As Seen in Seattle

It was a lovely day today.  I'm tired of doing the three mile walk through Issaquah, so we decided to drive into downtown Seattle and see what we would see.  Being unhooked from our culture, we completely forgot that it's Labor Day weekend and that Bumbershoot would be in process.  Bumbershoot is an annual festival with multiple music stages, foods, and crowds.  What we did not know was that PAX 2018 was in town.  PAX is a huge gaming conference.

When we turned right off the freeway, we saw her.  We wondered what the heck?

Then we saw this person.  Realization dawned that something was going on other than Bumbershoot.

Parking was very painful.  The garage we always go to was full!  Totally full!  That never happens.  After getting out of the garage, we valet parked and walked over to Westlake Center.  This was happening there.  People stood in line to get on the bus and I guess play video games.

Then there were more costumes.  At this point we were all in the queue for hotdogs.  Look closely at her left hand.  She's wearing black gloves with long blue tips.  She did not take these off to eat the hotdog.  Also notice her shoes.  I don't know how she walked in those things.  It's unfortunate that I did not get her face, the make up was really well done.

Here we have a shoulder mounted shark laser fired projectile weapon of some sort.  Look at the front of the weapon, it's an open shark's mouth.

Love that hat.

This is a great costume.  There's skull on the head.  The platform shoes are really tall.  There were two kids who were really taken by the look.  They spent a fair amount of time discussing the clothes.

He's carrying a helmet in his left hand.

She's looking at him, trying not to stare.  Where do you buy these things?  I'm certain there is a cottage industry for character costumes.  Jim and I do not play video games, so we don't know who any of these costumes are supposed to represent.  I'm amazed that people will dress up this much.

 In 2011 70,000 people attended PAX.  It's been going since 2004.  I couldn't find more recent attendance numbers.  This line went around the block.  They're also in the Convention Center.  There were A LOT of people on the streets. PAX runs from 10 am to midnight, Friday through Monday.  There are also after parties into the wee hours.

After leaving the downtown core, we headed over to South Lake Union.  This is ground zero for all the new high rises that have been built to house the tech workers.  Amazon alone employs 40,000 people. 

These are Amazon's The Spheres. Seattle is one of NYT's 52 places to go in 2018, and there was a write up about the Spheres.

The most arresting glass structure in the city, though, may well be the Amazon Spheres (technically titled Amazon’s The Spheres), three conjoined, bulbous conservatories filled with more than 40,000 plants from nearly 700 different species, that opened this January as part of the online behemoth’s downtown Seattle headquarters. Made up of 2,643 triangles and rhomboids, the Spheres’ reflective surface, which reflects off the surfaces of adjacent Amazon skyscrapers, has become an instantly recognizable part of Seattle’s architectural landscape. It’s also just a monumental feat of vision and money and will. 

We signed up to tour the spheres September 15.  Amazon opens them to the public two Saturdays a month.  You must sign up on their website to get in.

This has been here forever.  One wonders how long until it's bull dozed and turned into another high rise.


Walking back to the truck we saw this at the Bell Street Cruise terminal.  It's NCL Norwegian Bliss.  She's a new boat, specifically built for cruising to Alaska and back.  It's one of those structures that's too large to be photographed from the ground. At 1,049 feet, she's almost as long as a Nimitz class carrier.

I got this off the internet.  Bliss was delivered in May.  If you look at the Space Needle you can see the scaffolding in place during its renovation. 

Transient moorage by the cruise terminal.

It was a good day.  My feet cooperated with extended walking.  There were hot dogs and really excellent people watching.