Or: Things to Do in Seattle When You're Dead
We've gotten settled in, been escorted around, and taken a few visitors around the city
ourselves. This is my checklist for cool places to visit in Seattle when we have guests. It
is by no means exhaustive--we've only been here about a year--but it's a start.
Go to these places, do these things:
- The Chihuly Glass Gardens in the shadow of the Space Needle don't sound very exciting.
Blown glass: whee. I think I expected paperweights and bubbles, but it turned out to
be a genuinely amazing experience. Chihuly's work ranges from vase-like structures based on
woven baskets to intricately-detailed sea creatures to abstract explosions of color and
form. The exhibition in the garden, which matches the sculpture into natural textures and
colors, just caps things off.
- Working at the World Bank spoiled me for chocolate, because people would bring back
really great candy from around the world. If you're in the same boat, you should definitely
take the Theo Chocolate factory tour in Fremont, where you can try some very good chocolate
and discover that the raw cacao nibs are honestly kind of disgusting.
- Who doesn't go to the library on their vacation--not before, but during? But the
Seattle Public Library's central branch location is a huge, constantly-surprising place. An
enormous glass structure 11 stories high, it contains whole floors painted in vivid,
shocking colors. There's a theater, a huge skylit reading room, and a ton of interesting
art. Besides, it's downtown just a short walk from all the more typical tourist fare, like
the Underground Tour and Pike Place Market.
Skip these things and go eat at Paseo instead:
- The Space Needle: it's just a very tall building. If you've never been anywhere with
tall buildings, maybe that's thrilling. If it's a clear day and you can see Rainier, it's
pretty cool. But it's not $14 cool.
- The outside of the Experience Music Project, with its flowing sheets of anodized metal,
is supposed to look like a smashed guitar (it really doesn't). Inside, it was supposed to be
a rock and roll museum, but they couldn't quite get that to work out, so they added a
permanent science fiction wing. The whole thing is kind of vaguely embarrassing, honestly,
especially if you come from a city like DC where the disappointing museums have the courtesy
to be free.
- Forks, Washington. The best part of Forks is that it keeps all the sparkly vampire
drama way over on the other side of both the Puget Sound and a large national park.
