last day in Seattle (6th Oct 2011)

Today is also the last day of the conference I'm attending. For the past 4 days.... it had been juz amazing... i mean I learnt a lot from the numerous talks i attended and also the posters that I viewed and people whom i interacted with. I must say that uTAS is a conference that is more for the academic rather than those from the commercial companies or world. However, I must say that most of the professors, are also trying to steer their research into an ultimate application. Anyway I will not delve much about the contents of the conference... Coz not many people will understand the contents of the conference unless they are in the same area of specialization as me (hahaha.... working or researching into the microfluidics arena). But as what the chairperson said "we must have learnt a lot and benefitted alot from this conference. So now we got to return to our respective countries and start and try our new stuffs". This i totally agree.... hahaha.... Coz i'm also waiting to head home and try out new things.

Seattle Convention Center (where I spend the past 4 days of my 8am-5.30pm at)

uTAS 2011 banner

After the conference ended at 1230hrs, I met my parents and sister and head down to Pike Place market to try the best Clam Chowder. This is very well known in Seattle (perhaps world wide too). But my sister and parents had tried that on 1 of the days that I was attending the conference. I had the traditional New England Clam Chowder. I must say that it is very very tasty. Really nice. Pipping hot. Really good in cold weather. hahaha.... and they also serve us sour dough bread with the chowder.

Paramount Theater, Seattle

Electric Tram

Pike Place Market

Traditional New England Clam Chowder

If u do visit Seattle, take a stroll down to Pike Place market and look for Post Alley. The shop with lots of people eating outside the shop should be the Pike Place Chowder. If you can't find, you can look for it at: 1530 Post Alley, Seattle WA 98101.

Pike Place Chowder

After tasting the chowder, we walked futher down and saw the famous seafood stall, whose vendor sings and throws fish (the fish that the customers had chosen to buy). I know about this stall when I entered my company and they showed us this video... wanting us to learn the unity spirit. hahaha... its good that I can see the real shop and action with my eyes. Coz its really what was shown in the video.... and their actions are really fast.... =D

Pike Place Fish Company

Rows of Fresh Alaskan Crabs (they are really unbelievably tasty. Coz I got to try them when my mum bought it a couple days ago from another stall)

A couple buying peppers. This was a stall that had strings of colourful peppers on sale

Then as u walked down post alley... u'll be able to come across a very very interesting wall.... before u reach the wall.... u'll be able to smell some sort of bubble gum smell mixed with some sourish smell... hahaha... its the world's one and only 'Bubble Gum Wall'!

Bubble Gum Wall

Close up view of an 'artistic gum art'

I mean u'll be shocked at the amount of bubble gum that people had stuck to the wall. The wall was 'prettily' decorated with different colours and sorts and flavours of bubble gum. Its interesting... but at the same time its the worst unhygienic place in Seattle. hahaha. =P

We saw some people protesting something as we were walking back to our apartment. Not really sure what they were protesting I tried to zoom into the words written on the cardboard cards the people were holding. Think they were sort of asking drivers to horn their vehicles? Or something along the line of 'its ok to horn'. check out the picture attached.

People protesting 

after walking around, we headed back to our apartment to collect the car and drove to visit the Seattle Soka Cultural Center. The Soka Cultural Center was situated pretty near to Sea Tac airport. We managed to find it easily. Shaunn, the Kaikan staff was really friendly and warm. She showed us the whole center. And we also got to meet 1 of the part-time staff, Pabolo.

Seattle Soka Cultural Center

us & Shaunn

After the visit, we left and headed to a beach.... that was overlooking the Seattle city. hahaha... so we can catch a glimpse of the Seattle city skyline and also the Seattle Space Needle. (Coz I was not able to visit the Space Needle which is the icon of Seattle). It was pretty nice.... and windy... but also cloudy....

Seattle Skyline (the famous Seattle Space Needle)

After that we headed back to our apartment and did some packing up. Coz tomorrow we'll be starting our National Parks Adventure. And we'll be bringing a small backpack each and the bulk of the luggage will be left in the hotel which we'll be staying when we return to Seattle on 13th Oct.