Seattle Center is a really fantastic place. It’s got all sorts of things going on, and basically is the one-stop shop for everyone in your group. Got introverts? There are quiet and contemplative areas. Theatre-minded folks? It’s got a whole area dedicated to them. Musicians? Plenty of stuff for them, including a whole museum. Sci-fi enthusiasts? Another museum catering exclusively to their interests. Science buffs? A whole center dedicated to their passion. Children? Gobs and oodles of things for them to do both indoors and out. Hungry people? Here’s a ginormous food court. So, basically, when you have out-of-town visitors, like, oh, say, friends from Ireland, you should definitely have Seattle Center on your list o’ Things To Do.
I mean, if nothing else, you’ve got to come stare at the Space Needle, right? Here, let’s have a look at it through a willow tree so old and enormous it has to be propped up.
There’s all sorts of art lying around, too, which is what we’ll focus on today. Whales are a big theme. We in the Puget Sound region are pretty wild about whales.
Spend more than five minutes walking around Seattle Center, and you’ll probably find a whale.
There’s a wee little plaza over by the Pacific Science Center that’s filled with boulders and rocks of varying sizes. It’s also got several bronze sculptures of sea critters. This octopus was having a fun day when Aoife and I got there: I didn’t snap a photo because I didn’t want to be all weird, but a little girl saw the octopus, shouted in delight, and then ran over to put her toy octopus on top of it. ‘Twas adorable. Without the toy on its head, it merely looks stately:
One of my favorites there is this seahorse:
I love those little alien ears. And I don’t know how the artist managed to do soulful eyes on a bronze seahorse, but there they are.
Then there’s this rather disturbing group of fishies….
One of them is frowning. They worry me.
But never mind them. There’s a little hermit crab in a snail shell over here and I cannot stop squeeing!
And as if that’s not enough adorable to make you fall over and die of squee, here’s a wee flying pig!
I have no idea what it’s doing there, or how it fits in with the general nautical theme, but who cares? Baby flying pig!!!
And, of course, the collection would not be complete without another whale: in this case, the tail.
That whole little sculpture garden is wonderful. It also holds warm memories, as it happens to be where I met my first set of Pharyngulites immediately before meeting PZ for the first time. Now that I’ve taken Aoife there, I’ve decided that all of us should eventually meet up in this spot. Then, when we all become fabulously famous, they can replace the pavement with a bunch of little bronze plaques with our handprints in them or something, sort of like the Hollywood thing. What should we use for our symbol instead of a star?
a rock hammer, of course, for scale
Wow, I haven’t been to the center in years. Or to Seattle, for that matter, other than passing through on the freeway. Guess we’ll have to do that again one day.
Please tell me you and Aoife went down and got wet in the international fountain.l