Seattle

Another continent (Carly): Thu 30/11/2006 9:45 AM

Hi everybody. (....continued from Hong Kong page......)

USA!!!

Well yesterday we left Hong Kong and had a 12 hour flight to San Francisco. We then had 12 hours to kill before another flight to Seattle. When we arrived in Seattle it had been snowing and a bus did not some for an hour and a half! We were freezing, it was 11pm (US time) and we had been up for 32 hours so we were less than amused! We gave up and went to get a taxi. I called the hostel from a pay phone to confirm our reservation (I wasn't sure if it was a 24 reception) and as I hung up a bus arrived. We ran like loonies back outside and managed to squeeze on it! I'd spent some of our exact change so told the driver to keep the change. He said I should keep the whole change as the bus was free! Turns out they don't charge anyone when they are that late. Still we both agreed we'd rather it was on time and pay. People on the bus were very friendly and a guy on 4th Avenue pointed us in the right direction for the hostel. When we eventually got to it we found our room is lovely! Its normally a dorm and has two sets of double-bed bunk beds in it! Adam didn't set the alarm properly so we woke up at 5pm today but as we didn't get to sleep till 1am it didn't really matter! We had a walk around downtown, found the Space Needle and then Fate led us to a cinema! We saw the new Bond movie (very good) and walked back in the snow. Not done much here yet but it looks like there lots to do and as the internet is free hopefully I'll get time to tell you all about it!

Love to all!

Carly xxx

Hey Again - Seattle (Adam): Sun 14/01/2007 1:16 AM

Hey everyone,

Sorry I'm writing again so soon, I know half of u probably haven't finished reading the last email yet hehe, that is if u even started it.

Finally I'm up to our arrival in America. It was a difficult process, would u believe it's more trouble getting into America than it is to Russia or China these days? We had to fill in a bunch of forms and have our fingerprints taken and wait in line for ages. This was after a 12 hour flight from Hong Kong. Remember before when I mentioned travelling back in time? Well our flight crossed the international dateline, so basically we left Hong Kong at 12:40pm on the 28th November and after flying for 12 hours we arrived at San Francisco airport at 8am on the same day 28th Nov! That was pretty weird, for us it seemed like that movie Groundhog Day and we were living the same day over again. Anyway then we had to wait around in the airport until 3pm for our next flight to Seattle. It felt like forever but we finally arrived in Seattle only to find there was a freak snowstorm and the bus we needed was two hours late. When the bus eventually arrived the driver let everyone on for nothing and we got to our hostel about 1 in the morning! That was definitely the longest day of my life.

Seattle is a really cool city, very relaxed and relatively compact so it's easy to walk between places. Unfortunately it was freezing cold all week so we spent the first day shopping for warmer clothes. We went up the Space Needle which is a tower shaped like a flying saucer that was built for the World's Fair in 1962. The views from up there were spectacular, reaching over the city to the mountains on the horizon. We got a double ticket so we could go up the tower in the morning and again after dark.

Near the Space Needle is the Jimi Hendrix Experience Music Project. It is a huge museum about the history of music in Seattle, named after Hendrix because he was born and raised here until he joined the army at 17. Seattle is also the home of Grunge music, something some people are grateful for. Other musical luminaries born there include Bing Crosby and Sir Mix-a-Lot. We also saw exhibitions on the history of the electric guitar and the music of Disney movies (brought back many fond childhood memories for me but Carly still watches them now). We passed up the chance to record a CD, previous singing experience in Japan showed that neither of us has a future in that field hehe.

We got up really late one day so we just dossed around playing frisbee in the park in the freezing cold. Everyone who walked past must have thought we'd been smoking too much crack coz we were totally wrapped up in jackets, hats and gloves launching a frisbee around next to the sea. After that we tried to catch an American Football match in a bar in Pioneer Square but this crazy barmaid wouldn't accept our drivers' licences for ID. Apparently only international licences are acceptable in her bar although we could use our British ones to drive here!

Our last day in Seattle was spent in Discovery Park which is a huge national park on the peninsula north of the city. We took a bus there coz the guy in the hostel said it was really far but on the way back we walked coz it wasn't actually that bad. We followed a marked trail through the woods which took us along the edge of the sandstone cliffs over the sea. The landscape is really beautiful and loads of people drive out there to walk their dogs or go running. Pretty strange to drive somewhere to go for a run but I guess it's a lot more scenic than running in the city and there are less people about.

We kept our eyes peeled for wildlife and I did spot a tiny humming bird hovering around some bushes. From the park we went to Fisherman's Terminal and saw some massive ships dropping off cargo. Then we walked back into the city to see Lake Union where Tom Hanks' houseboat was in Sleepless in Seattle (I've never seen the movie and Carly couldn't remember what the boat looked like so needless to say we didn't find it).

So there u go, we enjoyed Seattle a lot and spent a bit more time just relaxing and taking in the atmosphere than we have in most other places. Americans are really friendly for the most part and will often stop to help if u look lost. If u go into a shop to buy something the cashier will often chat away and when most people realise we are from England they give us advice on what to see and do while we're here. There do seem to be a lot of hobos around but even most of them will wish u a pleasant day when u don't give them any change, pretty remarkable.

Anyway after Seattle we made our way back to San Francisco and stayed in the dingiest part of town for 5 days until Mum, Dad and Scott came to meet us. We were right by the Civic Centre and Union Square which sound like civilised places but are in fact overrun by bums. I have never seen so many drunken hobos hanging out in one place in my life. We didn't really do anything while we were there coz we knew we would be back in San Fran later in the month and see everything then. We just went to the cinema a bunch of times, did a bit of shopping and watched some crappy American TV. I don't understand how it's possible to have sooo many channels and yet still nothing worth watching!

Anyway I'll leave it there for now and write another one or two about our Californian road trip with the rest of the family. We got a lot more done in the next month because Dad hired a car and so it was much easier to get around.

Hope all is well with u lot, it was gd to hear from those of u who replied to my last email, thanks for that.

Speak soon,

Adam

Seattle - a few more details! (Carly): Sun 14/01/2007 1:31 AM

Hello again!

On our second day in Seattle we actually managed to get up in time for breakfast! It was worth the effort as the Green Tortoise Hostel had a great selection of free food available, I even managed to get a decent cup of tea - not as easy as it may sound when you are away from home! We spent the day shopping and were shocked at how friendly people were. The sales assistants in the shops seemed genuine when they greeted us and a tramp even told us to have a nice day after we refused to give him money! We hiked across the interstate (on a bridge - no running across 6 lane roads!) to Capital Hill which had a completely different atmosphere. There was a statue of Jimi Hendrix and lots of "grunge" shops.

We did quite a lot of shopping in Seattle, probably something to do with the weak dollar! The most fun though was Pike Place Market. It was a bit weird seeing crabs and fish for sale on ice rather than live like in Asia. There were lots of funky Tshirts and novelty items. Adam spent hours in a comic book/film novelty items shop and I was surprised when he only bought two posters!

The Space Needle was really cool. We got a two trip ticket so that we could go up during the day and at night. We were lucky as it was a really clear day and we could see all the way to the mountains in every direction. There was an indoor viewing gallery with explanations as to what everything was but we could also go outside to get a better look! We got lots of ideas for other places to visit from up there! It was really beautiful at night but much colder so we had a really quick walk around the outside.

The Experience Music Project (EMP) was set up in honour of Jimi Hendrix who grew up in Washington State. There was an interesting exhibition on his life, particularly interesting for me as I must admit that I didn't know much about him. We thought it was funny that the Americans seemed to view him as protection from "British Invasion Music" - a funny way to think about the Beatles and the Stones! There were also lots of other displays. In the origins of HipHop we learnt that in the beginning it was all about peace not drugs and guns! The Development of the Electric Guitar showed us how ideas sprang out of the desire to be louder with lots of very cool looking variations. Music in Seattle showed us the development of popular music in the area. We were surprised to find that in the "Louie-Louie" period the same song was released by two bands at the same time and they had a Battle of the Bands where tons of bands all played that one song. People didn't understand its popularity and the FBI investigated it thinking that the lyrics must be rude! My favourite part though was a huge section devoted to the Music of Disney. It was amazing to see how Disney has been inextricably linked to music since the first cartoon Steamboat Willie in 1928. The emotion that Disney expresses through music became obvious when we listened to clips like "wish upon a star" from Pinocchio and "Baby of mine" from Dumbo. I could have sat there all day and there's loads more I could say but I'm sure no one is as interested in it as I was!

We spent the Sunday playing frisbee in Myrtle Edwards Park. The park was right next to Puget Sound (the bay) and we really enjoyed the 2 mile walk which winds through it. That evening we tried to see part of a ball game at Pioneer Square but unfortunately it was over by the time we arrived and the bars were pretty dead. We were soon glad of that though when the bar tender refused to accept our UK driving licences as ID! It was so embarrassing that we didn't want to go back to the hostel for our passports - they had told us to go for the game, so we went to the cinema instead!!!

We spent our final day in Discovery Park where we saw the most amazing views of Puget Sound, some islands and far off mountains. I sneakily took a video of Adam trying to balance on a log. The lighthouse was a little disappointing, they are not tall towers like at home, instead it was just a small house with a light on the roof! We tried to catch a bus to Fisherman's Terminal but the driver changed his mind once we were on and said we should take another bus there instead. We didn't want to buy another bus ticket so we decided to walk there instead! It probably wasn't the best decision we've made as we had to walk along a huge curved bridge and the wind was so strong I thought we might be blown off! We did get there eventually though and saw some cool ships.

Next we thought we'd walk to Lake Union (where part of Sleepless in Seattle was filmed). It was much further than it looked on our "not to scale tourist map" but we got there just before dark!!! The best bit was when we had to cross a 6 lane road on a pedestrian crossing, the drivers must have thought we were crazy walking around in this industrial area and some looked a bit cross that they all had to stop for us......we just wondered why there wasn't a foot bridge over the road instead of traffic lights! Lake Union was huge! Adam got a bit nervous when I insisted on walking around a dock with lots of posh boats, but there were no keep out signs and I wanted a good pic of the lake! On our way back we saw a Drive-thru Coffee Shop - we were amazed people must be too lazy to park to get their coffee!

Well that should do it! I would write about more places but Adam is bored and wants to leave - he doesn't fool me I know he just wants to go back to the hotel and watch more CSI: Miami!

Love Carly xxxx