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Photo: frted, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A small, formal Japanese garden within the grounds of the Arboretum.
The Seattle Japanese Garden is a 3.5-acre (1.4 ha) Japanese garden in the Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle. The garden is located in the southern end of the Washington Park Arboretum on Lake Washington Boulevard East. The garden is one of the oldest Japanese gardens in North America, and is regarded as one of the most authentic Japanese gardens in the United States.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
The Arboretum is a 230-acre park additionally serving as a botanical garden and horticultural research center, with thousands of trees and plants from temperate climates represented. An extensive network of walking trails covers the park. The visitor's center, near the northeast corner of the park, is open from 10AM to 4PM daily, and has limited parking available. Guided tours are offered on the first and third Sundays of every month, and free trail maps highlighting the major parts of the collection are available at any time.
SAAM
An offshoot of downtown's Seattle Art Museum, SAAM displays a portion of the permanent collection balanced with rotating, consistently well-curated special exhibitions. The focus is usually on Chinese or Japanese art, reflecting long-established ties across the Pacific, but does include works from as far as India and the Middle East. The Art Deco building (the Seattle Art Museum's original home) is an attraction in its own right.
The 1906 tower at the highest point of Capitol Hill has an observation deck at the top, with views from the Cascades to the Olympics interspersed with a series of panels explaining the history of Seattle's Olmsted-designed park system. The views are somewhat obstructed by metal grates, but the clever photographer can work around them. No elevator - the only way up is the staircase wound around the water tank, seven stories high.
at Prospect St
Designed by John Charles Olmsted and Fredrick Law Olmsted Jr, this is the largest park in Capitol Hill. It is the site of a botanical conservatory and the Seattle Asian Art Museum (above).
Boutique style stand-up comedy club.
Activities include swimming, bathhouse, restaurants, tennis court (with lights), and great views of the floating bridge and the Cascades. Lifeguards patrol the area during the summer, which creates a safer playground for kids, but it's still a beautiful park to hang out for teens and adults.