bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2006-03-11 06:24 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2006-03-11 06:24 pm
Downtown
Decided to take a jaunt into downtown Seattle today with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gmjambear. We decided to try parking well outside of town and taking the express bus in, which was kinda sorta interesting.
A young dude who seemed to be obviously in a chemically altered state of awareness got on the bus ahead of us and shorted the driver 50 cents on the fare. We sat toward the back of the bus and I decided to hop over to the other side since neither of us is average-sized and squeezing into one double seat would be most uncomfortable. Then I discovered that one of the seats had become disconnected from its frame and was wobbling about, so I made sure to sit in the other one while Gary grabbed the side-facing seat immediately behind me.
We got off the bus on 4th between Union and Pike and headed down to the Pike Place Market. I wanted to findbadrobot68's shop, and also find something to eat. Once we arrived at the market I saw the sign for the "Economy Market and Atrium" and realized from an earlier post that that's where the shop must be. I introduced myself and Gary to badrobot68; it was nice meeting after corresponding on LJ. (I almost didn't recognize him without a hat though. ;-) There was another bearish young fellow wearing a livejournal.com sweatshirt, but he was rather engrossed in the merchandise and the store was getting a bit crowded, so Gary wanted to move on. I was especially amused by the evil blue rubber duckie, the historical action figures including Mozart and Einstein, and the sign "Unattended Children Will Be Towed At Owner's Expense". I think we'll need to stop back, perhaps earlier in the day.
After exploring some more of the Economy Market we had lunch at the Pike Brewery which was downstairs in the same building. I had their Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale -- I liked the name and had tried Scotch ale at a microbrewery in Rochester so I had some idea what to expect. This one was a hearty, dark brew that is as far from typical mass-market American "sex in a canoe" beer as one could hope for. I also had their bacon cheeseburger, while Gary had a meatloaf sandwich and lemonade and we split an order of cheesy garlic bread.
While we were eating, a Mexican sports channel was broadcasting soccer in the background with the sound off. During a break in the action they played an intriguing clay-animated commercial for Coca-Cola which featured unlikely couples embracing and celebrating after watching a soccer goal on an unseen television, such as a scientist and a lab rat, a lumberjack and a tree, etc. The last portion showed a couple in bed, the wife lying there complacently while the husband jumps up out of bed, a muscular boy-toy in a posing strap (presumably the wife's lover) jumps out of the armoire where he's been hiding and embraces the husband, and they do a little dance together. I wondered aloud to Gary whether that commercial would play well in the US.
After lunch we walked down through the main market arcade, watched a fish go flying over the counter, admired some T-shirts with totem-style artwork which I think would make a great tattoo, and eventually ended up in the small park at the end of the arcade, where I pointed out a few of the fellows who camp out on the lawn and we narrowly avoided the sales pitch of a bunch of Scientologists (though I did see they had set up a table with copies of Dianetics in all sorts of languages -- the ones in non-Latin scripts, such as Russian and some South/East Asian language I didn't recognize, were rather intriguing to look at). Further down the park as we stood by the rail watching the traffic on Alaskan Way and Elliott Bay, a man with a camera asked me to take a picture of him and two friends with the bay and the Olympic Mountains in the background, which I did.
On the way back to the bus stop we stopped in a small shop for milkshakes so we would have change for the return bus, and picked up the gay newspaper in a small bookstore on Pike Street. When we reached our stop, a huge black fellow left his backpack full of stuff on the bench in the bus shelter while he leaned back against a shop window and read. Gary pointed out to me that was a really bad idea. We also saw a rather handsome bearded fellow come by wearing a green dress shirt and a rainbow-colored tie under a thin black leather jacket, and a young man climbing onto a piece of sculpture across the street (who got more than a bit of notice from Mr. Green Shirt on his return trip).
As we boarded the bus I took the same seat I'd had on the way downtown and sure enough the adjacent seat was loose -- it was the same bus. In a further coincidence, the same spaced-out dude we saw on the first trip was back and this time, on arrival at the Park and Ride, he stiffed the driver $1.00. I suspect he's not as befuddled as he seems to be, but is conveniently feigning ignorance and will probably keep doing this unless and until he gets busted for it. From the Park and Ride Gary drove in to Factoria where we did some grocery shopping, and on home.
A nice day to be out and about, I think.
gmjambear. We decided to try parking well outside of town and taking the express bus in, which was kinda sorta interesting. A young dude who seemed to be obviously in a chemically altered state of awareness got on the bus ahead of us and shorted the driver 50 cents on the fare. We sat toward the back of the bus and I decided to hop over to the other side since neither of us is average-sized and squeezing into one double seat would be most uncomfortable. Then I discovered that one of the seats had become disconnected from its frame and was wobbling about, so I made sure to sit in the other one while Gary grabbed the side-facing seat immediately behind me.
We got off the bus on 4th between Union and Pike and headed down to the Pike Place Market. I wanted to find
badrobot68's shop, and also find something to eat. Once we arrived at the market I saw the sign for the "Economy Market and Atrium" and realized from an earlier post that that's where the shop must be. I introduced myself and Gary to badrobot68; it was nice meeting after corresponding on LJ. (I almost didn't recognize him without a hat though. ;-) There was another bearish young fellow wearing a livejournal.com sweatshirt, but he was rather engrossed in the merchandise and the store was getting a bit crowded, so Gary wanted to move on. I was especially amused by the evil blue rubber duckie, the historical action figures including Mozart and Einstein, and the sign "Unattended Children Will Be Towed At Owner's Expense". I think we'll need to stop back, perhaps earlier in the day.After exploring some more of the Economy Market we had lunch at the Pike Brewery which was downstairs in the same building. I had their Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale -- I liked the name and had tried Scotch ale at a microbrewery in Rochester so I had some idea what to expect. This one was a hearty, dark brew that is as far from typical mass-market American "sex in a canoe" beer as one could hope for. I also had their bacon cheeseburger, while Gary had a meatloaf sandwich and lemonade and we split an order of cheesy garlic bread.
While we were eating, a Mexican sports channel was broadcasting soccer in the background with the sound off. During a break in the action they played an intriguing clay-animated commercial for Coca-Cola which featured unlikely couples embracing and celebrating after watching a soccer goal on an unseen television, such as a scientist and a lab rat, a lumberjack and a tree, etc. The last portion showed a couple in bed, the wife lying there complacently while the husband jumps up out of bed, a muscular boy-toy in a posing strap (presumably the wife's lover) jumps out of the armoire where he's been hiding and embraces the husband, and they do a little dance together. I wondered aloud to Gary whether that commercial would play well in the US.
After lunch we walked down through the main market arcade, watched a fish go flying over the counter, admired some T-shirts with totem-style artwork which I think would make a great tattoo, and eventually ended up in the small park at the end of the arcade, where I pointed out a few of the fellows who camp out on the lawn and we narrowly avoided the sales pitch of a bunch of Scientologists (though I did see they had set up a table with copies of Dianetics in all sorts of languages -- the ones in non-Latin scripts, such as Russian and some South/East Asian language I didn't recognize, were rather intriguing to look at). Further down the park as we stood by the rail watching the traffic on Alaskan Way and Elliott Bay, a man with a camera asked me to take a picture of him and two friends with the bay and the Olympic Mountains in the background, which I did.
On the way back to the bus stop we stopped in a small shop for milkshakes so we would have change for the return bus, and picked up the gay newspaper in a small bookstore on Pike Street. When we reached our stop, a huge black fellow left his backpack full of stuff on the bench in the bus shelter while he leaned back against a shop window and read. Gary pointed out to me that was a really bad idea. We also saw a rather handsome bearded fellow come by wearing a green dress shirt and a rainbow-colored tie under a thin black leather jacket, and a young man climbing onto a piece of sculpture across the street (who got more than a bit of notice from Mr. Green Shirt on his return trip).
As we boarded the bus I took the same seat I'd had on the way downtown and sure enough the adjacent seat was loose -- it was the same bus. In a further coincidence, the same spaced-out dude we saw on the first trip was back and this time, on arrival at the Park and Ride, he stiffed the driver $1.00. I suspect he's not as befuddled as he seems to be, but is conveniently feigning ignorance and will probably keep doing this unless and until he gets busted for it. From the Park and Ride Gary drove in to Factoria where we did some grocery shopping, and on home.
A nice day to be out and about, I think.