Seattle Day 2: Seattle Center

It was a short Monorail ride over to Seattle Center, but it sure beat walking! This area, including the Space Needle, was originally built for the 1962 World’s Fair. Our first stop was at the Chihuly Garden and Glass. This museum opened in 2012 to display Dale Chihuly’s work. He is the same artist who created the ceiling at the Bellagio, which I’m obsessed with. He’s originally from the Seattle/Tacoma area, so it was fitting to have a museum of his work here. 

Since we were also going to be visiting the Space Needle, we bought the combination tickets to save a few bucks.  We spent about an hour and a half touring the museum, garden, and watching videos on Chihuly. Everything was so beautiful, and the lighting was done very well to accentuate the pieces. I loved it and took lots of photos.

Photo by Adam

photo by Adam

photo by Adam

See Adam's reflection and the Space Needle?

Our Space Needle tickets were for 2:30, which meant we were able to board starting at 2. 

 In line, we had an awesome blue screen photo taken. At the top, we got to pick our background and had the photo e-mailed to us for free. It was pretty cheesy but nice to have a photo of us together that wasn't a selfie.

At the top, Adam got a beer and we split some fresh house made horseradish chips. They were delicious! 

 Then we went outside to take in the view. The views of Seattle from the top were great! 

photo by Adam

photo by Adam

photo by some random nice person

 It was neat to go up the Space Needle, but it’s very similar to any other tower (Calgary Tower, Eiffel Tower, etc). I did like that it only required one elevator ride to get to the top and that there were windows in it so I didn't feel "trapped!"

 We spent about an hour at the Space Needle, and then headed over to the EMP (Experience Music Project) Museum. It’s a really strange museum; the outside is designed to look like a smashed guitar from above, and inside it has an eclectic assortment of displays. 

photo by Adam

 The main focus is on music from the area, so of course it’s all about Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. These displays were interesting, but I was just expecting more. 

 There was also a temporary display on “Women Who Rock” which featured different costumes from female artists. This was actually pretty cool to see. 

Another cool thing was the two story tall display of guitars.

photo by Adam

 In addition, there are entertainment sections on Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction which include props and costumes from different movies, shows, and books of those genres. One highlight for us was Shawn's costume from Shawn of the Dead.

They even had on loan the Iron Throne from my favorite show, Game of Thrones! 

 I was a little underwhelmed by the EMP, but we still spent almost 2 hours there.

Since our touristing for the day was done, we took the Monorail back to our hotel. There we discovered a little convenience/drug store nearby, so Adam picked up a few beers and I got some peach pop to relax with in the room.

We had originally planned dinner down by the waterfront, but decided to save that for the next day when we were going to be already down there. Based on a Facebook recommendation, and some Googling, we decided to try out Tom Douglas’ Serious Pie. It’s an artisan pizza place from a well-known chef and restaurateur in the Pacific Northwest. There was a line outside, and the hostess thought it would be 20 minutes, but it only ended up being 10.

Neither of us was super hungry, so we split a pizza. I really wanted the mushroom one, but Adam hates mushrooms. We comprised with a pizza with penn cove clams, pancetta tesa, and chilies. It was delicious! Our waiter was inattentive and pretty awful, but otherwise it was great.