❛ TALL TREES & COLD SEAS .

❝ so far flung is the state of washington and so diverse are its parts that any attempt at identifying its essence is a fleeting pursuit. ❞

[northofthecolumbia]

i’m sure if anyone was expecting Anything from me this year it probably wasn’t revive my norway from 2010 and reimagine his entire canon in the span of a month + develop every other nordic by proxy + start shipping norire & norscot like i’d lay my life down for them + shed a multitude of tears over them + start making plans to go to seattle for syttende mai next year + so on and so forth

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more art?? more art!!!! i’ve posted these elsewhere recently but think they belong here too lol. colin + his terrible twin brother

i’ve been drawing lots of my airline gijinkas for the most part but have been doing my normal work on the northwest family — currently i’m writing a long lore dump on colin’s life in the 1910s, which has involved some heavy reading on socialism in washington. like i’ve always known About it, but discovered that WA was one of the more “radical” states, which is pretty interesting?? more fodder in alfred’s fuck this guy file! preview screenshot cuz why not

[northofthecolumbia]

going to washington again :) in 9 days!! gonna see colin’s childhood fort and also visit portland

[northofthecolumbia]

some recent art of colin and his family 👍👍 more was posted on ig and i even drew idaho (‼️) but i struggled so it shant see the light of day yet

[northofthecolumbia]

wing luke museum part 1 — the first photo is actually of bruce and brandon’s graves at lakeview cemetery, which we saw the day after CID, but i’ll put it here since it’s related. the museum happened to have an exhibit on bruce lee’s personal life so we went to get pictures for binx. you can zoom into the text in some of those photos and get a gist for what the whole thing was about!

the bottom row shows some art that was on display; first a chinese opera costume, second a golden buddha statue that used to stand at ruby chow’s restaurant (adorned with madrona branches, symbolizing asian americans in the pacnw), and third a carving by a tongan artist! 

[northofthecolumbia]

i’m back with more pictures 🙃 i edited and exported high quality versions of EVERY SINGLE PHOTO and there was nearly 700 of them so. さすが

on day three we visited chinatown-international district (known colloquially as CID!) since i’m not doing this on mobile for once i added alt text to some pictures to help identify them but. basically we went to uwajimaya, of course mainly for kinokuniya- i bought a few things for myself, most notably a hokkaido travel guide and a hanko that i will probably never use but i thought it was cool :) the book selection was a little EH, in japanese anyways. the manga was obviously vast but they didn’t have many history books. 

my favorite stop was sun may company!! it’s the oldest business in CID and run by the sister of donnie chin, who founded the chinatown emergency center. he was an amazing guy and his sister is super sweet!! we found lots of cool stuff there, she gave us keychains as good luck, filled a baggie with hi chews and offered to watch our stuff while we went to the wing luke museum next door (cry) I ALSO LIKE…LITERALLY GOT TO SEE THE EMERGENCY CENTER, WHICH WAS SO COOL. and touching. donnie had an important vision for chinatown and it meant a lot to people. 

before dinner we went to nihonmachi alley in…nihonmachi. there were placards describing the old issei-established businesses in town and those two murals, one of a japanese mother holding her child during the bainbridge evacuation (EO 9066) and chiyo’s garden. chiyo’s garden is probably my favorite work of art in nihonmachi and that fence that looks like it’s in the way is actually a really interesting piece; each slat represents one year of nihonmachi’s existence starting with the arrival of the miike maru in 1896 to 2013, and the opening of the slats visualizes what nihonmachi’s population was during that particular year. it is sad because where 1942′s slat was, you can literally see the population nosedive. :’)

DINNER WAS AT MANEKI!!!! which changed my japanese food standards permanently. maneki is the oldest japanese restaurant in the northwest and we actually got to talk with the owner, a sweet lady named fusae (or “mom”) that helps cook the food herself. i got tenzen soba with ochazuke and ethan got unagi don with takoyaki :y 

wing luke post next binx will have my ass if i dont post bruce

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Sunrise, Mount Rainier

October 2021

[northofthecolumbia]

“I’d smack the shit out of Bailey for a single Tim’s kettle cooked chip.”

[burgermaxxer]

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sus

[fravery]

Feeling inspired by the many shades of green in this stunning mosaic forest by artist Joanne Desheil.

[northofthecolumbia]

came home and recounted the Ferry Incident to my mom and she actually encouraged me to apply for WSDOT

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i have a thousand pictures to unload. bear with me

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dinner at ivar’s acres of clams, was probably looking forward to this food the most — dungeness crab and parmesan dip with clam chowder (ethan just got fish and chips and said even that was the best she’s ever had 😎)

ended the night at the space needle where we saw rabbits uh. fucking on the lawn 😭 the needle has changed a lot since i was last there. the glass is really cool and definitely makes for a better view but it’s also inspired people to be stupid and stand on the benches to lean back against the glass for pictures. some tourists may or may not have overheard me passive aggressively pointing out that puts the people below you in danger too and ethan later saw someone fall off the bench, lol. THAT ASIDE in the first picture from the top of the needle you can see colin’s house if you know where to look :)!

speaking of things changing though the waterfront looks SO DIFFERENT without the viaduct. like…holy shit. if it weren’t for the obvious sound in the background i wouldn’t have recognized it.

[northofthecolumbia]

pike place part 2 & a little bit of pioneer square — of course we had to find the market charm i bought during pike up years ago for colin and ethan’s anniversary. there’s construction down there now but i’m actually really happy with where they hung it up.

then we have a lamp man and an incredibly gorgeous pigeon i simply could not walk away from without photographing

after finishing up at the market we went on an underground tour that took us to the former storefront of schwabacher’s, seattle’s first brick and mortar general store, jewish owned business, and colin’s first employer 🥺

it spit us out at pioneer square so we took the chance to hang out for a little bit. the bust is of chief siʔaɬ, seattle’s namesake, and the signs behind him are written in the native language of seattle’s indigenous duwamish people, lushootseed. the english translations read “far away brothers and sisters, we still remember you” and “chief seattle, now the streets are our home”. it’s an art installation dedicated to urban natives.

the totem pole is actually a recreation of one that some dumbasses literally stole from a tlingit village and brought back to seattle in the early 1900s. 💀

[northofthecolumbia]

pike place part 1 — the usual sights. this morning was actually really nice, we got to the market before the rush and it was breezy. we could see the olympics today off in the distance, a little hazy i think from the wildfire smoke rolling in from BC though. :(

i got my beechers mac and cheese and an apple cider slushie, admired the fuck out of some seafood, and at that little bookstore i bought a few used copies of some books i’ve been meaning to get. among other things, but i’ll do a big post of all the shit i’m buying later lmfao

[northofthecolumbia]

it occurred to me just now that ive been telling people i was BORN in atlanta and that is in fact not the case but i disowned florida a long time ago so