Category: seattle

This week at work we have had the global SEO team visiting us in Bellevue. As is now traditional you have to do some sort of activity which can be classified as “team building”. Awful stuff. To make matters worse I had to think of the team building activity.

On Wednesday afternoon we went and undertook the aforementioned activity which was … glass blowing. I’m not sure why this area (Seattle and Tacoma) appears to be so famous for glass blowing, but it is. We had 4 hours in the afternoon across which everyone in the group created a couple of master pieces.

For my first piece I had asked if I could make a glass version of the Space Needle but the answer was a clear no! Apparently making the Space Needle is not straightforward so instead I made this:

I would have preferred more of a Mario Kart style mushroom but this wasn’t bad.

Next up I decided to go for a sort of shape type thing! It could be a vase and it could be an upside down thing that sits on the side:

The colors weren’t quite as vibrant as I wanted but even so it wasn’t a complete disaster. Harry thought both pieces were really good. I’m not sure Tracy was quite so convinced. Shame one is her birthday present and the other her anniversary present!

Despite the cold winds and rain there is a little hint of spring in the air. The green shoots are poking through the flower beds at home (and not just weeds!), and at Chittenden locks the crocus, daffodils and something else (!) were starting to bloom. A splash of color and some sunshine made up for the lack of boats, trains and salmon!

Well. What can I say? We left the aquarium and Sally was ravenous. Obviously. We set off back towards the car and then decided to walk up towards the market place and get something to eat there. We set off and then spotted Post Alley which leads you directly to the market place. It also has a part which is a well known … err … well it’s a well known spot. Having been there, I’m not sure what you would call it. Tourist attraction? Art? Disgusting mess?

Anyway, it is an area in Post Alley called the “gum wall”. And it looked a little like this:

It made Sally feel sick. It was pretty grim!

New Years Day 2012 started quite early – at about 5:30am – which I suppose is progress on the last couple of mornings. After watching the previous nights celebrations on TV we decided to have a morning out ahead of our lunch reservation at Ray’s.

The plan was to visit the old Gas Works park on Lake Union and then go along to see the Fremont Troll that lives under one of the bridges. Toby spent most of the morning insisting that he didn’t want to go and see the troll – he clearly hadn’t appreciated the jokes about how the troll eats naughty boys. I guess after breaking some of his new year resolutions about 20 times before we’d even left the house this morning he thought this placed him in the naughty boy category.

First stop was Gas Works park and some lovely views of the house boats, sea planes and downtown Seattle. We took a walk around the park, with Tracy moaning all about the goose poo and the boys, completely oblivious to the goose poo, asking if they could roll down the hills. Not only were they clearly unconcerned about the goose poo density levels, they had clearly forgotten that 10 minutes earlier they had been told they couldn’t get muddy as we were going for lunch.

After leaving Gas Works park we drove the short distance along to Troll Avenue! What a great name for a road! As we parked the car under the bridge we could see the trolls beady eye staring down the road at us. Toby wasn’t happy and seemed quite reluctant to get anywhere near it! Not even the 3 billy goats gruff standing nearby put him at ease – clearly the troll would prefer to eat them over naughty boys.

As we looked at the troll (and the VW beetle in its hand – look closely at the pictures) Toby hid behind the bridge pillar! Eventually, after it was agreed that he could kick the troll he decided to take a closer look. And kicked it 3 times. After a few minutes of climbing over the troll we left to go back to the car and as we drove off Toby looked out the window and said “bye, bye troll, love you”. It’s amazing how quickly he went from fear to love!

The last stop before lunch was Chittenden Locks. It was all very quiet – only a handful of boats and no salmon. After Toby had sung the “I am starving” song for about the 20th time (he’s clearly back in the American way) we decided to go to Ray’s albeit with a slight detour along to Golden Gardens beach park. We expected it to be quite quiet but it was absolutely packed. There were clearly a couple of New Years day traditions underway. The first was a New Year swim in the Sound – plonkers – it must have been freezing. The second was some sort of burning of the Christmas tree thing. Cars kept turning up with trees strapped on top while others were already piled high on the beach burning alongside lots of barbecues. Good job it was a lovely sunny day!

To round the morning off we enjoyed a fabulous meal at Ray’s. We had a table right by the window and enjoyed the great views of the snow covered Olympic mountains as we ate and ate! And if that wasn’t enough, as we sat finishing our drinks a pod (or whatever they are called) of sea lions started leaping out the water and putting on a fabulous show for us. Unfortunately my camera was in the car but they did look amazing leaping clean out of the water. Apparently the local expert (the waiter) said they are often out there feeding on the salmon – so they were clearly having a good old New Years lunch out there.

As we left Ray’s I asked, “where shall we go next?”, to which Harry and Toby replied “home”.  “Home? Haven’t you had fun today then?” I enquired? “Nooooo!”. Oh well, new year, same levels of enthusiasm.

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As work are very generous we had $250 to spend on some travel related activity before the end of the year and so with time running out we decided to book a night in a hotel in Seattle. We thought it would make a change as you don’t always take notice of the places nearby plus it would allow us to go up the Space Needle at night.

What we hadn’t planned on when we booked it was that the day we chose to go vacationing in Seattle was Black Friday, the day they were lighting the Seattle Christmas tree, the Macy’s parade and the turning on of the Space Needle Christmas lights. And as if that wasn’t enough we also had Occupy Seattle protests and rallies going on – blooming work shy hippies!

Black Friday is the equivalent of the Boxing Day sales but bigger. Most of them seemed to start at about midnight and people spend Thanksgiving day camping outside stores ready to bag a bargain. Early reports from Los Angeles included details of a woman who had used pepper spray on fellow shoppers as she was trying to bag herself a bargain! Apparently she didn’t managed to get the bargain but she did manage to escape into the crowds!

We arrived at the Hotel Monaco just after 11 and after checking in and confirming that we would have a goldfish delivered to the room for our stay, we went into Seattle to do our share our Black Friday shopping. Apparently, the average American spends over $700 each on Black Friday – fortunately the queues were so large that we didn’t get close to troubling this figure although I did get a very nice scarf from Nordstrom!

After Gap and Old Navy the boys were starving, or using this as an excuse to stop shopping, so we went for lunch at the Mexican restaurant in the shopping center. While having a very tasty lunch I forgot exactly were I was and accidentally let out a small-ish burp. Tracy dissolved into hysterics and Harry just sat over the table shaking his head in disgust at his father! Fortunately I don’t think any surrounding people heard – they were probably too busy wondering why Tracy was laughing so much.

After lunch and a quick visit to Macy’s we went back to the hotel to enjoy the suite and because Harry and Toby were desperate to spend some time with the goldfish! The fish had been christened Stanley (by Toby) and they spent most of the time watching it and asking if it was doing a poo!

At just before 5 we left the hotel and set off back into town to catch the mono-rail to the Space Needle. Getting to the mono-rail was far from straightforward as the streets were packed with people waiting for the tree lighting ceremony (about 40,000). We eventually made it and arrived to a much quieter Space Needle. We had the usual picture taken at the bottom of the elevator but this time Toby insisted on having a fish included. I’m not sure, 1) what the fish was doing there, and 2) why Toby wanted it in the picture but he was most insistent it was and I think it definitely brings a certain something to the picture!

Up the top of the Needle we were lucky that it was a mild and clear evening so we got a pretty good view of the surrounding area. After leaving the Needle we went over to the fountain and watched silly people getting wet trying to get to the middle and then watched people ice skating over near the Science Center.

After catching the mono-rail back to the center, we then saw the beautiful Macy’s Star and then got caught up in more hippy protest nonsense where they were marching through the streets of Seattle and then having sit downs in the middle of the road.Honestly, what is wrong with these people!? Shame that woman from LA wasn’t about with her pepper spray!

Next stop was the hotel bar where we indulged in some happy hour beer and wine plus some root beers for the boys. Toby then decided that he was tired so we all went upstairs to bed although by the time we got up to the room Toby had got second wind and the two of them lay in bed watching Shrek 2. I think they were probably the last of us to fall asleep.

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The following morning, after breakfast and checking out, we drove down to the Seattle Aquarium. We checked out the octopus, Toby decided he would touch a starfish this time and then we went to see the Toby fish, seals, otters and the fish of the Puget Sound. We then walked along the front going from one shop full of tat to another! The boys spent most of the time telling us that they didn’t want to go to the Crab Pot for lunch. I’m not sure why they are so traumatized by that restaurant but they are!

When we left the Aquarium we set off home via a brief stop at the Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island. After both boys had had a wee by the side of the lake we had a short walk, a play in the playground and then set off home. They boys were desperately missing playing with balloons – the last thing they wanted was another day out!

httpv://youtu.be/WCQ56hwQW5k

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I wonder what next years $250 will be spent on?

If anyone has ever wondered how to sing happy birthday in Chinese, then today is your lucky day because Toby is going to sing it for you. I’m not quite sure what prompted him but this morning, before breakfast at the Hotel Monaco in Seattle, Toby burst into song (and then he was asked to sing it again so that it could recorded!):

httpv://youtu.be/nFVEBl2f9Jg

That’s one of the benefits of having a Chinese pre-school teacher!

I hadn’t even realized there was a museum of flight in Seattle but someone at work said this week that it was an interesting place to go. After a bit of investigating and finding out that there was a concorde there I thought the boys should go. We’ve had a few years of having to hear all about posh Tracy’s adventures on concorde and the QE2 so today was a chance for us to level things up a little!

The museum was north of the airport and south of Seattle and about half an hour from home. We got there just after 10 and there was already a fair old queue. We went straight across to see concorde before the rain started. The boys were super excited about going on it but they, like I, couldn’t believe how small it was when you were inside. Good job it went so fast because it looked pretty cramped! It flew from New York to Seattle in 3 hours 55 minutes and 12 seconds – not sure how long the flight is normally but I will investigate!

After concorde it was across to Airforce One – the plane that JFK flew in. This plane was a little more comfortable although I think the President of the USA deserved slightly better toilets! At the end of the day Airforce One won the “best plane of the day” from both boys.

After Airforce One we saw – but could not go in – the first ever jumbo which now looked a bit of a state. Then it was back across to the main building to check out all sorts of weird and wonderful planes. They ranged from the various WW1 and WW2 planes, NASA planes, the Blue Angels, postal planes and flying bath tubs! There was also a video clip of the Banana Splits. I’m not 100% sure of the connection but it was good to watch a couple of minutes video of this! It was a very interesting few hours and at least we can all say we’ve been on concorde now!

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And so that was the museum of flight. We’d seen Airforce One, the first ever jumbo jet, concorde, and just when we thought there was nothing else to see, as we left the car park we saw a couple of RyanAir planes on the tarmac – obviously waiting to be collected!

After the stress of the soccer match we set off for lunch at Salty’s. It is a restaurant with a fab view of the city so we were grateful that the clouds lifted as we drove across – it had been a really wet, miserable morning. We got over to Alki a little early so we went for a short stroll along the front to smell the lovely sea air and work up an appetite. Good job we did too because unbeknown to us on the weekend Salty’s is an all you can eat buffet brunch.

Not being a buffet fan I was a bit worried but there was no need – there was lots of very yummy food ranging from freshly cooked omelettes, catfish, salmon, pasta, eggs benedict, prime rib, crabs legs, oysters, pancakes, waffles, bacon, hash browns, chocolate cakes, cheese, cookies, m&m’s, and so much more! The fact that we only returned to the get more about 3 or 4 times each showed real restraint!

And to wash it all down we had two bottles of Dom Perignon! Heaven alone knows what we’d have been drinking if Norwich had one!

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On Saturday we had intended to tidy up the house ready for the arrival of Grandad. This plan went out the window as the boys proved to be incapable of playing together nicely and instead we decided to get out the house and keep them busy! I’d seen on Twitter that the Pacific Science Center had taken delivery of lots of new butterfly larvae so I thought we would go there and see what it was all about.

First of all the boys started by spraying water at a variety of shapes and spinning them around and then we went inside and saw a whole bunch of things including:

1. Watching a boa constrictor eating a rat – it was pretty gross!
2. Watch naked mole rats – which were pretty ugly but quite funny
3. Solved balancing puzzles
4. Saw a variety of dinosaurs
5. Mixed music
6. Played a piano and giant guitar
7. Checked out some bugs
8. Went for a walk round the tropical butterfly park
9. Watched butterflies emerging from chrysalis
10. Read about the history of farts!
11. Sat at a giant table and chairs!

httpv://youtu.be/Fwyu9LjLfzk

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After a few hours of fun at the Science Center we went back to Bellevue and the mall. I sorted out my watch at Macy’s and then we went for an early dinner at Earls. As we left Earls and walked back to the car someone asked us if we could spare any time to answer some questions about gay rights. We said we didn’t and crossed the road. As we reached the other side of the road Toby asked “what are gate rides anyway?”.