DAY 15: 2/27 (Thurs.) 
cloudy, later sunny
Visit UW and Seatle's Waterfront Area

We took a full day excursion to Seattle's waterfront area that day. We first visited the University of Washington , and looked around the campus. We first looked inside a huge library. The inside of the building was so beautiful and looked just like the buildings we saw in the Harry Potter movies. We also saw recreational facilities for the students. The campus was simply so huge that we lost our way twice while we were walking around.

We next stopped by the famous Fremont Troll on our way to the Seattle center, and then to Seatle's landmark Space Needle . Unfortunately, we didn't go up to the observatory deck because we thought the ticket was simply too expensive for a 10-20-minute experience.

We then took a monorail to the central area of Seattle, and had lunch at a hamburger restaurant, Johnny Rockets, where we tried the soft drink "root beer" for the very first time. We heard root beer was popular among American people, but we couldn't believe it. It simply tasted like poultice plaster! Yuck!

After lunch, we visited the famous Pike Place Market, and spent a couple of hours looking around the area, buying some souvenirs, including a matching T-shirt. The first Starbucks coffee store was so crowded that we had to wait for a while in line to get into the store. The market was full of interesting stores, and it was fun to look around.

We finally stopped by a Japanese grocery store, Uwajimaya, for a little shopping for our host families or friends and families in Japan.

It was a very cold day, but we enjoyed the tour anyway.

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