.. and here are a few more pictures, these from my trip today to the camera store in South Lake Union. (The body of water visible at the top of the frame in the map in Saturday’s post).



a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
.. and here are a few more pictures, these from my trip today to the camera store in South Lake Union. (The body of water visible at the top of the frame in the map in Saturday’s post).
It really is quite incredible to look at a diagram of all the recent and on-going construction projects in downtown Seattle (on the right). At this time, there are 65 buildings under construction, with the total construction cost estimated at about $3.5 billion. The two pictures below are from my walk-about late Friday afternoon.
The weather here was finally warming up a little on Sunday, and I took the Light Rail train out there for a random walk around the campus. The 40,000-some students must be knuckling down right now in the dorms and in the library, and study for just a little longer : Final Examination (‘finals week’) starts next week.
The Marina district is named after the San Francisco Marina on the shoreline. There is also a strip of green lawn called the Marina Green between the water and the built-up area. Buildings in the Marina district have suffered damage to earthquakes on more than one occasion the last century or so, but as Wikipedia notes : physically, the neighborhood appears to have changed very little since its construction in the 1920s.
Four of us from work went to an Italian restaurant in the Marina district tonight, and I did the very San Francisco thing of taking an ‘Uber pool’ ride home. (Smart phone app used to summon a driver, shown on the map with his name and his car, as well as whom you will share your ride with, what the cost is, and what the estimated arrival time of the car is. Wow! That’s a whole lot of technology coming together!).
[From Wikipedia] Hamburg, a major port city in northern Germany, is connected to the North Sea by the Elbe River. It’s crossed by hundreds of canals, and also contains large areas of parkland. Its central Jungfernstieg boulevard connects the Altstadt (old town) and the Neustadt, passing Binnenalster lake, dotted with boats and surrounded by cafes and restaurants. Oysters and traditional Aalsuppe (soup) are local specialties.
I did the best I could with the day-and-a-half and rain/ freezing rain at times in Hamburg! I will have to try to come back in summer some time, when the weather is warmer. The HafenCity* area’s development continues, even after 15 years since it had started, and I would love to spend more time there when it had been completed.
*HafenCity is an urban center with many shops, restaurants, hotels and cultural venues as well as rising visitor numbers. More than 2,000 people now live in HafenCity as a whole; there are more than 5,000 students at the various academic institutions; upwards of 10,000 employees work in more than 500 businesses. It aspires to generate and use clean energy and be a model for the new cities that will have to be built around the world this century.
I could see a bridge far away from my hotel room and discovered that it is the Øresund Bridge to Malmö in Sweden : a combined railway and motorway bridge across the Øresund strait between Sweden and Denmark. The bridge runs nearly 8 kilometres from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the strait. So! I have to go, I thought, and besides, my feet and legs needed a break from walking all over the city of Copenhagen in between bus rides and train rides. I literally just had time to make the ride out there, look around the Central Station for 15 minutes, and then catch the train back again.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Yes, the Danes are very friendly and laid-back, and they speak good English. Watch out for bicycles : they go fast, so do not step into the bike lane or cross it before looking both ways! The public transport is top notch. Even the buses have display screens for the routes, and the connections at the next stop.
A visit to the Cape Town area is not quite complete for me without checking up on my old alma mater, the University of Stellenbosch, and the town itself. It was very late on Tuesday afternoon when I got there, though – and so the shadows were too long for taking fully lit pictures of the beautiful buildings. But here they are anyway.
I met my brother and nephew for lunch on Tuesday. We picked the swank Westin Hotel restaurant in the city’s Foreshore district. My nephew ordered a chocolate milkshake (not on the menu) to go with his lunch – and to their credit, they were up to it. ‘It will just take a little time’, said our server.
I took the Intercity Express (ICE) train to Düsseldorf today. The train is no slouch ! .. the electronic speed indicator in the cabin showed 297 km/h (185 mph), at times. It runs very quietly, and even with four stops, it took just an hour an a half one way. The train comes up all the way from Munich, Nuremburg, and then Frankfurt, on to Cologne and Düsseldorf, and its final stop is Essen. The one-way fare does not come cheap at €82, but hey : time is money, right?
I wanted to go check up on the latest construction in Seattle’s South Lake Union district, and went there with the light rail train and South Lake Union street car on Sunday afternoon. Soon after I got there, a persistent downpour started, and I had to curtail my picture-taking and call it quits.
I went to the dentist early Monday morning, and had some time to walk around the block nearby to check up on the construction of the Amazon biospheres. There is still some way to go, but the frames are in place.
I picked up my rental car again today and drove up on Highway 101 from the airport through the city and onto Broadway. Man! There are plenty of one-way streets, stop signs, bus only and bike only lanes, and pedestrians to watch out for. Once I reached Broadway, I told myself : park the car now; you cannot ogle at everything and drive at the same time. I was shocked to actually find a parking space, but I did, and I could walk around a bit to explore Broadway and a few blocks close by.
It was warm here in Denver today : 94 °F (34 °C), the skies clear for most of the day.
I took a few more pictures during lunch time and after work of my favorite Denver buildings.
Here’s the beautiful Granite Building here in lower downtown Denver. We had wood-fired pizza just across the street from it tonight.
From the Denver Post : It’s the four-story presence that looms over the southwest corner of Larimer and 15th streets, boasting a history that is appropriately rich, given that it was constructed stone by multicolored stone in 1882, just 24 years after gold prospectors founded Denver.
It was a gorgeous Sunday here in Seattle, but it was almost 4 o’clock before I chased myself out of the house to go for a walk. So where to go, I thought? I chose the University District; took the No 43 bus out there and walked around, and made a stop at the great bookstore that is run by the University of Washington.
On my walkabout Monday night I saw that the empty Chutney’s Grille on the Hill restaurant building here on 15th Ave is now clad in wood. The building is ultimately destined to make way for a new four-story, mixed-use apartment building.
It was a sombre day in the USA with the 11th anniversary of 9/11. Here are three pictures of the same downtown Pittsburgh scene from my hotel room window Monday night and Tuesday. The very tall building on the left that runs out of the picture is the headquarters of US Steel. It has 64 floors and was completed in 1970. Its outside is steel and it is called – quick, want to guess? – the Steel Building. The Gulf Tower next to it with the colorfully lit top at night has 44 floors and was completed in 1930.
This building is in Capitol Hill in Seattle not far from my house. (The picture is from TIME magazine). There used to be a neighborhood bar in its place where my friends and I would go to many times for a beer! Anyway .. the building is very, very green (energy efficient) and the target for it is to collect energy and use it so sparingly that it can be run ‘off the grid’. I cannot say that the flat roof flush with solar panels does a lot for me from an architectural point of view but hey .. it soaks up the sun rays. (Yes, we do have sun in Seattle!).
Thursday was overcast and cool which made for good picture-taking weather. All the buildings are from the central area of Stellenbosch.