, onto a ferry, and into the water.  The ferry was lovely, and gave me a really great chance to see the whole of Seattle… definitely a city I need to visit again.