2026.7.24. Hidden Spaces - an SAF tour

7/24 Friday. A free tour of Hidden Public Spaces by SAF. I forgot for what occasion. We are to appreciate public places in the city that are free to use, but "hidden". These amenities are a requirement mandated by the city for some development to be permitted.

We met at Westlake Park. Our guide as well as many participants live in downtown area. Only one is a tourist, from Taiwan, but came with a local. I learned that removing the power plugs in the Westlake Park practically cleared the homeless crowd.

2nd stop, Freeway Park. There's even a plaque of public space. Our guide pointed out quite a few art installations.

Two Union Square corridor (photo on right)
Rainier Square Tower, public terrace at level 3. Good to know that it's still accessible after the reconstruction. SAF used to lead tours from here.
Cedar Hall.
Central Library.
4th and Madison building, 7th floor "rooftop"/open terrace.

We mostly walked through buildings via indoor elevators, escalators, stairs. Rarely we were outside on the street. Good to know, but not sure if I remember these "hidden" walkways.

2026.6.20. Admiral District historical walking tour

6/20, Saturday. 10am, I signed up for a walking tour with the Southwest Seattle Historical Society at the Admiral District in West Seattle. Took a bus, and then walked a mile: not the most convenient destination. The tour just started in front of William Hainsworth's house, now a lot of flowers, but mostly obscured by the hedges. The houses along Admiral street all looked very nice, lawns well kept, Hainsworth family moved here in 1889 when the area was mostly empty, and promoted the real estate.

West Seattle branch of SPL, is our next stop. It's the oldest surviving Carnegie library in Seattle.

Next, Ben Bow Pirate Bar. Too early to go inside. The outside of the building is boring.

West Seattle High School is a handsome building of over 100 years. Some noteable graduates: Frances Farmer – Class of 1931, Jim and Lou Whittaker – Class of 1947.

Right in front of the highschool is a Hiawatha Playfield, a city park. It was designed by the Olmstead Brothers. Our guide specifictly pointed out the large Northern Red Oak tree, designated as a heritage tree.

Our last stop is Sanctuary At Admiral, now the new home of Washington State Black Legacy Institute. It happens that there's an event here in conjunction with Juneteenth celebration city-wide. I, and a couple of others in the tour, stayed on for this talk (very few in the audience). Ryan traces his family migration in his project titled Donaldson Odyssey, using archival microfich, images, and interview with his extended families. Especially about his (great?) grandfather "Big Jim", weekly newspaper Seattle Republican, the coal mining in Roslyn. Very interesting. Afterwards I even chatted with him for a bit. He mentioned that he and others are devising a walking trail in/around Roslyn to showcase the mining and African American heritage.

On returning, I decided to check out this ravine which our group walked over earlier. Nice street: Fairmount Ave SW. Not too many cars. I met only 1 guy. I very much enjoyed walking here, pretty deep. It runs north-south, so unless you walk here ~1pm, there's shade to be have.

The Water Taxi runs more or less on time. A long-ish line. No shade. Hot. Barnacles on the pillars, jelly fish in the water. The boat is comfortable. Plenty wind to cool you off. We speeded past in front of Harbor Island: good view of the shipping cranes. One oddity is this large barge piled on with crushed trash. The view of downtown Seattle is very nice. Will be even better if you take the water tax at sundown.

2026.4.18. Oviedo, Spain

4/18, Saturday, arrived at Oviedo ~2:30pm. Booked Alojamiento Oviedo 1 at Booking.com. The location is fabulous. Took this photo from my tiny French balcony, the building at the end is the cathedral. The 2nd photo is the hotel. Camino sign says 323Km. My particular route is 310Km.

It's siesta time, nothing is open until 5pm, except for the cathedral, where I got my first official stamp for my camino (dated tomorrow).

Walked around. A beautiful old town. Compact, cobble stones, stately buildings. Many cute plazas, one of which is converted to a market place. The city hall is very large, facing this large plaza. Many churches and monestories. Even though it's siesta time, still lively. Plenty tourists who doesn't understand siesta like me.

Behind the cathedral is where the 2 museums that I visited. Both are free. A few were already waiting for the door to be opened when I arrived at the archeology museum, in the former monastery of San Vicente, completely modernized interior.

Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias is what I like the most. It occupies 3 historical buildings: Palacio de Velarde, Casa Oviedo-Portal, and Casa Solís-Carbajal. Many painters whom I have never heard of, and now an enthusiastic fan of, like Joaquin Sorolla (my favorite. This museum has a lot of his paintings), Juan Martinez Abades, Ventura Álvarez Sala, Jose Robles Martinez Ignacio Pinazo. A series of small satiric prints by Goya, a series by El Greco titled El Apostolado. I also like the large scale painting by the Norwegian/German painter Carl Frithjof Smith.

After dinner, I walked a bit around town again. The cathedral looks very nice in the lights.

It'll be a long day tomorrow (close to 40km), but I don't need to get up early, because I want to visit 2 Roman monesteries in the outskirt of Oviedo before my camino, and they don't open until 10am.

2026.4.16-18 Santander + Torrelavego + prehistoric caves, Spain

4/16, Thursday. Arrived at Santander bus station on time, ~8:30pm. Staying at an Airbnb today. This lady rents out her second room. Nice decor. She even partitioned the balcony, so the guest can have half. Just 10 minute walk. On the way, saw the market (closed at this hour).

4/17, Friday. Walking east through the city. Saw this outdoor escalator on the street. I like this sculpture by the water.

My destination this moring is Palacio de la Magdalena (built early 1900s for king Alfonso XIII), now a city park. I quite like it. Beach, cliffs, big trees, mist. Quite some flowers. At this early morning, there was very few people. I saw a choochoo train. Maybe I wouldn't like it when it's running.

I still had time when I returned. So visited Museum of Modern Art. It's not big, but I really like it. There's a special exhibition of works by Jose Ramon Sanchez. All 3 panel setups. Stylised, yet realistic. The paintings by Jose Luis Serzo is also interesting.

On my way to the bus stations, saw this flower market right in the middle of the street.

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12:00pm bus to Puente Viesgo, walked uphill in the sun to the museum for the caves, Cueva de El Castillo + las Monedas. I had bought the tours at 3:40 and 4:40pmm (€15 each) before I left Seattle. However, not many bus options, so I arrived too early.

Had time looking through the museum. Not big, but well done. It talks about the few large caves with prehistorical paintings in Cantabria region. Discovery of the caves, and 3 dating methods: carbon isotope (on organic matter), uranium-thorium (on calcium carbonate), potassium-argon (on rocks). There're video clips showing how fishes were caught, how some tools were made. There's WiFi in the museum, but only connects to the government tourism website. The rest of my time was resting, eating and editing my photos. It's very quiet here, not many visitors.

You can drive up closer to El Castillo cave, or take a walking path more uphill for ~15 min. It has a large entrance canopy, a seating area with a vending machine in a separate canopy, also bathroom and locker for luggage (needs a €1 coin). No photos allowed inside the cave. No light even allowed. The guide has the only light, plus some fixed bulbs in the cave, which she turns on at a time. We have 5 tourists today. The other 4 are Spanish. The guide only spoke in Spanish, didn't make any effort to speak in English. The only English I got were orders so I know when to follow or stop or not to bump my head on the rock. It's a pity that my Spanish is so bad. The previous tour (hourly) had just an English speaking couple, so the guide had to speak English. My guide talked about the environment and geology around the cave at the time, pointing to the drawings on the walls. She also simulate the effect of flicking light of fire by (un)covering her torch light. This cave has many red hand prints, string of dots, some crude forms of animals. ~41000 year old.

It takes ~10 minutes to walk to Las Monedas cave. Flat. On the way, saw a few more caves with their entrances barred. We waited at the gate, where a WiFi sign was posted. No WiFi at all. Again 5 people, all except me are Spanish. Again, no photos allowed. This guide, however, is very patient, tried to make sure I understood what he said. He's behind schedule. We were given a torch light. No fixed lights inside this cave. We are now 200m above river, but at the time, the cave was 150m under the river. This cave is later in the timeline, ~12,000 years ago. Reindeer, horse that uses the rock shape has its belly. There's also some nice cave formation with different colors. Various instruments were setup in the cave to measure humidity and air. If the numbers do not return to normal, they may close the cave for a day for it to recover. The guide said that Covid was good for the caves: very few visiters and everyone wore a mask. I'm surprised that the museum didn't require or facilitate tourists to wear a face mask, to minimize our impact.

After the tour (2 guests had to run to their tour of Castillo cave, but they were already too late), walked 3.5km to Vargas for bus 19:35 to Torrelavega. I was early, bought some food at the corner store, and ate at the bus stop. Later, 2 others arrived. I confirmed that I was waiting at the correct stop. The bus was 13 min late.

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Arrived at Torrelavega ~8pm. The town is small, so the bus terminal is right next to the town center. Stayed at hotel Puerta del Sol. Nice looking lobby, surrounded by various rooms. I didn't see a single person while in this hotel.

4/18 Saturday. Walked around the town. It's know for puffy pastry (hojaldre), so bought one to try. Pretty good. Checked out Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the church at the background of my pastry. Unfortunately, it wasn't open.

Another interesting, but modern, church is Iglesia de la Virgen Grande. Spacious inside.

I had wanted to visit the small town of Santillana del Mar. But the bus schedule is not convenient, and my Blablacar ride request wasn't answered. So taking an easy day today. It's very touristy, so maybe not too much of a miss. Got on the 12:05 bus from Torrelavega to Oviedo, the starting point of my camino.

2026.4.15-16 Bilbao, Spain

4/15, Wednesday. Flew to Bilbao, via Paris CDG airport. I was able to find an empty row in the middle, and slept at least halfway. Alcohol and melatonin helped. However, I think I got chilled sleeping.

There are quite a bit of yellow fields near CDG. Canola? At CDG, saw this cute robot in CDG going around inviting you to throw garbage in. The connection was fairly smooth, short immigration line, and quick security check, even though my bag was flagged for further checkup. She didn't even open the bag, just ran her ETD (Explosive Trace Detection). She said it's random selection. I actually have a few questionable items (legit for US, I think): a box of safety matches, a small stove, a hiking pole.

The Air France flight to Bilbao is operated by Hop. Newer planes. It has USB-C plug! I got excited for nothing. No power. On the way to Spain, the vast French land below is a boring flatness (near the coast). I like this hilly version in Spain. My neighbor Laura is from Australia. Her French is perfect, but her English has an accent (not Australian). For her, it was a 24 hr (3) flight(s).

Landed on time ~5:30pm. It was in the 20°Cs. Sunny. Took bus 3247 (€4.5, pay credit card on bus). Quite a lot of people took this green bus, we all got off at the same spot (Gran Via), center of the new town. A lot of snapdragon. I walked ~1Km to the Pension Zubia. Digital key to the building, the flat, and my room. I don't know why they emphasized on arriving by 6pm.

Great location: 1 block from Zubia Bridge. Once I dumped my 16lb day pack, I switched to sandals and walked over the bridge and into Casco Viejo (the old town).

First, posted a small package to my friend in Valencia. That was easy. 2nd, went to St. James Cathedral (Donejakue Katedrala) for a pilgrim's passport, called Credencial. A mess just finished, and they were kicking people out. A lady took me to their office, and gave me one (€2). At 8pm, it closes its doors. Many buildings surround the cathedral, no room for a proper photo.

Bilbao is a bit hilly: some funny shaped buildings here and there. I like this mural in the metro station.

I didn't realize how west Spain is for keeping the European central time. Portugal uses the same timezone as UK. At 9pm, it was still light. I was able to walk about until then. A lot of people were out and about, in front of bars, some even brought the plates across the street, and they just sat on the ground facing the river. Quite lively.

4/16, Thursday. It was still dark at 7am. Headed out ~8, to the east of River Nervión. Before checking out, went to the east side of River. The city hall by the river, narrow alleys. I walked up to Etxebarri Park, and down along the old Mallona cemetary (the gate stands).

Starting from ~9am, I tried to break a €500 bill. Tried 5 banks. One doesn't have money altogather. The others I had to be a client to be serviced. Finally, at Banco España, had this done. First, I had to make an online appointment for individual service for today. The earliest time slot I saw was noon, and that's what I picked. Only after I received the confirmation email, I could then walk to the window for a service. The guy didn't ask any question other than if I was okay with €50 bills. Banks here closes at 2:30pm every day.

After checked out the hotel, I walked west to the new town. I had reserved an entry ticket at the Museum of Fine Arts. Absolutely unnecessary, also not worth going. I didn't like the 2 main exhibitions: 1. Denise Scott Brown's photos and drawings of mostly Univ. of Pennsilvania; 2. Engravings by José Antonio Azpilikueta. Not much stuff. The rest is modern garbage. However, it's next to Parque Doña Casilda Iturrizar, which I like. Green lawn, a lot of benches, fountains, and flowers.

The next is the fore-most attraction in the city: Frank Gary's Guggenheim museum (€15). However, most is moden art, not my cup of tea. A lot of people, very cheap toilet paper. The building is interesting. According to the museum audio commentary (via their website, free WiFi throughout), its surface is made of titanium, so it's shiny and reflects the weather. I guess artists are not cost conscious. My favorite object sits outside of the museum: Puppy by Jeff Koons. The plants change twice a year (spring + automn). I'm fortunate to be when it's in peak bloom. So pretty. 2 more large sculptures outside. This giant spider is called Maman. Another is a stack of mirror balls.

Inside, Infinite Mirrored Room is interesting. Not a big room. 4-5 people were allowed in at one time. It's just a box, but covered with mirror. Colored lights hanging. I felt like I see hundreds of people, and thousands of lights. I don't know how the picture on the museum website was taken, without anyone in it. Had use remote control. Large steel plates of The Matter of Time is fun for kids to run around.
The temporary exhibition of Ruth Asawa coils is delicate and fun. Even their shadows are pretty. The rest of the collection (permanant or temporary) is mostly crap. One room has just dirt.

7pm, I'm on the bus to Santander. Bilbao bus station is very large. You have to scan your ticket to get over the turnpike to go down to the bus platform.