More Seattle Stuff

Monday July 7 we went to the Woodland Park Zoo. The boys loved looking at all the animals close up. I loved that the zoo was more for the animals than the visitors. The exhibits were very well done; they looked like smaller versions of the animals' natural habitats. My favorite animal to watch (since they didn't have any rhinos) were the orangutans. There was one orangutan that would walk around with a burlap sack draped over its shoulders like a shawl. It looked like a little hobo. I guess the ape did it to keep the sun off its back or something. Pretty clever. I also loved the elephant exhibit. The elephants were from Northern Thailand, and a lot of the signs around the exhibit were written in Thai and English. It made my day.

After the zoo, we took a snooze at the hotel; well, I tried to but the boys weren't having it. They kept climbing in and out of their beds, making all kinds of noise and trying to open the door and run out into the hall. We finally gave up and headed down to the waterfront. We caught a ride on the ferry to Bainbridge. It took about a half hour to get there, then we hopped off, waited til they gave the all aboard call, then hopped back on and rode back to Seattle. It was a lot of fun, and didn't cost much. I can't believe how many people commute on the ferry with their cars, though. And it's not cheap; it costs about $20 for a car to take a ferry one way. But if one were to drive, it'd probably take a couple hours, and cost that much in fuel (I don't really know all this, it's just what I surmised from looking at the map).

Tuesday July 8 we walked through Pike Place Market. I loved it. I had just eaten Thai food right before we got there, and the market smelled like fish and other stuff, so it was like I was back in Thailand again. Drew and Owen were a little overwhelmed by the crowds. Every time we stopped, Owen would say, "Can we walk?" in a really nervous voice.

From the market we went to the Seattle Aquarium. We had heard it wasn't that great, but it was included in our city pass, so we went. It was okay. It was bigger than I thought it would be, and the seals were really cute. Almost everything in the aquarium was native to the waters around Seattle (I thought I heard someone say that... maybe it was just one exhibit). The boys really liked that they could run amok and handle everything. They even got to touch a live sea star and a sea urchin.

After the aquarium we took a harbor cruise. It was an hour-long narrated cruise. It was nice to just sit on the boat and do next to nothing. Really relaxing. While we were waiting on line to get on the boat, we met a girl named Jane from Shianghai, China. Samantha was playing peek-a-boo with her over my shoulder, then we started chatting with her and found out where she was from and what she was doing. She was on a trip for her work (by herself!), and it included a few days in Seattle then a few days in San Francisco. I of course had to show off my Chinese speaking skills so I asked her for ice cream in Mandarin (I also know how to say, "I haven't had any milk today," but I didn't want to brag too much). She was really polite and told me it sounded good, but I'm pretty sure it didn't. I have too much of a Thai accent now.

Tuesday evening we caught the monorail and rode to the Space Needle. There is a little carnival nearby with rides that little kids (30 inches) can go on. Drew and Owen loved them, and acted so big, going on those rides by themselves. Then we dragged them away and they reminded us with their screaming and carrying on that they are indeed still 2 years old. It was close to sunset so we decided to ride to the top of the Space Needle and check everything out. It was a gorgeous evening; the sky was really clear and we could see for a long way. Drew and Owen were crabby, though, so we headed down a little before sunset (I wish we'd just made them stick it out with us because we missed an amazing sunset. But I didn't want to ruin it for the other guests) and called it a night.

Wednesday July 9 was our last day in Seattle. We wanted to pack as much into our day as possible before we had to be out of our parking spot at the hotel, so we caught the monorail again and went to the Pacific Science Museum. It was really cool. We spent a lot of time in the first exhibit, probably too much because it left very little time for everything else. We broke a bunch of pennies by putting them in a machine that would fire them at a wall. It was a lot of fun. Some pennies wouldn't break, but would bend or just end up with a flat edge. The human body exhibit was cool, too. There were all kinds of things to test hearing, eyesight, strength, flexibility, balance... And we didn't even get to see half of the exhibit. We went to a place that was especially for toddlers to play and explore. Drew and Owen spent all their time pretending to fly a helicopter. When I told them it was time to let someone else have a turn, they freaked out. They were getting crabbier by the second, so we decided to skip the Museum of Flight, give the ticket to a random tourist, go back to the hotel, get our car and say goodbye to Seattle.

We went back to the monorail station to ride back to the hotel and discovered that it was out of service! We went to the bus stop, but we were outside the free ride zone and didn't have any change. So the kids and I went to McDonald's across the street and waited while David ran back to the hotel (took him almost 45 minutes to get there and back; would've taken hours with the kids) to get the car. So we left Seattle on kind of a sour note, mad at the monorail for not working, but more mad at the kids for not behaving*. We decided it will be about ten years before we take them on vacation again.

Things got better, though! We took a different route home and stayed the night at my friend Jen's house. It was so nice to be in a place where the kids could run around, and everything was kid-proof. (Thanks for letting us stay, Jen! We'll have to make sure we see you again before another six years go by!)

Aside from that horrible Wednesday, the trip was a lot of fun. So nice to be home, though. I'm still waiting for my pictures to be developed, so in a few days I'll post some and that'll be the last of the Seattle posts. Then it'll be time to move on...

*They actually did pretty well for most of the trip. But a week away from home with little sleep, irregular eating schedules and a new adventure every day sort of took it's toll.