Greetings, bean friends, and welcome to the Seattle Center, home of the Coliseum...oops, "Key Arena", the Space Needle, Fun Forest, and about two dozen other really cool things to do. The Center grounds were originally designed for the 1962 World's Fair, and has served as a local landmark and gathering point ever since.

Within this 74 acre park, you can see a concert (indoor or outdoor), take in a basketball or hockey game, see a play, spend a night at the opera, hop on a roller coaster, or just lounge the day away on the lawn and watch the people go by. Not a bad way to spend a day, huh?

Now, one of the main highlights of the Center for the beans is the fact that their hero, Elvis, made an entire movie here - and it ain't even Hawaii! For a good way to kill a couple of hours, be sure to go rent "It Happened At The World's Fair", Mr. Presley's 1963 classic film about his adventures in Seattle. The songs are great, Elvis is King, and if you really want to, you can play a fun drinking game, by slamming a shot each time that little Sue-Lin shouts "Mister Mike!" to Elvis' character. Try this game, and I promise you won't be able to remember the end of the movie...

In this picture, the beans are proud to show you two amazing sites - the bottom of the 605-foot tall Space Needle, which always looked mushroom-y to me, and...semi blue skies! Yes, actual proof that it doesn't rain all the time in this city.

Of course, there's no way I could do a report on the Seattle Center without giving the Space Needle it's due... So here it is: ta-da!

For $12, you can ride an elevator up to the observation deck, where you can check out all of Seattle in it's (occasionally sunny) glory. Or, if you'd rather dine in the sky without having to use the fold-down tray on the back of someone else's seat, you can try Sky City, the 500-foot high restaurant. As an added bonus, Sky City rotates, so your view changes with each course.

A while back, a local TV show decided as an April Fools day prank to report that the Needle had tipped over. Well, can we say "War of the Worlds Panic Part 2?" Some people can't take a joke, I suppose. The 911 lines were flooded, and the Space Needle received more than 700 calls, even though there was a flashing alert during the entire report telling the audience that it was a joke.

As for the beans, they'd never be gullible enough to believe that the Needle would tip over. Now, try to convince them that the Kingdome blew up, and that's another story...

Across the way is the Seattle Center's famous International Fountain, which has been entertaining visitors and soaking their children for 40 years. The fountain is synchronized with music (used to be classical, now it's Seattle-musician pop), and is truly a wonderful site to see. (When it's running, of course. Turned off, it's kind of a bore...)

Back in the 80's, the Center was in pretty bad shape, so the city council hired Disney to propose remodeling changes to the property. Problem was, the nice people at Disney came back and said, "Hey, let's rip out the fountain and put in an outdoor ice rink instead!", not knowing how much Seattleites love this thing. Well, let's just say that the entire city freaked out, and that ended the Seattle/Disney relationship. (And trust me - nobody was more bummed about it than I was...)

Anyway, the fountain was remodeled in 1995, and the beans couldn't have been more thrilled, although watching all that water does send them in a search for the nearest restroom...

Being the pampered vegetable that they are, the beans decided that instead of walking they'd hop Seattle's monorail for a ride. The monorail runs from the Seattle Center to Downtown Seattle, about 2 miles away, and then back again. If you've ever sat through that classic 1995 Stallone/Banderas gem, "Assassins", you'll remember seeing Sly and Antonio battling it out on this very same tram. (Just don't ask the beans about it though - they were asleep by this point in the film...)

The beans like monorails, but when they got off, they were highly disappointed to find themselves in front of the Nordstrom's store on 5th Avenue and Pine Street instead of in front of the Magic Kingdom.

For the highbrow part of the day, the beans swung into the Pacific Science Center, where school kids from all over the area have spend their days learning how tide pools work, why gravity holds us down, and the answers to many other cool scientific questions you'd rather learn about in person instead of just hearing about from some boring teacher.

Then, when you're older, you can always stop back in for an IMAX film or perhaps a laser show - back in the 80's, the beans were always partial to the midnight showings of "Laser Van Halen". Who knew?

Do you remember when you were little, and you made strange 'Flintstones-meets-the-Ewoks' shaped buildings out of Play-Doh? (Okay, maybe that's just me.) Well, imagine if you were to build a really big one, and then fill it with rock-and-roll memorabilia, and bam - you'd have the Experience Music Project (E.M.P.), the pop music museum/brainchild of Seattle billionaire Paul Allen.

EMP's collection has over 80,000 rock and roll items (enough to fill a dozen Hard Rock Cafes!). And as for the building, well it was designed by famed architect Frank O. Gehry, whom the beans are pretty sure didn't use Play-Doh as a building material.

The beans had a great time rockin' out inside EMP - you know how you can tell? They're ears are still ringing, their lighter is out of butane, and they came home with a $40 t-shirt.

Finally, every Seattleite knows you can't go anywhere near the Seattle Center without stopping off on Queen Anne Avenue for a Dick's burger. So in keeping with the tradition, the beans popped into Dick's Drive-in for a Dick's Deluxe, some of their greasy-but-oh-so-good fries (ketchup will run you an extra nickel, though...), and one of their homemade milkshakes, which actually contain - are you ready? - milk and ice cream!!! (Take that, Clown...).

Dick's Drive-in is a Seattle legend, and their fast food is the perfect accompaniment to an evening of cruising Alki, wandering the waterfront, or whatever you're up to. Plus, as an added bonus Dick's has that retro-70's style and look that is so popular now. How did they reproduce the 70's orange and yellow architecture so well? Well, like Dick's, it's original.

The beans highly recommend you stop in the next time you're in town; tell them that the frijoles sent ya.