Where are the fish balls, dim sum and satay food stands??

Last Saturday was the annual Seattle's Chinatown-International District Summer Festival and as I had not been to it in the previous years since arriving in Seattle, I decided to pay it a visit and hoping to get some food at the multiple street stands that were there. In fact, the food selection was disappointing with only one stand really selling chinese food. The others food stands were the usual corn on the cob stand, popcorn, BBQ ribs etc (the same one that you get at any other street festival so nothing special).

The most popular stands were the McDonalds (and not for the food), Western Union, Nielsen and Silver Dollar Casino. What do they have in common you may ask. Well, they were the stands that where giving out freebies and us Chinese really love a freebie - especially the old women who will queue jump or push you over to get there first. In fact, I joined in the fun (hey, I am Chinese you know ;-)) and got a t-shirt, a bag, and some playing cards (after I had to prove that I was over 21 to participate in the Blackjack game - the playing cards were the consolation prize with an umbrella being the main prize if i got a blackjack).

Where is the end of the queue for my freebies?

There was also a stage where they had traditional dancing, music playing, drill team performances, a Chinese opera concert and kung fu demonstrations. I only saw a couple of the Korean music and dance performances but they were very good.

Korean drums and dancing

The funniest part of this festival was the Karaoke competition. Just like Pop Idol or American Idol, you get both the good and the really bad. I must give these people credit though as they were very brave to go up on stage and perform - (and no, I was never tempted to participate). I thought the judges were too kind though and the entertainment would have increased more if they were as cruel as Simon Cowell and be honest with their opinions and not give diplomatic comments. Of course, that was never going to happen as it is just for fun. Although I did not stay for most of it - I left several times to get more food, I did think the top 3 were very good and deserve it.

Was her singing good or bad? Hmm, I cannot remember

The dancing was more entertaining than the singing in this performance

The judges - don't they look bored?

As some of you know that I really love architecture especially the temples and palaces of ancient China in Beijing. Seeing that there was a stand selling 3D wood build yourself models of the Temple of Heaven, I could not help buying one. Of course, it is still in its packaging and I have not started making it yet, but don't worry, I will take a photo of it when i have completed it. Knowing me though you will have to wait a very, very, very long time for it :-)

The Temple of Heaven model is on the far left. I bet my one is not going to look anything like that

Oh, I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the local IMAX with some friends last night. The only screening that we managed to get tickets for was the 10pm so it did not finish until 12:30am. As it was a working day the next day, I ended up looking like a zombie. Luckily I did not have any meetings so I worked from home instead. Hooray that my workplace allows that option otherwise it would not have been a pretty sight in the office. Regarding the film, it was entertaining but I did not think the 3D parts in the last battle scene (only available in the IMAX version) added much to it.

Ballard Street Scramble

In order to know my neighborhood better, I participated in the Ballard Street Scramble this morning with a colleague from work. A Street Scramble is a fun competition that has teams running around local streets looking for 30 landmarks marked on a map. To prove that you are there, you have to answer a multiple choice questions relating to the building or place of interest. It sounds easy but the maps are not very detailed so you have to guess roughly where the place is. Here is a small snippet of the map where the triangle is the start/finish point and the circles are the places to visit:


Our intention was to do the 90 minute foot race, but due to being over optimistic and us deciding not to run in the heat, we got back 27 minutes late. This would have meant a 270 points penalty subtracted from the points that we accumulated by visiting the marked places. When we got back to the start/finish line, the organizers suggested that we should be enter the 3 hour one instead. This advice seemed sensible so we decided to do that. In the end, although we lost an hour against the competition (due to us finishing over an hour before we really needed to finish), we still did not finish last in our division and came in 10th out of the 12 teams. In general, this was good fun and I went to places that I had not been to before, but whether I will do it again, I am not sure.

For those of you who wants to know what I did on Independence Day - yes, the day that Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saves the world from the aliens (only joking!!!) and one of the few National Holiday I get off work (not joking here :-(), I stayed at home all day catching up on watching a Hong Kong TV comedy series on DVD. I was planning to go to Gasworks Park for the WaMu Family 4th to see the fireworks but in the end I was just too lazy - I even missed it on TV. My goal is to go next year, but we'll see :-)

Tillicum Village - our Northwest Coast Native American Village

Given that it was a nice sunny day yesterday, I decided to go and check out the Tillicum Village tour. This tour is a 4 hour trip including a one hour cruise to Blake Island State Park (plus another hour going back to Seattle), a traditional Indian-style salmon buffet meal and Northwest Coast Native American dance performance, arts and crafts demonstrations and 30 minutes free time to check out the island. If you asked me to describe the tour, I would say that it is definitely a tourist trap and really not worth the money. Admittedly the food was very nice, especially the traditional Indian-style Baked Salmon and Warm Tillicum Whole Grain Bread and that you can get multiple helpings (I did take a photo of the food, but it came out blurry so I am too embarrassed to put this photo up on the site), but the dance performance was short and the 30 minutes was not really enough time to do anything. Blake Island is densely wooded and with many forested walking and hiking trails and 5 miles of beaches, there are lots of do there but with only 30 minutes, I would have missed my boat ride back if I wanted to make use of these. Thinking about it, given that half of the tour is spend getting there and back, maybe the main attraction is the cruise, but I must admit that you could get the same views from the Bainbridge Island ferry rides for only a few dollars.

Here are some photos from the water, from Tillicum Village itself and from the show (I was sitting near the back so it was a good use of my zoom and flash on my camera):

Seattle Waterfront

Space Needle and a cruise boat waiting to go to Alaska

The race is on...

Just in case...

Arriving at Tillicum Village

The Tillicum Village Longhouse

One of many totem poles on the island

Inside the Longhouse

Preparing the salmon for baking

The show

Oh, I also watch "Ratatouille" at the cinema and really enjoyed it. If you have not had the chance to watch it then I recommend it - as long as you can get over the thought that it is about a rat in a kitchen :-)

Welcome to the family......

In preparation for the nice summers here in Seattle and all those day trips that I plan to do, I decided to add another lens (Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens which will provide a longer range - I only had a 50mm and an 18-55mm lens before), an external flash (Canon 430EX Speedlite Flash as the build-in one with the camera is not that great) and a wireless remote control (Canon Wireless Remote Control RC1 which is good for taking night photos as I don't have steady hands) to my collection of accessories for my Canon Rebel XTi DSLR camera. Each of these should hopefully help me improve my photography skills, which at this current moment can be classified as a novice. Attaching everything onto the camera actually makes it very heavy so I think I should go to the gym more and beef up a lot :-)


Last Saturday, I decided to walk down over the Ballard Bridge and take a couple of pictures of the boats in Fisherman's Terminal. Here are some of the shots I took. The first was at 28mm and the second was zoomed in to 135mm (this is the boat that is on the center right hand side of the first photo) - the third is just random shot. I was happy with the range and it should enable me to get some good photos when I go Whale Watching some time during the summer.


Oh, I also finally watched "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" in the cinema (or theater for my American readers) - if you have not seen the film and don't want to read what I thought about it, please stop reading here. Although it was good to complete the trilogy, I actually had mixed feelings about the film. Maybe I just did not get the plot - I blame my brain not functioning properly due to old age :-). So who was betraying who or was it just all a scheme to get Jack Sparrow on the Flying Dutchman? And what was so frightening about Calypso? Was it just the little whirlpool? I did think it was funny having Keith Richards play Jack Sparrow's father though as to the best of my knowledge, Johnny Depp based Jack Sparrow's mannerism on him. I will probably watch it again when it is on HBO in the future as the action is quite good and it was good to see Chow Yun Fat in it. Maybe I should train up my brain by playing the "Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree" game on the Nintendo Wii in the meantime :-)

Fremont Fair at the Center of the Universe

With the beginning of summer, it is the time of year for the Fremont Fair and the Solstice Parade held at the Center of the Universe. This parade is famous for the naked cyclists (body paint optional), but unfortunately, my bus was late so I miss them :-( I did get to see some of them participating in other parts of the parade later though and let's just say that they left nothing to the imagination - especially the woman trying to hula hoop and doing leg kicks which was definitely not a pretty sight. The rest of the parade was interesting and quite cultural. Some of them sent a message like promoting recycling while others were just weird. Here are some photos for you all to determine which ones are weird:

The last of the naked cyclists

No idea what is this is - answers on a postcard to.....

Egyptian Belly Dancers

Be Green!!

It is summer, not Christmas!!!

Too much plastic surgery??

Did you want mustard on that hot dog??

Who wants a hug??

Beware of the trees!!

This got a big cheer from the crowd. I wonder why.... :)

Music!!!

And more music!!!

After the parade finished, I went to Gasworks Park and started chatting to some of the people who took part in the parade. They were actually the hula hoopers who were encouraging people especially kids to try it (luckily the naked woman was not one of them and just a participant). They were really cool people and glad to have met them - just a bit of promoting for them, if you are in Seattle and wants to hula hoop then they meet on Thursday 7pm at Green Lake. For me, I doubt I will ever go though as I will never see myself hula hooping. People, including men who wanted to show off, did have a good time doing it though.

The Hula Hoopers!

As part of the fair, there was also a Solstice Pageant which sounded interesting to watch. Of course, silly me, in a desperate attempt to find food, I completely forgot about it and missed it. Oh well, there is always next year. Hmm, maybe I will even participate. Anyone up for naked cycling??? OK, only joking, I cannot even ride a bike!!!!!

My first blog!!!!

Since leaving my home town of London for just as rainy Seattle two and a half years ago, I have been very bad at correspondences with all my friends and family back home. Hopefully creating this blog will help me keep people up to date with what I have been up to here in Seattle. With time, I am hoping that I will become more creative but the people who know me well will know that English and creative writing is not my strong subject so don't hold your breath :-)