Underground and sky high

 

Thursday 29 May 2025

It was a little cloudy after the sunny day yesterday, but thankfully it stayed dry and after an errand or two we spent some time at the Aquarium on the Waterfront. If I'm honest, it was a bit underwhelming compared to others we've seen - Lisbon and Monterey for example. I had especially looked forward to seeing the sea otters who are soooo cute, but they only had two and they and most of  the animals such as the seals were a bit shy. They didn't have any colourful tropical fish or seahorses (my personal favourite), and although they were very well supplied with sea anemones, sea cucumbers and so on in touching pools with helpful volunteers and guides, it was all a bit shabby and tired.

After a little lunch at Skillet (I had really good tomato bisque soup), we went to the rather lovely. light and airy Seattle Art Museum which has "Seattle's most hardworking man" outside - a 30ft high black steel two-dimensional sculpture which perpetually hammers 364 days a year, taking a break only on Labour Day, and which was a very controversial addition to the gallery a number of years ago, a bit like the 4th plinth at Trafalgar Square. (The Museum's head curator was actually given a raise as a reward for commissioning an artwork that created so much conversation!) 

We went to see Ai Wei Wei's exhibition which was just excellent - I especially admired his Lego pictures, such as The Scream, and his representation of the death of a refugee on a beach, and his very clever joining together of pieces such as the three-legged stools and the bicycles. 

As a bonus, I also got to see some Alexander Calder pieces in a separate exhibition - his kinetic sculptures are just incredible in the way they fly through light and air, always moving. The photos don't do justice to them - they make me feel at peace.

We then had an underground tour around the Pioneer Square area run by Beneath the Streets, where we got to see the basements no longer used when Seattlelites raised the street levels following the rebuilding of the city after the 1889 fire, leaving previous street levels at basement level and creating underground corridors which came in very useful during Prohibition times. The history is interesting, but the tour involves looking at a lot of brick walls and some reinforced ceilings - you have to use your imagination quite a lot. (Memorial to some fire fighters in the sculpture below.)

We then headed around the corner to the beautiful art deco Smith Tower. Completed in 1914, the building was funded by the Smith family whose fortune came from the famous Smith Typewriter brand. There's a cute museum (sorry, pics were all terrible) that's been created to recreate the lives of the people who worked and were involved in the Smith (such as the telephone exchange, and real cheques being entered on the ledgers by the then financial clerk). 

We went up in the beautiful escalator to the top (35th) floor, where we then took photos across the city from on high, before settling in the famous Chinese Room bar (where the wishing chair is supposed to be bringing you your future husband) for a couple of very good cocktails - Lucy's was a tiki, mine was called the Elevatore and contained mezcal which was really quite strong!

We caught a bus further uptown to go for some dinner (I had lasagne with a Japanese curry twist, slightly odd but kind of worked) before heading home. Being out all day on your feet takes its toll when you're as old as me!

Seattle from the steet

Wednesday 28 May 2025 

Our warm, sunny day began with a walk along the Alaskan Way near Elliot Bay to pick up a free walking tour, Seattle 101, via the lovely Anchorhead coffee shop. The tour was with the lively and entertaining Amalia, one of three guides running a small free walking tour company. She packed a lot in after a quick visit to Pike Place Market (more fish and peonies!), highlighting some of the quirky shops (Robot vs Sloth being one of them, featuring all sorts of cute things solely robot or sloth in nature - very niche), so here goes with a bit of history.

Modern Seattle only really came about when settlers were advised by the local Native American chief in the mid-19th century not to build their city on the sand bar to the west. Chief Seattle (English spelling - that's him, above) rightly insisted on payment for use of his name ("my grandchildren cannot eat honour") but his advice was sound. 

The sloping nature of the terrain made the land perfect for logging as timber could be send directly downhill to Elliot Bay to be shipped to California, where apparently there was now a timber shortage. However, a fire which started in June 1989 from a glue pot in a cabinet maker's shop and burned for over 12 hours, destroyed the early city, where everything - houses, water pipes, streets - was built from plentiful wood round about. The great fire is meagrely memorialised outside the Post Office where from the previous buidling the fire originally started - yes, it's the wooden thing on the lampost...

This meant that the only three architects in the city were then hard-pressed to plan new buildings to rebuild the city, and they did so in a fairly uniform Romaneque style, with Pioneer Square at the heart. Eventually the doorways to houses were brought up a level by use of silt to raise the dwellings, leaving an underground network of basements which we visited on a tour the next day.

We learned about Tako, the giant Pacific Octopus (3m across the tentacles) at the aquarium, which some years back by nightime stealth was the culprit behind the mysterious disappearance of a number of smallish endangered sharks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOEZh1Lbbg

We caught sight of what was once Seattle's tallest building, the Smith Tower, a rather beautiful Art Deco structure completed in 1914 which we visited the following day. 

We finished the tour on the Waterfront, an area created in 2019 by the destruction of a freeway (which is why you've never seen it on Frasier) and is a vastly improved walk and cycleway running alongside the ferry terminal, the aquarium and numerous fish restaurants, one of which we went to for lunch - Ivar's Acres of Clams. 

Ivar Haglund (above) was an eccentric millionaire who inherited lots of money from his parents (Scandinavians who comprised many of the settlers in Seattle's early days) and used it in a variety of ways, including setting up a fish restaurant. Though gay he married conveniently twice and had no heirs, but he did have a sense of humour, including dressing up a small pet seal and taking it to Santa's Grotto at the local department store, and flying a salmon from the flagpole at the top of the Smith Tower. When he died, he left most of his money to the city to be used for good causes in perpetuity.

We'd been told about the bargain ferry price to Bainbridge Island across the bay, so that seemed a good idea and for $15 return between us we took the 35-minute crossing with terrific views

and spent a pleasant few hours on an island that reminded me very much of places like Nantucket off the east coast, with charming chichi little shops and bars and sky-high property prices. After wandering (and purchasing pretty empty Cuban cigar boxes at $5 each!), we ended up at the colourful Isla Bonita Mexican bar and restaurant for robust margaritas which were excellent. 

We then dined very well at Amelia Wynne's wine tasting restaurant (where I had a flight of delicious local wines, and scallops with gnocci), sharing travel stories with a delightful elderly couple on the next table. I managed to squeeze in a very good ice cream from Island Cool before we got back on the ferry and headed for home.

(Not) Sleepless in Seattle

 

Tuesday 27 May 2025

I was up at 4.30am ready for a 5.55am Uber pick up to take us to Pacific Central Station. When we got there, we joined a fairly long line for passport and customs checking as we were travelling across the border to the US (though US border guards still boarded the train at Bellingham on the border in order to collect the customs declaration forms, but said very little, so all of you who were worried that I might get a strop on and find myself in Guantanamo or whatever the equivalent is these days can stand down!)

There was a lengthy delay on the train due to a car on the track; the route is known as the Amtrak Cascades due to its mountain and coastal views, and we reached Seattle King Street station (very elegant, not exactly Grand Central NYC but must get a pic on the way back!) about half an hour behind schedule. It was cab chaos outside the station with loads of taxi drivers vying for our business, but we walked away a little and called for an Uber. Our apartment is in what I guess is uptown, in the Bellwood area overlooking Elliot Bay and the Puget Sound (named after more of George Vancouver the mapper's shipmates. What's the difference between a bay and a sound? Water depth apparently.) It's nicely furnished with lots of books and games should we get  bored, and with two decent-sized bedrooms with large comfortable beds - hence sleeping well on Tuesday night despite boomerang pillows!

I got the bus to Pike Place Market, less than 10 minutes away, though needed to acquire an Orca card later which is like an Oyster except of course we can't download it online because we have UK phones! Lucy and I travelled in separately so that I could do a recce while she was still sorting herself out, and because I had cash the kind driver took pity on me, but she had to get an Uber as there was no obvious ATM around. The buses here seem pretty good and we reckon that the drivers are under instruction not to worry about collecting fares if it slows down the schedule - or if vagrants are sleeping on the bus, which seems to be a pretty frequent occurrence.

The number of homeless people obviously high and crazy on opioids is incredibly depressing here in the city centre and beyond - people with their lives in garbage bags and trolleys, others wandering around half-naked shouting at nobody. We've not been hassled in any way - it's just so very sad, and there's no sign of Streetlink-type organisations or similar that we've seen.

Pike Place is famous for its seafood and there are myriad other food stalls, though none of them quite as upmarket as Granville in Vancouver. The other notable attraction is peonies - they are huge here, and maybe 6" across or more when in full bloom. Many of the stalls are putting together the most beautiful bouquets at prices much lower than the UK - a shame the same can't be said for food and drink, which isn't especially cheap even if in fairly basic restaurants. Nevertheless I enjoyed my bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese and pickles at Lowell's overlooking the water and the Seattle Eye (every meal seems to come with pickles...)

We wandered around for a while afterwards to get our bearings and pick up odd bits of shopping before getting the bus back. Not all of downtown is thriving - there were many closed-up shops such as Macy's and Bed, Bath and Beyond (though the following day we discovered a bit more life!). The buses were all delayed by a far right (god-fearing anti-abortion/gay/trans people) protest going on in Cal Anderson Park which was interrupted by anarchists as well as peaceful counter-protesters leaning to the left.

Neither of us had slept well the night before, and when we Googled there were no neighbourhood restaurants within walking distance, or delivery service for any kind of food we fancied, Lucy didn't feel like eating any supper and I ended up with some rather dreadful frozen bao buns from the petrol station just down the street. We did at least have a nice bottle of wine, and had an early night ready to get up for the Seattle 101 walking tour we'd booked for the next day. It's quite noisy around here, but being on the fifth floor helps and not much was keeping me awake....

Farewell to Vancouver

 

Monday 26 May 2025

Monday was my last day in Canada and it dawned a bit grey and rainy, though it did brighten up later. Toni was due to fly back to Toronto early afternoon, so we took the opportunity to visit the light and airy Vancouver Art Gallery which was very close to the apartment. 

It has a modern art focus, so right up my alley. I enjoyed the very Japanese artist Otani Workshop's work, a collection entitled Monsters in my Head - it's kind of cute and savage all at the same time (reminded me a bit of a Jeremy Dellar piece at the summer exhibition a while back when he had given teddy bears sharp bloodied teeth and chain saws in a woodland scene).

I was also blown away by the work of Jean-Paul Riopelle, the Canadian version of Jackson Pollock - his abstract expressionist work was new to me and the colours and textures were visceral and amazing. There was a lovely collection by lots of different contemporary ceramicists, and I was mesmerised by the Lucy Raven video installation of Murderers Bar, which showed from start to finish the blowing up of a concrete dam, right from charges being set to the flooding created for many miles as the water cascaded through the ravines.

After lunch at the gallery, we picked up Toni's luggage from the apartment and walked her to the Canada line to say goodbye, then Lucy and I went to Pacific Central station on the Expo line (nice clock)

to pick up our tickets for the following day and find out about check-in for the early train to Seattle. A handy bus nearby then took us to English Bay where we enjoyed a couple of cocktails (mine's a Pina Colada, but I didn't get caught in any rain) at the Cactus Club and a chat with our server about Canada, wine and everything.

We went back to our downtown neighbourhood and I did a bit of shopping, including a cheap dress from Muji to prepare for the unseasonably warm weather which lay ahead once we got further south. We finished off some leftovers at the apartment for supper, then went for a stroll down Burrard Street so that I could get a glimpse of the Chrysler-style building (currently closed for renovation), and had a drink at Joey's before retiring for an early night ready for an Uber picking us up at 0555 to take us to Pacific Central for the Seattle train.

Beautiful Botanicals

Sunday 25 May 2025

Writing this on Tuesday on the Amtrak Cascades train en route for Seattle with the NW Pacific coast providing the scenery. Up at stupid o'clock for a 6am check-in at Pacific Central station, but arrival in Seattle will be before lunch all being well so it makes the most of the day. Again, more pics to be added at a later date if you're reading this and interested!

Our Sunday was a beautiful sunny day spent in two glorious gardens. Short Canada metro line and bus trips took us to Queen Elizabeth Park which provided an excellent heightened view of the city.  Its biodome conservatory is full of colourful, exotic plants and parrots, many of which are over 20 years old, though not all of them very co-operative when it came to taking their photos, seeming to choose to do their grooming with their backs to us at the moment cameras were poised! The park also featured a wonderful garden full of evergreens, rhodedendrons and Japanese maple that's been developed within an old quarry which provided a stunning contrast to all the colours.

A particularly special moment came when I spotted a humming bird darting in and out of a tall shrub. I paused to take a closer look, and suddenly it flew straight towards me, hovering perhaps only a metre away at chest level - maybe it was attracted by the red in my T-shirt, but it really did look straight at me with its beady eyes for at least two or three seconds, its beating wings a complete blur, before disappearing back into the shrubs. Too quick for a pic sadly, but I will always remember that look.

Another interesting feature was the lovelock sculptures; normally these padlocks, which feature the names of couples who are at least aiming for a lifelong relationship, are just attached to bridges, railings or piers, but a sculptor had created four lifesize aluminium sculptures of couples locked in tango-like embraces on which hundreds of padlocks of all kinds were displayed. Some had names just scratched on spontaneously, others were neat jobs with "John & Mary Forever 2017" and suchlike already professionally etched.

We took a walk then to the Van Dusen Botanical Garden for lunch and a look-see, about 20 minutes away. This was an equally glorious space with an infinite variety of plants, trees and flowers, considerably enhanced by a temporary floral sculpture exhibition/competition which was based on characters and settings from Downton Abbey. The skill of the floral artists in their craft was just incredible, with every tiny detail which could be seen on stills from the show (photographs were on the descriptors next to each one) faithfully and creatively represented by leaves, blooms, dried flowers and grasses moulded and pinned to lifesize mannequins. I have never seen anything quite like it - evidently it's been done before on a different theme, and I bought some cards in the gift shop of female figures in fashions from different centuries from a 2022 iteration.

Buses being thin on the ground and some distance away, I ordered a very cheap Uber to take us back into the city (sorry Lovepreet, your BO, constant murmuring into your phone and stopping for petrol with passengers in the car cost you a tip), where we time for gelato before our booking of a ride on the Flyover Canada attraction at the end of the pier at Canada Place (where the floating hotel cruise ships dock before heading off for Alaska and the like). We hadn't quite known what to expect but thought "why not" and bought tickets for both the Flyover Canada and Canadian Rockies rides. 

These are indoors - after an introductory immersive video shown on all sides of a room, about 50 people at a time are seated in rows on a couple of levels of airline-style seats. When the ride begins, the rows lift forward into the air so that your feet are dangling, and move up and down and side to side and at a diagonal angle as you become immersed in what is presumably drone footage (considerably speeded up) of both the wilds and cities of Canada. 

For example, you may be immersed in a daredevil ski run in the mountains one moment, then it changes to an urban scene where you follow a skier zig zagging down a snowy street in winter, followed by being lifted into a starry night sky among the skyscrapers. Skilled mountain climbers use crampons to scale up sheer glaciers at jaw-dropping heights, mountain bikers weave and jump through rocky terrains, fishermen haul in their catches, a First Nation rider gallops bareback along a high plateau; the variety of footage (though some of it was duplicated in the second experience) was incredible and sometimes dizzying in its speed, but both experiences were totally thrilling and engaging - I was only sorry that they hadn't included any footage of the Rocky Mountaineer train! The gift shop also yielded a couple of items I had been seeking, and were on special offer, so...

We walked back to the apartment and stopped off for our supper booking, the Italian Kitchen restaurant which had had a long queue outside the night before that we took to be a good sign. And it was a good dinner (though Toni kept hers very simple as she was feeling a little queasy from the chocolate gelato and ride combo), Lucy and I both opting for some delicious salmon (which of course is good everywhere here). It's a very attractive restaurant with white linen, a good menu, comprehensive wine list and wait staff who constantly check "how are we doing here", but an unfortunate and somewhat illogical inflexibility when it comes to any kind of request vaguely off-menu. Nor did we appreciate our bottle of Gavi being dumped on the table with the cork still in it and having to ask for it to be opened when it suited the waitress to do it. Hey-ho - maybe a little pretentious.

Back to the apartment and I wrote up the previous instalment of the blog with a glass of wine before retiring for my final night on the sofa bed (Toni was flying home to Toronto the following afternoon, so I'd get a proper bed for the final night), while reacquainting myself with the delights of Schitts Creek which I'm watching on Netflix for the second time. I now realise how very Canadian it is.