Why would anyone willingly move to Bellevue? Bellevue: a city away from the Emerald City. Away from the beautiful traffic jams and congested Pike Place market; a city away from the glorious construction going on in a 10-mile radius. Who would leave all that to move to Bellevue – which means “Beautiful View”. It’s unheard of, preposterous. No one should like Bellevue, and if you’re sitting there, reading this, telling yourself, “I was thinking of retiring in Bellevue,” think again! Here’s a list of all the things Bellevue is missing.
- Chickens
Did you know Bellevue puts a limit on the amount of chickens you can have in your coop? I mean, Seattle does too, but Seattle allows you to have 8 chickens to your coop, whereas Bellevue, only allows you to have 6! If you wanted 6 eggs for breakfast, you’d go to the market.
So what if the homes – and subsequently coops – are larger in Bellevue? If you want 8 chickens cramped in your backyard, you should be allowed, it’ll evoke that sensational “togetherness” of Seattle, that feeling that someone’s about to breathe on the back of your neck – which is welcomed on a hot day. In Bellevue, no one is going to provide that claustrophobic togetherness, no one is going to breathe on your neck or stuff two too many chickens in a coop.
- Brunch
Has breakfast, lunch, and dinner ever been enough? In all seriousness, 3 meals a day is an archaic tradition. Or maybe you’re one of those ambitious busy-bodies who needs to maximize your time, so you shoot for two meals a day by squashing Breakfast and Lunch together.
Seattle knows this, being ahead of the curve, so there are over three times as many places where you can have brunch. Bellevue? Has a quaint few places to have brunch. Instead they have an array of places where you can eat Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. They have esteemed desserts, restaurants, and even a French Bakery that’s been given the blessing of native citizens of France – but when has that ever mattered to a Seattleite?
Sundays show that Seattleites prefer mimosas and bacon than attending church.
- Beaches
Bellevue has so few beaches, it’s not even worth listing here. Instead, Bellevue thinks it can make up for its lack of beaches with nature hikes, parks, and mountains. Who cares about mountains? Sure, Bellevue might be closer to Snoqualmie’s beautiful skiing slopes, but does it have sand?
No one wants to be awestruck by the majesty of high mountain tops covered in snow year round. People want no sun for 9 months out of the year, and then a scorching hot heat in the summer. That’s the way it should be.
While Seattle is populated by beaches, Bellevue wastes precious beach-space with – you guessed it – more mountains. The Cascade Mountains, the Grand Coulee Dam, and Lake Chelan. If you’re going to retire, why would you choose a place that is overrun by nature?
- Foreign Wine
Nobody wants local, homegrown wine anymore, nor do they go out for wine. For instance, in Seattle, you can go to your local Target and buy some fine, capped (no cork) wine. That’s the way wine should be, so why is that concept so hard for Bellevue to understand.
All that land that could’ve been used to insert more skyscrapers (and beaches) is flooded with farmland for wineries. If you’re retiring in Bellevue, you’re not going to want to go wine tasting. Wine tasting is what you do when you’re 21, not when you’re 71. Why would you spend an afternoon with friends in the countryside of Bellevue to enjoy local wine tasting?
Sure Walla Walla Wine Valley has over 70 wines to savor and enjoy, but you can’t enjoy it while listening to the sound of traffic out your window.
- Killer Whales & Sharks
Something truly missing from Bellevue is the abundance of Killer Whales and Sharks. For instance, when you think of Seattle, you think of Puget Sound, where you can take a boat, kayak, or paddle board into the harbor and cruise around in the Bay or open ocean. Of course, Killer Whales and sharks populate the waters because that’s their habitat and how incredible would it be to actually see one, up close on a paddle board?
You’d be just like the seals that befriend them in the ocean (seals and killer whales get along, right?). In Bellevue though, you only have freshwater to kayak and paddle board in. Nothing in those waters are big enough to eat you, so where’s the adrenaline rush in that?
For those who never lost their sense of adventure, the Puget Sound area will get your adrenaline pumping, dodging incoming boats, seaplanes, and massive fish. All Bellevue provides are austere lakes and pristine waters, but what’s the fun in that?
- eBooks
eBooks should be everywhere at this point, right? Why carry massive paperback and hardcover books, when you can have millions of pages on one screen? Almost everywhere in the world knows this, so internet connection, Kindles, and eReaders take the place of antique bookshelves and furniture.
Everyone understands that eBooks are the future, except Bellevue. Bellevue decided to pursue the complete opposite direction by establishing the Bellevue Regional Library. It’s decked out from top to bottom with literary giants and out-of-print classics. It’s an award-winning library within the King County Library system. It has cushions and couches, and quiet nooks for every type of reader, but let’s be honest, you’re only going to use it for the Wi-Fi so you can download an eBook and read it at home.
Who wants to stay in a library where the smell of oak assaults your senses; where the old, yellowed and crinkled pages of weather-worn copies of Fitzgerald and Hemingway evoke the time period they were written in; where you find, amidst the various covers and copies of Melville, that someone has written a personal anecdote to the next reader of this momentous novel, giving you a taste of the who the previous reader was, and reminding you that you’re holding a piece of personal history in your hands?
Who wants that?
- Filth
Say what you will about other cities, but filth brings the town to life. No one wants a glossy, shiny, and fresh smelling city. They want the smudge, the grime, and the dirt. It shows wear and tear. It shows that the city has been lived in for years, centuries even.
When you visit Bellevue though, there is no filth, no half-broken signs hanging from the walls of brick-and-mortar shops. There’s hardly any art – I mean graffiti – Bellevue does have an all local art museum. The point is that when you visit Bellevue, it’s almost as though a cleaning crew regularly takes to the streets and cleans it up every morning before you wake up.
So there you have it, the top 7 things missing from Bellevue. Maybe if they add a few of those to their city, more people would consider senior housing in Bellevue.
