Five Days in Seattle, Washington
I spent five days in Seattle for the AWP Conference.
When my former professor from my alma mater asked me if I wanted to join in on a panel for the AWP Conference this year, in 2023, I immediately said yes.
There is a fun thing about going to graduate school in the United States: you can get funding to go to conferences. I had just committed to my master’s program and knew this was the perfect opportunity to head on a flight and go to AWP, which is what every writer goes to—if they have the money.
AWP is not cheap at all. The admission fee if you’re not presenting is about $300 alone, and considering this year the conference was in Seattle, it cost about $400 in flights to get me there—and I had a voucher for Southwest, so one of my flights was literally $35.
I had about $800 in funding from my school and that only covered the Air BnB and flights. If my friend had not gone and we split the Air BnB, I lowkey would not have been able to afford to go to Seattle. But all was well, and I made it to Seattle after being dropped off at the airport at 4 AM.
I was pretty jet lagged, met my friend as she was waiting at my gate, then we ventured off into the great city of Seattle. Spoiler: we both agreed we did not like Seattle very much. At least we made it to our Air BnB with the light rail—it cost $3 to make it to Westlake, which is right by Belltown and the Convention Center. It was a fifteen minute walk from there, we stopped and got some pho, all was well.
Here’s our trip!
Day One: Seattle CityPass (Chihuly, Space Needle, Seattle Art Museum) + Pike Market
We flew in on a Tuesday, then realized the first day of the conference was actually Thursday. Not the brightest move on our part, but we made the most of our time in Seattle. After I woke up at five AM because of the time zone difference from the East Coast, we purchased a CityPass for three exhibits in the Seattle area we could walk to.
We spent the vast majority of the trip just staying around downtown, Pike Market, and the Convention Center because that was where we were staying. There was no need to go anywhere else since we were here for a conference. Anyways, we got the CityPass and then headed out to the Space Needle at eleven.
It was a ten minute walk, and the ride to the top of the needle was only like two minutes. There’s a pretty nice view of Seattle up there, and you could see the mountains, city, and ocean from all sides of the needle. Would I pay an exorbitant amount of money to go to the top of the needle under regular circumstances?
Honestly, no. We were completing our grand tourist saga so it seemed like a natural option to pick. We sat at the clear chairs they provided at the top for a bit, staring out into the distance, then headed back down into the gift shop. I bought a pin there since I collect pins from around the world, then we headed to Chihuly Garden and Glass, our next stop.
Chihully was the works of Dave Chihuly, who has since passed away. It’s a small museum and garden, since his medium was glass. There were a couple of rooms showcasing the different kinds of works he did during his lifetime, while also detailing his extensive travels around the world.
Some pieces, like the Ikebana boat, were very specifically inspired by his travels. Outside, they have a small garden with the Space Needle looming over it, so we spent an hour at Chihuly. This was my favorite place we visited in Seattle, but it is tiny for the regular admission price. That was my impression of most of Seattle—pricy.
We headed to the famous Pike Market after this for a quick snack. There was a section where shop boys were tossing around a dead fish and singing a song, which people were delighted by. Pike Market is famous for its seafood, and there are a ton of cheap eats around here.
We picked up bagels from a woman by the Indian joint, found a place to seat, and devoured them. We couldn’t eat more on this day because of the fact we had reservations at Din Tai Fung. After eating, we trekked five minutes down the road to the Seattle Art Museum. But first, we stopped at the Gum Wall, which Rebecca deemed the most horrifying thing she’s ever seen in her life.
The Seattle Museum was just okay. I’m used to the New York and Washington D.C. museums, which are much bigger. The curation at SAM was interesting, though, because there was an emphasis on local and indigenous art exhibitions when we went.
Lots of hundred-year-old masks and artworks from those native to the Washington coast, which was fascinating to learn about. We were here for about an hour, too, then headed out to rest at the Air BnB. All of these things didn’t take very long, which shocked us because of the sticker price tags attached to them.
We walked to Din Tai Fung for dinner, since it was my friend’s birthday dinner from me. We ordered the Shanghai Rice Cakes, which were absolutely delicious, an order of chicken xiao long bao, an order of pork xiao long bao, and a lychee tea for me.
The chicken xiao long bao were better than the pork, and I thought the quality was decent. Din Tai Fung is known to be expensive, and the meal ended up being $75 USD for three dishes—that’s pricy from what I’m used to. The food was good though! After, we headed to the AMC across from the restaurant to see Cocaine Bear, which was an awesome time. You have to go into that one with no expectations.
And that was day one! Merging the other days since we spent it at AWP mostly outside of eating. We also watched movies a lot at night instead of going out since there was nothing up our alley that seemed entertaining or low-cost.
Days 2-4: Association of Writers Conference
I’m going to be upfront: AWP is a social event. I love a lot of the writers and attended panels with Franny Choi, Emily Jungmin Yoon, etc. and thought the best kinds of panels that were at the conference were the ones that were reading-based and talking about their work.
Both my friend and I thought that quite a few of the events at AWP were not only dry, but geared towards writers who might not have an idea about it means to be a writer. There were a lot of younger students in college at the conference, which makes sense as to why this may be the case, but because of that I honestly didn’t attend a ton of panels because I thought that the content wasn’t simply geared towards me. The panels I enjoyed most were more academic based, if I’m going to be honest.
The best part of the conference we agreed on was the bookfair. We didn’t plan on buying much the first couple of days, because there’s one thing to know about AWP: everyone starts slashing prices the final day or giving stuff away free because they don’t want to haul it home.
So the first two days, my friend and I made our rounds and collected the goodies places were originally giving for free: lots of candy, stickers, bookmarks, tote bags, pamphlets. We camped out at the Iowa table for a bit because they were so over the top and ordered coffee, couches, and fresh cookies (they were always fresh and warm, it was disturbing) to take up half of an entire section. We ate so many of those cookies. They were good.
At first, the book fair was super overwhelming because it was absolutely massive. There were about thirty long rows in this huge convention center space just full of people. I made sure to stop by the organizations I was affiliated with, having lots of hugs and greetings since most of these people I’ve never met in real life.
Besides that, Rebecca and I were claiming our free tokens of existing as she marched up to every table that rejected her from their MFA and announced that fact. Author signings are scattered throughout the days, so I did pick up a book whenever an author I liked was signing.
I had my panel on the final day, the Saturday. Despite difficulties at the beginning with the technology, a lot of people showed up! I’m glad to have had this experience, and it went well besides that. Rebecca and I headed down to the book fair one last time after this and collected our tokens, as well as hit up the deal.
At one press, it was buy 5 books for $20, while the bigger presses had other not-so-good deals but still deals. People were giving so much away because they wanted to get rid of things, and Rebecca spun every prize wheel and ended up winning subscriptions and whatnot. I only won a free sub to Georgia Review.
Would I go back to AWP? Not if I had to pay for it. It’s very much a social event where people come to see those they know. I wouldn’t invest a ton of time trying to go to it.
Thank god I got a flight at 6 AM and arrived at the airport early; everyone showed up right after me and the line for flight security ended up becoming hours long. I got through after thirty minutes, but I hear all the writers ended up missing their flights because SEA-TAC is known to be a mess of an airport.
I flew out to Korea there and I remembered that security was a nightmare, hence me leaving early. I also got to meet an Iraqi old man who was my driver (Lyft is hella expensive here, I paid $70 for a twenty minute ride) and discussed his life back home at three in the morning.
Notable Places We Ate At
My commentary is regular restaurants were so, so pricy in the Belltown and Convention Center area. We only ate out for one meal each day because of how expensive things were, and were very much subsisting off of the AMC movie theater popcorn one day for breakfast.
Turkish Delights. Located at the Pike Market, they make their own doner kabob wraps and Turkish delights. We ordered doner kabobs and Turkish delights, and both were delicious.
Mee Sum Bakery. This was our final stop the day Rebecca left, the Saturday. We bought BBQ pork bao, a crab rangoon, and I bought a beef curry bun for my breakfast at three before leaving for my flight. For $4-5 a pop, these were so filling!
Din Tai Fung, if you can afford a nice meal out. Get the Shanghai Rice Cakes!
Umi Sake House. Was literally next to our Air BnB, but my friend Rebecca swore the sushi was delicious. The udon I got was just okay.
Tea Addicts. We ordered this to be delivered to us, making it more pricy, but my sister’s friend recommended this and told me it was her favorite boba in the city. It was pretty good! I got a lychee Yakult drink with jelly.
H Mart. I stopped at the H Mart by West Lake so much and bought drinks since I hated the Seattle tap water.
Random Tips
Staying in Belltown was convenient for most tourist attractions. It’s also by the light rail if you need to get anywhere else, unlike us.
Take the light rail from the airport.
There’s a monorail from Space Needle to Pike Market that’s $3. Saves a lot of walking.
Pike Market is good for cheap food.
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