Visiting Seattle
 

I haven't really travelled all that much but with a comfy COOP job for the past few terms, I'll finally have enough money to do so this summer. On a whim, I've decided to visit Seattle because of PAX 2008. But I don't want to fly down to Seattle only to be in a convention centre for 3 days straight.

I will be in Seattle a couple of days before the start of PAX and I'll probably be staying in a downtown hotel. So is there anything that I should absolutely go see? Oh and are any people from GFF heading down to PAX?

What kind of things are you interested in?

I'll be in Seattle for the summer (MS internship) but will be gone long before PAX happens, I'm afraid. There's plenty to do around the city. You interested in local history (if so, the underground tour's fun)? Good food recommendations? Beautiful sights? Night scene? Seattle has a lot, so figuring out what you're looking for can help narrow it down.

Good food recommendations would be very helpful. All I know about the area is the Pike Place Market. Beautiful sights within walking distance of downtown would be nice as well. And I guess recommendations on some museums. Anything along those lines would be very helpful.

Strange Arainach, I figured you for the Linux type. I guess we all have our price, I suppose. Joking of course, good luck with that.

I've lived in Seattle before, and I can't stress enough the beauty of the surrounding areas. If you are into that sort of thing, maybe you could go for some hiking! Also, there is the science fiction museum and the music museum just a short rail ride from downtown near the convention center. There are some good donuts to be had at Pike's in the morning. You'll smell them not far from the folks that toss the fish.

I vastly prefer Linux as a development and server environment, but as a desktop it's a tossup. I haven't truly hated a Microsoft product since Windows 95 (buggiest piece of crap ever. I didn't use ME so I can't comment on it). I still disagree with many of their business practices, but in terms of technology, their modern stuff is pretty solid. XP was reliable, Vista's even more so for me, and Visual Studio and Office are both at the top for very good reasons.

Plus, this is an internship. The point is to get diverse industry experience with whoever'll look best on my Resume. And I can't think of anyone I'd rather have on there than MS. I've spent time with Google employees, talked over stuff with them, and everything I've seen has suggested that the Microsoft corporate culture is a near-perfect match for me. A lot of very smart people, casual but with well-defined and designed policies, but still with personalities and lives of their own. I look at Google employees like grad students - absolutely no life outside of the company. They love the company and the company treats them well, but they work ungodly hours year-round. That's not what I want.

Plus, Seattle (what I saw of it when I spent a weekend there in January) is beautiful.

So I started to do some research on where we (my gf and I) can go hiking and I found out that three national parks are in close proximity to Seattle. We were thinking about camping at Olympic National Park for the days before PAX. However, we won't have a car. Is there any public transportation to get from Port Angeles to any of the campsites in the park?

For transportation-

Seattle has an amazing public transport system, and best yet its all online!

Metro's Online Trip Planner

The bus stops all have a phone number and you can call it to get bus directions everywhere.

I'm not sure if you can get there via bus, but that is the place to find out.

Which hotel are you staying at? I lived in downtown Seattle and it was really nice (aside from all the druggies and the hobos~)

Pike place is really fun and its worth going to the first starbucks because its heaps different than the newer kinds. I would also check out Seattle public library. Its REALLY nice, and it sounds a bit silly to go see a library, but this one is unique enough that I think it's really worth it.

I used to like taking walks along the pier, watching the boats and just generally walking nowhere and everywhere. Chinatown is not that great, but they have (maybe closed now ; ; ) the BEST vegetarian restaurant there... oh man. I would cut off my right leg to eat there right now. They also have a nice import gaming shop called pink godzilla. Pink Godzilla: Pink Godzilla's Seattle Store in chinatown they also have a HUGE like asian supermarket that sells food (duh) and other asian gift type stuff.

If your lady is into clothes, make sure to check out Nordstrom Rack for mega discounted Nordstrom clothes.

Wah I miss Seattle... definitely the best city I have ever lived in. I miss my overpriced studio next to the drug park~ ; ;

Well, there's always the Experience Music Project. It's not as cool as the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, but they had some interesting stuff. When I was there a few weeks ago, they had a Jimi Hendrix exhibition, including the guitar he played at Woodstock. Kinda neat. It also houses the Science-Fiction Museum, and they had some pretty cool props & costumes from various movies, including Blade Runner (my favorite).

Nope. If you leave Seattle, you NEED to have a car.

Anybody here have seasons tickets to the paramount theatre? I'm looking to get avenue q tickets :P

Thanks for the suggestions. Definitely gonna check out Pike Place and Pink Godzilla. A vegetarian Chinese place sounds interesting too! As for the hotel, we'll probably be in the Inn at Queen Anne.

Sucks about not being able to get to Olympic National Park. We were also looking at getting one of those private tours but they cost a lot (anywhere from 600-900$/vehicle, which means 300-450$ if me and my gf split it) and they only take you to predetermined places when we really wanna just hike and go wherever the trail leads us. So I guess my next question is . . . Are there any "nature" places within downtown Seattle itself? Any amazing parks that border the piers? Something along those lines.

No, downtown Seattle is pretty compressed. There are some parks but none of them are very large. Your best bet is to take a bus up north and check out the Arboretum in Madison Park.

Depending on where you're staying in Queen Anne, you will have a certain amount of travel time if you're going downtown.