Thanksgiving Trip Day 4: Seattle

Day 4 morning was spent visiting the Pike's market that we never got to explore on the first day. Loads of things on sale, like any other market, but the highlight for me was the cooked crabs for sale. We bought 2 to eat during the day, and in the evening, we came back again to buy another 3 which we polished off with beer at the end of the day.

Pawsie and Vincent bought this music instrument which cost about $38 to 42 USD each. I think it works something like a recorder, but instead you have 4 hols to cover only. Think you can only play one octave on the instrument with covering the 4 holes in different combinations, but the tone gets lower as you buy the bigger ones.




Just opposite the market was the original first starbucks which we went to to get some coffee.





After that, half the group went off to EMP first while, weijie, mark, pawsie and I went to send Gabriel to the airport because he was leaving first. On the way, we also stopped by to check out the chittenden locks.

Us braving the rain to view the Chittenden Locks; Fish Laddar; Chittenden Locks

The dam keep the water at two different levels. The laddar is constructed, so that salmon and other types of fish can make small jumps to get from water in the lower level to the higher level. When a boat wants to get from the low level water to the higher level, it first enters an enclosed area, between 2 locks. Then the lock between the low and high level allows water to seep slowly into the lower level so that the water level rises slowly. When the water level in the enclosed area has raised to the high level, the gate is fully raised, so that the boat can now travel through.

After sending Gabriel to the airport it was already 4pm. We called the rest of the group and it turned out that they were still in EMP having lots of fun and still didn't want to leave. Although we only had an hour and a half left in EMP before it closed, we went in anyway. Mark, Weijie, Pawsie and I had a pretty good time jamming away in the jam rooms. Actually come to think about it, it's pretty much self-entertainment. We were trying very hard to thnk of songs to sing and play too and we were all quite brain dead most of the time. The group gets to stay in each jamming room for 10 minutes and there will be a recording done for you. After that you can go to a booth to listen to the "music" you produced during the 10 minutes and even choose to purchase your cd. Of course, we didn't buy our own music, because we were basically making a fool of ourselves, playing and singing nonsense in the room. We found out after we left the room that there was a speaker outside and people outside could hear what we were playing in the music room. No wonder people were smiling at us when we exited the room!

We also went to this cool room, which was a simulated stage, where we got to play our own music instruments. There was coloured lights blasting and a screen with screaming fans cheering us on.And it didn't matter that we didn't know how to play the instruments, because they kind of play on their own. You just have to fake and act the part of the cool rockstar. After that, we stepped outside, where we got tickets for our concert with our band name printed. We also watched our music video and viewed our own poster. After then, we continued jamming in any other jam room we could find and this time Nesha joinned us as well...

Me and Pawsie acting as DJs. I think Xin'en looks very mischeivous over here.

Us jamming at the EMP

When we finally got kicked out of the EMP when it closed, we went to a mexican restaurant for dinner. Miah, Mark, Weijie, Nesha and Philip had to rush off to watch Omitheatre Happy Feet, while Danny, Vincent, Elvin, Pawsie and I decided to have some drinks at some pub.



We went to Pike's pub/brewery for some beer and chatted. Conversation was mainly about Vincent, Danny and Elvin's adventures on Whistler on the third day when the rest of us explored stanley park and the suspension bridge. There was a blizzard when they were up the mountain. Miah was a pro and whizzed down the moutain, but the 3 were new to snow boarding and had more difficulties. They ended up only being able to snowboard 1/3 of the moutain to slightly below the 2/3 point. Then among the blizzard, Vincent asked Danny if they wanted to continue down the slope, then Danny told him there was a thin line between garangness stupidity. That's when they decided to retreat back up to the 2/3 line so that they could take the gondola down instead of snowboard down. Vincent was telling us how Elvin was shouting at him to Call for help when he had almost already made it back up. Their story was pretty hilarious as they acted out how they climbed the mountain. They used their snowboards kind of like picks, by digging it into the snow above them and trying to pull themselves up. After about 2 hours of talk, the rest from Happy Feet met up with us at the pub and had some drinks too. Then it was time to return back to the hotel to rest.