{"id":6671,"date":"2012-08-22T10:39:44","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T17:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=6671"},"modified":"2012-08-29T06:15:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T13:15:00","slug":"7-21-12-belly-dancing-festival-medfest-hiawatha-park-w-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/7-21-12-belly-dancing-festival-medfest-hiawatha-park-w-seattle\/","title":{"rendered":"7-21-12 Belly Dancing (Medfest) @ Hiawatha Park (W. Seattle)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bangles & Baubles<\/p><\/div>\n

Our annual journey to a photographer’s\/videographer’s paradise begins in the Olympic Mountains of Mason County via Rte. 2 (or Rte. 1 if you’re in Shelton) of the MTA connecting to Rte. 3 in Belfair which is synchronized with the Bremerton-Seattle ferry run.<\/p>\n

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Dancing: Good for the Soul<\/p><\/div>\n

You’ll need to catch the 6:50am bus, though, if you want to get about 7 hours of play time with the 8:30 ferry to Seattle before catching the 5:30pm return ferry and the last MTA bus to get you back where you started.<\/p>\n

CAVEAT:\u00a0<\/strong>The MTA Rte. 3 bus driver didn’t think it was important enough to check to make certain all passengers had disembarked from the 6:30pm ferry (even though many were still walking off the boat when she put her coach in gear AND LEFT at least one stranded!) before leaving the Bremerton ferry terminal. This necessitated an emergency Taxi cab (an additional $22 fare) to catch the errant driver halfway to Belfair. SO—be extra critical and remind the bus driver to alert dispatch you WILL be returning the same evening on the 5:30pm-6:30pm Seattle-Bremerton ferry run or you risk being left in the lurch at dockside. Also, if you had the foresight to include the MTA’s tel. # on your cell phone, call dispatch IMMEDIATELY to alert them the driver has abandoned you. The MTA office is closed, of course, @ 6:30pm, but word has it that if you wait and dial ZERO (like the bus service you’re getting), it will roll over to dispatch, which actually stays behind the scenes available to drivers until the last one returns ~8:00pm (except on Sunday when no bus service can be had in Mason County, unlike King County).<\/p>\n

Riders should urge the MTA to require the Bremerton run bus driver actually walk the few feet to the terminal and LOOK to see if the ferry is allowing new passengers to board. If not, the MTA bus should wait at dockside until it DOES! It’s not like, being the last run, it’s going to miss ANY connections!!<\/p>\n

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Bookends<\/p><\/div>\n

Medfest (for Mediterranean Festival) has been an ongoing popular free (to you, anyway) event for more than 25 years featuring ‘belly dancing’, music, beautiful women of all ages, stripesj & sizes (and the rare male belly dancers too) along with so much color in the plethora of costumes as to make your retinas burn.<\/p>\n

Some of the younger women have figures to kill for while others are simply beautiful with their belly dancing hearts on display. While the still shots capture details and the splendor of their costumes, the video clips bring a kind of magic the still camera cannot: When the ladies begin to dance, THEY ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL!–I kid you not. It’s like the belly dancing godmother sprinkled fairy dust on them. A magical transformation takes place the viewer can’t help but notice.<\/p>\n

This extravaganza goes on for the full weekend (Saturday & Sunday) beginning at 11:00 (So there’s time to make your buss connections from the downtown ferry terminal and get to the festival in time to grab a chair else you’d better be bringing your own because the venue is absolutely packed.) Every other member of the audience (or more) will have a camera in hand. The front row has the best camera angles, but you’ll need to arrive early for that.<\/p>\n

7-21-12 Belly Dancing (Medfest) @Hiawatha Pk (W Seattle) 1\/31<\/strong>
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