Grunge, Starbucks and Jimi Hendrix (Seattle, 1 of 2)

My exceptional curiosity about Seattle began only after my first visit there. Coming back to Manila, I wished I had stayed longer to explore more.

 

I visited again last month. This time, it was an exciting mix of reminiscence and discovery of the places I’d already gone to and the new ones I was yet to see. With the perfect spring weather, a handy digicam and my dear sister and her family bringing me around - the Queen City was as alive and lush as I had remembered it to be.

  

The Experience Music Project | Science Fiction Museum are two permanent exhibits that chronicle the history of pop music and the ideas of science fiction as produced in literature, tv and film. The place teems with valuable memorabilia, interactive rooms and colorful souvenirs.

Founded by philantropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and designed by Frank Gehry, the entire facility partly takes its shape from a shattered electric guitar. (In photo: My grown-up pamangkins posing near the entrance.)

The younger generation and sci-fi fanatics would enjoy the SFM, with its outer space lighting effects and displays of alien costumes, extra-terrestial weapons and spaceship models. It's the first of its kind in the world. 

Though not a trekkie, I was drawn to the Star Trek mini display and remembered when, as a kid, my siblings and I would close off our hallway to create a dark room which was the Enterprise. ''Beam me up!'' were the magic words to make us disappear.

  Music and style owe a big part of their continuing evolution to Seattle. Grunge, also widely known as Seattle Sound - through bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains - originated here. Its influence in fashion today is also marked - think Sienna Miller, Zoe Kravitz and even Bjork.

And then there's the immortal rock-god Jimi Hendrix. Born and buried here.

(In photo: A collection of famous artists' old guitars forms a giant cone at the EPM | SFM lobby.)

  

Famous coffee king Starbucks, whose paper coffee cups have become a definite status symbol to today's yuppies, finds its roots in this city. It opened its very first shop in Pike Place Market in the early seventies. (In photo: The coffee shop today.)

  

Experience Music Project | Science Fiction Museum (EMP | SFM)

325 5th Avenue North
Seattle, WA USA

Starbucks Seattle
1912 Pike Place
Seattle WA USA