Day 6: Pop Culture and Pancakes

Our first free day in Seattle!

Off to geek out!

And it was fun

Most of the group headed off today to take a ferry and explore outside the city. I decided to go off on my own to see the Museum of Pop Culture (formerly known as the EMP). Fair warning, this will probably be mostly a picture dump, because there were so many awesome things there!

The museum itself

For those who don't know, there's a small touristy park in Seattle where the Space Needle, Chihuly Garden, Museum of Pop Culture, and a couple of other tourist-type attractions are. The museum is actually built strangely (to say the least), but that only reflects how awesome the inside is.

The Sky Cathedral

Right inside the museum is the Sky Cathedral, a giant screen that plays music videos as well as behind-the-scenes footage and interviews related to pop culture. There's an exhibit on David Bowie at the museum right now, so when I stopped by "Space Oddity" was playing, along with some interview footage with David Bowie himself. My picture doesn't really capture the sheer scope of the screen.

Possibly the most iconic video game of all time

An iconic picture of an iconic pupptemaster

It seems like every inch of the museum is dedicated to some way to keep the geek going. For instance, the murals dedicated to Mario and Jim Henson (the creator of Muppets, Fraggle Rock, and many, many other popular shows) in main areas. There's also the giant guitar tornado sculpture that sits pretty much dead centre of the museum.

This spans two floors. Yeah, it's big.

I cannot recommend this place enough. It's a little pricey, but so is everything in Seattle, and you can go and spend an entire afternoon walking around and taking in the exhibits.

This logo makes slightly more sense in person

There was a new display (I say new, but I haven't been here in five years, so it may not be all that new) covering the explosion of indie game development. For those who don't know, indie games are games that are usually made by smaller studios (or even one person), as opposed to games from large companies such as EA or Gearbox (these are commonly referred to as "AAA games"). This industry has been growing thanks to the improvements of digital distribution platforms for games. Now indie developers can reach more people than would have been possible if distribution still required mass production of cartridges/discs. They also had indie games there that you could demo in the exhibit. I spent a lot of time here.

Yes, I do play guitar

Another fun exhibit is dedicated to letting people learn more about music production, from trying out instruments to playing around with mixing. They even have rooms that you can use for ten-minute chunks of time where you can jam. Playing guitar is something I've missed on this trip, so it was fun to spend some time here and play around for a bit. I also got to play bass, which I really enjoy, but don't get to do often.

Having looked it up later, I realise I spelled "barada" wrong

Off on the south side of the hall, there's an exhibit dedicated to science fiction pop culture. It has everything from Star Wars props to Dr. Who and everything in between. I wanted to take pictures of everything there, but it would have taken far too long.

'Nuff said

Utini!

Next to the sci-fi hall of fame was an exhibit on horror movies. It was full of cool stuff like props, but also had information on the most famous killers, and a room to simulate what it would be like to be besieged by zombies. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to small children (some of it was a little creepy, like fake bodies hanging on chains from the ceiling) but it was super cool.

The Necronomicon

They fell into the horror exhibit, but Gremlins could definitely also be sci-fi

I know I'm saying that everything was interesting, but it definitely is. There was a Star Trek exhibit, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show's debut. They had props from the show, as well as reels running on how Star Trek really affected society, from being one of (if not the most) inclusive show on television at the time to impacting the initial design for clam-shell phones.

Even the stairs are geeky!

The final exhibit I saw was an exhibit on the worlds of fantasy, analysing character archetypes, art, magic, and worldbuilding from all kinds of fantasy sources. 

It even makes breathing noises

Even Monty Python made it into fantasy

Having spent the entire afternoon at the museum, I was tired and hungry, but before I went back to our lodgings, I stopped to pick up supplies to make pancakes for dinner. We wanted some time as a group to hang out, so I volunteered to make pancakes for everyone!

Most of them weren't burnt!

Cooking for eleven people is harder than you think

Suffering only a couple of (slightly) overdone pancakes, it actually turned out pretty well. Katie helped me get sausage ready and even managed to flip a couple of pancakes herself! After dinner, we all sat around and played "Charades!" (not the miming version, the phone game). It's a game where you hold a phone to your forehead and everyone else has to help you guess what is on the screen. It's fun, but can be challenging in large groups when everyone shouts at once. Still, we all had a good time.

Group bonding! (just pretend I'm in the empty chair)

After quite a few rounds, we all headed back to our respective rooms. Before bed, Erik, Jacob, Matt, Ryan, and I all decided to go swimming (hey, I packed a swimsuit, so I'm going to use it). I'm not sure what exactly tomorrow will bring, but it should be fun!