Summer of 2012

Here is where I've been...

Birch Bay, Washington - July 9, 2011

The Gum Wall, Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA - July 11, 2011

The Gold River Follies and me - Rossland, BC - July 26, 2011

The Samba Band, Market Fest, Nelson BC - August 19, 2011

The Beatles (AKA Revolver), Balfour, BC - August 20, 2011

Visitor at the Yasodhara Ashram, Riondel, BC - August 28, 2011

Thai Tom

Each of the two times we walked by the place, it caught our attention. First for all the action. It reminded me of a night club with music and people spilling out of the door. A fast-moving woman bustled through the door with a wooden plaque in hand, thrusting it towards newcomers in the queue. What also caught out attention was that it was always busy.

Our last dinner in the "Yu Dub" district of Seattle, we decided to check out the big attraction. We were the third party in line, as we were presented with the menu, scuffed from much use, and a taped announcement at the bottom that prices had been changed to $7.50. The queue moved quickly and we were first in line when the server brought out pen and paper and asked what we wanted to order.

As we walked in, I was struck by how small the place was; a narrow walkway separates small tables against a wall and the counter seating. The counter forms a "L" shape around the kitchen galley where three people work with orchestrated harmony. But harmony is hardly the word to describe the frenetic pace as the chef moved between 4 to 6 woks each sizzling with individual orders, with music to match.

We were ushered to the end of the counter; on my left, the woman who had brought us the menu tallied bills and handed the orders to the chef. We were elbow to elbow. Another server swept the dishes to and from the customers, and wiped down the tables. A total of 5 staff, who were always on the move.

From my perch, I saw the award for the "Best of" in 2009. But my eyes were quickly averted to the chef who was stirring, adding, and shaking the pots on the open flames ahead of him. When an order was complete he would pick up the wok with his right hand, the serving dish in his left, turn around to the counter, slide the food into the dish and then turn to the awaiting assistant and flipped the now-empty wok into the waiting hand. This move I watched again and again, as we would watch a knife juggler. What I noted on watching the second time is that the ladle that was always in each wok was also a part of the toss, both held together by some scientific force, for there was always an instant when it wasn't be held by anyone.

The assistant walked back to the dish pit to the third team member, picking up a clean wok/ladle and bringing it back. This helper keep a sharp eye on the cook, replacing any empty food containers, chopping when necessary. Every once in a while, these two would break into laughter. Which was a delight in itself.

Because sitting at the counter, I was feeling the heat, and getting caught up in the busyness. It was intense.

Our food arrived. My choice was Swimming Rama, a combination of spinach, chicken, in a wonderful sauce. It was incredibly tasty! And so was the Pad Thai that BJ ordered. One of the women that ordered ahead of us had soup, which was made the same way that ours was. Fresh. On the spot. Individually seasoned. Great quality at a great price!

Thai Tom was definitely one of those "finds" that inspire!

Lost In Seattle

Where shall I go today? I asked Ryan as he and Julie headed out the door to Bumbershoot. As Ryan and Julie are moving to San Francisco in 11 days, this is my last visit to this home - what haven't I seen in this city? Volunteer Park was his reply. Seeing as the sun was shining, it seemed like a day not to waste indoors in Seattle. I wrote out the instructions from Google directions, a total of 13 minutes, it declared.

So I set out on my journey, and within minutes of home, knew that something wasn't right. After sliding with the rest of the traffic onto I-5 heading North, and maneuvering my way back through nothing but intuition, I dug out the map.

These are my conclusions after my extensive experience in Seattle streets today:
- Google maps makes directions sound much easier than they are.
- People are great resources - I found a couple in Starbucks who looked at my Google instructions and map, and decided neither would help me. They pointed me in the right direction - go up, they said. The rest was up to me.
- You learn how to pay attention when you go down the same street several times.
- It actually took 45 minutes to find Volunteer Park.
- At two different points, I got onto I-5; one time going north and one time going south.

And then, I realized that sometimes one sets out on a journey only to discover that you end up at a place where you have been before. (I think this is a metaphor for life in general.) A couple years ago, I went to Volunteer Park in the rain, and we walked up the water tower.

At Volunteer Park, I:
- sat in the sun overlooking the water reservoir.
- taught a bored security guard at the Seattle Asian Museum how to conjugate the verb talk in Spanish for the singular pronouns.
- bought an umbrella that is sure to bring me luck - it has bamboo images all over the top. The store also had an umbrella that was red and when it gets wet, cherry blossoms appear all over it.
- saw yet another view of the Space Needle:



One of the features of this park is a sculpture called "Black Sun." Here are the Black Sun and Space Needle together...



And here is a picture of all of us:



I went for a walk and found Lake View Cemetery. Ryan had told me that Bruce Lee (Who is he? I thought) was buried there. There are a lot of graves in Lake View Cemetery, and so I had few hopes of finding it. The cemetery has a great view:



I wandered up one road and down others, decided that it was time to find my way home. How I found Bruce Lee happened this way: I glanced to my left and saw a nondescript tombstone that said Lee, and I crossed the grass (carefully) and saw that it didn't even have a date of birth or death on it. Then something caught my attention and I headed more up the hill and behind a row of small shrubs I saw:



Right beside him is the grave-site of his son,Brandon Lee. Both of these fellows had bizarre deaths.

I left Volunteer Park around 6ish, and found the route home (different than the way there), very easily. Still, there was something nagging me about those Google instructions, and so I went in search of where I went astray. And I found yet another way to get astray, and landed up in downtown Seattle. Just as the movies were being let out.

I have passed by Pontius Street a total of 5 times today. And now I am back home, a little worn from my travels. At some point, I realized I was having fun! Go figure!

Good night Seattle....



and to one red Honda Civic...

The Eye of the Needle

At last! At least a dozen times, I have been to Seattle. At least 50 times, I have driven by the Space Needle. At least 100 replicas I have seen of the Space Needle, thanks to an avid collector in Ryan's building. I have little Space Needles in my home. I had even attended the New Year's fireworks event there. But never, never had I gone up the Space Needle. It is a sorry statement for a modern day explorer. (Modern day explorers, BTW, are fascinated by malls and nature alike!)

When I went to Seattle for Easter, I convinced my Seattle chauffeurs and tour guides (AKA Ryan and Julie) to do what every other visitor has done - see the world from a different view. Here is another hard-to-believe-it bit of information - the Space Needle is walking distance from Ryan's apartment! How easy is that? We walked, noting that it was downhill much of the way. I had a brief premonition about the return trip, but brushed it off in my enthusiasm.

The Space Needle was built in 1962 for the World's Fair; it's futuristic style included space-age colours - Orbital Olive for the body, Astronaut White for the legs, Re-entry Red for the saucer, and Galaxy Gold for the roof. To build the foundation, a hole was built that was 30 feet deep and 120 feet wide. It took 467 cement trucks a full day to fill in the hole.


Though we could have chosen to go up the Space Needle by night, we went by day. Here we are at the beginning of the journey.











The ride up the elevator took far less time than our wait in line. We found many ways to amuse ourselves while we waited. I chatted up an employee who passed us in line, and quizzed her on the process for getting summer employment. (An employment counsellor is always on the job.) We got on the elevator with glass doors and in 41 seconds we arrived at our destination! Here's the view on the way up:
The observation deck is 520 feet from the bottom; that's approximately 60 stories. Most of the pictures of the Space Needle against the sky scrapers are optical illusions. The photos are taken with the Space Needle in the foreground. If you want a postcard picture of the Space Needle, Ryan's neighbourhood, is ideal.

Once we got to the top, we had 360 degrees view of the city. If you look hard you will see that in the background of this picture is Mt. Rainier, which is a fascinating volcano in that it is so much taller than anything close to it. "Yes," Ryan says, "it is just like the volcanoes on the islands of Hawaii."


The Space Needle observation deck has both an inside area, complete with concession and bathrooms, and outside. For some reason when I was in the bathroom, I wondered about our flushes. Do they do their journey down in 41 seconds? And then when it lands, what would that force be? I wonder why I haven't thought of this before...

We walked around the outside observation deck and saw many sites - including Ryan's apartment, piers, and buildings. Here is one company that has chosen to advertise on the roof.


The windows that separate the inside from the outside observation deck have a mirrored side on the outside. So, if we stand facing the windows, we get a lovely view of the city, and ourselves. In this photo, Julia, Ryan and I. Who's on the inside? And who is taking the picture?


Oh it was an exciting day! And I got to learn a new word: acrophobia.

Julia - Bored in Seattle

It takes a lot to impress Julia I have found. First of all, you would think that getting to go to Seattle would elicit some kind of excitement. The closest read I could get from her was boredom. Now perhaps I could agree that the birds in the tree outside her living room window perch might intrigue her, because she certainly was excited when they dropped by. But it seems to me there is a lot of action in Seattle, much more exciting than birds in a tree.

As we pulled off the Interstate, she had that "ho hum" look on her face. I am thinking that this was the fourth trip to Seattle for Julia. Lots yet to see, is what I say.

Oh, she was grateful that I forgot the dull cat food at home and I had to go foraging for a new bag. She was pretty intrigued with this new flavour which has the equivalent nutrition as a Grampa Teenburger, without the bun. Yep, all meat, high fat. Even cats, it seems, are drawn to certain fast foods.

She got to hang out for 3+ days in a 6th floor balcony apartment overlooking Puget Sound. Was she impressed? Hard to say. She walked around, purred, ate, and did the usual shenanigans in the middle of the night.

She was slightly interested in the trip down the elevator on Monday morning when we were leaving for home, and found her spot on the passenger side in the car, the two front paws planted on the arm rest, and looking around.

By the time we reached Denny Way, on our way to REI, she had paced between the front and back seat a few times. When all traffic came to a halt, Julia decided to see what was happening and peered out the front side window. She was alert.

What I noticed to the left was that the traffic on the 2 lanes on other side of the street were being redirected off Denny Way. An accident, I concluded after seeing the police lights ahead. Minutes later, as I was calculating my arrival time back home, I saw 2 dozen motorcycled police coming towards us. Behind them was a SUV, black with tinted windows and two men in suits in the front seat. Yes, they had sunglasses. Then there was another. And another. And another. And the parade was done.

"The Dalai Lama," I exclaimed. We were within feet of him!! Though I must admit that I could not tell exactly which vehicle he was in. Still. And it was only a nanosecond. Still. It was the Dalai Lama.

I repeated it to Julia. She was hunched on the front seat, eyes slightly closed. Clearly, she was not impressed.

"Julia, you were 12 feet away from the Dalai Lama!"

She yawned, the ingrate.

Sunday in Seattle

We had many ideas of ways to spend our time this Sunday, some of which included going distances, and Seattle is where we stayed. But in Seattle we kept ourselves busy. We went to the shops downtown, mainly at Old Navy and a groovy store, called Fleuvog Shoes. Apparently this guy is a Canadian... They certainly are everywhere, those Canadians.

At the downtown mall, we walked through the atrium and found one very interesting penguin:
If you look to the right of his belly button, you will see an ice cream scoop.

We walked to Pike Place Market to the dismay of the two Seattlites who came along with me. Pike Place Market is one very busy place. I found the Christmas presents I wanted (can't tell you what they are). One of the biggest delights at the Market is the flower stalls. Here's what came home with us:

That cost $10.00 (Canadian and American $).

After our shopping, we stopped at one of Ryan's favourite spots: Jamba Juice and then went to the park at the top of Queen Anne Hill, which is the area where Ryan and Julie live.

Incident in Seattle

When Julie, Ryan and I were getting ready to go out for dinner last evening, we went to his car, parked on the street where it has been for the past 400+ days.

The first thing that Ryan noticed was his passenger door open. Then he saw this:



Inside, the would-be thieves had tried very hard to make this car operable.



From our deductions, we figured out they did their work from the passenger side of the car, and spent time underneath the dash.



Here is Ryan on the "voice mail jail" of his insurance company, while we were waiting for Seattle Police to arrive:


Now it is Sunday afternoon; the car is still on the street as all the service shops are closed and there is no where for the car to go. Indeed, it can go nowhere. Ryan has some wonder tape so we sealed the window.

We hear the sun is shining to the north, so we will go out and have adventures until it arrives.

Lake Washington

After our visit to Google Land, we visited Kirkland Waterfront. Kirkland is on the shores of Lake Washington; across the water is Seattle. At the edge of the waterfront park, there stands an apartment building where there is a guarantee that no new development will obscure the view:




Christmas 2005 we went on a boat tour of Seattle. We learned that there are six people for every boat in the Seattle area. (We also learned that Seattle sells the most sunglasses per capita than any other American city - go figure with its reputation for rainy days.) Kirkland, of course, has many boat docks including at the waterfront park. This is THE place to go if you have a dream of owning a boat.

We were captivated with the sunset on this day.











Here's what we saw:




















A family portrait:







I found a boat that suited my fancy....



And off we went....

Google World

Bellevue is close to Kirkland. Kirkland is Google's country home; the mansion is in Mountain View, California. On our way back to Seattle after shopping, we stopped at the place that puts Ryan's brain to lots of use.



A day at the office...











We got to visit the room where Ryan and his team are moving soon. As you can see out the window, spring has come to Kirkland, with that green so unique to the bursting of the leaves!


I had already heard stories about the Google mini-kitchens. Brains need good snacks and there are lots of choices here:

To the right is a room with a stocked fridge, and many kinds of beverages - hot, cold. Want cereal with that milk? Lattes whenever you get a hankering!!

We took the tour of the dining room, where every day there are some grand meals. Yep, Google feeds their employees. Julie found a leftover cookie (what kind was that, Ryan?). I had a bite and I have to say that it was mighty impressive considering that... it had been sitting around for at least one day, and I suppose a night. (Let me assure you that Julie is well.)



I thought Einstein had a wild head of hair. And then I saw this picture....


Down the hall, I found another painting on the wall. Google is one happening kind of place...

Shopping in Seattle

Technically, we were shopping in Bellevue, a stone's throw from Seattle. Not really. It is more like a bridge crossing, interstate cruising, and lots of turning - from Seattle. Since I have never driven in Bellevue, and Ryan always goes a different way, I would be hooped if I had to get to Bellevue myself.

Our first quest in Bellevue was FootZone, where Aimee and I each got a new pair of running shoes. Aimee found this store last year when I was getting ready for the Fun Run. The shoes were very successful so back we came.

When we left FootZone, we stopped at Jamba Juice - this is Ryan's discovery, and one of his favourite haunts. I'd like to introduce you to (if you haven't met her already) Julie. Julie's pet peeve is that there is a cat with a remarkably similar name.



The best choice - Orange Dream Machine









Then we were off to the favourite mall choice: Bellevue Square.

Our first stop was at a Canadian-owned store - lululemon. lululemon athletica is a yoga inspired athletic apparel company. They have taken their groovy poster and turned it into shopping bags. This is a must have. Even worth spending $10 (US that is) on a cup to get the free bag.




Our second stop:












While Aimee and Julie went off to the Lucy store, Ryan and I went inside. This wall has many portholes, each with a special Lego product. For $6.95, you can fill a large empty Lego cup with any items from the wall of Lego. The challenge is, of course, to get as much in your cup for the best deal. Ryan has figured out that more Lego fit into the container if you build the pieces together. Still, putting rectangles into a circular cup is not that easy. And certainly not child's play.

Now if you are thinking that it might be a bit of an unusual for Ryan and I to be frequenting a "child's" store, look who's hand is in one of the portholes.




Another favourite stop is Sephora. Sephora sells everything to help us be even more beautiful, smell wonderful, and have fun in the making. Beauty Educators. Makeup Artists. Forget meeting someone new on dating websites. Go with your sister or mother to Sephora.

Marie, here is where Ryan and Aimee found your birthday present. Don't look too hard - it's a surprise!