Day Two for Us, Week After for Most

Our second day in Seattle looked more like a Frommer's List of Top Ten Sights to See if You Only Have an Hour to Burn. It was crazy. We started the day with a visit at the very modern Chapel of St. Ignatius inside Seattle University. The building looked more like a modern art museum than a Catholic chapel. It was boxy, airy and filled with natural light. Inside, the usual religious icons were represented by almost abstract and definitely modern works of art - gawk worthy was the Blessed Sacrament Chapel inside with walls covered with gilded beeswax and inscribed with prayers and a sculpture called Gratia Plena that appeared like an overflowed bowl and Virgin Mary at the same time. The choir was practicing when we visited. Everything was serene until Niko yelled "are we done here?" that echoed through the chapel. Good acoustics, bad Niko.

We went back to the Seattle Center to check out the Needle during the day - it was not as dramatic. Kind of old and dinghy. The much-talked about Music Experience Project building was kind of cool in all of its contorted and curvy glory - very showy if you ask me. Built by Frank Gehry and he made sure people knew that. We came back to the center in the afternoon to eat our dinner at the park across from the International Fountain which was quite spectacular but smelled too much of chlorine to truly enjoy. There were a lot of homeless people sprawling on the benches as well spewing invectives at strollers. Kind of sad.

We stumbled upon a whimsical Vietnamese cafe on Broadway for lunch. It was a local hang-out - our criteria for the places we wanted to eat in. For a street food vibe, a mural depicting Saigon street scene was painted on the wall. And yes, the food was good too - we had steaming pho and grilled pork sandwich. This was before we drove around for 10 minutes looking for Jimi Hendrix sculpture. We were imagining it to be grand and cloistered in a grand square somewhere - but alas, it was right next to a bus stop infront of Walgreens right on the sidewalk. Mel took his and Niko's picture right next to it anyway- having spent so much time looking for it.


Then we went to the famed Pike Place Market. I was ready for a very touristy experience and a kitschy aftertaste afterwards. But I was pleasantly surprised by its very unique character. It was crawling with tourists alright but there were so many locals too. The market has its own charming and seductive vibe - I ended up falling in love with everything in it and about it. We ended up coming back 3 more times after the first time. Alaia fell in love with a Russian bakery called Piroshky, Piroshky and its filled pastries. We all fell in love with the tiny, fluffy, warm donuts at the Dirty Dozens. We got to see the Flying Fish spectacle and even that was not tiresome. We relished the crowded alleys, the quirky stores including a book shop dedicated to the Leftist mind and a Lefty store. We even found the original Starbucks with its original topless maiden logo. Did not get coffee there though since I vowed not to drink anything but local which were yummier.


We also went to the vibrant and colorful Fremont District to check out what Sunday Market which turned out to be really fab. There were a lot of artists and craftspeople selling their wares. I scored an agate pendant which I made into a necklace and a couple of plaster shelves. Alaia got a $3 pair of pants and a string of yellow plastic beads (she is in her 80's phase right now). We walked around and checked out the troll underneath the bridge. There was an improv-style Shakesperean play when we went so we only lingered for a moment to take a picture. We also found Lenin (of all things) in the middle of a square where gelato and tacos were also sold.

At the Pioneer Square in downtown, we checked out the really old buildings and the biggest book store ever - the Elliott Bay Bookstore. I got a book there about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - a tale of intrique, murder and insanity - yum!




At the Volunteer Park - the largest park in Seattle designed by the same guy responsible for New York's Central Park, we checked out the Black Sun sculpture by Isamu Noguchi (as in Noguchi lamps); climbed the medieval looking and feeling Water Tower - all 116 steps of it; visited the Botanical garden (although the kids abandoned us at this point); and almost made it to Bruce Lee's gravesite if not for sheer exhaustion.

We did not get back to the hotel until past 10 that night and we collectively crushed into our beds like fallen bodies. We needed a real vacation after that....