Being a Tourist in Seattle: Chihuly Garden and Glass

In the garden at Chihuly Garden and Glass

I’ve spent the past 10 days taking my sister and her husband to some of my favorite places in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.  Audrey’s vacation priorities were family and National Parks, but before heading off on a couple of road trips, she wanted to spend the first day after their arrival in Seattle recovering from jet lag.  The highlight of our day out and about Seattle was our visit to Chihuly Garden and Glass, which showcases the work of glass artist, Dale Chihuly.  It is located at the base of the Space Needle at the Seattle Center.  When we arrived, workers were cleaning up from the annual Bumbershoot Festival.  (Bumbershoot is another name for umbrella.)

Bumbershoot Alley at the Seattle Center

Two of my favorite spaces are the Persian Ceiling Room and the Glass House inside Chihuly Garden and Glass.  My sister liked the gardens outside, where glass sculptures are artfully placed next to a diverse selection of colorful plants.

Sculpture in the Sealife Room

Persian Ceiling with reflections on the wall

Detail, Persian Ceiling

Mille Fiori Room

Chandelier

Macchia Forest Room

Glass House

Garden outside

 

Playing Tourist Guide

Tour bus at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at the Sea of Galilee

Whew, are you feeling like a pilgrim yet?  I feel like one of those tour guides holding a flag or a pink umbrella, pulling you along the various highpoints of my April journey.  I hope that you are not groaning and saying, not another one of Rosemary’s slideshows!

When friends and colleagues asked me, upon my return, what was your favorite part of the trip, I couldn’t name one thing.  How do you compare walking a coastal path in Iceland with visiting Kafr Kama, or the souk in Akko to the one in Old City Jerusalem, or my sister’s backyard breakfast with a restaurant meal?  I’m not being coy when I can’t name a favorite experience.  I loved every minute and feel fortunate for the spectacular sights as well as the quieter ones.

For me, putting together these blog posts about my travels has been pure joy.  I get to re-live my trip again as I go through my photos and travel journal, trying to put together a narrative that shows you my impressions of the destinations I visited so recently.  I hope you will continue to bear with me.  I still want to blog about Amsterdam and France!

New York City: In Thrall to the Spirit of the Place in Winter

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge toward Manhattan

“The art of drifting was an antimapping experience and the idea was to wander, to meander around a city, at every moment being alive to whatever drew you.  You were in thrall to the spirit of place, rather than having place under your thumb, on a map, on a plan.”
— Jay Griffiths, Wild: An Elemental Journey

Planning vs. anti-mapping

New York City is a walker’s paradise.  And although we did walk a lot, and sometimes even meander, I was glad that I had taken the time to do some trip planning before arrival.  My research resulted in a list of things I wanted to see and do during our short, first visit to this metropolis, and by plotting their locations on my AAA map of Manhattan, I was able to get a better sense for planning our days so as not to miss anything.  Perhaps if we had more time, we would have been able to practice the art of drifting.

New York is a city of skyscrapers, bridges, benches, garbage, eateries, distinct neighborhoods . . . Today’s post is about first impressions.

Looking up — one way to appreciate NYC’s skyscrapers

Street viewed from the Roosevelt Island tram

The skyscrapers formed deep canyons.  Depending on the light, they threw interesting reflections on neighboring buildings and traffic.

“It is by all odds the loftiest of cities . . . Manhattan has been compelled to expand skyward because of the absence of any other direction in which to grow.  This, more than any other thing, is responsible for its physical majesty.”
— E. B. White, Here is New York

The traffic was nonstop, but we quickly learned to jaywalk like native New Yorkers.  (In Seattle we are not used to jaywalking!)

Reflections on the windows of cars and taxis

Skyscraper reflections

The city’s inhabitants create a prodigious amount of garbage, as you can imagine.  There was quite a bit of litter, and every day piles of garbage bags and garbage containers lined the streets — in every neighborhood.

Garbage lining the street in the Upper East Side

We expected to see fire escapes in the multi-story buildings — an iconic NY architectural feature.  But we were surprised to see wooden water tanks on the roof tops of tall buildings.  We could see a dozen or more water tanks just from the 17th story window of our Mid-town hotel.  New York is a mix of old and new — sometimes a shorter (older) building survived between tall high rises.

Fire escapes — interesting patterns of dark and light

Two round, wooden water tanks on the rooftops

Shoulder to shoulder with its taller neighbors, this “little” building survives!

Often, in the narrow spaces between tall buildings, we’d find gated community gardens and “pocket” parks.  They looked scraggly in winter, but I could imagine them as vibrant, green spaces in summer.

Folk-art sculpture in a tiny community space

Another little fenced in park in a small space between buildings

We loved seeing the old row houses on the side streets leading off West 4th between 7th Avenue and West 12th in Greenwich Village.  Frommer’s named this “the most beautiful street” in New York City.

Historic row houses

Mason’s Row

We tried (twice, on two different evenings) to win discount tickets to The Book of Mormon play, but alas, our names were not drawn.  The lottery awards about 20 deeply discounted tickets to each sold-out performance about 2 hours before showtime.  Despite the cold, there were about 200 – 300 intrepid souls vying for the few tickets.

Crowd awaiting lottery for Book of Mormon tickets

“If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought.  And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it.”
— E. L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiller, 1967

So, of all of the things on our list of things to experience in NYC, we did not make it to a Broadway or off-Broadway play on this trip.  I guess we will have to return someday.

What Do You Do with Out-of-Town Guests in Seattle?

Olympic Sculpture Park, Space Needle with Calder’s Eagle

My siblings are a far-flung bunch, and I always enjoy their rare visits to Seattle.  Out-of-town guests give me an excuse to play tourist in my home town and to re-visit my favorite places. It’s no surprise that I’ve blogged about most of these excursions already (links to past posts included below).

Here’s a list of things I did with my sister and brother-in-law — what else would you have included?

• Explore the backdoor of the city by walking along the Ship Canal and the Elliott Bay trail, with a stop for breakfast at the Bay Cafe in Fisherman’s Terminal
• Walk through the Olympic Sculpture Park
• Tour Chihuly Garden and Glass
• Have a picnic at Golden Gardens and watch the sunset over Elliott Bay

Watching the sunset from Golden Gardens beach

• Visit Jello Mold Farm in the Skagit Valley
• Ferry to Whidbey Island and hike on Ebey’s Landing
• Spend a morning at the Pike Place Market with a stop at the Gum Wall

Flowers at the Pike Place Market

Busker outside the original Starbucks store in the Pike Place Market

• Savor the flavors of the Pacific Northwest.  We enjoyed lattes from Zoka’s Coffee Shop, salmon, steamed clams, fresh peaches and cherries from the Olympia Farmer’s Market, dinner at the Green Leaf Vietnamese Restaurant, Fran’s chocolate Gold Bars and truffles, homemade blackberry pie, and pizza at Tom Douglas’s Serious Pie (among other things).

Morning lattes from my neighborhood Zoka’s

Eye Candy: Flower Vendors at Seattle’s Pike Place Market

Flower vendor at Seattle’s Pike Place Market

It’s always a treat to play tourist in my home town, and yesterday I wandered through the Pike Place Market with my niece and her kids.  The Pike Place Market is open year round, but it is especially colorful right now with so many cut flowers vying for your attention.  The vendors were busy assembling gigantic bouquets for sale at just $10 to $15.

Flower vendor and bucket of peonies

This bouquet was selling for $15

Another vendor’s fresh bouquets

Buckets of lupine and irises

Vendor putting together a bouquet behind an array of glorious poppies

Kerchief camouflaged among the flowers

Flower stall through plastic window

Pike Place Market flower vendors

Fallen sweet peas by the vendors’ stalls

Seattle’s Gum Wall

Gum wall in Post Alley, Pike Place Market

In all the years I’ve lived in Seattle, I had never been to this unique tourist attraction — the gum wall in the Pike Place Market.  You can find it in Post Alley down from the Information booth at the market.  It was an amazing site, and if you bring a wad of gum, you can contribute to its growing mass.  From now on, I’ll bring all of my out-of-town guests to see it.

The gum must be inches thick in some places.

Seattle icons, a ferry and the Spaceneedle, rendered in gum.

Preparing to make a new deposit.

Braiding blue gum for the wall

Young gum chewer and budding artist