Coming home!

Thursday was a long day on the plane, and we were glad to be home.

Seattle was a great city to visit, but my advice--go when the weather is nice!

Wednesday is Art Museum Day

Wednesday we were off to the Seattle Art Museum in the AM and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in the afternoon (and, by the way, you get into both museums in one day with the same ticket--although they are located completely across town from each other). Today's weather was, in a word, c-r-a-z-y. Even the people who lived in Seattle were surprised--let's see--sun in AM, 60 mph winds, turning cloudy and rainy, and lovely hailstorm in the afternoon. We saw some amazing work by Australian aborignal artists--you really had to be there, they were truly fantastic.

Lunch was at Brooklyn Seafood, steak and oyster house, right around the corner from the museum. Dinner is pretty outrageous, but lunch is doable, and the food is excellent. Robert had salmon and I had the yellow snapper. Yum! 
The off to the #10 bus for a ride to the Seattle Asian Art Museum. It's a small museum, set in Volunteer Park, which is quite lovely in nice weather (but not today).

Tuesday: Let's go to a museum!

Tuesday we are off to the University District to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.  They have a very large collection of Northwest Coast native work, which I just love. Their imagery and color palette are so compelling. Here's Robert with a HUGE whale piece that is outside of the museum, and also a photo of a Raven rattle--gorgeous.

In the afternoon, we were back to Pioneer Square, because of course, Robert found a Buddha he had to have at Chidori. Lunch was at Al Boccalino, which got mixed reviews from what I read, but their lunch specials were excellent--I had a pair of risottos (shrimp and salmon), which were amazingly done the way risotto should be, and Robert had minestrone and chicken piccata, not bad for $9.95 each.

Monday is Sculpture Park, Aquarium and Oysters

The Sculpture Park is fairly new, and right on the waterfront (of course, up and down hills all the way). They have an amazing Richard Serra, which is just huge, and sort of gives you vertigo when you walk through it--it really feels like waves.

The Seattle Aquarium is small but very nice. My favorite part of the aquarium are the undersea glass tiles done by an elementary school --they are just beautiful. I found this photo of them online. They have several large tanks, and an outside area with sea otters and river otters which are so cute you could just die. They just don't stay still long enough to take a picture of them. They also have an open tide pool where you can touch everything. I think the best part of the visit is watching the kids. Above is a photo of a scuba diver doing an introduction to the aquarium from the tank!

I could not wait to get to Oyster Happy Hour at Shucker's at the Fairmont Hotel. Many of Seattle's Seafood Bars & Restaurants have oyster happy hours, where the oysters are $1 and drinks are incredibly reasonable. This place is totally out of our league, but not during Happy Hour :) If you have not had the pleasure of tasting West Coast oysters, they are phenomenal--tender, sweet, and lots of variety. We had 3 different kinds (Kumomoto, Evening Cove and Quilcene), a dozen and a 1/2 please :) Just yummy!

Oh, and by the way, here are the stairs we climbed to get from the Aquarium to Shuckers.


Dinner was at a lovely Italian restaurant in Belltown near our hotel called La Vita E Bella. I had been there before, and I knew Robert would love it.

Sunday: Flea Market and Bad Weather

On Sunday we set off for Fremont, a 15 minute bus ride from our hotel, for their Sunday Flea Market. Fremont is sort of a Ferndale-y, Ann Arbor-y, Royal Oak-y feel to it. Flea market was way overpriced, but we found a few things we could not live without. Then off to the Fremont Vintage Mall. Robert had a great time playing with a dinosaur skeleton construction set (see above). They have a huge statue of Lenin (from Slovakia) supposedly found in a ditch after the Iron Curtain fell (or that's at least one of the stories--there are several--just Google Fremont Lenin Statue. And just like us here in the Motor City (I refuse to call us this D business--that's Dallas), Fremont can't seem to resist dressing up their statues either.

Saturday is Gallery Day: Pioneer Square

Seattle has a gallery walk the first Thursday of every month, but we prefer to view the work sans crowds. We picked up a free tunnel bus at the lowest level of Westlake Center and took it to the Pioneer Square station, bright and early--we arrive in Pioneer Square at 10 AM.

Amazing galleries everywhere--we especially enjoyed Kate Hunt's work at Davidson Contemporary and Gallery I/M/A's whimsical and finely crafted works by Ken Edwards. And local folk artist James Martin's work at Foster/White gallery was just fabulous--you really had to be there to appreciate the subtle (or overt) humor in his works. Almost all of the gallery directors and their staff were incredibly gracious and more than happy to talk to us about the artists and the work. The only place we were treated like we were invisible was the Stonington Gallery. I know the work was out of our price range, but that is no excuse for being rude.

And the shopping in Pioneer is excellent too--it is always scary to walk Robert into an Asian Antiques store, and there are many of them in Seattle. Make sure you stop and see Daniel Stalcup at Chidori Asian Antiques--an amazing shop filled with both the affordable and "only for collectors". For anyone who likes rocks and fossils, carved or raw, Agate Designs is the place to stop. Also, the owner has an adorable beagle he adopted (rescued) after the dog put in many years of service as a blood donor dog for cancer research. If the dog is there, ask about him (but be prepared to shed a few tears).

I was determined to stop for coffee, and we really got lucky at Zeitgeist, where I had a soy latte that made me swoon--I swear. This is the real thing folks, and the coffee there was absolutely amazing (great flavor without the acid zing we take for "gourmet" here in the midwest). Notice in the photo above Robert swiping one of my almond chocolate meringue cookies.

For Lunch, we were off to Cafe Paloma Mediterranean Cafe, a lovely spot for lunch--I had the roasted tomatoes which were amazing and I reeked of garlic all day--who cares? I love garlic! And the owners are just adorable. A real old world experience--they make you feel so welcome.

A long walk back via Alaskan Way, which runs along the Piers--stops a Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, one of those weird old stores that has mummy's and shrunken heads along with First Nation work and cheesy trinkets. We then took a walk through Pike Place Market, which has tons of little shops along with the regular market. Luckily, we found an elevator in a parking structure to get up to the market--the "4th story" is actually street level when you get to its other side, so you don't want to take the "scenic stairs" unless you are a real masochist (or it is your first stop of the day). Robert was not interested in the Pike Place Fish "throwing", and I had seen it before--but I would definitely tell anyone going not to miss a stop at Pike Place Fish.

Finally, at 7, we make it back to the hotel, and out for a short (flat) walk to Zeek's Pizza, which was pretty damn good. Crisp crust, zesty sauce! Just how I like it.

Northwest Flower and Garden Show

How serendipitous--the Northwest Flower and Garden Show was on at the conference center, which is somewhere I wanted to take Robert anyway--the artwork in the Conference Center is wonderful, some is for sale, and there are both large and small works, sculpture, mobiles, paintings, all media (again--Detroit [and Michigan], please get a clue--this is what a 1% for art program will do). Generally, you can always go in and walk around the Conference Center--I highly recommend it as a destination.

The Bonsai exhibit had trees that were 100's of years old--amazing. The one pictured above is from 1800, I believe. The craft vendors were amazing, everything from jewelry to flaming cattail sculptures. Lots of wonderful clay and glass works, which I suppose would be OK for outdoors in the Northwest.

And now a word from our sponsor--why, why, why does Detroit or even Michigan not have a 1% for Art program? The impact on Seattle is amazing--there is art EVERYWHERE--and not just big, honking blue sculptures. There are small sculptures and other public artworks throughout the City, it's just amazing--I'll be we saw at least 100 pieces of public art while we were there and we only visited a few select neighborhoods.

Lunch!

Quick stop at the hotel-Travel Lodge Seattle Space Needle--great price, decent room, but tall people would hate the shower (the showerhead is set at short person level-no problem here), no bathtub, hot water sparse. Wi-Fi not the best, but they have 2 computers you can use in the lobby. In the off-season, this hotel is fine, but in the summer, I'd stay away because I am sure it is full of kids. The beds are new and comfy, comfy, which is all I really cared about. And, there is a free breakfast--carbs + sausage and hard-boiled eggs (the same every day) which got us started and they had excellent coffee, available all day in the lobby.

But I digress...

So we are starving on arrival, and are off to Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizza for lunch, a quick 10 minute (NO HILL--this becomes important) walk from our hotel. Lunch is a lovely bean/green soup and pizza margarita with our own twist of added tomato--very nice. They also have a great happy hour that starts at 3, but we are off. By the way--if you go to Seattle, make sure you check out the Happy Hours--the deals are amazing, and usually include a special menu. Everyone talks about the Seattle coffee--but these people take their cocktail hours seriously.

Seattle Transit Rocks!

So here's Robert on the Central Light Link Rail--a 30 minute run that comes every 15 minutes right to the heart of downtown Seattle for $2.50. Detroit, please get a clue.

Leaving for Seattle

Stayed at Comfort Inn to avoid driving in AM snow on Friday. Free parking for 10 days included in room price--only $80. However, after seeing the room, I'd say they should advertise it as free room with paid parking. But the shuttle took us straight to the airport in the AM.

Here we are on the plane. Delayed a bit because of snow. Next stop-Seattle