This giant shiny amorphous complex was conceived and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and houses one of the world’s largest and most technologically-rich collections of musical memorabilia. More recently, the ailing museum has scooched it’s footprint ever-so-slightly to make room for the Science Fiction Museum, where you can press your nose to the glass that houses Captain Kirk’s command chair from Star Trek. I’ve been several times, and it’s worth the trip (especially the sci-fi museum; geek!!!1), but I suggest you plan around a weekday whenever possible. Despite declining attendance, this place can get pretty busy on the weekends.

In case you get sleepless in Seattle. Oh don’t pretend like you didn’t know I was going to go there.

Just make sure that when the oar hits the water, your catch doesn’t dip too far into the extraction, as this could cause the the sculler to pull too deep and throw you straight from the coxswain. Which I’m pretty sure would be bad, no? Anyone?

Is Ivar’s a swanky waterfront restaurant? Uh, no. Is it a place to go for good seafood, nice people, and one of the best Sunday brunches in town? Absolutely. They have all the seafood necessities here, from the crab to the bar to the awkwardly attractive waitresses. This may not be the first place to go in town when you want to spend a lot of money on things that haven’t been fried or are served with a cup of butter, but it’s well worth the open-minded experience all the same.

These guys are known internationally for their amazing seafood, dead aim fish-pitching, and the kind of work mentality that self-help books are based on (seriously, it’s been done). Although they certainly register one of the largest blips on the Seattle cliché radar, who cares?

Yes, this may be Seattle’s only waterfront hotel, but more importantly it’s where the infamous “mudshark incident” with rock legends Led Zeppelin went down. For the unacquainted, let’s just say it involves inserting certain parts of shark A into certain parts of rock groupie B. I managed to score a free night’s stay here several years back, and while checking in I asked the concierge if mudshark was on the room service menu. The scowl that he returned was of such obvious skill and practice that I was complete loss for sarcasm for the following six months.

It is a right of passage for all Seattle newcomers to be stranded on the monorail during one of it’s semi-annual breakdowns. Not that it isn’t a viable method for traveling from downtown to the Seattle Center. Then again, after being stranded inside this elongated metallic coffin for two hours while it’s being repaired is the kind of pain that I’d gladly substitute with a much longer walk.

Your voyage into the realm of ultimate Seattleite will be over upon completing one of the following two Space Needle-themed tasks; 1) you must collect a minimum of 20 different Space Needle snow globes, or 2) acquire a tattoo of the monument a minimum of 10 inches in height, and in a place that will be exposed to the public eye for at least one season every year.

At some point, every Seattlite (even the acrophobic ones) must venture to the top of the Space Needle. I remember my first time like it was yesterday. The pristine 360 degree city view, the almost overwhelming spirit of the Northwest, and the very painful memory of having my wallet raped for $16 to ride an elevator to the top of a tower. Just try not to forget that the fun is in the journey, not the gift shop.