Seattle Day 3

Well we got up early again this morning as we had another full day planned. We started by walking to Pike Place Market.

Our first stop was for coffee at the original starbucks and then breakfast at a local cafe (local color i believe it was called).

We headed back to the market but it was still early.  The market itself does not appear to open until around ten (the touristy part at least).  Between the hours of nine and ten it became very crowded as the stores opened up.  We entered by the famous pig.  You will see it near the flying fish area.

 It is where most people will be standing around staring at the fish mongers.  The pig is a bronze life-size statue with a story behind it which I cannot recall.  The pig itself is a piggy bank collecting money for seattle area charities. The fish begin to fly about every ten minutes and they are very entertaining.  They will pose with you and your family for pictures and do not push their tip jar on you.  They sell all sorts of shirts and sweatshirts at their market as well as whole fish, crab, and everything in between. 

The stores are located underneath the main market area (across the street is where you will find many of the cafes) we stopped at the magic shop which was not impressive. Overall it felt very similar to the inner harbor (baltimore) and faneuil hall (boston). We were done shopping within an hour and didn't find anything to buy. After looking around we went in search of the gum wall in post alley. Jason found it disgusting, lindsay thought it was awesome. It seems to have grown in recent years from the stories we have heard. If you are trying to find it, any of the local salespeople will be able to help but it is near the market theater.

After the gum wall we headed to the waterfront to the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. It was very crowded. It's definately walkable, as you don't have to climb up any of the big hills, but you do need to go down the hill to get to the piers. It was maybe a half a mile and you will pass 6 or 7 or 10 coffee shops on your way.  The curiosity shop had a lot of oddities hanging from the ceiling and museum pieces not for sale. Definately worth visiting and won't take you more than 20 minutes to walk through. Its at pier 54.

From there we stopped at Ivars for chowder. At this location they had a sit down restaurant and a boardwalk style counter where you could order and sit on the patio or heated patio sections, both of which were on the harbor. We shared a cup of New England clam Chowder which was quite good. We are from the Northeast and found this to be one of the best chowders we have had.

Next we walked to Pioneer square and occidental park. If it werent for the map I had I wouldn't have known I was there. They are both very small and unremarkable. In Pioneer square you will find a totem pole, the cities oldest restaurant (merchants cafe) and a Docs saloon which is the starting point for the underground tour. We skipped that, have to leave something for next visit. Its not worth going for the totem pole if you are headed to alaska. Occidental park was more of a gravel area with two sculptures. We stopped for some pictures and then kept on our walking tour.

We then walked to the waterfall garden. A tribute to UPS. It was a nice find and we stayed for a few minutes until we began to get harrassed by locals for spare change.

From there we went to the gold rush museum (free) and good for kids and a way to get excited about the upcoming alaska trip (we were scheduled to go on the yukon train which follows the gold rush trail of 1898. There was a school field trip there when we arrived and the students seemed to be enjoying themselves. It is run by the park ranger service

Across the street was zeitgeist coffee where we stopped to get a cup before our next adventure. We took the bus (124) out to the museum of flight. It was 2.25 per person on the way down and 2.50 on the way back since it was rush hour. There were a ton of bus stops in the area and we just had to wait to find our number. On the way down we paid as we exited the bus, on the way back to downtown we paid as we got on. Not sure how the system works in Seattle, but we did as we were told. The bus was crowded but we were able to find seats. It took about 40 minutes to get down there and the museum is directly on the bus line, you just need to walk across the street.

There are two flight museums in Seattle, one to the north and one to the south. This was the Museum of Flight (the one in the south). The museum had exhibits for WWI and WWII planes, space flight, and modern aircraft. They also had an airfield where you can board a former air force one (from JFK) and the concorde (which was closed the day we were there). There are also several other large aircraft you can walk up to and under. The coolest part was the third floor observatory which looks out onto the very active runway. They have the live airtraffic controllers for boeing airfield being played in the room. We also did the flight simulator ride. Note: you must have 2 people to be able to ride this ride. Lindsay couldn't chicken out. Lindsay doesn't like rollercoasters but she wanted Jason to get the experience so she went for the ride. It wasn't that bad- its all self controlled so you don't have to do the 360 degree turns if you don't want to. We have been to the air and space museum in DC and Jason thought this was better. It was much more hands on.

We spent about 3 hours in the museum and then it was time to hit the gift shop and catch our bus back to downtown. We took Bus 124 back up but this time got off at Safeco field as we were going to the mariners game tonight. We got there at 5 oclock and they let us in to a holding area which overlooks the visitors bullpen. You could watch the mariners BP and CJ Wilson was getting his off day work in so we got some great shots of that. At 5:10 they opened the real gates and you had access to the whole stadium. Very different than Yankee stadium where you need tickets for the section to get behind the plate during BP. We walked the stadium, checked out their hall of fame and decided we are glad we are yankee fans (yes, i know, typical yankee fan attitude) I will say it was nice to pay less than what we paid for one opening day ticket(second to last row in the stadium) for two tickets, second row at safeco field. The Mariners lost, but we only stayed till the 7th as it was cold and we had to be up early for the train in the morning.

 looks like they were hazing their rookies.

After the game we took the light rail back up to our hotel. Again maybe someone from seattle can help explain this but we bought our ticket at the station and no one ever collected it, it didn't open doors for me, and basically I have no idea why I needed it. The same thing happened when we used the light rail from the airport. How does it work out here? We stopped for some late night food at PF chengs (this is now more times than i have been to the one at home) and chatted with our bartender friend once again. We found there was not much to do at night in this city and things seemed to close early at least in the area we were in. We did not go to Belltown or pioneer square at night. Several people warned us we wouldn't want to walk around PS at night.

Well it was off to bed as the alarm was set for 6pm so we could head to the amtrak station in the morning and finally make it to the Radiance!

Tip of the day: Wear comfortable shoes- lots of walking and we didn't see too many yellow cabs. If you only have the two days eat street food, don't waste time sitting at a restaurant.