Seattle

We had another fun day in Seattle yesterday. It took forever to get over the border - the guards were being extremely thorough, and even searching many people's trunks. On the way home, the US border patrol agents had shut down most of the lanes leading up to the Canadian border crossing station, and there were four police cars and about seven agents standing inspecting each vehicle that passed them. I wonder what was up there? I hear that border station has been shut down several times over the past month due to armed fugitives (or reports thereof) trying to escape from the US into Canada.

We had what has become our tradition, an Asian lunch at Uwajimaya Village, followed by browsing in the Kinokuniya bookstore, and then headed to the Science Fiction Museum at Seattle Center. It was a brilliant, clear day, though windy and cold, and the lineup to even pay for tickets to go up the Space Needle was ridiculously long so we nixed that idea before we even had a chance to consider it. Instead, we drove over to the Pike Place Market and wandered around for a while. It was a great day to be there. The market was packed with shoppers, and there were buskers and performers on every corner. We saw a guy doing magic tricks, and a group of four older black men stood outside of the original Starbucks singing wonderfully harmonized R&B tunes.

On our way home, we discovered a cool Mexican restaurant in one of the outer northern suburbs of Seattle, where the employees were all hispanic, the decor looked very authentic (all the way up to the paintings of famous Mexicans all around the tops of the walls) and an older gentleman carried a folk harp around the dining area serenading people with Mexican songs. By the time we left, we'd heard "La Bamba" three times, so I figure he sings that regularly to keep people from staying too long at their tables. Mexican-American restaurants are something I try to seek out when I'm in the states because for some reason they aren't common here in Canada.

Every time we go to Seattle I'm reminded of how much I love the city. It has so much character, with funky, diverse neighborhoods, a thriving downtown area, and so many interesting places to visit. I love the broad highway system (the lack of which is one of my biggest complaints about Vancouver) and am starting to learn my way around the city streets quite well, for someone who has never lived there. As often as we visit, I find there are still so many things we haven't seen or done yet -- I hear the art museum and the zoo are excellent, so those are on our list for later on this year.

Today we're off to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary for an hour of duck-dodging and bird spotting.