Our vacation ended in Seattle, doing more touristy stuff.
We Google-mapped the walking distance between our hotel and the Space Needle, and found that it was only 1/2 mile (17 minutes walking) away. We decided to walk there to check out the area instead of driving and parking. Our $18 parking fee from the day before at the waterfront, and the $24 charge to park at our hotel sort of ruined the driving for us.
We hit up Starbucks on Lake Union for iced tea and a snack, then started our walk. What Google Maps didn't tell us that our route was not pedestrian-friendly. We ended up with a short detour so that we didn't have to walk through a tunnel that smelled of pee and beer.
The Space Needle is in a park right in the city. I think that some of the photos of Seattle are misleading - I always thought it was near the water. It's definitely not. Also in the same area are the Science Center, Children's Museum, Experience Music Project, and the Monorail.
We hit up the Space Needle first, as there was no line at the time. Good call on our part, as when we left, the line had grown to 40-ish people long!
The elevator ride to the top is a little freaky - the front of the elevator is glass so you can see out as you're flying up to the observation deck. Yeah, a little scary. But once at the deck, the views were incredible! You can pretty much see the entire city from up there. It wasn't windy or cold at all - quite pleasant, actually. And there's a Starbucks up there too. :-)
We Google-mapped the walking distance between our hotel and the Space Needle, and found that it was only 1/2 mile (17 minutes walking) away. We decided to walk there to check out the area instead of driving and parking. Our $18 parking fee from the day before at the waterfront, and the $24 charge to park at our hotel sort of ruined the driving for us.
We hit up Starbucks on Lake Union for iced tea and a snack, then started our walk. What Google Maps didn't tell us that our route was not pedestrian-friendly. We ended up with a short detour so that we didn't have to walk through a tunnel that smelled of pee and beer.
The Space Needle is in a park right in the city. I think that some of the photos of Seattle are misleading - I always thought it was near the water. It's definitely not. Also in the same area are the Science Center, Children's Museum, Experience Music Project, and the Monorail.
We hit up the Space Needle first, as there was no line at the time. Good call on our part, as when we left, the line had grown to 40-ish people long!
The elevator ride to the top is a little freaky - the front of the elevator is glass so you can see out as you're flying up to the observation deck. Yeah, a little scary. But once at the deck, the views were incredible! You can pretty much see the entire city from up there. It wasn't windy or cold at all - quite pleasant, actually. And there's a Starbucks up there too. :-)
Views from the Space Needle, and us on the deck!
Afterward, we wandered around the gift shop and bought a souvenier magnet. (We collect magnets from places we visit. Cheap and useful). Then we headed to Experience Music Project.
Experience Music Project was AWESOME! I would not recommend it if you're not into music. But I totally am, so I was in heaven.
It's sort of like an interactive museum. You can rent IPods downloaded with information on the exhibits to listen to as you wander, sort of like a self-guided tour. There are areas to where you can play musical instruments or DJ (which we did, and did badly), record yourself on stage and take home a DVD of your kareoke performance, and so much more. The "guitar tornado" (as I call it) was pretty dang cool too.
Guitar tornado!! :-)
The BF DJ-ing, haha.
The current exhibits on display are Jimi Hendrix (whom I've loved since middle school, when I was finally introduced to him), and Nirvana (one of the greatest bands of all time). The Hendrix exhibit included - some of his guitars that he'd smashed or lit on fire, costumes/stage outfits, copies of his lyrics written on hotel stationary, and lots of photos with him and other musical artists of the 1960s.
The middle photo is one of his songs written on hotel stationary. The bottom is some of his smashed guitars.
The Nirvana exhibit was amazing. They had everything displayed - the band's instruments; concert posters from their early years; lots of old photos; set lists; quotes about the band and from the band members; videos; even a place where you could record yourself talking about your memories of the band. I almost did that, but thought that it would come out dumb. :-)
Top to bottom: Quote about Nirvana; Nirvana concert t-shirt that was torn off of a fan at a show (and Kurt actually gave that fan a free shirt because it was ripped off him); giant photo of the band in the early years; me with the exhibit sign; set list from the MTV Live show in the 90s.
There was also an exhibit on the evolution of the guitar. It was cool to see how the guitar evolved from a crude wooden instrument to the guitars we see today.
After we left EMP, we ate fish'n'chips at the food court and decided to take a monorail ride. Totally not worth it. We were thinking it was like the monorail at Disneyland, that took you around everywhere. Nope. It goes straight to a mall and back. Slightly disappointed. :-(
We had some time to kill, so we wandered around the park, checking out some of the sculptures. Then we headed back to the hotel, grabbed our car, and headed to the airport for our flight back home.
The BF and I had a great time on our vacation, although I wish we had more time in Seattle. I think that there was so much more to see and do that we didn't get to. I think we'll end up back there again someday!
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