Moments

The impossible has happened, three consecutive bright-n-sunny days here in the city of rain! Nothing can keep me indoors when such miracles occur, so there I was speeding away from downtown in search of the elusive and reputed international district aka chinatown.

Seattle's Chinatown has a long history, with Chinese laborers being brought to the US to work on railroads. Later on there were huge Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino communities which were established. Chinatown is located somewhat south of downtown. Taking a walk along any of the numbered avenues (1st through 8th) will take you down there. And how do you know that you've arrived? When you find one of these positively cute dragons perched atop the street lamps :)

The international district is mostly Chinese, it reminds me a lot of the Chinatown in LA; definitely not as bustling as the ones in NYC or SF. But it is charming, with lots of restaurants and other quaint little Chinese stores. There also seems to be a whole lot of Japanese stores around here. I ran into an entire little mega-store with everything Japanese, from groceries to cute little gift items (the Japanese do know something about that - fragrant greeting cards, anyone?) and even an entire bookstore dedicated to Asian culture, with 3 of the shelves full of Haiku books!

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Pike Place Market

The Pike Place Public Market is probably one of the most interesting walking tours around Seattle. The Pike Place fish market is supposedly "world-famous", with the vendors tossing huge salmon across to each other and shouting random slogans in unision. Another place of pilgrimage is the oldest Starbucks coffee (yes it all started here). There are a bunch of interesting food stores nearby, a Russian piroshky place (supposedly some kind of stuffed dish), and a great local cheese factory. The marketplace also abounds in exotic cultural stores such as a Polish Pottery place, or a Tibetan Herbal apothecary (both below), and tons and tons of other really exoticized stuff. On the whole, the area is really touristy, and has an aura (real or artificial?) of historical importance.

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Well, that's my notes for today, but hang on for more updates and pictures. But speaking of the Asian influence in Seattle, here's my own picture of Bruce Lee's grave, which I took some time out to visit this morning. The Lakeview Cemetery is located on Capitol hill, an exceedingly beautiful neighborhood with the most astounding fall colors. The grave itself is close to the top of the hill, with an unbelievable scenic view of Lake Washington. Bruce's son, Brandon, who died young too, in a tragic accident, is interred right next to him. I'm not sure how much the graveyard's inhabitants appreciate the view, but I'm sure you will in the pictures. The story of my visit to the grave had an intriguing epilogue, but that shall be told in a later story :-)
RIP, Little Dragon!