{"id":20931,"date":"2026-08-14T08:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T15:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=20931"},"modified":"2026-08-14T08:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T15:45:17","slug":"new-eyes-on-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/new-eyes-on-seattle\/","title":{"rendered":"New eyes on Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Jet Kiss<\/a>” a sculpture by Mike Ross at the Capital Hill metro station <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve just returned from a week or work in Seattle. As I get older I am noticing how exhausting it is to be socializing a lot, and this week was full on BE VERY PRESENT WITH PEOPLE energy followed by a need to spend time alone in reflection and restoration. I slept deeply every night I was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes when I do this work I find myself at a hotel on the outskirts of town, confined to the vast expanse of car-forward infrastructure that we are cursed with in North America. It makes wandering exhausting, let alone dangerous, and so one just camps in the hotel room or at a nearby franchise bar or coffee shop, pretending to experience human community in a mall owned by private equity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in Seattle two things worked against this. First, it is summer, which in this part pf the world means you go outside regardless because warm sunny and dry days are the exception, not the norm. And second I was ensconced in the U District near the university, which is quieter in the summer with no students around. So it all behooved me to take my chance and spend the few hours for I had for solitude after work and before dark out of doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been visiting and travelling to Seattle for decades. It’s only 250 kms or so south of here, but the border makes it further and longer. Pretty as the drive is for a lot of it, it’s exhausting to do after a week of work. US-Canada borders are not fun places at the moment, and the traffic in both Seattle and Vancouver is, in plain terms, a nightmare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, these days there is a constantly improving light rail system in the city and so for the last two trips there I flew from Vancouver. Where I stay in Seattle is kitty corner from the U District light rail station and suddenly it couldn’t be easier to get around the city. This time I noticed how much it changed my experience of the place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U District station is 45 minutes from the airport, which lies on the far side of downtown. I arrived on Sunday and dropped my luggage at the hotel and then jumped right back on the train and headed downtown to go to my first ever National Women Soccer League game. The Seattle Reign which includes a local Canadian player Holly Ward, were hosting Angel City at Lumen field, Seattle’s massive NFL Stadium. There were about 7000 people there, a generally quiet crowd, with a drum core marching band up above the supporters section and a game capo trying to get chants going in teh south end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The match was entertaining, resulting in a 2-2 draw, both teams needing to adjust without their superstars, Jess Fishlock of Seattle and Jun Endo for Los Angeles. Tactically it was fascinating to watch teams trying to solve each other. My eyes were on the creative play of Mercado and Sentnor who were given the job of disrupting each other’s defences with surprise, trickery, vision and skill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the match I wandered over to Pioneer Square and with my knack for finding decent cheap eats, I went to Numero Uno Pizza<\/a>. This looks like a regular gritty urban pizza slice place, but they have a half secret menu of Turkish flatbreads like pide and lahmacun. And so that’s what I had, a lamb lahmacun with a small green salad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second night I was out I again hopped on the light rail and headed to Capital Hill where one of my work colleagues was playing a recreational softball game in Cal Anderton Park, which is a whole scene. Seattle really is a whole scene in some many ways. There are so many subcultures that it’s not uncommon so see them reduced down to the level of individuals doing their own thing. While there was a softball game going on, there were folks elsewhere playing soccer, and groups of people hanging out with their besties. It was busy, diverse, and wild. The youth subcultures in Seattle have a distinctive combination of performative insecurity crossed with a fierce we-don’t-give-a-shit attitude. When I was there in June, during the World Cup, there were many Bosnia-Herzegovina supporters staying in my hotel, and they were completely flummoxed by the scene. It was funny to watch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any rate, my colleague’s game was a good excuse to wander down to that neighbourhood, which also afforded a chance to go to Elliot Bay Book<\/a>s, one the finest bookstores in the region. After spending a hour there, I grabbed a chicken tikka at Cafe Ashiana, a virtual food truck tucked into a small building down below Broadway. It’s an Afghan\/Pakistani place, quiet at 9pm when I got there but absolutely delicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday night, it was another visit to a colleague who has a night job working at Bamboo<\/a>, a sushi restaurant in the mall-as-if-it-were-a-village that is University Village. The restaurant was a 20 minute walk from campus to this strange outdoor mall. It was a lovely warm evening, and I sat on the patio and had a dish of crispy rice with spicy albacore tuna and a house roll featuring seared salmon, seasoned crab, tempura asparagus, white truffle ponzu, kewpie dill aioli, and crispy leek. Yum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my final evening, after our team went out for ice cream to celebrate our work I went to Magus Books<\/a>, which is a fantastic used book store, bought an Ottolenghi recipe book, a collection of Alistair Macleod stories and a Blues harmonica method book and then walked up to Cedars<\/a> where there was a Wednesday night butter chicken special. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mornings, my walk down to the campus had me stopping at Cafe Solstice<\/a> which pulls an EXCELLENT espresso (even by Seattle standards) and their breakfast wraps are “Canadian sized” portions which is appreciated. It’s now become my go to place for my morning solo prep time. In the early morning in summer, it’s quiet. Probably not like that at other times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I document all of these places because for the first time, I have finally experienced Seattle as a walkable, accessible city. The light rail has changed everything, shrinking the city to a more human scale for those of us who are visiting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Jet Kiss” a sculpture by Mike Ross at the Capital Hill metro station I’ve just returned from a week or work in Seattle. As I get older I am noticing how exhausting it is to be socializing a lot, and this week was full on BE VERY PRESENT WITH PEOPLE energy followed by a need to spend time alone in reflection and restoration. I slept deeply every night I was there. Sometimes when I do this work I find myself at a hotel on the outskirts of town, confined to the vast expanse of car-forward infrastructure that we are cursed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-5rB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_1251-scaled.jpeg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20933,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20931\/revisions\/20933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}