Seattle Underground Tour

After telling everyone I am moving to Seattle, today would be the first time I go into downtown Seattle for more than 10 minutes.

Being the tourist that I am, today I set out on a trip to Pike's Place and to go on the Seattle Underground Tour. Before that though, I saw first hand how bad traffic is here. It was 1:15pm when I left from here to Seattle... good ol' google tripped it at 20 minutes... but in actuality, it took 50 minutes!

I think I have it figured out though. The traffic here is bad not because there are too many cars, but it's the way the roads are built. Think 5 years back before Wloo built that ramp for ppl to get on the 401... remember how there were cars trying to cut to the left to get on the freeway, while we are trying to cut to the right to get on the 401 exit? That's EXACTLY how I'd say half their entry ways and exits for highways are built. No wonder there are traffic jams! Doesn't really matter when you have a 4 lane highway, and fancy diamond lanes if no one can get on or off of it.

So needless to say, I arrived late for the tour I had planned to go on and had to wait for the next one. It was perfect though, because it gave me just enough time to walk around Pike Place. Nothing really special there, just lots of fresh produce and seafood market, and a bunch of shops. The ferry rides looked interesting and perhaps next time I venture to Seattle again I will go on one.

Now before going on the tour, I had to repark the car because the parking spot I found originally did not allow me to park from 4pm to 6pm... which is smack on during the tour. After driving around for 10 minutes, I found a perfect parking spot that was just up the street, right at the intersection of where the tour startpoint was at! I have to say I completely lucked out... because during the tour, we walked by where I had originally parked and there were 2 cars there with tickets on their windshield. Guess they really meant it when it said no parking during 4pm to 6pm.

The tour was very interesting and very entertaining. The tour guides were very funny and I learned alot about the history of Seattle. Here's a bit of it.

...Seattle was founded by a guy who wouldn't give up on building a city on a pile of mud. Nevertheless, he built it and then people started coming after some very good marketing of the land...

...At one point in Seattle's history, a man named Yesler was elected mayor; and during this time, he sued the city for stupid things, then as the mayor, settled the lawsuit with himself. In this fashion, he got a lot of money and almost drove the city to bankruptcy...

...The sewage system in the old days were horrendous. People lived at the bottom and top of the hill in Seattle. With the downward pressure produced by the people up at the top of the hill doing their #2, it is not uncommon for those living at the bottom of the hill to see a gush 3 ft high in their toilets when they flushed!!! Imagine you just finished taking a dump and decide to flush... next thing you know, a 3 ft high brown geiser shoots out from your toilet. This would happen whenever the tide came in and you decided to flush. And if that's not bad enought, it stayed like this for 8 years before they fixed it!...

.. Plenty more stories that were very interesting, like how the fire hydrants didn't work because Yesler cheaped out on them, paving way for a fire that burned down 33 blocks of Seattle. You gotta go on the tour to hear the way they tell it.

At the end of the tour, got a complimentary beverage and just rested at the patio at the bar. Very nice. The drive back though, with the criss-cross merging highways, was not as nice.

So ends my first Seattle experience!