Seattle Experience
We're on the last leg of our Northwest tour, in Portland. Since it was a travel day, we didn't really do a whole lot, in the sense of going out and seeing things. The drive from Seattle to Portland—
I'm going to interrupt myself here to announce that Barbara just checked the bed for bedbugs. I hadn't even thought about that before now, and now I don't think I'm going to be able to stop thinking about it.
Where was I? Oh, right—the drive from Seattle to Portland was exciting. It rained the whole way, and the spray from other traffic often reduce visibility to 100 yards, maybe less. That's not very far at 70 mph. I need to talk about the place we're staying, the Bluebird Guesthouse, and the fantastic meal we had at the Farm Cafe, but I'll save that for another entry. What I really want to talk about are impressions and experiences in Seattle that I haven't mentioned yet.
We had heard that public transportation in Seattle was not as good as it is in Portland. If that's the case, then the buses in Portland must fly, and pick you up outside your window. Basically, we only touched the car to drive to Kirkland to have lunch with the Tyburski family on Saturday. Otherwise, it just sat, parked outside the B&B, while we rode #10 bus downtown. Further, the buses, some of them anyway, are electric, riding along overhead cables streetcars without the rails. It made me think it would be cool to have cars that could extend similar booms and plug in to the transportation power grid. Also interesting are the bus routes that run through dedicated tunnels under the city. They're like an underground, but quieter. I was impressed by the cleanliness and the convenience of the system, as well as the politeness of the users.
For vegetarians, pizza is often a pretty good choice for a meal.
Pizzerias are common, and one has nearly complete control over the
toppings. We've had three pizzas since starting our tour, two on the Oregon
coast, and one in Seattle. None have been fantastic. The one we had at
the Lumberyard in Cannon Beach gets one star out of five. It was a soggy
bog of cheese with a dull crust. At the Main St. Pizza Co. in
Tillamook we got a pie that was okay, but much too expensive for what it
was: so, two stars. At Toscana
Pizzeria we got the best of the bunch, noted on the menu as the
Di Capra
. It had no sauce as such, but was topped with olive oil,
goat cheese, spinach, roasted red pepper, and kalamata olives. The
toppings were excellent, and well proportioned. I like a stone-baked
crust, though, so even this tops out at 3.5 stars.
When in Seattle, don't try to describe the location of a thing by saying, it's next to Starbuck's. That just doesn't work.
I think a saw Jason Truesdell
in the Pike Place Market sunday evening. I should have said, Hi, are
you Jason? I like your blog,
but as an introvert, all I could
manage was an inward, Oh, I think that's a blogger I like...
For New Year's, I should resolve to be more outgoing. Like Barbara. She's good at that sort of thing.
Also Sunday, we were able to see the exhibition Japan Envisions the West, which had just reopened at the Seattle Art Museum. It was a completely different take on Japanese visual arts from any I've seen before. It demonstrated the effect of European and, later, American influence on Japanese art, as well as how the Japanese aesthetic reverberated through the culture of the west as well. While there, we were able to observe a tea ceremony presented by Urasenke Seattle in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the sister cities relationship between Seattle and Kobe, Japan. Unfortunately, difficult seating arrangments made it had to see as well as we would have liked. Still, live shakuhachi and koto performance and getting to see how many scoops of macha to use in a bowl made it time well spent.
I talked about In The Bowl previously, but it's worth noting that we went there three times during our stay, and mentioned it to everyone we talked to. To give you an idea of the atmosphere, on the walls there was Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Native American iconography. Sunday night, people were hanging out the door; we got a great table by the window, and enjoyed a meal of appetizers. To top off a meal, diners are brought a serving of black sticky rice pudding. Recommended.
Finally:
Dear Seattle,
We had a wonderful time visiting you, but if you'd clean the fallen leaves out of your gutters, your streets wouldn't look like rivers with tiny strips of pavement running down the middle of them.
Signed, me
We were bummed to discover Cake were playing Portland tonight; it would have been a good show to catch. On the other hand, we saved about a hundred bucks by missing it. Tomorrow, which it is already and I'm still up because we're doing laundry, we're visiting the Torii Mor Winery.
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Meanwhile, in Seattle...
Seattle's been a busy place; it's been hard to keep up with making updates. I'm pretty tired, now, so this won't be a scintillating entry.
We're walking everywhere, or taking the bus, and haven't need to use the car since we arrived.
Our luckiest lucky find since arriving is In The Bowl, a hole-in-the-wall, vegetarian noodle place on Olive, just west of Broadway. Hungry and tired, we stumbled in on our way back from the Pike Place market. It was hot, crowded, noisy, and the food was excellent. I hope we make it back before we continue on our next leg.
While at the market we stopped at Beecher's, a cheesemaker. They had finished making with their making for the day, though, and were washing up the make room while we tried samples on the other side of the glass.
Yesterday, we made a stop I've been anticipating: Saké Nomi in the Pioneer Square area. We met the owners, Johnnie and Taiko, and spent an hour and a half sampling premium sake. I learned more about sake and Barbara found out that she likes some sake, after all. (We also have two bottles we have to figure out how to get home.)
Later, we took a turn through the central branch of the Seattle Public Library. It was a building full of surprises, open spaces, bright colors, and, presumably, books.
Today, we took whale watching cruise in Puget Sound aboard the Stellar Sea operated by Salish Sea Charters. It was chilly out on the water. Unfortunately, we spotted no whales, though we did see harbor seals, porpoise, and sea lions.
Tomorrow, we'll be having lunch with a friend of Barbara's out in Redmond, then off to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame at Seattle Center.
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Beautiful Day for a Drive
We got up relatively early this morning to prepare for our drive up the coast on 101 on our way to Seattle. As we broke fast, we took time to appreciate the view from the Old Wheeler Hotel one more time before hitting the road. Though rainy when we woke, by the time we were loading up the car the sun was starting to burn off the overcast and fog.
Before leaving the Oregon coast, we took a walk on Arcadia Beach, just south of Cannon Beach on 101. It was a pretty as we could have hoped—misty, rocky, with the tide rolling in—and it was early enough that we had the whole beach to ourselves...for a while anyway. It felt warmer than I would have thought a temperature in the 40s would. After about an hour of beachcombing and taking pictures and watching the surf, we returned reluctantly to the car.
As we drove northward, Barbara spotted what she first thought to be a hawk overhead, but as we drew closer proved to be a bald eagle. Very cool.
We stopped for lunch at the Blue Scorcher in Astoria. We had a false start when we learned the Scorcher doesn't accept plastic, but they got our orders going while Barbara secured a table amid the thronging elementary school kids who were there on a class trip, and I ran to the bank to secure some fundage. Barbara had salad of fresh greens, red grapefruit, and pomegranate along with some lentil soup. I had the cranberry tempeh sandwich. We agreed our meals were excellent. The sandwich was cranberry relish, butternut squash spread, and tempeh on potato bread; it was like the Thanksgiving meal we skipped on Thursday to make the trip out here.
A squall was rolling across the Columbia River as we crossed the bridge into Washington. We wanted to stop at the Cape Disappointment lighthouse, but we found the trail to it was closed by order of the Coast Guard. I guess that's why they call it Cape Disappointment. While there, though, we enjoyed a fantastic view of the mouth of the Columbia and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
As we continued along 101, the scenery metamorphosed from coastal to
temperate rain forest, dark as night as you stared into it, and the
mountains gave was to lower, flatter terrain. Another rain squall
crossed our path as we began to work our way around Willapa Bay, and as
we rounded a curve, putting the sun at our back, the sky burst forth in
the most vivid rainbow I have ever seen. It looked close enough to
touch, and we squinted across the tops of the foliage trying to catch
sight of the pot of gold; no gold, ultimately, but the scene was
<description mode="superlative">you know,
awesome</description>.
Hitting I-5 was an abrupt transition from the rural and coastal to dense urban traffic. Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle sprawl together, and I-5 was blanketed with cars from the moment we hit it until we found our exit. Downtown Seattle suddenly appeared out of the darkness as we rounded a curve, a riot of brightly lit highrises and skyscrapers, a northern landmark on the SEATAC approach pattern.
In Seattle, we're staying at the Shafer Baillie Mansion B&B, a sprawling house tastefully bedecked in an English Arts and Crafts style. After the hotel in Wheeler, with its closely-arranged rooms and whirring heater, it seems very quiet.
We know we've found civilization again, because we're surrounded by
Thai and Ethiopian restaurants, cars and people. It's loud and brightly
lit, and there are scruffy guys that walk down the street shouting at
themselves. As we shared our bamia,
gomen, and wots at the Queen Sheba on John Street,
listening to the half-drunk Microsoft Evangelist
at the next
table loudly tell her date about all her former boyfriends and their
messy breakups, we asked ourselves, should we have just stayed on the
coast?
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