Seattle 2013 Day 3: EMP Museum and Restaurants

4/21/2013
Seattle 2013 Day 3: EMP Museum and Restaurants

The day began with an epic breakfast at the Fairmont. Yeah, that was amazing. Then off to take the Monorail to the EMP (Experience Music Project) museum... which was AMAZING!!

Apple Fritter French Toast. Yep.

Monorail... monorail... monoraiiiillll!

Epic Frank Gehry architecture at EMP Museum

Rock and roll

Paul Allen apparently is the mastermind behind this amazing museum, which felt like it could easily win the coolest museum in the world award. It was so awesome. They had literally everything I wanted to learn more about: The Art and History of Video Games, a Jimi Hendrix in London exhibit, a history of the band Nirvana (and of Grunge music in general), a Science Fiction and Filmmaking portion with some stuff about George Lucas, cool Star Wars stuff... and even a huge music section where you could learn to play new instruments, learn about guitars, keyboards, mixing, drums, guitar pedals, and you could even book a sound booth to make your own CD in 10 minutes. That was so cool. They also had an insanely massive and awesome big indoor projection screen called "Skychurch". It was pretty epic, and had cool disco balls with billowing material attached to them on the roof. Amazing.

A friggin' guitar that Hendrix played at Woodstock in 1969... AMAZING

Art of Video Games

WOW

I remember this :)

Poetry

So amazing

Old school

Remember when I got to work with some of the people who made this game, that's now in this history of video games exhibit?!? Amazing.

MTV award given to Nirvana

That's a lot of guitars. And that one random bass.

A cool "learn guitar" exhibit where lasers show you which strings to play!

Science!

Terminator 2 sculpture

Grr!

Make your own comp with green screen and a video feed

Haha this rocked

Costume worn by Christopher Reeve

Yoda cane and pendant!!!!!!

GL, what up!!

Um.. YES

Cool case of Anakin mask reveal from Return of the Jedi

WOW awesome Vader art by Ralph McQuarrie

There's some red on your shirt

And, I love this museum

Outside there were free tastes outside the Space Needle of a bunch of different method of preparing local Seattle salmon with different types of rubs and sauces. Um, glorious!!! That rocked.

Free food outside

From there, it was back to downtown on the Monorail and then back to Pike Place for some epic mini cheesecake. I got a shot of spicy hot chocolate there too, and a container of very fresh raspberries that were certainly too amazing to skip. Also we tried some seedless muscat grapes, which were very tasty. After some local pickles and fish and chips, it was time for a quick Ferris wheel ride before heading back to the hotel.

Pickles at the Pike Place Market

View from the wheel

Seattle as the sun is coming out!

After chilling at the hotel a bit, I headed back to Pike Place and got a rhubarb pastry at a Piroshki place. I also picked up some Market Herb Cheese Curds from Beecher's Cheese. Then back to the hotel again to chill out after a lot of walking. I got a double espresso in the lobby and with the tons of walking today and biking yesterday... I was exhausted!!! Chilled out for a bit and then went back up to my room and slept for 2 hours!

Cheese curds

Mmm...

A tasty Rhubarb Cheese pastry

I got up and put on a nicer shirt for dinner, and took a cab over to Spinasse, a place that has been recommended by several people. It was freakin' incredible. Someone told me it was the "best Italian food they had outside of Italy", which was an impressive claim. It was really excellent. I was quite tired from all the exercise, but I'm glad I took a power nap and still went out... I was considering just a quiet night at the hotel but it was well worth the trek out to the restaurant.

Fancy night out at Spinasse

Tajarin al ragù o burro e salvia (Fine hand cut egg pasta with ragù or butter and sage)

Jerusalem artichokes "Sunchokes" with epic sauce. This was amazing

One of the best espressos I've had, it was amazing

Spinasse

I started with a glass of Nebbiolo red wine (a variety I've never tried before) from a winery called Pelissero from Treis, Italy (near Fossano). It was amazing. It went incredibly well with the pasta that every person in Seattle told me to buy - a butter sage "tajarin" egg pasta. It was insanely good. It did actually remind me of the subtle and unbelievably fresh flavours of the restaurant we went to in Florence that was so epic. What an awesome time.

On the side of the main dish, I also got some crazy looking artichokes called "Jerusalem Artichokes" which looked like potatoes and were in this sort of gravy. One of the ladies that worked there came by to ask me how I was enjoying them and she said, "They are so sinful, like savory candy". haha, so poetic. This place is like Italy!

The bread was also incredible and the wine a good choice. They had some crazy homemade "Huckleberry Cello" - like a Lemoncello I suppose. It sounded good but I decided to just go for an Espresso. It kicked the crap out of the instant Starbucks espresso that I had back at the hotel. It came out in a Moka Pot and I had 3 cups worth out of it, with just a dash of cream in each. An incredibly smooth espresso and really done beautifully. They really know what they are doing at this place.

The food was very rich so I walked back to the hotel. I had considered going across the road from the restaurant to a live music venue place that seemed to be bumpin', but it was a long day and I was keen just to get back and chill out at the hotel some more. It was a nice walk and I got back to the hotel and practiced my speech for the Waterloo Alumni Event at Facebook which was only a week later, so it was nice to get a little more practice in.

Some more tea and another bath! My legs were still tired from the biking yesterday but it was awesome exercise. I had some snacks, watched some random movies on TV and then wrote my journal. What a great day! Tomorrow, back to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for a meeting, and back to The Crumpet Place. I'll check out tomorrow morning and then enjoy a few more things before heading to the airport. Looking forward to seeing that GoPro Video!!