Seattle – City Pass Day Two

Thursday, July 24th, we set off bright and early, drove south on I-5, parked at the Pike Place Market Garage, walked about 1/2 mile  U-h-h-h-p – H-i-i-i-l-l  to the monorail station (remember... Seattle ≈ San Francisco...? )  and took took the monorail to the base of the Space Needle. Seattle's monorail, along with its one mile long track, had been built for the 1962 World's Fair and has been running ever since.

We boarded the monorail at the station at 5th and Pine.

John, Sue, Joe, Margaret, Frank and I are on the monorail going to the base of the Space Needle.
I'm behind the camera, taking the picture. 

We disembarked from the monorail very near the base of the Space Needle and went up to the observation deck. The center of gravity of the Space Needle is just five feet up from its base so I guess it is in the gift store. Funny, I did not see it there (ha, ha). The Space Needle was originally supposed to be called the Space Cage but reportedly some artist derisively dubbed it the Space Needle because he thought it looked like a three pairs of knitting needles poking up into the sky. 

The view looking up from the base of the Space Needle reveals cloudy, grey skies and
not the clear blue ones we had seen earlier in the week.

I took a lot of photos from the observation deck but, looking at them later, I was disoriented and could not tell what was located where. For a much better panoramic overview with labels I went to Space Needle webcam at the link http://www.spaceneedle.com/webcam/. Here are two sample screen shots from that site. There were similar interactive displays up at the level of the observation deck that allowed you to direct a webcam and look up landmarks. It was good we went early because the lines grew rapidly at these stations as the morning passed.

Looking almost due south is a view of the monorail and
the route we walked to get there from the Seattle Waterfront.

Looking almost due north is Lake Union where we cruised and the University of Washington.
Home base was a few blocks northwest of Washington University.

We managed to trace the route of our Monday cruise and trip through the locks and locate the Helix Bridge at Amgen. I also zoomed in on a colorful building complex due south from the Space Needle because graphically it stood out and I thought it was architecturally interesting, especially located  in the middle of a downtown area. I have been unable to figure out what it is, but I suspect it is apartments or condominiums of some sort. I even tried to enlarge the tiny green signposts in the lower right but did not have sufficient resolution to succeed in my detective work. I suppose if I digitally drove up and down the streets with Google maps I could find it, but that seems a bit extreme, even for me and idle curiosity.

The architectural detailing of this building complex just called to me.

We saw the 20-foot wide 8-foot high Space Needle Skypad™ Interactive Wall where you could upload your own photos or enter your name into a database of visitors. We did manage to make our way to the guest list station where we entered our name and home city.

There have been over 54 million visitors to the Space Needle.
If you can read the fine white print beneath the visitor count it will tell you that 1 real Elvis Presley has visited.
Other rotating anecdotal facts were which presidents and what celebrities have also been there.

The name  and address you entered appeared briefly on a screen before scrolling downward and then a balloon for your location would appear on the big illuminated map display to the right. I managed to capture the scrolling screen with all six of our names at once. We have now officially participated in the digital age's version of "Kilroy was here" for Seattle's Space Needle.

 I managed to get a photo of the screen with all three couples names on it
just before John & Sue's name dropped off the bottom.

In the gift shop Frank and I bought a souvenir bank of the Space Needle for Alex and gave it to him after our arrival back in California. He liked it and put it to use right away.

Alex is intently placing coins in his new Space Needle bank.

After the Space Needle we walked a short distance over to the EMP (Experience Music Project) Museum dedicated to "music + sci-fi + pop culture". The building is very colorful and is covered in 21,000 custom cut steel and aluminum shingles that look like fabric or panels waving in the wind. The architect Frank O. Gehry wanted the building to represent the fluidity of music. An innovative computer program used to design the curvaceous forms for the EMP is now also the primary design tool used by Boeing and Chrysler for shaped metal components. 

I made a composite picture of Frank in front of the EMP Museum but up this close
I could not capture its grandeur or do justice to its wide spectrum of colors.

This picture by a professional photographer captures the flow of the entire building much better than I could.

Frank and I probably would not have chosen this option out of our City Pass selections, assuming it only addressed rock music and would be outside our comfort zone. We elected to go to the EMP to stay together with John & Sue and Joe & Margaret and were really glad we did because the exhibits were so out of the ordinary, fascinating, and truly unexpected. The exhibits covered a diverse set of topics with a common theme of pop culture. There were architectural marvels built of LEGOs, modeling world famous buildings. There was an exhibit on science fiction writers and their inspiration, a gallery of costume displays and philosophy discussion for fantasy movies and books, and a large collection of memorabilia and videos on horror films as a genre. A several story high and even wider screen projected concerts and music videos off the second floor lobby. From outside to in, the EMP was a jewel just waiting to be mined.

In addition to the electric guitars and video displays we come to expect of the artwork of modern music,
the exhibits addressed a wide range of other topics – architecture, science fiction, fantasy, horror films .

We were not allowed to take pictures inside the strategically lit galleries but I do recall some key items. There were several articles of costuming from the series Game of Thrones. There were videos and diagrams of the rules of magic using the Harry Potter series as an example. In the Can't Look Away area, it was fun to see how critical music is to a horror film and just how non-scary it can be without it.

Frank is standing at the base of a sculpture of electric guitars in the lobby
with Joe and Sue in the right background.

Upstairs were audio studios where you could play a variety of instruments and see how a rock band of your own would look and sound on video. This area was more crowded so Frank and I gave it a cursory walk through only. We wanted to see one more attraction, not on the City Pass, but so colorful, I did not want to pass it up. John & Sue and Joe & Margaret chose to stay longer at the EMP, visiting the sound studios and gift shop while Frank and I went on ahead to visit the Chihuly Garden and Glass, just a short distance away, on the other side of the Space Needle from the EMP.

The Chihuly Garden and Glass is near the base of the Space Needle to the west
while the EMP Museum is off to the northeast.
The distances are less than the 605 foot height of the Space Needle

The Glasshouse of the Chihuly Garden and Glass is the largest and most obvious part of the museum, visible to passersby with no need for an entry fee. It reflects the artist Dale Chihuly's love of conservatories mainly because of the way the light can play in and around them. His creations are hung from ceilings like this garland or along corridors like his chandeliers.

Frank is standing under the garland of glass flowers in the Glasshouse.
Nearby is a corridor of chandeliers, one more colorful than the next.

Dale Chihuly is the classic story of local boy makes good. He was born in Tacoma and studied interior design at the University of Washington. In Venice, he learned team glass blowing and uses that design technique today in his innovative gravity-driven creations. I first saw his work on this ceiling in the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

This glass sculpture is composed of 2000 hand blown glass blossoms
and dominates the lobby ceiling in the Bellagio at Las Vegas.

It was beginning to rain softly as we walked through the garden portion. Though the skies were grey, nothing could dull the vividness of the colors of the spires and other sculptures. Dale Chihuly said of his work, "I want my work to appear as though it came from nature so if someone found it... they might think it belonged there."

Spires, curlicues, spheres, and two tone ovoids all seem to nestle naturally in the plants and greenery.

This fernlike scene and cool purple color brought a bit of wistfulness to me.
I made me call to mind the song "Candle in the Wind" sung by Elton John for Princess Diana.
Art does that, I think... evokes a feeling rather than a fact or slice of logic to learn.

A lot of Dale Chihuly's work also rises up from the floor. The reflective surfaces and dramatic lighting throughout the indoor art galleries made his sculptures all the more beautiful, color-saturated, unique, and striking. I am glad Frank and I and did not miss seeing the displays at the Chihuly Garden and Glass.

Frank and I pause in our meandering to pose for a complimentary photo by one of the museum's photographers.
They really have better equipment to capture the nuances of lighting that make these sculptures so spectacular.

Frank and I left the Chihuly Garden and Glass, retracing our steps, taking the monorail, walking back to our car, driving to home base, and meeting up with John & Sue and Joe & Margaret. We six went out to dinner at Ray's Fish Shack. This restaurant had been recommended by the tour guide on Monday's cruise as a Seattle restaurant not to be missed. The waterfront location and view was great and it was less than 15 minutes form home base. After dinner I noticed a quilt shop, The Quilting Loft, less than one mile away, on the way back to home base, and, as a special bonus to me, Thursday just happened to be their late night. Frank and I stopped there and I bought a couple pieces of fabric.

Once at home base I put a couple batches of Toll House chocolate chip cookies in the oven while Joe and Frank assembled a LEGO Space Needle model I'd brought with me from California.

What could be better than warm chocolate chip cookies and a building project?

The rest of us started a 1000-piece Jet Fighter jigsaw puzzle I'd purchased at the Museum of Flight. Maybe 1000 pieces was a bit ambitious since this was our second to last night but we'd give it a try.

Frank and Joe are intent on the Space Needle LEGOs model.
A jigsaw puzzle kept us busy in the evening after dinner.