Saturday, June 29, 2019

Seattle Vacay: Day 2 (Space Needle, Science Museum, Sculpture Garden, Fish Market, Gum Wall, Public Library, Uwajimaya)

Thursday: still adjusting to pacific time and were up about 5:30 or 6am Seattle time. I woke up, had my shake, did yoga while Kyle went for a neighborhood run and discovered Seattle is just hills after hill. The kids watched a movie. I thought it was international day of yoga but it was actually the next day so I got two days of yoga in :-P

We figured out the bus route and walked the half a block to the bus stop, it was about 9am when we set out to see the town. Another chilly day, convinced Mary to wear pants and Emma wore her new long sleeve Seattle shirt again.



We took the bus a ways and it ended up being it's last stop so we walked for about 20 mintues to get to the Seattle center. There's the space needle!




We paid the hefty price for five tickets and made our way up. We made the last run at the early bird discount before prices went up for the afternoon rush. Had we known this we would have come earlier but thankful we were there early. It did get pretty busy as we left. Also great being there on a week day, as we saw on the weekend how crowded everything was. Didn't realize it at the time. There was a little museum part you had to walk through to get to the elevators to go up the space needle.


They gave us a complimentarily photo before getting on the elevators. This was in front of a green screen and I was able to choose a background in the app. Not the best photo of us, haha. But depicts us quite well. Kids weren't being the best of listeners at this point.






We were in the back of the elevator and when it moved realized the windows were on the other side so we didn't get the best of view going up.


Then we made it to the top. The area was all glassed in but the glass was tilted outward so if you got close it was kinda creepy and made my stomach do flips.


It was also hard to get a good photo from the glare of the glass.  Here is the science center down below:






Downtown Seattle and the monorail:








We're smiling :-) Thomas was being a pain, the kids were complaining of being hungry and it was actually quite miserable. We were aggravated we'd just paid $150 to listen to little people complain. Had Thomas in our arms since we left the stroller down (should have grabbed my carrier I had on the stroller) and he was just constantly fighting with us to get down and run around. Ya know that fun toddler back arch. Yes good times. ::eye roll::






I think this was the children's museum. Cool how these big spiders were painted on the roof.


At this point everyone was melting down. I made the girls sit inside with me so Kyle could go around and try to enjoy himself. Isaac walked with him. Kids look happy here... it was the actually up hill from this moment.

To leave the area they have you go down some stairs to get to the elevators. Then we learned there was a whole second level to go around. The floor was part glass and it was revolving so you could stand in one spot and eventually see all the way around. We spent some more time down here and it was enjoyable. The kids were distracted by looking out the floor and the rotating floor that they stopped whining. Thomas was funny and was scared to walk on the floor so he mainly stood right by me while I got some better photos. The glass was clearer and didn't leave a glare so I like these photos better.
















Better view of the Pacific Science Center which we were going to next:




Thomas felt safe up on the ledge verse on the glass floor:

Here is a funny video of him being hesitant to walk on the glass, at least we weren't having to chase him down like up top:












There was a lady taking complimentary photos. These turned out good, I like the second one best. We are actually sitting on the ledge and that is the view (not a green screen like the earlier group photo)





We left the space needle and found food. There was a nice food court in that building I said was the Children's Museum. We found a Mod Pizza that the kids loved, they loved being able to create their own pizze. This was the cool dough smasher they had.

I was feeling better this day, the GI cramps and pain seemed to have gone away, so that was good. We walked over to the Pacific Science Center. We purchased a science museum membership at our hometown because it also gave us admission rights to this museum. It's nice knowing you aren't trying to cram it all in cuz you paid a hefty price tag. We felt like we could be more relaxed and not have to see it all given that we could come back another day if we wanted to without paying.




We started with the outdoor water feature.




And made our way through the indoor exhibits. Lots of things the kids loved. Mary was complaining of a belly ache. She must have gotten the illness I had the few days prior, knowing this and how much pain I was in I felt bad for her. She spent much of the time like this:








There was a great little toddler area. After trying to get Thomas to nap in the stroller we gave up and just let him out to enjoy the space. He refused to nap on the go! Made for a tired baby in the end. At least he wasn't walking and somewhat relaxing in the stroller, just not sleeping.


Usually when we go places it's Mary that gets lost... while I was with Mary and Thomas in the toddler area, Kyle was with Isaac and Emma. He came over to us with Emma and couldn't find Isaac. I left him with the younger ones and made a loop trying to find Isaac. They are all usually good about not going to a different exhibit or room without going as a group. So when I couldn't find him I figured he must have wondered out of the big room we were in. Then my phone rang. It was the museum guys saying they had Isaac and they'd come meet me. He wasn't too upset, not crying, but I could tell he was a little upset asking Kyle "Why did you leave me!?" which he didn't they just got separated. Then Isaac had wondered over into the gift shop area and one of the workers helped him out. Glad he knew my phone number.

We decided it was probably time to wrap up our visit and head out. We walked through the dinosaur area. Then grabbed a map at the entrance to figure out our next adventure.


We left there then headed down the hill to Olympic Sculpture Park. We'll admit we weren't that impressed. It was pretty warm, the kids were tired, and well we were hitting a wall.

Giving Thomas some shade, he actually kept it there and wanted to stay under it, was hoping he'd go to sleep.



We took a minute to stop in some shade, change Thomas's diaper and let him stretch his legs a bit. It was about 2pm Seattle time, but nearing the end of the day on our internal clocks. We decided to find coffee.



HA! And looking at these photos just now I realize those look like Lincoln Logs... not sure if that's what they intended to be. I was taking this photo for the boats in the background, lol.




Walked over to the street to get down to the piers and had to stop to wait for the train to go by.


Made it across and stopped at the little cafƩ, kids had cookies while Kyle and I enjoyed coffee (he tried it again and did not sit well with him). We sat and watched a couple more trains go by then took a look at the nearby sculptures.






There was a little boy statue under the fountain on the left. I was waiting to get a photo of it but it never switched back to show the second statue.


Mary was feeling a little better after a potty break and cookie.


She's sitting on an eye:




We walked down along the water, Thomas actually fell asleep!!!! YAH!!
 

We found a walkway with an elevator to go up. We were headed back to Pikes Place Market to try to find the gum wall. Glad we found this elevator so we didn't have to walk up hill. Although it led us to a parking garage so we had to figure out how to get to the city streets.




Attempt at a family photo while Mary was mid-sneeze.


We made it to the fish market and came upon the ACTUAL first starbucks!! There was quite the line out-front. At this point it was 3:30 and the market looked completely different from the previous day's visit. We were coming in from a different area and it looked a lot more like how I expected it to look. I'm glad we came back to experience it.






After some searching we stumbled upon the gum wall. Saw it first from above and had to figure out how to get down there:


Took an elevator, Thomas ended up waking up - so he'd only taken a 20 minute nap or so.


It was what you'd expect with a gum wall... pretty disgusting. We'd prepped the kids ahead of time to NOT TOUCH the walls, lol. There was a group of young adults that had asked Kyle to take their photo, they gave the girls little pinwheel pens as a thank you. They loved them!






Post Alley was at the base of the street as we left, this is where the gum wall is.




Next we wanted to venture to the Central Library, per Isaac's request the previous day. We figured it out on the map and headed that way... not knowing it was basically a straight up hill hike the entire way!

We climbed a large set of stairs that brought us to the Art Museum: (carrying Thomas in the stroller)


Then it was many more uphill blocks to get to the libarary.


But we finally made it! Everyone was able to use the bathroom, it felt nice sitting in air conditioning. Although the mornings were cool, it did warm up through the day. We read some books and Thomas got to play.












After we spent a good time in the children's area we took an elevator up to get some better views of the library it was a pretty cool structure.

This was the highest floor we could visit.

The entry level was pretty cool too:








Next up was dinner at the Asian market: Uwajimaya A friend had told me about this place so it was on our list to visit. They had a good food court we'd heard so we wanted to check it out. We got to see more of the city on our walk:

Emma almost stepped on a homeless man sleeping under blankets, she couldn't understand why we were calling her name and asking her to move over... then we pointed out once we were past that although it looked like a pile of blankets there was probably a person under it. There were lots of homeless around.





We made it to Uwajimaya... not exactly what I expected the entrance to look like. We actually came in the back door. We came back a couple days later and I have a better photo of the front. But today this was where we entered:




We had dinner, honestly nothing fancy. We visited the gift shop of the Asian grocery store and the kids picked out little trinkets. Isaac got a miniature maze ball and the girls each got a little eraser figuring. Emma got a tiger and Mary picked out cherries. Had to convince Thomas the cherries were not for eating. he was confused cuz we had been eating cherries that Aunt Betty brought us. Emma's little tiger eraser came apart and she had a blast putting it back together. Made a game out of it taking it apart and reassembling it.

We left there and stopped for bubble tea while Kyle got an uber to come pick us up, it was 7pm at this point. Just easier to hop a $12 car ride at the end of the day than to make it to the bus stop.


We came home, got everyone washed up, got tired Thomas down for bed and watched Sleepless in Seattle. Mary was already in bed but when she heard we were watching a movie she wanted to join us. She probably made it about halfway through before conking out. This photo was taken at 8:30.

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