Salt Lake to Seattle

I have begun my journey and have been able to visit a few friends on my way out of the country. In Salt Lake I visited my best friend, Alberto, and his wife Erin. We had a great time at the Tavernacle, a Piano Bar in downtown Salt Lake. You can check out some pictures from the evening on his blog at: http://albertoanderin.blogspot.com
Then I caught a flight out to Seattle where I caught up with my roommate, Dean, who I lived with while I was in Arizona. He is now in Tacoma, which is just south of Seattle and a beautiful area. Of course, I may be a little bias, because I always manage to visit the Seattle area when the weather is unusually dry and mostly sunny.
While in Seattle I visited the Seattle Library, which is a fairly impressive industrial style building with lots of steel, glass and florescent colors. It is ten stories tall and built like a I-beam woven basket in the shape of a C... if you can picture that. If not, I'll try to post photos for my first time. I saw a slide show about libraries around the world the day before I flew out here, which highlighted about ten libraries to include Seattle's. A comment on the article/slide show was from a person that obviously was not a fan. They said the industrial architecture was cold and uninviting and the only good reason for it would be to discourage bums from hanging out. However, I am a bum now, and I hung out quite a while. Plus I noticed other bums and vagabonds wondering the stacks like tourists as well, so I guess not everyone finds the place cold and uninviting.
For film buffs I have included a picture of a school that played a prominent role in the movie "Ten Things I Hate About You."
Tomorrow, I fly out to Japan and spend four days in Tokyo before traveling north to Hokkaido.

Cheers