Seattle

Crisp ride down with surprisingly little delay. American border guard was contemptuous and imperious but that revelation ranks right up there with a snowboarder getting stoned. I am not really sure why I decided to visit here for three days, other than the fact that I have not been here before. But really, this Northwest chill is getting old and I am seriously thinking about just pounding my foot to the pedal of this Ford Fusion (the Accura wasn’t available) and not stopping until I get to California. Of course it’s rainy and miserable there right now as well, so maybe I don’t hit the brakes until I get to El Salvador.

The best thing by far about Seattle is Top Pot Doughnuts on Fifth Avenue (http://www.toppotdoughnuts.com/). The joint opens at 6 a.m. and this being Seattle, of course, the doughnuts are made with all kinds of heart happy polyunsaturated non-trans fat crap and all that other medicated nutritional goo.

All this means is that despite having more sugar in them than Cuba and even though your teeth crumble when you eat them, they are actually healthy. Personally, I feel much better now knowing that my doctor would surely approve of me skipping my morning oatmeal to eat about five or six of Top Pot's finest. You can even buy a current edition of the New York Times in their spacious and tactfully decorated shop. Like I said, if you only visit one place in Seattle, make it Top Pot.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I made it by the Space Needle(Zzzzzz), The Experience Music Project (not enough Hendrix, too much grunge), Seattle Public Market (see the pic below of cafe at the back of it) as well as Q-West field (home of the SeaHawks) and Safeco Field (Mariners). OK, I’m done.

Damn it’s cold. Yeah, I know. I’m whining so much that I should be carrying a British passport, but it’s true. 10 days ago I was in Thailand and now here I am in scenically frigid Puget Sound for no apparent reason. I’ll come see you again Seattle when summer is upon us. But for now, this car is heading south once more in a most rapid fashion.

Vancouver

Even the camera shutter was jet lagged. Check out the samsonites under my eyes. That ain't no carry on luggage, sister. At this point, I had been in Canada for less than 12 hours and already I am asking myself, "What the hell am I doing here?" I mean, seriously. Sure it's crisp and the sky is perfect. But IT'S FRIGGING COLD. Oh yeah, I forgot. It's January. Stupid me.

The sun does not come up until about 8 a.m. either which makes for some absolute Siberian nights when the jet lag pops you out of bed at around 1:00 a.m. So you wait about seven hours for a ray of light or two and how many repeats of SportsCenter can you watch in the mean time? It's groundhog day for SportsCenter in the wee hours of the morning.




Upon checking into my room I noticed that both BC Place (football) and GM Place (puck) were just a few blocks away. This being January, there were no Lions games on, (that would be the CFL), and it was just as well anyhow because there is a rule that you have to know the name of at least one player on a team if you go watch them live. The Canucks, of whom I am slightly more familiar, were dropping the puck in about an hour against the Wild. Oh boy. Well I had to rush out the door and down to the game, don't you know.

Three minutes to game time and I managed to scalp a pretty decent seat off a Kiwi who lives in Vancouver and has season tickets to the Canucks. His knowledge of hockey was amazing, particularly considering where he comes from. New Zealand is an enormously provincal sporting country where events like netball in Otago and sheep-shagging in Tauranga usually clear out about four or five pages in the daily paper. And yet here was this Kiwi telling me how the sometimes high-flying Swedish Sedin twins often disappear against heavy hitting teams like the Wild. Pretty damn deep, I would say, and he even turned me onto the bounteous joys of Rickard's White on tap. Oh yeah, the Canucks lost 4-2 and the Sedin's disappeared almost on cue.





But while the Sedin's disappeared, my jet lag didn't. So I decided to chase the sunrise and head over Lion's Gate Bridge to drive up to Whistler before the 2010 Olympic rush hits. I figured 800 days or so was a pretty good head start. The sea to sky freeway is all the rage but all I can say is stay away. The damn thing is far from complete and while there are some pretty stunning stretches, constucruction was truly a pain in the rear and this was on a non-descript Wednesday morning. I am sure the entire stretch, from downtown Van to Whistler village, is a parking lot on the weekends.



When I did finally make it to Whistler Village, I was passed by a kid with a snowboard who was tripping off to the slope for the day and who was being trailed by a particularly pungent aroma. I know, I know, a snowboarder digging a bone is not exactly news. But the complete lack of regard on his part as he walked through a fairly busy area was oddly reassuring for me as I felt I was now getting the total Whistler tourist experience: beautiful mountains, endless skies, crisp powder, maddening traffic back-ups and, duuuuude, rasta-boarders.


OK, my research is complete, I can go home now. Well maybe not home, but on to Seattle. However before I leave my beloved native land I had to catch up with an old, old friend who we will call Dr Yes because he is the anithesis of evil Dr No. Doc Yes and I used to do some silly things in high school and it's nice to know we are still capable of doing silly things despite our advanced years. Again, you know where this is going. Ouch. Despite his growing stature in the international medical community and work with the UN, the doc has resisted the lure of becoming one more obscenely overpaid pirate of pain to focus on public health and most specifically addiction research. He is currently toiling in the belly of the beast at a practice in the heart of Vancouver's notorious East end.

He also claims that my father, who was his principal for six years, had a profound influence on him and instilled in him the notion of giving something back to the community. All I can say is his career is a wonderful tribute to the life of Bwana Joe. I am truly touched. Good work Dr Yes. And thanks for the session of "self-medication" as well.

I'm taking my hangover on the road and heading to Seattle but before I go I have to admit that listening to the Doctor talk about his work, I can't get that Amy Winehouse song "Rehab"
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD5sahXoj0U)
out of my head. It's one of those guilty pleasures, an addictively catchy tune despite the sordid topic.

Adios Hong Kong...

...well sort of. After almost 17 years in the Pearl of the Orient, the road beckons once again so I called up my old pal Jimmy Buffet and said, "Yo Jimmy, I got one more weekend in Hong Kong. How about you hop on one of your gulfstreams and get over here and play a couple of hours for some friends." Jimmy said: "Why not, I've never played in Asia before and Hong Kong is as good a place as any to start." And voila, just like that Mr Buffet found his lost shaker of salt and showed up at the Hong Kong Football Club on Jan 18 for a charity gig. The charity was the Po Lin Orphanage and the concert was organized by the Foreign Corespondents Club (FCC). A large number of FCC members are Brits and have no idea who Buffet is. Which was cool because it meant I had first kick at the best seats. We managed to get about 70 or so folks crammed into five and a half tables up front. We also managed to consume copious amounts of margaritas in a pre-show party on TB's roof and, well, you know where all this is going. Ouch.

Jimmy didn't take a nickel to come to HK and even dug into his own pocket to get his Coral reefers ashore. Now that's a man. Senator Glezye flew in from his compound in the Philippines for the show. We met for a drink at the FCC and managed to talk to Jimmy for about 20 minutes the night before the show. Well at least I talked to him. The Senator is such a big Buffet fan that he was basically tongue-tied during our rendezvous with him, which makes it even more imperative for Jimmy to return to HK. Anybody who can mute the habitually chattering senator is a miracle worker in my unvierse.


According to parrotheads in the know, Jimmy played one of his rare Friday night gigs. But don't take my word for it, here's the proof: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Jimmy+Buffet%2C+Hong+Kong&search=Search

Thanks to Centrumox (and just what the hell is a centrumox?) for spinning the vids and thanks to the dirt one for the snaps. Now if you'll excuse me Hong Kong, blue skies beckon. We'll dance again some day. But before I go, can I get one final round of applause for the greatest city in the world?






Ahh, why thank you Jimmy.