Seattle trip: 14-19 June 2025

Hey everyone, so those of you who generally follow along with me know that I don’t generally write too much about my travels when I am primarily visiting friends or family. This isn’t so much because I don’t want you to know what happened, but rather because most of it is of no interest to anyone else except myself. However, even with the most personal of visits, there are bound to be some general details of interest to others, so this time around I have decided to do a general summary entry of my recent experiences in Seattle.

The first thing that struck me in the Seattle airport, besides the rather easy-going immigration process, was the weird baggage claim area. What are those things above the luggage belts supposed to be? Perhaps because I had just arrived in from Taiwan, I thought maybe they were dragon inspired? I mean I guess it’s nice that they are doing some decoration, but it was a bit weird.

The next thing that hit me as I exited the building was that it was cold! I had already thought ahead that I would need some sort of a coat for my upcoming trip to Bogota, but it was 11 degrees Celsius in June! Seattle natives evidently will be unphased by this, but it was a bit of a surprise for me. Fortunately, my friend Beth quickly picked me up, and we were soon at her beautiful home where I was able to rest for a while.

In what I can only assume is typical Seattle fashion, or maybe this is just Beth and Scott’s lifestyle, in the early evening we went to an art show at Fogue Gallery.

The art exhibition was free, and I felt very sophisticated with my plate of cheeses and flute of champagne. However, we then walked out and went over to the slightly less sophisticated Georgetown Carnival, which was pretty much what you would expect from almost any town carnival in the United States, but perhaps because of the time of day, it was particularly low key, but still a pleasant experience.

The next day, early in the afternoon I went down to the Beacon Hill Public Library with Scott. I know you may be thinking, “Why is he writing about a public library?” So, whether or not you agree, I actually think that public libraries are rather amazing, even in this modern world of ubiquitous internet. Most countries don’t have them, or if they do, they are very limited in their scope. So, I love going to any public libraries, especially in smaller neighborhoods or towns. If you have a public library near you, make sure to go check it out; it is probably way more amazing than you previously realized.

In the evening, Beth and Scott organized a Meet Jay party at their house. This was the second installation, as the first one took place three years ago when I was in town. You won’t get to replicate this experience, as it required Beth’s advance organization, Scott’s attentive cooking, and their joint willingness to open their home to a very interesting group of their friends and neighbors.

You can however visit the city center like we did on June 16th. The waterfront is beautiful, and the different markets were just as interesting as they were last time I had visited three years ago.

The next day Beth indulged another of my favorite things about the United States, going walking with me at a nearby public park, Green Lake Park. Now public parks are more common outside of the United States than quality libraries, but people here really do know how to nicely maintain some beautiful public spaces which just like the libraries, are completely free and open to the general public. Again, this is one of the big pluses of the United States that I feel people who live there do not fully appreciate. With just public libraries and public parks, I think most people could have perfectly happy leisure lives.

After hanging out at the park, we went to Snowy Village to get some delicious Korean shaved ice treats. As is obvious, these treats are not a particular highlight of Seattle vs. other places in the country nor even the world, and in this case definitely were not inexpensive. However, for an occasional tasty treat, it’s nice knowing that it is an available option in Seattle.

After resting a bit back at Beth and Scott’s home, we went out for a lifetime first for me . . . a live hockey game! No, it’s not a team which you would know, but I found the whole experience to be rather exhilarating, despite the fact that there were only two of us in the bleachers. I understand that actually participating in these neighborhood leagues is a bit expensive, but I suspect that watching is always free, as long as you know when they are playing. As Beth is rather tiny (at least compared to me), I was pretty amazed to see how impressive she was out on the ice. Also, who knew how fast live ice-hockey actually is?! If you are interested, it looks like Kent Valley Ice Center has lessons for BOTH ice-hockey and figure skating.

On June 18th, this was one I had actually done before, but it had been a couple of years. We went bowling at West Seattle Bowl. I was not very good, but that wasn’t really the point. It was nice to share with Beth’s friends and just have fun doing something different.

Afterwards, we went to get a massive slice of surprisingly delicious pizza and an incredibly cold (I know, go figure?) but tasty soft serve ice cream sundae. These last two items were perhaps not so surprising on their own, but in comparative terms, they were crazy cheap . . . just $1.99 USD for the pizza and $2.49 USD for the sundae.

You would think that the day couldn’t get any fuller but following up on my new experience from the previous evening, I went to my second live hockey match of my entire life, this one at Sno-King Ice Arenas. I think I liked this one a bit better, as the stands were closer to the ice, and I also had a better idea of what to expect in terms of how rapidly they were playing.

For my final day, I really wanted to go to another public park type area, so Scott and Beth decided it would be nice for us to go out to the public beach area near Alki Avenue. I am not sure what this exact spot is called, but it was in that general area, and at least at some point we were next to Elliot Bay. It was great to see so many people taking advantage of the public space, even though I thought it was crazy that there were people in swimsuits and trunks without shirts when it was 19 degrees Celsius. No doubt the Seattle authorities had heard that I would be coming, so they also arranged have a real-life otter sighting!

We then wrapped up our outing for the day at Marination Ma Kai. I didn’t really have a strong point of comparison, but Beth and Scott said that they had reasonably authentic Hawaiian food. I don’t know if it was authentic, but I was very pleased with my Luau Plate Combo.

So, that pretty much wrapped things up for the trip. Late in the evening, Scott was kind enough to drop me off at the airport, and the whole check-in experience went quite well despite what appeared to be a rather long line for the security check.

What do you think? Are you interested in visiting Seattle. Or if you aren’t interested in visiting Seattle, maybe you just want to hang out with Beth and Scott? Let me know your questions and comments in the section below.