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Seattle Sandfest
Sand sculptures on display this Saturday in Westlake Plaza in downtown Seattle.
Seattle blogs
Seattle-Paris en vol direct
Daily non-stop flights between Roissy and Sea-Tac
The Port of Seattle announced today that starting June 11, 2007, Air France will offer daily non-stop service between Seattle-Tacoma Airport in Washington and Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
Air France will serve the new Paris-Seattle route with an Airbus A-330-200.
Des vols directs entre Roissy et Sea-Tac
Le Port of Seattle a annonce aujourd’hui l’établissement des vols directs Air France entre Seattle-Tacoma Airport et Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle a compter du 11 juin 2007.
Les vols directs vers la capitale française seront effectues au quotidien en Airbus A330-200.
Light Rail
Travelers in the Seattle area will soon have a fast and efficient way to get to and from the airport. The Link Light Rail will connect downtown Seattle and Sea-Tac by year-end 2009. Of course, if you live on the eastside, you’ll still have to get to downtown Seattle.
Spirit of Washington dinner train
It’s almost the end of the line for the Spirit of Washington dinner train, which offers passengers a unique wine and dine experience on a nostalgic train ride between Renton and the Columbia Winery in Woodinville. To accommodate the additional lanes to Interstate 405, King County is negotiating with the owner of the rails on which the dinner train operates, to buy the corridor.
I first learned of the dinner train from a brochure I picked up at the ferry dock in downtown Seattle when we first moved to the area, and balked at the idea of dining in what seemed like a hokey tourist trap. I just not interested in paying a premium to dine alongside Lake Washington and to cross a railroad trestle in Bellevue. After hearing that the train would be discontinuing service, however, I have started to reconsider my position. And now the nostalgic train ride on the east side sounds like a great idea. We tried to reserve for this morning, but they were booked up, and a phone call to the toll-free number on the site confirmed that I’d need to book at least a week in advance.
This morning, I also noticed that a link had been added to the web site, urging supporters to help save the dinner train. The owners are asking the community to write to King County and ask that the train route be maintained.
Kubota Garden
The Kubota Japanese strolling garden in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood.
We always aspire to challenging and invigorating nature hikes up the trails of Cougar Mountain and the region’s other majestic peaks, but the serenity of a Japanese garden, with its scenic, meandering paths, is always good consolation for an afternoon with a curious toddler. Japanese gardens are said to use patterns and metaphor, instead of just floral arrangements. The Kubota Japanese Garden in South Seattle has some flowering plants but the emphasis is on pattern. It fuses the principles of traditional Japanese landscaping with Pacific Northwest plants to create a graceful and intriguing space for solace. The garden includes a wide array of perennials, making it a great place for a stroll, even in the colder months.
Experience Music Project
The Experience Music Project (EMP) in the Seattle Center houses the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, as well as the music museum originally built to showcase a collection of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia, and which now provides a range of exhibits and experiences on milestones in popular music.
The distinctive architecture comprises a series of undulating, sinuous forms made out of stainless steel and aluminum, and oozing, blob-like growths feeding off the main structure. The edifice is greeted by locals and visitors with a mix of awe and insults. But it’s art, and art is supposed to be thought-provoking. If it were to leave the beholder indifferent, then the designers would have failed at their task. An article in The Seattle Times quotes the project engineer Dale Stenning, who explains: I hear a lot of comments on how ugly it is, and I think those comments usually come from people who would drive by a strip mall being built on their way to work and not think twice about it."
The contractors used Dassault Systeme’s CATIA (Computer Aided Three dimensional Interactive Application), the 3D software suite widely used in the aerospace sector to develop jets, to craft the metal “skin” and curvy steel structure. The staff reporter Caitlin Cleary, in a thorough article in The Seattle Times, has detailed how CATIA was used to bring the project to life:
“using an instrument that looks like a dentist’s drill, Gehry’s staff put the tip to the undulating surface of the architect’s models, every half an inch or so. Each point was digitized into a 3-D electronic model, and the information fed into CATIA. CATIA then allowed the engineers to virtually peel off the skin and design the structural ribs that hold it up.”
Like a lot of other highly controversial structures, the weirdness, or creativity, depending on what you see, will surely become more accepted over time. And regadless of what you think, it’s hard not to appreciate the work that went in to crafting the space.
Salon Nautique de Seattle
Le 60ème Salon Nautique de Seattle (The 60th-Annual Seattle Boat Show)
Du 25 janvier au 3 février, la ville de Seattle renouvelle son rendez-vous bisannuel avec le monde nautique au 60ème Seattle Boat Show, le premier salon nautique de la côte ouest des Etats-Unis. Le salon est réparti sur deux espaces : les halls d’expo du Qwest Field Event Center (1000 modèles exposés à terre) et Chandler’s Cove à South Lake Union (200 bateaux à flot). Un service de navettes gratuites au départ de Qwest Field permet d’accéder aux bateaux à flot. Les halls du centre d’exposition du fameux stade du Seahawks sont transformés en véritable vitrine pour mettre en avant des loisirs nautiques, comme la pêche et les sports de glisse, et des bateaux de toutes les tailles (de 6,5 à 30 mètres) et pour tous les besoins (unités à moteur, voiliers, yachts habitables, méga-yachts, chalutiers, canots, barques, pneumatiques, etc.). Et les amateurs de la mer étaient au rendez-vous.
La voile : à bout du souffle
C’était un moment crépusculaire dans le monde de nautisme, tant les bateaux à voile était peu nombreux. Il est clair que la tendance ne se porte pas vers les voiliers. Ils sont peu représentés dans les halls de Qwest Field Event Center, qui sont presque entièrement consacrés au bateaux à moteur, aux bateaux de pêche et aux équipements. La plupart des voiliers sont quant à eux exposés à flot sur le South Lake Union, assez éloigné du hall d’expo à Qwest Field.
L’incontournable
L’incontournable du salon, c’est la promenade le long des pontons du Chandler’s Cove pour admirer les voiliers, les bateaux de taille très importante et les modèles haut de gamme, exposés en extérieur. Je ne pense pas que les visiteurs ont la possibilité de sortir sur l’eau pour essayer un bateau sur le champ.
Parmi les bateaux à flot :
Le Bénéteau First 10R (prototype exposé au Salon Nautique de Paris en décembre 2006)
Le Jeanneau 39 Deck Salon, dessiné par Marc Lombard
Ocean Alexander 98′ Motoryacht (prix: $6,987,538, le bateau le plus cher exposé au salon).
V, A, A, T and D family blog 