It thrives in ruin. Its people walk with their heads down, their mouths shut past the graffiti and the brick buildings. The loudest sounds radiate from chirping crosswalks to squealing buses below a purring elevated monorail.

Pioneer Square looks as if it survived a brutal fire. Maybe “survived” isn’t the most à propos word. Pioneer Square has been singed to antiquity. I guess I can say it has survived because it’s still habitable. The Central Saloon appears out front like your typical Irish pub in an old town district, while inside is a dive bar with a small stage in back. Next to the stage is a tiny shrine with the likes of the late Jimi Hendrix, Chris Cornell, and Layne Staley. I wish I could’ve been there to watch those artists perform in their best years.

Pike Place Market was bustling with folks in line at different delis and bakeries. One of those lines stretched a whole block for the very first Starbucks, also the smallest Starbucks I’d ever seen. Why would people want to stand there for Starbucks coffee just because of its historical significance? It’s beyond comprehension, but it makes for a fascinating social experiment nonetheless. What were they hoping to achieve by ordering their regular frappuccinos at this particular location? I was willing to bet the drink wouldn’t have tasted any better than the same drink at another store. Not to say it isn’t more noteworthy than the very first McDonald’s, nor to say it isn’t certainly impressive that it has never been closed down.

The food in Seattle was nothing to brag about, at least at the restaurants I went to. We ate a few times near the water because my parents loved to watch the boats drifting across the Puget Sound. The clam chowder wasn’t the greatest, nor were the fish and chips.

The pop art museum was lacking in certain ways. I eagerly wanted to see the Nirvana exhibit, thinking it would be larger than it actually was. I also wanted to see an exhibit dedicated to the big four: Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. But all I saw of those bands in there were a used guitar from Kim Thayil of Soundgarden and a used guitar from Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, nothing to my awareness of Alice in Chains except for their best album, Dirt, at a listening station. Just a room devoted mostly to Nirvana with some other bands arbitrarily included. The museum was four stories tall with exhibits for horror movies, fantasy movies, and science fiction movies, along with an exhibit for interactive indie video games (one of note in which you control a child who would pull his thing out and urinate on the floor). I see.

Next door, below the Space Needle, was another museum. This one featured the work an artist who made sculptures by blowing glass. The sculptures were elaborately invented, I give them that; but I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d stepped into an opulent smoke shop, seeing as I could’ve corked the end of each sculpture with a resin bowl to get stoned.

We went to a third museum back in Pioneer Square, the Seattle Art Museum. Its main exhibit was of works from a Chinese artist who’d created several forms of rebel art. The sculptures were made of bar stools. There was a marble couch. There were also murals made from Legos and photographs of the middle finger given to many cultural landmarks in response to his oppressed life as an artist in communist China. There was even an actual mailbox from the United States Postal Service on display. Just a mailbox. Aside from that, everything was impressive. Yet it all reminded me how the bar has been lowered from the classical paintings on the floor below to mere collectors’ art. People just don’t have the time to create masterpieces anymore. Sad.

On the final day, we visited the zoo. I had to come at the right time to see the animals. The morning is recommended. We arrived around lunch. The park itself was beautifully sectioned off by the many earthly climates. The first one we encountered, the Sahara exhibit, had two giraffes and an ostrich way out in the field. I needed to zoom in as closely as possible with my iPhone just to recognize the ostrich.

The lions were taking a nap. The orangutans looked as bored and depressed as the dwellers in Seattle.

I saw one rhinoceros, zero wallabies, two warthogs, a python that looked half dead, two starving brown bears in the water, and close to twenty penguins to one snow leopard. The tortoise looked smaller than a remote control car in a field the size of two backyards.

And then it started raining before I ever got to see the bug exhibit. My parents wanted to stay dry. What’s Seattle without the rain? What’s Hawaii without the volcanoes? In fact, I was a little disappointed that it rained only once all week.

I don’t know if I’ll ever return there. It was way more of a slight curiosity than a dying hunger. There are so many other cities and countries to explore that I can’t see myself spending more time and money on Seattle again. In June, the sun stays up past nine o’clock at night, which is cool if you have window shades. I can only imagine how late it must remain in Alaska, not that I’ll be curious enough to find out.