seattle trip, day #2

Thursday, Apr. 01, 2010 | 4:14 AM

on friday morning, david went to his scheduled tour of the wasington state campus, while i stayed behind and worked on the new friday schedule. i was done by the time he returned, and so we headed off to the seattle center. we paid ten dollars to park there, and then started our journey by walking to the five point cafe.

in the interest of saving money, we decided to share a meal and each pay half. david ordered a chicken fried steak thing, with some white gravy sauce on it. it was surprisingly tasty, and definitely big enough to share.

after eating, we walked to the space needle. we looked around the gift shop at the bottom of it, where i got some postcards. they were the only thing i was willing to buy there, since everything was so overpriced. then we took our long elevator ride up to the observation deck. i don't really like elevator rides. i have some mild elevator phobias, and i find the actual feeling of the ride to be unpleasant. still it was worth it.

we spent a while walking around the deck and taking pictures of the city. it was quite cold and windy up there!

after riding the elevator back down and exiting the space needle, we walked over to the monorail station. i was excited to ride it, but the ride itself didn't really live up to my excitement. it wasn't very far above the ground, and the track was quite short. still, i thought it was cool.

the monorail didn't bring us close enough to the library, so we rode an underground bus in the free zone the rest of the way there. we got there around 5 pm, and stayed until it closed at 6. we walked along up the book spiral, and i took pictures of the diamond patterned walls along the way. it felt like a very cheerful place to be, since all of the daylight was allowed to come flooding in.

after visiting the library, we hopped a bus to a place called the honey hole, which was supposed to be a very good sandwich place. unfortunately, the bus left the free zone, so we had to pay for the ride. at the restaurant, i ordered a HUGE sandwich with pork, pineapple barbecue sauce and swiss cheese. it ended up being another tasty meal. our sandwiches were so enormous that we didn't eat again that night.

our transfer tickets expired, so weren't able to take the bus to our next destination. we had to walk all the way to the gum wall. i think it took about an hour.

the gum wall is the side of a theater in post alley, where people would stick their gum while waiting in line. apparently the theater wouldn't let them bring their gum inside. this trend became popular, so after scraping it clean twice, they decided to let it stay due to its potential as a tourist attraction. now the gum wall is added to constantly, with the gum thickness growing in a 15 by 50 foot area.

i thought the gumwall was very cool, but david thought it was gross and had no interest in seeing it. so my visit to the wall wasn't a very satisfying one. he just wanted to leave right away.

we continued our walking to the uwajimaya market, which is an asian store with an assortment of interesting things. it took about another hour to walk there, so we only had a half hour before it closed. david got some sort of noodle sauce, and i got some delicious "meltyblend" japanese chocolates. we both got some sort of sake stuff, which i thought tasted very bad.

the plan was to take a certain bus back to where the van was parked at the seattle center, but when walking to where the stop was supposed to be, we found no bus of that number stopped there. david looked at the posted map and determined what bus we needed to get on, but then we had to walk around for a very long time trying to find a stop for that bus. my feet and legs were in extreme pain at this point, and i was exhausted. it was so, so hard to keep walking. my bladder was also about to explode.

finally we made it to the correct bus stop, and back to the van, and back to the motel. i wore myself out so much that i began to feel sick. i laid in the motel bed feeling very nauseous and dealing with horrible pain in my legs. i fell asleep with david cuddling me, lending me a bit of comfort.

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