Seattle

Random pictures from around Seattle

Downtown skyline taken from Alki Point, west of the city. The Spaceneedle is the tower building on the left.

Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle has quite a heavy port area and shipping is obviously a major industry here.

Easiest way to surprise a coaster-nerd. As it turns out there used to be a park on Alki Point but it closed in the 20s. I guess this coffee shop (that's what it was advertising) is named that for nostalgic reasons.

Kerry Park is NW of the city and offers a great view over the downtown area.

The SpaceNeedle and surrounding complex is a short monorail ride away from Westlake Park, which is main transport hub in the city.

The Space Needle sits on the old World's Fair site and at one time was the tallest structure in Western America. Not anymore though. Unfortunately having had a great day yesterday, the weather today was a bit murkier and the view from the top wouldn't have been that great...so I didn't bother going up it.

Instead I spent some time next door in the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Hall of Fame building next door. This was funded by Microsoft, who have a big presence in the city, and houses various exhibitions on stuff I like: music, movies and games.  

The main exhibition in the Music section was on Seattle's own Nirvana with a history of the band and music retrospective for you to listen too. Quite a good exhibition and I spent quite a bit of time just reading about the history of the band.

At one end of the complex is a huge video wall that shows documentaries and live clips. How can you possibly not sit and watch an Imax sized Hendrix performance :)

A pretty cool installation. Some of the instruments reportedly play tunes, but I didn't see it happen.

In the Science Fiction section they had a collection of memorabilia and an exhibition on horror movies.

It would be cool if they hooked this up to the fire alarm. Danger! Danger!

Creature from the Black Lagoon. A good mix of old and new.

Some recorded director interviews feature in the exhibition. Here Eli Roth comments on Hostel and how it upset Americans because people were being killed purely for being from the US. Being European that's something that I'd not appreciated in watching it and explains perhaps why it wasn't so notoriously promoted as the American reviews would seem. 

Blade 2 I think. This was the one that starred Luke Goss from 80s boy band Bros. Coincidentally his brother Matt has a show in Vegas. When will they be famous?

Bad Ass!

I spent more time down here than in the music wing and was quite happy to stay here than go city exploring, which I'd usually do. School kids were in here, I wonder if they'd be able to sit through these film showings?

John Landis giving an interview on An American Werewolf in London.

Interactive art installation which makes your horrifies your silhouettes. I think I got a pinhead variant.

So cool to see Watchmen feature in an exhibition. Geek heaven!

Kirk's captain chair.

A greater spotted dalek.

I think this is Stargate. I never watched it.

The Matrix. I did watch that.

This needs no description. 

From the museum I then decided to catch the monorail back and head into the downtown area for a quick walk. 

The most famous attraction in the city is the fish market. At the start of the day this is a heaving attraction with fish being chucked about. I'd gotten here a little too late for that and all the fish was out on display.

A good selection of fish, but I'm only here to look. 

I followed directions to what I thought was the original Starbucks, but it's not. I'd walked past it because it doesn't have the same branding (it's back in the market area). No big deal, I don't drink at the place anyway. I just thought it would be interesting to find it.

Now I did find this on the way though, so it wasn't all that bad! 

Some other random graffiti I found in a narrow alley.

The downtown area is well served with public transport, which I'd used in the morning to get me into town. I benefited from a broken money machine, which meant I got to ride for free, bonus!

A show called "spank"? I wonder that kind of show that might be. It's a 50 shades parody apparently.

From downtown it was a quick metro ride to the SEATAC airport (so called because it sits between Seattle and Tacoma). For lunch I had some of that locally sourced fish, and a beer called rather amusingly "Scuttlebutt".

Seattle is quite a nice city, similar in temperature to London, it doesn't offer sunny climes but has a nice personality and friendly people. It's also easy to get about the downtown centre, and the museum was great!