Seattle!

[Kowal]

So it's looking very likely I'll be bound for Seattle around this time next year.  Anybody from the Seattle area on here that can tell me anything about the city?  I guess ultimately I need to know what places to avoid, but any information at all would be a plus.  Right now I'm eyeballing some apartments and some jobs in the southern area (hospitality jobs tend to be pretty plentiful by the airport) and at the moment it looks most likely I'd be taking up a job at the Radisson there and living just north of it.

Oh yeah, and are there any game shops in Seattle?  I want to get my type one on, for certain, but I'm also looking for people to play Warhammer etc against.  Finding some good bars would be rad too.

[Zherbus]

Wasn't Jeff out there for a long ass time?

[MadManiac21]

What type of job are you doing that they want you in seattle? Don't they know how lazy you are?

[amidtownrocker]

shh stop trying to convince him not to go. tournaments would be far less....ya know. with out ben around.

[Samite Healer]

I lived there for the past 15 months, and I'm sorry to inform you, it is not very exciting.  Things close fairly early, there are no bagel places, no Chinese food (short of a P.F. Chang's type place-> AkA expensive), no deli's, and awful pizza if you can even find something other than a Domino's or a Little Caesar's.  If you want to go out to dinner at 9:30-10PM on a Friday, it's barely possible, short of like two places that I know of and a handful others.  There are also no diners.

Aside from food, the weather is actually quite nice and it's relatively cheap to live there.  If you don't have a car though, you'll be in bad shape and pretty much limited to the public bus transportation system.  There are no trains or subways.  University Way is the "college street" and everyone calls it "The Ave" and is something similar to say Thayer Street in RI or Comm Ave in Boston... however there are far less people doing stuff there and it also closes early.  We went there on a Saturday night and it was compeltely dead.  We actually asked random people where all the college students or people went, because it seemed almost deserted, despite the many bars that are there.

The Magic scene in Seattle is complete GARBAGE.  Despite the fact that there are three prominent online stores located relatively close to each other (MagicArsenal.com, Cardhaus Games, and CardKingdom), there are few players, no shops to really play, and the ones that do play are rather different than most of the players I've been fortunate to meet on the East coast.  The Type 1 scene is non-existent, short of a monthly tournament at Mirkwood, which I hear is a really awesome place, but about 45 minutes from Seattle or so.  If you're lucky, you'll get some awesome Canadians from BC to show up, most notably Foolish Mortal and his crew who are all awesome guys.

You can also check out www.northwestmagic.com and see if anything is going on there.

If you need specific info for anything, give me a call or something.  Btw, I am now back in NY =)

[andrewpate]

I will back up Samite Healer's claim that everything closes early.  I took a trip up there with the Vanderbilt basketball team during tournament season (band geeks holla!) and even with the tournament in town and all the NCAA contacts for where people would be, the whole city pretty much turned into a tomb at about 9pm.

Pike Place market is good shopping, especially for produce and seafood.  I mean I'm sure that goes without saying, but still, you should put it pretty high on your list of places to check out.  I went there every day of the week or so I was in town.

It's a cool city on many levels.  Very stylish.  The buildings are all very inventive and the public art has a lot of character.  DEFINITELY check out the library; it's amazing.  My college band director has been to pretty much every major city in the U.S. and makes a point of visiting the library in every city for some odd reason, and he says that Seattle is on the very top tier.  I can certainly testify that it is the only library I have seen which qualifies as a genuine tourist attraction.  It's a remarkable building.  In general, it's a very walkable city (if you are in good enough shape to ignore the 45 degree angle at which the entire thing is seated), and when it isn't raining it's a good way to kill an afternoon.

One quick dining tip:  Wild Ginger, which is on Third Avenue, walking distance from the famous clock at Pike Place to give you some idea of the vicinity.  It's a really excellent sort of Asian fusion menu a la P.F. Chang's but ramped up a bit in price and quality.  Everything is served family style and if you get a big party, they have round tables the middle of which are big lazy susans you can use to ship food around.  Get the Wild Ginger Fragrant Duck and probably something off the (excellent) satay menu.  It can even be a secret weapon in case of emergencies because it doesn't close until 11pm on weeknights!  Can't recommend this place enough.

[Implacable]

Yeah, it's a very stylish, relatively (SF, LA, DC) cheap, somewhat impractical city.  For food, check the weeklies (The Stranger has a good list of places, cheap and ritzy, with explanations).  For good times, eat in and watch a movie (err, Seattle is most definitely NOT a party city)?  For Magic - the most important - check out Northwestmagic.com for updates on PTQs, GPTs, and Type 1 - we have the aforementioned Mirkwood as well as scattered Mox tournaments every couple of months.  Additionally, if you can make the drive, Olympic Cards and Comics is about an hour south and has a huge space.