I’ll admit it, I’m hazy on what EMP stands for in this context.

OK, I looked it up

It’s the Experience Music Project museum.

I didn’t sleep well last night, so it was something of a late start. I made up for it, however, by doing many things!

I got an ORCA card, to make public transport easier. Well, less fiddly.

I’m sick of walking everywhere, OK? Also, there are some spots I’d like to visit which seem unfeasible without public transit, mostly due to that whole harbour thing.

Armed with my new card (it’s a stored value thing, though being able to buy the card itself from a machine is a new one on me) I headed over to the Seattle Centre, which involved transferring to the Monorail.

Built, as I understand it, for the 1962 World’s Fair, it has the space-age look of the period. And it’s fun; The interior has either been lovingly restored or aged & maintained really well.

I’m trying to imagine what riding the thing would have been like in ’62, and I hope it was like catching a train to the future. You’d board this thing which was utterly unlike any other train, and arrive at the World’s Fair, near the foot of … A UFO landing structure?

There was something of a wait to go up the Space Needle, so I bought my ticket and killed some time at the EMP Museum.

They had a selection of things from the World of Wearable Arts show.

They had a Science Fiction gallery/exhibit, with a fun concept which I didn’t see until I was on my way out, as I’d come in via the Horror exhibit next door.

I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to see this uniform in an SF exhibit.

And then there was the Horror exhibit, talking about the why & the how of horror, specifically movies.

I could have spent a long time in this one; They had a bunch of video clips from interviews or conversations with Horror directors, talking about specific films in the genre, and … I wish I’d not been on such a tight timeframe.

And then there was the Space Needle.

There’s quite a view.

In fact, behind me, there’s this;

… which I think is Mt. Rainier, uncharacteristically visible & not hiding behind clouds. It’s in about the right spot, based on the map, but the crowds of folks in front of the interpretation screen things meant that I’m OK with not being 100% sure right now.

There’s not a lot more to say about the view, because cameras are a thing that exist, so I took photos. As you can see, it was a beautiful day for an observation deck 500+ feet up.

The railings were much lower once.

The elevators to get up there run on the outside of the structure, but I ended up at the back of the car both trips, so couldn’t get a photo or video worth the effort.

They had a little bar & a Starbucks up there, because where the hell isn’t there a Starbucks?

On the way back to the Monorail, there was this;

I’ve got nothing here, though I’d like to note that the prompt for the next episode of The Big Red Couch is “Banana Warriors From Dimension X”, so it’s topical. Or tropical. Or something.

More Monorail;

I wound up helping someone from Ottawa navigate the Seattle Link, which is the light rail running from the airport to the university, through the city. And through a shared transit tunnel for part of it’s route.

She had the look of transport system confusion, then asked me for advice/help, so I took her to the vend-o-tron, then to the correct platform. The platform bit was easy, as it was the same one I needed to be on.
There was a Night Market being set up as I left the hostel, and it was in full swing when I got back. Jason the roommate & I wandered around it for a while, and bought an unfeasible amount of Caramel Popcorn.

They had some form of dance-off happening, so you couldn’t really get away from the noise of that, though the only truly annoying bit was someone they had attempting to hype the dancing.

I hold the view that if a thing is impressive, or noteworthy, people will notice it, because they’re not idiots. Saying “Yeaaah” doesn’t make it worth noticing; Being noteworthy does.