In Seattle, I had been pretty busy on attending the conference that mad me lost the chance to go around the good place in the city though I had stayed the city two nights. I had a plan to go to Space Needle and Down Town, however I could only "watch" the Needle and walk around Down Town. That was prettey unfortune but I never mind because I would be able to enjoy Spokane, Sandpoint and many wonderful place.I guessed that Seattle was a really "urban" town like NYC but not as same as I expected, and my impression was "not so bright as California". The Cafe, originated from Seattle, here and there a lot of Cafes were standing around the down town that was only thing as same as I guessed.
In Seattle, as you know, Ichiro SUZUKI who is a major leager for the Seattle, has been so popular in this city and many Japanese sight-seeing visitor will come to this town, a lot of Japanese foods restaurant, but I could not have a interesting in those restaurants so I went to eat humbergers at McDonald's, perhaps someone will suggest go to the famous restaurant but still at that time I could not enjoyed the city so much. I won't tell much about the city because you can find travel infromation in the world wide web.
In the third morning, I departed from the hotel with picking-up service to the airport. I had a plan to meet with my wife at the
departure lobby of Alaskan Airlines, terminal D.
But.... as I aforementioned, my wife's flight was caugt in the fog and failed to land Sea-Tac, I wondered if the plane trouble, but no one at the information counters knew what happened on wife's plane but the boarding time passed and missed her. We addressed a rule against this kind of trouble, so I got on the plane by only myself and flew to Spokane City where is a central city of east Washington state.
It was so easy to drive from the airport to the hotel I reserved. I took Airport RD and merged onto highway 2. The highway soon merged to interstates freeway 90 and required only 15 minutes driving to get down to Lincoln street inter change. The hotel was located on Lincoln and 1st, then I arrived at the hotel called Rodeway Inn. The first thing I did was to confirm with the hotel front lady whether any information received from my wife or not and the answer was of cource not. I finished check-in and brought the baggage into the room, then checked the facility to connect to the internet but it was impossible to expect such kind of facilities, yes it is not Silicon Valley !. Disappointing with that, I went back to the hotel front to ask to get the information where I could access to the internet. Yes, I guessed if the kind of plane accident might be on the news site such as CNN.com. The lady told me the public library would be a good place to do so, I walked to there and still had not been informed, disappointed much went back to the hotel room. Then, my wife was there ! Yes, the fog forced the plane to land another airport and 3 hours delay made this unfortune accident but was fortunate because we could meet again.
Monroe Bridge
As I aforementioned, the reason to choose here to stay was the figure skating event called Smart One's Skate America. So we booked the hotel close to Spokane Arena, 10 minutes drive from the hotel, located across the Spokane River. I originally had no plan to watch the event, but I changed my mind it didn't make sense to have completely separate plan with my wife so I picked up some of the event and bought the ticket at the arena. The valley located
on the flat place of Spokane River, there is a park called River Front Park.
Of course it is the icon of Spokane.
Spokane River is a kind of the division which divide the town into 2 different type of town.
The one is upper (northern) Spokane where many people has been living and the atmosphere is a kind of "dormitory town". The other is sourthern area and I could enjoy really old and authentic town especially between Spokane River and 90 freeway. The building was ecactly same as what I watched in 1977. The brick-built buildings were really interesting and also the railroad overpassing showed me the another key factor. Spokane is the base town for the intercontinental railroad and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Union Pacific both have a base station at Spokane, the first big station that Empire Builder, the express train will stop after departed from Seattle.
Page Top 3. Spokane CitySpokane
I could see the posters here and there for this big event, Skate America because only 8 month ago, the winter Olympic game held in Salt Lake City, Utah. The gold medalists of single events for men and women were planned to join the event, this was the reason why Spokane Arena accommodated more than 8,000 people, that was the largest number in the past.
Spokan Arena
When we arrived at the arena, though only open for the official training that day, many people got together and watched the wonderful skaters including Alexey Yagudin and Sarah Hughes. Unfortunately Sarah canceled the event but Michelle Kwan, the 4 times world gold medalist joined the event on behalf of the young Olympic gold medalist. The tickets were averagely $150 per day, not so cheap, say, expensive for me. But I ask my wife to pay for it because I brought less cashes. Anyway, my private travel just started from here,
let's enjoy !
I was really disappointed that I didn't check the great places in Spokane, that's why I missed visiting River Front Park. In the park, you can enjoy watching the falls, gondra ride and amusement park also. The Clock Tower is the icon of the city located in the park. Monroe bridge is the old stone arch-type bridge and around the park, almost all excellent view you can enjoy. I would like to split my time to visit here in the next visit and also for the shopping at the down town area, I really think so.
Some of the visitor who might come to the place to enjoy the figure skating event and stayed at the hotel. We had a chance to take the breakfast with 2 young boys who might come from Europe. They were pretty young and it seems to us very smart. When they were trying to make waffles by themselves, unfortunately the hotel lady cleaned up and took away the waffle maker. They briefly screamed, "Oh ! my waffle !", then the hotel lady was awared the fact and laughed. It was a very nice moment to share the time with other visitors for us. The hotel has been given 2 stars for the hotel ratings.
Page Top 5. Dinner in Coeur d' Alene CityCoeur d' Alene
After we watched the official practice event at the arena, we tried to take a dinner and wondered where to go. I decided to take my wife to Coeur d' Alene. I expected to reach there before the sunset but couldn't. When we got down from the 90 freeway, everything were in the dark, it means we could not see the beautiful lake view of Coeur d' Alene, yes I needed
to estimate the time more efficiently, but still we needed to find a restaurant there though the town was in a dark.
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We walked around the town and finally found a Japanese Sushi restaurant called "TAKARA", I was a bit bored with American meal at that time and straightly decided to eat Japanese foods. At the restaurant some exchange student from Japan were working probably, I recognized later, Spokane or Coeur d' Alene are the town where some exchange program between Japan and America is prosperous. We asked the pork cutlets and rice for our dinner. We really enjoyed this familiar meal and was really tasted good.
Coeur d' Alene, called "lake town" is a wonderful place to visit, we were unfortunate to have no time to visit in a day time. But I would like to visit here again and strongly expect to enjoy the boat trip on the lake in the near future.
