FISH MARKET, OLYMPIC SCULPTURE PARK AND COLUMBIA TOWER

Seattle

A view of Seattle from the Columbia Tower

Brian, who took all the courses I taught in the United States this year, 2018, accompanied me flying from Minneapolis in Minnesota to Seattle in Washington on 15th October 2018. The flight took about 2 hours, but we had to push the time an hour earlier as Washington lied in a different time zone from Minnesota.

One must differentiate between the state of Washington and the city of Washington which was in the District of Columbia. Brian and his wife, Cathie, live in Seattle in the state of Washington, so they knew the place very well.

The next morning, 16th October 2018, Brian and Cathie together with Michael and I visited the Fish Market, or the Public Market, at the waterfront. Brian told me that the Fish Market was an icon for Seattle, and fishmongers often threw their fish about a few times a day. Hence I should get my camera ready for their special actions.

Many different types of goods were sold at the Fish Market, and the prices were quite cheap. Brian told me that whenever he visited friends, he would buy bouquets of flowers from florists at the Fish Market. There was a merry-go-round with colorful, wooden horses inside some low buildings at the waterfront. This was sentimental to me as my mother used to bring me to a merry-go-round in an amusement park in Penang when I was small.

Further up the road was the Olympic Sculpture Park which we visited the next day, 17th October 2018. It was an open modern park with modern sculpture but with little shade, which might be welcoming to Americans who liked the sun. There weere some chairs overlooking the waterfront. Some of these chairs were made of metal and were inmovable.

Near the waterfront there was an elogated sculpture of a Chinese face with a pigtail. He seemed to be looking at ships coming in from the Puget Sound, which was an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. There was a tree without leaves at the entrance. Christina (Sifu Christina Didyk) pointed out it was not a real tree, but was made of metal. Not far from the park was the Space Needle, which was a communication tower.

At first we wanted to visit the Space Needle, but Brian mentioned that the Columbia Tower was taller, and it looked down at the Space Needle. So in the afternoon we set for the Columbia Tower, which with a height of 933 feet was the tallest building in the state of Washington. It had an observatory at the 73rd floor viewing the whole of Seattle. It also offerred a good view of the Space Needle which was about half its height.

There were informational panels presenting world's facts, like the bridge across Lake Washington was the world's longest floating bridge; the volcanic eruption of Mt Helens in 1980 caused the largest debris avalance; about 90% of the world's earthquakes occurred along the Ring of Fire which stretched for about 25,000 miles forming the Pacific basin and included North America, South America, the Philipines, Japan and Indonesia; and the Puget Sound which extended over 100 miles was an inlet of the Pacific Ocean.

Wong Kiew Kit
26th October 2018, Sungai Petani

LINKS

Travels in USA
Seattle and its Fish Market
Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, USA (1)
Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, USA (1)
Columbia Tower, Seattle, USA (1)
Columbia Tower, Seattle, USA (2)

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