bellevue area

shad0wkitt3n

This year's PAX was the first time I had been to Washington, and I loved it! It's beuatiful and Bellevue seems like a really nice place. Can anyone give me any info about living in the area? I can find all the stats on average household size and income and junk, but I want to know the nitty gritty stuff. How harsh are the winters? How is it for someone in their early 20's? Is it overpopulated by families with young children? What about recreational activities? How are the jobs in the area? Are there good entry-level things or is there a gap between the fast food type jobs and the super-educated business jobs? Any info would be great. Anyone who lives in the area please let me know what you think about living there. Thanks bunches!

leaf

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue. Most of us considered it far too high-class and artificial to really feel welcome there. Everyone I asked specifically said they wouldn't be there if it weren't for pax. I got a laugh when walking back to the room one night, a car pulls up waiting for the light to change. I notice the person inside look over at me, and I hear the click of their car door locks.

If you like the place that's cool, I don't mean to call you down, but I just found that weird, someone liked the place. I admit it's very clean and polished, but just isn't for me.

Ninja Edit: However, that pizza place alone is reason enough to live nearby, godamn I want that stuff again...

Samyel

I dunno, PAX was so fun that I was sort of seeing everything through a haze of positivity. Even so, I was accosted by drugged out lunatics no less than three times outside of the convention center. One really frightened me by following half a block behind me, screaming at things.

Seattle area is lovely, but be careful about your neighbourhood choices.

TNTrooper

leaf wrote:

Ninja Edit: However, that pizza place alone is reason enough to live nearby, godamn I want that stuff again...

Topolinos? I think I am going to call them up and see if they will deliver a pizza to whatever hotel I plan to stay in for 07.

Legacy

Bellevue is a pretty rich town, I believe.

Kirkland and Redmond are a little better. And then there's Renton and Everett if you're poorer.

dyaballikl

TNTrooper wrote:

leaf wrote:

Ninja Edit: However, that pizza place alone is reason enough to live nearby, godamn I want that stuff again...

Topolinos? I think I am going to call them up and see if they will deliver a pizza to whatever hotel I plan to stay in for 07.

screw that, pagliacci's is way better.

leaf

Um, I don't know the name, but much like a homing pigeon, I know it's right below the anime store, about two blocks over and one to the right of the maydenbauer.

Hah and the druggies. This guy asked us if we liked our food we had in takeout boxes...."IT'S DELICIOUS! Thank you!" He kinda looked stunned then walked away.

PotatoNinja

dyaballikl wrote:

TNTrooper wrote:

leaf wrote:

Ninja Edit: However, that pizza place alone is reason enough to live nearby, godamn I want that stuff again...

Topolinos? I think I am going to call them up and see if they will deliver a pizza to whatever hotel I plan to stay in for 07.

screw that, pagliacci's is way better.

Pagliacci's is pretty hard to beat.

dyaballikl

leaf wrote:

Um, I don't know the name, but much like a homing pigeon, I know it's right below the anime store, about two blocks over and one to the right of the maydenbauer.

Hah and the druggies. This guy asked us if we liked our food we had in takeout boxes...."IT'S DELICIOUS! Thank you!" He kinda looked stunned then walked away.

haha, you're terrible at giving directions! 2 blocks "over?" you mean in a certain direction or just straight up?

RandomEngy

I live in Redmond. In the winters the lows are usually in the mid-30's without much variation. It's also cloudy and much of the time drizzly in non-summer months. The summers are usually pretty awesome, though we don't have air conditioning over here.

Year-round weather patterns

Moe Fwacky

RandomEngy wrote:

I live in Redmond. In the winters the lows are usually in the mid-30's without much variation. It's also cloudy and much of the time drizzly in non-summer months. The summers are usually pretty awesome, though we don't have air conditioning over here.

Year-round weather patterns

Holy crap! You're telling me you guys don't have a week of 0-15 F weather in the middle of winter. I mean you guys are further north than us (Cleveland, OH) and close to a very large body of water. That is totally not cool.

TimeCruiserMike

ocean currents my friend . . . ocean currents. you see on the west coast we have ocean currents that travel north bringing warmer waters from the south to our beaches and generally affecting temperatures in the vicinity.
the east coast has the oposite. the currents there travel south bringing colder waters from the north.

how this would affect you in ohio . . i have no idea :-p

Moe Fwacky

We get all of our winter air from that there Canadia, blasting us over the lake. We have a little weather phenomenon here known as lake effect snow, which can really only be compared to a low category hurricane with snow. Our only hope against this nearly unpredictable snow blasting is if Lake Erie freezes over, preventing the passing clouds from sucking moisture off the lake's surface. This usually results in fridgid winter, but with less unpredictable craziness (we still get craziness, just not as predictable as the lake effect craziness).

Arghetlam

leaf wrote:

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue.

These are the words of someone who's never been to Spokane, Washington. Consider yourself lucky; I live there.

Aydr

Arghetlam wrote:

leaf wrote:

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue.

These are the words of someone who's never been to Spokane, Washington. Consider yourself lucky; I live there.

I'm so sorry.

I'm glad I live in Seattle. I don't know what I'd do if I lived in Spokane.

Dog

The weather is actually pretty mild, BECAUSE of the ocean. It's very hard to change the temperature of an ocean, so since it's basically the same temp. year-round it keeps the weather here from getting really cold or really hot.

I love Seattle. I'm in the midst of picking where to go to college, and though I'd like to stay on the west coast, there are a lot of better college choices on the east coast. i'll defeintely be coming back here afterwards though.

and yeah, bellevue is a terrible place to live. but that's because no one lives there. I'm not kidding--all bellevue is is office buildings, hotels, and convention centers. seattle's great, and a lot of the suburbs are great, but bellevue itself is not somewhere you'd want to live (unless you live there as a homeless person).

plus, minimum wage here in WA is a comfortable $7.65, which is good for us teenagers working electronics at Target.

Moe Fwacky

Holy crap, dude. $7.65? Minimum wage here is the federal at $5.15. I suppose there's a reason Cleveland is America's poorest city.

... Note to self, must leave...

Aydr

Moe_Fwacky wrote:

Holy crap, dude. $7.65? Minimum wage here is the federal at $5.15. I suppose there's a reason Cleveland is America's poorest city.

... Note to self, must leave...

Yup. Very high minimum wage. Unfortunetly, also coupled with a very high cost of living.

dyaballikl

Moe_Fwacky wrote:

RandomEngy wrote:

I live in Redmond. In the winters the lows are usually in the mid-30's without much variation. It's also cloudy and much of the time drizzly in non-summer months. The summers are usually pretty awesome, though we don't have air conditioning over here.

Year-round weather patterns

Holy crap! You're telling me you guys don't have a week of 0-15 F weather in the middle of winter. I mean you guys are further north than us (Cleveland, OH) and close to a very large body of water. That is totally not cool.

i live in issaquah, wa now, but i lived in cincinnati for 15 years, i know just how cold it can get there. last year, we get like an inch of snow here and people were crashing left and right, yet, i can remember having my front door snowed in multiple times in cincinnati, even more when i lived in ny.

dyaballikl

Moe_Fwacky wrote:

Holy crap, dude. $7.65? Minimum wage here is the federal at $5.15. I suppose there's a reason Cleveland is America's poorest city.

... Note to self, must leave...

my first job in west chester ohio was about 7 years ago. minimum was still $5.15, but in ohio, they have a law where you can start employees at $.90/hr short of minimum, increasing $.30 each month for training. i worked at mcdonald's for $4.25 in 1999 for 4 months until i finally quit because they wouldn't give me a raise.

Moe Fwacky

McDonalds are douchebags like that. They'll hold out on that money because they have a surplus of applicants they can hire. So if everybody quits within 3-6 months because they don't get a raise, they can hire a new crew at the same crappy wage.

leaf

Arghetlam wrote:

leaf wrote:

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue.

These are the words of someone who's never been to Spokane, Washington. Consider yourself lucky; I live there.

I've been there. The question is, have you ever been to a small town in Canada?

Spokane appears to be a sprawling metropolis in comparison.

jennyg

leaf wrote:

Arghetlam wrote:

leaf wrote:

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue.

These are the words of someone who's never been to Spokane, Washington. Consider yourself lucky; I live there.

I've been there. The question is, have you ever been to a small town in Canada?

Spokane appears to be a sprawling metropolis in comparison.

You get the same effect when doing something I've done a fair few times: driving between Seattle and Minneapolis. Once you pass Spokane, there is a whole lot of Not Very Much for hundreds and hundreds of miles. I've been told they have to start bending I-90 in North Dakota to compensate for the curvature of the earth, because for a long stretch there, there's nothing else to get in the way.

On the way back home, hitting Spokane basically equates to flinging your arms out (if you're not the one driving) and shouting, "CIVILIZATION!!"

...and then it's another three hundred miles through Not Very Much and yet another mountain pass, but so it goes.

Aydr

jennyg wrote:

leaf wrote:

Arghetlam wrote:

leaf wrote:

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue.

These are the words of someone who's never been to Spokane, Washington. Consider yourself lucky; I live there.

I've been there. The question is, have you ever been to a small town in Canada?

Spokane appears to be a sprawling metropolis in comparison.

You get the same effect when doing something I've done a fair few times: driving between Seattle and Minneapolis. Once you pass Spokane, there is a whole lot of Not Very Much for hundreds and hundreds of miles. I've been told they have to start bending I-90 in North Dakota to compensate for the curvature of the earth, because for a long stretch there, there's nothing else to get in the way.

On the way back home, hitting Spokane basically equates to flinging your arms out (if you're not the one driving) and shouting, "CIVILIZATION!!"

...and then it's another three hundred miles through Not Very Much and yet another mountain pass, but so it goes.

Yeah, that is true, but it's really more of a mirage. Sure, it looks promising compared to everything nearby, but there's still really nothing you want there.

Grath

I've wanted to move there since first pax

Trillian

leaf wrote:

Arghetlam wrote:

leaf wrote:

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue.

These are the words of someone who's never been to Spokane, Washington. Consider yourself lucky; I live there.

I've been there. The question is, have you ever been to a small town in Canada?

Spokane appears to be a sprawling metropolis in comparison.

Ever spend a week in Drumheller in August.

Not fun my friend, not fun.

jennyg

Aydr wrote:

jennyg wrote:

You get the same effect when doing something I've done a fair few times: driving between Seattle and Minneapolis. Once you pass Spokane, there is a whole lot of Not Very Much for hundreds and hundreds of miles. I've been told they have to start bending I-90 in North Dakota to compensate for the curvature of the earth, because for a long stretch there, there's nothing else to get in the way.

On the way back home, hitting Spokane basically equates to flinging your arms out (if you're not the one driving) and shouting, "CIVILIZATION!!"

...and then it's another three hundred miles through Not Very Much and yet another mountain pass, but so it goes.

Yeah, that is true, but it's really more of a mirage. Sure, it looks promising compared to everything nearby, but there's still really nothing you want there.

Well, I did say I was only driving through it, yes?

Arghetlam

leaf wrote:

Arghetlam wrote:

leaf wrote:

Crazy. I didn't meet or know a single person that liked bellavue.

These are the words of someone who's never been to Spokane, Washington. Consider yourself lucky; I live there.

I've been there. The question is, have you ever been to a small town in Canada?

Spokane appears to be a sprawling metropolis in comparison.

Oh, I'm well aware Spokane is quite large, about 200,000 people or so. It's just that Spokane is a nowhere town. If you plan to make something of yourself, then Spokane should be avoided like the plauge.

And the first civilization you hit is actually Coeur D' Alene, our neighbors right across the border. And after Spokane. . .yeah, whole lotta nuthin' but sagebrush. Moe should know that quite well. . .

doctajohn

BELLEVUE SUCKS.

Everyone in Seattle knows this. Bellevue is built around the premise that gigantic d-bags need a safe haven from the nice people in the world. I'm not saying that I hate everybody who lives in bellevue, but the people who live there generally aren't as nice as seattle-ites. Seattle is much closer to well, everything and then you don't have to deal with the horror of the 520 bridge. I love living in Seattle. The rain isn't as bad as everyone says. Find a place just outside downtown seattle instead of moving to a hellhole. Seriously.

Bambooza

And here I just wanted to live somewhere were pax did not come but once a year.... Does such a place truly exist?

Cronus

doctajohn wrote:

BELLEVUE SUCKS.

Everyone in Seattle knows this. Bellevue is built around the premise that gigantic d-bags need a safe haven from the nice people in the world. I'm not saying that I hate everybody who lives in bellevue, but the people who live there generally aren't as nice as seattle-ites. Seattle is much closer to well, everything and then you don't have to deal with the horror of the 520 bridge. I love living in Seattle. The rain isn't as bad as everyone says. Find a place just outside downtown seattle instead of moving to a hellhole. Seriously.

I've never heard anyone say that about Bellevue. The main problem is that it is an expensive city. I live in the cheaper area and share a house with four other people so it's not to bad for me, but it can be a very expensive area. I would not mind living in downtown Bellevue. There is a lot to do, and it has the appeal of it being a growing city, however it is much to expensive to live downtown.

Seatlle is a great city, and has some good cheap living. However the problem with that is that there is a lake between it and Bellevue and Redmond and Seattle is an anti-city. By this I mean that it is unlike every other city I know as people live in the city and commute to the subarbs to work. If you live in Seattle and work on the east side where most of the jobs are you are screwed as there is no good mass transit so you are stuck sitting on one of two bridges across the lake. I would love to live in Seattle if it weren't for the comute.

BigRed

Seattle Mass transit isnt *that* bad (compared to other cities).

TychoCelchuuu

Bellevue's a great place, but like a lot of people have said, it's not exactly cheap. Really, your best bet is in or around Seattle. It's just a bridge away from Bellevue and you get all the conveniences of living in a city, and it's much easier to find affordable housing.

Cronus

BigRed wrote:

Seattle Mass transit isnt *that* bad (compared to other cities).

Perhaps what mass transit it has, which is just buses. However many cities has trains, elevated trains, and subways as well. We need more then buses here.

Doc

It's also worth pointing out that the weather in late august is not very representative of the rest of the year.

Weaver

I lived in downtown Bellevue for almost 3 years and I loved it. No bums, no noticeable crime, clean streets, and for wil party times I just catch a bus over the bridge into Seattle. Awesome times.

Kyanilis

I live down in Federal Way, not the most terrible of places. That and Seattle isn't that far of a drive at all, so I can just up and go if I feel like going to the city. Though since living here I've seen bums and had my apartment broken into...but besides those, I like it down here. That and affordable, also a big plus.

Buraisu

I plan to move down to Redmond after college. I been there many times and what not. One of my best friends grow up in the area and on the way down to a tournament in Seattle, we visited the area he grow up in. It's pretty nice.

Currently I am living up in Skagit County, I was born in Anacortes. Plan to move up to Bellingham first to go to WWU before moving down to Redmond.

Though, I have to agree. I didn't really like the Bellevue area but it didn't look that bad. I just hate the compacted feel of wall to wall pavement.

ctishman

I will be moving to Seattle sometime this year, in all likelihood. I'm going to try and get a job as a mac genius at one of the area apple stores in either Bellevue Square or University Village (preferably the latter). Where would you suggest I look for housing?

whypick1

I haven't looked at housing prices since I moved here in October (long story behind that one, which thankfully I'll skip), so don't take my word for gospel, but basically, the farther away from downtown you get, the cheaper it is. If you're aiming for the U Village Mac Store (BTW, there's also one in the U District right next to I-5), your best bet for neighborhoods would probably be Wedgwood or Ravenna, which are both pretty damn suburban. Finding an apartment complex there might be a little harder, since it is mostly houses, but it's not an impossible feat. U District might not be the best bet living wise simply because there's lots of competition (the "U" in "U District" having something to do with it) and there are plenty of shady characters that dwell there.

If that fails, I'd look into Wallingford then Greenlake. Wallingford is still pretty close to the U District, but you would have to cross I-5 to get there, which can be not-fun (still more fun then trying to travel on I-5 at 3PM). Greenlake would have less travel issues, but it'd be further out, and, depending on where in Greenlake you live, you'd have to deal with living near Hookers and Blow Highway (aka Aurora Ave).

If you're going for the Bellevue store, you'll definitely want to try to live on the Eastside, since commuting on the 520 sucks, and it's going to suck even more if/when they expand it. The only problem is that it'll get more expensive living over there to closer you get to Bellevue.

Azio

Arghetlam wrote: »

Oh, I'm well aware Spokane is quite large, about 200,000 people or so. It's just that Spokane is a nowhere town. If you plan to make something of yourself, then Spokane should be avoided like the plauge.

And the first civilization you hit is actually Coeur D' Alene, our neighbors right across the border. And after Spokane. . .yeah, whole lotta nuthin' but sagebrush. Moe should know that quite well. . .

Sounds like Kelowna. Ugh.