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Last night we visited the "microsoft campus" this is not nessacerily a university but setup like one for all the employees. Its massive!!! and also went to one of the buildings in downtown Bellevue. Its kind of like Microsoft owns the whole town. In the Microsoft building we got to go up to the 26th (?) floor and the view was amazing! Sun setting over the lake and the mountains over the other side of the lake - beautiful!
So Today Jane and I went with Tim and Yuka all over Bellevue and Seattle. We visited the Boeing factory first of all and did the tour there, which strangely enough we couldn't take our cameras, mobiles, or anything with a camera in. We saw the 747-8, 777 & 787 being built and assembled, It was thoroughly interesting - not only seeing the largest building by cubic meters in the world, assembling planes means - MASSIVE CRANES! The factory and the Boeing employees number just under 35000 is so large that they have its own police, hospital, and 24hr daycare facilities (that's right, childcare for each shift of workers). We got to see cross sections of a 747 & the 787 Dreamliner. The whole Chassis/Fuselage is built out of carbon fibre which was awesome for me to see. We also got to see 3 full size jet engines one of which also was a running example.
After our tour we then headed back home for a bite to eat then out to the tallest tower in Seattle. From the 74th floor we saw the whole area and it is massive, but quite sectioned by lakes, rivers, sounds, and green belts.
After this we ended up taking a walk to the flagship Tully's store - Coffee there had to be better than Starbucks??? it was good. After this we took a walk around the docks and old side of Seattle and then Tim & Yuka took us out for dinner - yummy Mexican!
Apparently Americans are confused by round-abouts so we went on a side trip on the way home possibly the only one in Bellevue.
We went to a whole foods store here in Bellevue - they have the most amazing gluten free/dairy free range!!! They have 'certified gluten free' oats... not sure how or what that means but it does make for really yummy breakfast cereals!
After a bit of messing around we have a cell phone! yay! It was a bit random though as we got a $25 plan - so we have free texting - but we bought a $25 recharge card. So you pay sales tax on the card when you buy it - but then we put the value of the card onto the phone, but that didn't cover the tax for the phone so we had to go and buy another card to cover the taxes. On top of that, the phone company kept promoting that incoming text messages are free.. ummmm ok, thank you it should be!! But it turns out that text messages do cost some people to receive them!!! Wowsers!!! Tim pays 20c per message to receive them!! ouch! Seems like we have an awesome deal in Australia!!
- comments
Rhonda chalk Thanks Karl & Jane for this interesting blog about Boeing what an amazing place. Rhonda
Amy The idea of paying to receive text messages & call is crazy. K has family in the US and some of them pay for incoming items. Makes you appreciate stupid Telstra just a little bit more!