It’s a surprisingly bright and sunny Saturday afternoon in Seattle and everyone is out to enjoy the occasion. Surprising, because thanks to Seattle’s position, encircled by mountainous national park and large expanses of water (the Pacific Ocean to the West, no less), Seattle is one of North America’s wettest cities.
I’ve only got an afternoon to explore this famous North-Western hotspot, so I’ve checked my bags into an airport hotel and hotfooted it downtown by jumping on the Link Light Rail from SeaTac International Airport, about 30 minutes south of the city centre.
I don’t know much about Seattle, asides from the fact that Amazon, Microsoft and Starbucks Coffee were all born here… the Space Needle is also a famous feature of the Seattle skyline, though from the map it looks like that’s quite far North of the main downtown, in a neighbourhood ironically called “Seattle Center”.
The Sound Transit Link Light Rail costs just $6 for an all-day ticket between the airport and downtown, which allows me to hop on and off as much as I like within the zones I’ve paid for. That said, there are no ticket barriers at any of the stations, so I may be the only passenger to make a donation to the cause today…
I get off the train at the International District/Chinatown Station. The Chinatown is pretty big and the oldest in the region. Keep walking uphill and eventually you leave China and arrive in Japantown, where I discover Kobe Terrace, a peaceful Japanese garden park that winds its way up the hill. The allotments in Kobe Terrace look more like a hillside shanty town than a gardener’s haven, with makeshift frames fashioned from old mattresses and spare wood.
I walk down South Washington Street to check out Pioneer Square District and havea bite to eat. Pioneer Square has some of the older buildings in town, which were saved from ruthless might of the 1950s/60s town planners who wanted to tear the whole lot down and start again. They got as far as demolishing a historic hotel and replacing it with a brutalist, angular car park… That was enough to mobilise the locals.
Not knowing the area at all, and not wanting to waste time looking for food, I jump into MOD Pizza for lunch. Not quite a unique, local lunch but hey.
If I’d just waited a moment longer for lunch I would have been able to enjoy fish and chips along the waterfront, but, alas, I didn’t know that a right-turn out of Pioneer Square District would deliver me to the West Edge waterfront which is where it’s all happening.
Where the International and Pioneer Square Districts both felt a little rundown and the neighbourhoods of choice for Seattle’s notably large homeless population, the waterfront district has all the trappings of a family-friendly tourist destination.
Ivar’s Acres of Clams is the go-to fish place on the dock, and there are countless tourist shops to nip and out of. Argosy Cruises even run a tourist boat for trips out on the water, though I don’t have time for that today.
I explore Ye Olde Curiosity shop on Pier 54 – full of, well, old curiosities… and a fair few old curiosities curiously perusing too. If I were staying in town for dinner, I’d probably try out the Premier Meat Pies, which look good as I pass.
I toy with the idea of walking all the way to the Space Needle – there’s lots to explore in Seattle Center (the Pacific Science Center, Chihuly Garden and Glass, the Museum of Pop Culture/MoPOP, as well as a couple of theatres) – but I think that’s going to have to wait for another visit.
Instead, it’s time to check out Pike Place Market and, of course, the original Starbucks.
Pike Place Market is brilliant! It’s super busy, and whilst it’s a little confusing to get in, once you’ve found an entrance it’s easy to explore the many shops and stalls inside. From the esoteric to Polish pottery, to second-hand books and posters. There are shops with board games and superhero collectables next door to handmade leather-bound stationery and candles. On the top floor, florists are creating bouquets to customers’ requests opposite specialist food stalls, offering tasters of locally produced wines and honey. As I climb the final flight of stairs to emerge in the fresh air on the roof level, a large crowd has gathered around the fish stall – someone has bought a fish, which has turned into a hilarious spectacle of fish throwing between the fishmongers who have taken it on themselves to play a game of flying fish before allowing the customer to walk away with their purchase. The show concludes with an enthusiastic round of applause and the fishmonger announces the next show will start when someone else buys a fish!
I’m still looking for Starbucks, and by this point I’m actually starting to get thirsty. And then I find out, out of the top floor of the market and onto Post Alley, identifiable by the longest queue this side of the Atlantic. It’s even longer than the queue for the ladies’ toilet in the interval at the theatre… and there’s no way I’m going to join a queue that long for dirty dishwater. So I snap the obligatory picture and head back towards Chinatown – I spied someone drinking bubble tea when I got off the train earlier, and it’s been on my mind ever since.
It’s a stark contrast as I head away from the central tourist zone. The smell of freshly cut flowers and sea breeze are replaced with stale urine. The laughing, jostling weekenders give way to sidewalks home to lathargic (or occasionally angry) homeless men. I turn the corner onto Columbia Street at 3rd Avenue and a man is urinating over his own backpack. Two ladies shout out their car window as they pass him. It’s a sad sight.
It makes me think about those city planners of the mid-20th Century and what they had hoped to do for the downtown community by razing the old skid row and starting again. On the Light Rail back to the airport, I see a new initiative advertised – a Tiny House Village in Othello, set up by the Low Income Housing Institute.
For all its unicorns, the economic benefit clearly hasn’t trickled down to the full community.