Groupon-ing Our Way around Downtown

Apparently I purchased some Groupons around the same time and they were all expiring in the same month. As we both recovered from a nasty cold, we rushed out and celebrated our crawl back to good health!

I heard that the Sky View Observatory has a better view than the Space Needle and is less crowded. It did not disappoint!

Columbia Center

View of downtown from the 73rd floor

SoDo

Area where Mike works - posh

Area where I work - grimy

After taking in Seattle from high above, we headed over to Gameworks to indulge in an afternoon of video games ($15 Groupon for an all day game pass with some points for ticket-dispensing games). I remembered when Gameworks was opening for the first time in downtown Seattle in the late 1990s, my brother and I were super excited to test out the latest arcade games there. The arcade area hasn't changed much since then, but they've added a computer gaming area on the second floor. I think I'm getting too old for the loud environment, but I did enjoy spending our ticket game points at the photo booth!

Say "Cheese" - y

On another weekend, we got to know the seedier history of Seattle by taking a "Beneath the Streets" walking tour. The tour took us around Pioneer Square and shed light on what life in Seattle was like at sea level (now underground) in the downtown area from the 1800s through prohibition.

Shady Entrance to the "Beneath the Streets" Tour and

Pioneer Square with Chief Seattle's Bronze Bust

Entering a speakeasy from an alley

The coolest tidbit we learned was that all the glass squares on the sidewalks were actually the skylights built for the underground (or sea-level) passages for shady businesses after the city raised the ground to prevent flooding. The remnants of these skylights are everywhere around Pioneer Square!

Skylight glass from the surface and

Skylight from an underground comedy club

I'm glad that we can still do fun things around downtown and not just associate it with work!