Sleepless in Seattle!

Well, I just got back from a brief trip to Seattle. That was a great experience as Seattle is a beautiful city.

I left on Tuesday morning and the trip got off to a slightly inauspicious start, as my flight was delayed by some minor technical issue and we took off well over an hour late. Alaska Airlines managed to make up quite a bit of the time, but I was still running late by the time I had found a shuttle bus service from the airport and checked into my hotel in downtown Seattle. The "deadline" was to try to catch the 2:45pm harbour cruise. That was part of the "CityPass" deal, which provided a booklet of tickets for six attractions at about half the normal total price. Several of the included attractions were things that I really wanted to do anyway and most of the others looked like fun, so it was a really good deal (I didn't use the zoo ticket in the end, but still saved a lot!).

The harbour cruise was very interesting and gave a good overview of the city. We saw some sea lions basking on a buoy, and also saw a massive gantry crane (used to offload the massive container ships) being transferred from the barge which had brought it from China onto the dock.

From the waterfront, I made my up through the famous Pike Place market (scene of the famous fish-throwing fish market) to the central shopping area and took the monorail to the Seattle Center. Both of those (monorail and Center) are relics from the 1962 World's fair held in Seattle.

The main feature of the Seattle Center is the famous Space Needle. Entrance to the Space Needle was included in the CityPass deal so I went up and admired the views from the top.



After getting some dinner in the area and wandering around the Center (lots of interesting gardens, architecture, fountains, etc.) I went up the Needle a second time to watch the sun setting and the city lights coming on. A very good end to my first day in Seattle.