SEATTLE, USA

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington, USA. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country. The city is a major coastal seaport situated on a narrow isthmus between Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington, about 114 miles (183 km) south of the Canada–United States border. In 2010, Seattle was the sixth busiest port in the United States, serving as a major gateway for trade with Asia.


We visited this city in 2001 and loved every minute of it. The Space Needle, dating from the Century 21 Exposition (1962), is Seattle's most recognisable landmark. The fairgrounds surrounding the Needle have been converted into Seattle Center, which remains the site of many local civic and cultural events, such as Bumbershoot, Folklife, and the Bite of Seattle. Seattle Center plays multiple roles in the city, ranging from a public fair ground to a civic centre. The Seattle Center Monorail was also constructed for Century 21 and still runs from Seattle Center to Westlake Center, a downtown shopping mall, a little over a mile to the southeast. Other notable Seattle landmarks include Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project (EMP) and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (at Seattle Center), and the Seattle Central Library.


While we were there we saw an outdoor art exhibition of decorated pig statues. These were quite amazing and the creativity and richness of invention in decorating them individualistically was great to see.


This post is part of the Mellow Yellow Monday meme,
and also of the Our World Tuesday meme.