Seattle

Seattle... lots of dogs, bikers (the self-propelled kind) and North Face gear.

Really only had one day in town so tried to see stuff that I didn't get to the last time I was here. Woke up fairly early and headed down to Fremont, the "quirky" neighbourhood just north of downtown. They pride themselves on being weird, so have a whole bunch of suburban art installations (the Fremont Troll, the Interurban collection of bus stop denizens, a statue of Lenin salvaged from the collective Russian statue toppling, etc etc). There's also a park that is actually a reclaimed gas refinery, named (appropriately) Gas Works Park. The playground there consists of some rusty mock gas refinery equipment.... didn't see any kids there though. :P

walked along the sound to the University of Washington, there was an interesting monument just across the street from the Applied Physics building. Were they trying to tell us something...

The campus is pretty nice, lots of neat architecture, and a skateboarder's dream of a central space.

From there, walked across the bridge to Capitol Hill, a hipster neighbourhood known for indie music and coffee shops. By that time my toast and orange breakfast was hours back and I was getting pretty footsore, so resolved to stop for some pho noodles that I heard were in the neighbourhood. If only I could find it...

Realized after about 2 hours of walking that Capitol Hill isn't right across the bridge, it's a couple neighbourhoods south of it. >_< By the time I reached it, I was so hungry I ducked into the first food purveyor I saw, which turned out to be a tasty Japanese place that served specialty sake. Figured that if I wanted to make it back to the hostel in one piece I'd better lay off the sauce, so just gorged on unagidon instead. Best BBQ eel on rice I ever ate!

Walked around the neighbourhood a bit, stopped into Wall of Sound to see if they had the CD I was looking for (they didn't, but did have a copy of Kid Koala, a Montreal scratch artist who releases comics with his discs; were also playing some experimental music with lots of distortion, clicks and squeals...). Went to Bauhaus for a latte and some people watching (also some dog watching, lots of dog walkers). There was a weird sundog (only one) that appeared around 4 pm....


Checked out the local concert clubs to see if there was anything I wanted to check out that night, but by the time I got back to the hostel my feet hurt so bad I could barely put them down on the ground (yes, I walked back). Decided to call it a day and chilled for the night. Seeing as I had to wake up at 6 the next morning it was probably a good idea anyways.

For more pictures, see the following album:

Vancouver & Seattle

Tried to lug my stuff to the Sheraton airport shuttle, then spent 20 minutes trying to find the elusive hotel. Gave up at the Westin and hopped in a cab, which cost me about $30... darn phantom hotels... Caught Southwest down to San Fran; they have this weird queueing system where they give you a letter and a number to designate when you're allowed to go find a seat (general boarding), and you had to line up according to your combination between marked poles. Everyone was confused though because the poles rotated to show different letters/numbers. Self-defeating efficiency...

Made it to San Francisco around noon, where it was warm, sunny and all around the best weather I've seen since starting the trip! Got picked up by Trish, Dall and Linda in their car, and drove around Oakland trying to find lawn chairs and BBQ food for the gathering later that day (un/successful respectively). After dropping off the luggage, headed over to the house that they are in the process of buying/moving into, and spent the afternoon/evening making food, eating and drinking with the Beatty clan :).

cheers, Ange