Bellevue Trip Part 3

I left my co-instructor to watch the labs and headed out into Seattle yesterday afternoon. I parked over by Pike's Place which was crazy expensive ($5.00 per hour or $35 for all day), I figured this was ok since it was a city and I did expect parking to be high, but more on that later..

I had .50 cents in my pocket from the my purchase at Fred Meyer and I knew exactly where that money was going, or at least half of it. Seattle has a very old peep-show strip club called the Lusty Lady, remember Madonna's Open Your Heart video? This place is kinda like that but a bit, umm dirtier.. Anyway, I was told that this was a Seattle staple and that it was closing in the next few months so I figured I would check it out. You go in and there a bunch of booths around a glass enclosed stage, you go in and for a quarter you get a minute view of the stage. There were probably 6-8 girls standing around naked on the stage and when they saw your window open they would go over and rub against it. I guess it's ok to "take care of business" in the booths because they have tissues and a garbage pail in each booth. I spent my quarter and now I can officially say "been there, done that"... Went from there to a real strip club for a few songs and then over to Pike's Place Market.

The Market was really nice, it is the kind of place I would certainly shop if I lived in the area. They had lots of fresh fish, produce and artwork. The back end of the market was overlooking the ocean and most of the restaurants had outdoor seating, I didn't eat there because it was too early and I was not hungry yet. I spent some time in the park at the end of the market and then walked over to the Space Needle. The Space Needle is in a big park complex which has a kiddie amusement park and a few museums. Parking across the street, $7 all day!!! I went up the Needle and walked around the outside and hung out a bit inside before coming back down.

After that I went into the Science Fiction museum and the Rock and Roll Museum, the SciFi one was really cool, I didn't have much time there but they stamped my receipt so I can go back today if I get out of class early enough. Some of the highlights, they had a bunch of original Star Trek props including uniforms. They had a droid exhibit which had Tweeky, the robotic dog from BattleStar Galactica, R2D2, Robbie from Lost in Space and the robots from Black Hole. The exhibits were very dark so I didn't get many pictures that came out well enough to post on Flickr. They also had an original ET used in the movie, the Deathstar model, a Blade Runner exhibit, a Planet of the Apes exhibit, etc, etc, etc... If you're ever in Seattle I recommend it.. The Rock and Roll museum was probably as lame as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but I did see an awesome banjo/horn combination instrument from the 1920s.

In case you were wondering about how stupid I felt about parking... There is apparently a monorail in Seattle, it has two stops.. 1: the Space Needle, 2: Pike's Place Market! Grrr, could have saved a bunch of money if I had known where to park... Oh well, took the monorail back and found some live folk music in a park.. Yay?! No! It was a Fox News anti-Obama rally!!! Left there and found the best homeless guy ever, he had a sign saying that is father turned to the darkside and he needed money for an x-wing! I gave him money and took a picture of him and his sign. I'm not sure he was homeless, I think he was just out of work..

Left Seattle shortly after that and went back to Bellevue.. Ate dinner at Jack in the Box! You knew I had to one day... Got my Bacon Ultimate Burger on Sourdough! Just the 2000+ calories I needed...

Class is just wrapping up, some students still working on labs and then I think I'm off back to Seattle before going to the airport. I unfortunately have a 10:25pm flight so I will have lots of time to kill...