Post #322653 by Sweet Daddy Tiki on Wed, Aug 1, 2007 7:55 PM

Day 8 - Seattle

In the morning dogbytes dropped us at Seattle Center so we could do uncool touristy things: Science-Fiction Museum/Experience Music Project (EMP), Monorail and Space Needle. The Sci-Fi Museum/EMP is in an extraordinary building designed by Frank Gehry that most of the locals we talked with seem to hate but we loved. Within moments of snapping our first pics of this eminently photogenic structure, some guy said to Gary "Haven't you ever seen a crushed beer can before?" We took dozens of pictures, of which I'll only post a few here:

Inside the Sci-Fi museum (vestibule only - no picture taking allowed in the exhibits):

Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still (repro, not the original)

men's washroom sign

The Sci-Fi museum exceeded our expectations and we spent several hours poring over displays and artifacts from movies, tv shows and literature. Gary was especially thrilled to see more than a dozen original paintings by his favourite sci-fi cover artist, Ed Emshwiller. Our only disappointment was that the gift shop wasn't particularly well stocked - we would have dropped a big wad if the tchotchkes had been better. Our favourite souvenir of the museum was the penny we embossed with a ray gun design in the penny flattening machine. It wouldn't take our Canadian quarters (c'mon, they're almost at par), but it did allow us to flatten Canadian pennies.

We were a little overwhelmed by the Sci-Fi Museum and not prepared for another museum right away, so we just dashed into the Experience Music Project and zipped around it in few minutes. It also looked pretty awesome and someday I'd like to give it a proper go.

Then we took the monorail downtown. It was crowded and I gave up my seat to a chatty Texan.

She gave Gary her recommendation for where to eat lunch. Instead we found a little place called Jasmine, tucked away in the market. The menu is mostly Thai curries with a few Moroccan or Turkish (I can't remember which one) dishes, reflecting the background of the two proprietors, I think. Our curries were exquisite.

before

after

We wandered around downtown, admiring the older buildings and neon signs

and browsing in cool stores with names like Nancy, Fancy and Schmancy.

We took the monorail back to Seattle Centre but we didn't have enough time to go up the Space Needle before the evening's entertainment, so we called our chauffeur (I mean hostess) to pick us up.

In the evening Todd and Elicia took us to a West Seattle eatery called West 5, where we met up again with Jonelle (sp?) and SweetPea, seen here with a clever foil swan they sculptured for their take-home treats.

Iggy and Jessie (or possibly Jessie and Iggy).

Dawn and Mimi.

For dessert Gary & I both ordered the chocolate soufflé, not realizing that dogbytes brought a cake with her to be taken afterwards to Dawn's house. Had we known, we would have... probably had the soufflé anyway.

At Dawn's gorgeous mid-century home we met other Seattle tiki folks including Tiki Riviera and the fabled Woofmutt, who was not fearsome at all, but quite affable.