Seattle, 31 May - 7 June 2008

I started this post on 6/12/08 and am only now finishing it. Yikes! I realize that only my travel mates will have any interest, but at least enjoy the photos, yeah? Seattle, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.  

Please forgive my grammar.  Really, if I worry about it too much, I'll never post the thing.

Here it is, "re-printed", in all it's inconsistent-tense glory:

I never sleep well the night before traveling, so when it was time to get up, I was "up & at 'em". The bed was starting to feel awful anyway and I wanted to go through my bag again and make sure that I had my ___________________. (Passport, I.D., lip balm)

Me & KMHD get dropped off @ the airport to begin our journey to the Great Northwest. At this point, though, things just go wrong. As told by KMHD:

Lather, rinse, repeat Airports make me dually weepy. I hate saying goodbye and then there's the TSA. When Andrew dropped us off at Adams Field, I was brief and light-hearted for my own sake. "See you later!" We would, after all, be seeing him later that evening in Seattle. I tried not to watch his and AiLien's embrace, again for my own sake. We checked in electronically & to the dismay to those in line, we got processed immediately. Oddly, our boarding passes didn't look like boarding passes. [Ed. I noticed the airline employees avoided eye contact. THEY KNEW.] This probably should have tipped me off but these things are easy to overlook at seven in the morning. After getting my bag x-rayed three times, no thanks to Mom's insistence on our bringing herbs-and-roots to give to our aunt in our luggage and carry-ons, and enduring gratuitous amounts of anxiety, we are in! Our flight boards and we are left with another female passenger who had been arguing loudly on her cellphone for everyone to hear. (It could be gathered that Gentleman Caller 1 did not pick her up and take her to the airport that morning as previously discussed. She had to call upon Gentleman Caller 2 for a ride. Gentleman Caller 1 happens to hate Gentleman Caller 2. Conflict!) As it turns out, the flight is over booked and we get left behind. (Is it strange to note that all three of us were single, non-white females?) The United Airlines rep puts us on a Frontier flight for later in the afternoon and gives us a free flight voucher, it's value suspect. Since we would have to check in and endure the TSA all over again, we call Andrew and leave the LR Airport. Spending six hours there just wasn't going to happen.

Airports make me dually weepy. I hate saying goodbye and then there's the TSA. When Andrew dropped us off at Adams Field again, I was brief and light-hearted for my own sake. "See you later!" We would, after all, be seeing him later that evening in Seattle. I tried not to watch his and Ai Lien's embrace, again for my own sake. This time around, we approach the counter for check in. Our boarding passes had assigned seats on them. Good sign! They also had four consecutive esses on them: SSSS. We come to find at Security Checkpoint that this means the airline has nominated us for a special search by the TSA. This entails getting pat down, having your possessions and Carl Sagan book considered more carefully and having your belongings tested for explosive residue. It simply sucks! On the other hand, our flights with Frontier were wonderful. When you get good service, it reminds you just how bad customer service has gotten in general. When you get good service, you savor it, want to kiss the flight attendants and slap the captain's ass for pleasantly getting you there. It was almost enough to forget the events of earlier. Almost.

Me & KMHD arrive in Seattle & we're just pooped. There was no going out to eat or to get a celebratory drink. We went to our cousin's apartment in Capitol Hill & then walked over to Olympic Sculpture Park to get some desperately needed fresh air.

It wouldn't be long before we had to go back to the airport to pick up ATM. I was already looking forward to getting to our uncle's home in Renton where we had a pretty good set up. The house was unoccupied, my uncle was doing business in China and our cousins were in Viet Nam. We relax a bit more at my cousin's apt and then we drive to Sea-Tac, pick up ATM, and make our way to Renton. When we arrived there, I dropped my bags and luggage on the floor and just shut my eyes for a long, deep rest. Before succumbing to zzz's, we all agreed that we'd "take it easy" the next day.

Here's how we "take it easy":

1. Piroshsky-Piroshsky -- edible heaven. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM! P-P is located in Pike's Market, which is cramped & crowded. I wanted to buy some Beecher's Cheese, but it was just too overwhelming, so we got out of there.

Photo by KMHD

2. Experience Music Project -- It was gone, the dub room! No dub room, no credibility. Apparently, it was part of a temp exhibit. The guitar sculpture is neat, but I wouldn't recommend visiting EMP, it's a tad disappointing. Unless it was free or $1, but pay no more!

(Photo by KMHD)

3. Olympic Sculpture Park -- we had to go back! Beautiful views, great works of art -- I will go there every time I'm in town. You know, I wouldn't have noticed the tree made of metal had no one pointed it out to me.

Split, Roxy Paine

We wanted that tree to be full of crows. Look at that sky! You can see the Calder in the distance. KMHD says it's the only U.S. park that's won an international award for design.

(Photo by KMHD)

We went into the Neukom Vivarium:



Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Typewriter Eraser, Scale X


Perre's Ventaglio III, 1967 Beverly Pepper


Eagle, Alexander Calder


Love & Loss, Roy McMakin

Ah, couldn't find artist credits for this one:

Wake, Richard Serra

There was no "taking it easy," obviously. We had to go back to Renton for a proper recharge.

We planned to go to Vancouver, BC for the next couple of days, but we didn't make it. Let me give you some really good advice: If you want to go to Canada, be sure to have your passport. That's it. Since we were unable to go to Vancouver, we went back to Renton & back to bed, it was still pretty early in the morning. We made the best of those two days, I think. Instead of going back into the city, we hung out in Renton. It's not as bad as it sounds!

We went to the amazing Viet Wah (Where you can purchase fried tofu w/ onion), we went thrift store shoppin', we went to IKEA,

and we ate dinner that night @ Naan & Curry (Renton). We are of the opinion that the food is overpriced & mediocre, so pass. Really.

The next day, we walked around downtown Renton -- we went to a comic book store where I got a Love & Rockets comic book, we went to a used book store that had an adorable cat w/ a bandanna in there:


It was opening day @ the Farmer's Market. It made me want to live there, honestly, all of that good food, veg & fruit. It really puts our FM to shame!:



We kept passing this place, so we took a leap of faith & got really cheap haircuts:


I'm not a gamblin' woman, but I'm so glad that we took the chance on that haircut. The hairdresser lady essentially maintained the work that my hairdresser did back home, but for a freaking fraction of the price!

That evening, we went to Omar Al-Khayam Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner. Hands down, the best hummus I've ever had, ever. The secret? They put a dollop of minced garlic right in the middle of it, it is heavenly. Omar Al-Khayam comes highly recommended by this lot.

Nerd alert!

KMHD's falafel platter:


On Wednesday, we do things that we want to do as individuals. For instance, ATM wants to go to the record store & KMHD wants to buy some clothes. I wanted to go ferrying, but we just didn't have time in the schedule. We drop ATM off and then head to the shopping district. While KMHD shops, I get a 15 minute massage. It was badly needed, I mean, the plane ride and the sleeping on a strange bed was really getting to me. KMHD arrives just as my masseuse was finishing me off (No "happy ending") and I suggest that she get one, too, since she probably felt as 'ugh' as me & then some, since she has a bad shoulder. 15 minutes later, we were off to pick up ATM. From there we spent some time in Fremont. Without meaning to, ran across the Fremont Troll:



ATM went to another record store, me & KMHD went to 5tar8uck5 so I could pee. En route we came across this most excellent vintage "mall". This place was unreal. It was organized & tidy & you could want anything that they had in there. Unfortunately, their credit card machine was down, so I couldn't buy these neato sunglasses and they were closing really soon, so I made a mental to note to go there next time. 

We meet up w/ ATM and go to eat Ethiopian @ Habesha. The food, divine -- it was a first time for all three of us to eat Ethiopian cuisine, but we handled it (literally) like pros.

After dinner, we got pick-me-up coffees next door before going out to the club.  (I just make us sound so old & weenie!)

Nectar is a very nice club, not too big, no pretension, has a patio. I was relaxed and didn't feel out of place. We went specifically to see Quiet Village (2 guys, edits & visual edits) and then Radio Slave dj'ed. ATM gives the details:

(The following links don't work, but we're working on it!)

It Takes a Village

One of the great things about getting yourself out of town and into a bigger town is of course taking in shows that without some kind of divine interference would never hit poor little Little Rock. Also see: the joy of having the chance to dance to music you love to dance to at a venue you like without having to put on the event yourself! (Sorry, Disco. No dice.)

Quiet Village was that show for us this trip. The British duo of Justin Martin and Matt Edwards did their live audio/visual thing in support of their debut album, Silent Movie, released earlier this year on !K7 Records, at the exceedingly decent little club, Nectar, in Fremont. As the two manned the CDJs and laptop and fired up the projector, the album became the soundtrack for a wild pastiche of 70s-and-beyond film strangeness. It all started with an orange-tan and distraught Richard Chamberlain dropping to his knees in the sand and looking longingly out across the water and just got weirder from there.

I can’t even begin to tell you what we were seeing most of the time. I do know bits of Black Shampoo appeared, and I only know that because of the trainspotting abilities of someone nerdier even than me. The 1976 film is apparently a rip on the more well-known Ned Beatty film, except with more soft-core sex. Oh, and a chainsaw murder or two. Oddly enough, it was essentially an irony-free evening. And it certainly could have gone the other way. But the psychedelic won out, always.

As scenes from Tarsem Singh’s The Cell flashed, the whole thing reached a level of intensity I wasn’t really anticipating—in a very good way! It was actually quite frightening there for a few minutes. I found myself squirming, wanting it to lighten up. And it did. I breathed a sigh of relief as they brought their silent movie back to shore.

To top it all off, Matt, under his Radioslave moniker, DJ’d the night out, and we moved our travel-tired asses together with Nectar’s small but appreciative dance crowd until we just couldn’t. We slept good that night!

After we leave the club, we go back to Renton, our uncle is back from China! He's still up, watching television & eating noodles. We chat, smoke cigarettes, and then go to bed, it's pretty late.

The next morning, the day of ATM's departure, because he was leaving before us, we had planned to go ferrying and to introduce him to Ba Noi (Grandma!) before taking him to the airport. Unfortunately, that didn't really pan out because we had to take him to the airport almost immediately. He had checked his ticket to be certain of the time -- I'm glad he did, because he could've very well missed his flight and what a hassle that would've been! A quick lunch at Pho Hoa with our uncle and it's off to the airport. After quickly leaving ATM @ Sea-Tac, me & KMHD, we drop our uncle off @ Boeing (where he works), go get magic juice, and then go ferrying! We take the Bainbridge Island route. Fantastic. But, it was v. c-c-c-o-l-d.

(Photo by KMHD)





After ferrying, we return to Renton to explore, eat, & get ready for our return home to Arkansas.

Friday is time spent with family. We have one last meal with our uncle at Top Gun, a VERY AWESOME Chinese restaurant in Bellevue. Once you have real Chinese food, you want it all of the time, and it haunts you, especially when it's completely unavailable to you.

Cau Bay (uncle)

Then we go back to the house to pack & get ready for our cousin to arrive and take us to see Ba Noi and Di Huong (Our mother's little sister, our cousin's mother, and caretaker to Ba Noi.) Me & KMHD, we completely regret not coming sooner and more often. Di Huong was happy to see us, but was sad that we only visited on the last day we were there. I still feel awful about this. Next time we go to Seattle, I will be there more, for sure. We relieve her of her duties, so that she may go grocery shopping. Seeing Ba Noi was amazing and a very emotional ordeal. She actually had a moment of clarity and recognized us, even if it was for a brief moment. Even though she's bed-bound, she's strong and she has a great sense of humor. I can't find the words to express how it felt to be in her presence. She is a survivor! Much love.

Here she is laughing (really hard) and playing with my adorable little cousin:

Di Huong, Ba Noi, KMHD & AMD:

When my aunt returned, she did the classic Vietnamese aunt thing and loaded us both up with fruit (tomatoes and bananas) for our flight back to Little Rock. We visit a bit more and then leave to go to the biggest, beautifulest Whole Foods Market I've ever been to to get some snacks for our flight back.

(Me, KMHD & our cousin)

My Tam (cousin) takes us to a nice restaurant in downtown Seattle (Marjorie's) and then we're off to Sea-Tac, where the beginning of our awful trip home begins. Again, AGAIN we are subjected to another full body/personal belongings search. Again, they search us for explosive residue. Again, we feel embarrassed and angry. AGAIN?! The flight is long. We have to deal with delays (flight crews not showing up!) and uncomfortable waiting room non-sleeping. We almost have a serious incident moments after landing in Cincinnati when KMHD had a little fainting spell. Thankfully, she recovered, fully. And thankfully, a flight crew shows to take us home to Little Rock, where smiling faces and humidity greet us full on.

-------------MORE PHOTOS---------

Some bar in downtown Renton:


Near the Space Needle:


Outside the EMP:


Inside the EMP:




Inside the Neukom Vivarium:




Dew collection:


Densely leafed tree in downtown Renton:


Same tree, looking up:


Messing around in Renton:




The cute kids who got haircuts before us:


Ramp:


En route to Fremont:


Aboard the ferry:


Bainbridge Island:


Rainbows!:



This is substitute Solo:


LOOK AT THIS TREE!:



Taken in Bellevue in a fast car, but it's a restaurant called What the Pho?