If you’re looking for a bit of off-site recreation and learning, the Bellevue Arts Museum is just up the street from the Bellevue Hyatt Regency. Admission is free on the first Friday of the month, which is Nov. 4, and will happen during the council. So by all means, make the trip up the street to see two exhibitions.

First, “Travelers Objects of Dreams and Revelation.” This exhibit shows both the experience of leisure travel and of the experience of being displaced by violence. It includes art by Margarita Cabrera, Marc Dombrosky, Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz.

The other exhibit is “George Nelson: Architect, Designer, Writer, Teacher,” and includes 220 objects including furniture, lamps, clocks, architectural models and others that show Nelson’s influence on modern design.

The museum will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 4. On other days, it is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed on Mondays. It is located at 510 Bellevue Way NE, just across the street from the Bellevue Square Mall.

The Bellevue Hyatt Regency is surrounded by restaurants, but not all of them are going to be serving a quick breakfast when you need to hustle off to your first meetings. Here are the five closest:

The closest one that’ll be open will be the Needs Deli on the second floor of Bellevue Place, a small group of shops that face the lobby of the Bellevue Hyatt Regency.

There is a Wendy’s directly to the North of the Bellevue Hyatt Regency, at Bellevue Way NE and NE 10th. They have eight breakfast items on the menu.

Panera is a little further up the street and around a corner, at NE 12th Street and 106th Ave. NE

Inside the Bellevue Square Mall, which you can reach via skybridges, there are two restaurants offering breakfast, Specialty’s, a place with bagels and oatmeal in the Center Court of the Mall. Also, there’s a  McDonald’s further down the mall. The Bellevue Square Mall’s information also says that the Cafe in the Nordstrom’s department store is also open for breakfast.

If you want to have breakfast without having to walk or wait, your best bet is stock up at the Safeway down the street, on Bellevue Way NE, between NE 4th Street and NE 2nd Street. The hotel rooms have small refrigerators, so this is a great way to store milk, yogurt or other goodies for your breakfast. The below map has the locations on there, except for the mall shops.

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I’ll bet you’re looking forward to seeing your friends from years past at the All-American Council in Bellevue, but you’re not planning to empty your pocketbooks on high-priced food and transportation. Believe me, I hear you. As a recession victim and recent student, I was a little scared when I first heard “Hyatt Regency Bellevue” because all three of those words mean “pricey” to me. Bellevue is an “edge city” – one of those places just outside the main city with lots of recently-built glass buildings with corporate offices and fancy retail shops.

But fear not! I discovered from a brief walk around the neighborhood that there are plenty of affordable places to go nearby:

First, transportation: The Hyatt Regency Bellevue is served by excellent public transportation, so renting a car and paying to park it is optional. To get from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to the hotel, take Sound Transit Bus 560. The cost is $2.50. It runs every 30 minutes through most of the day on weekdays. (Hourly on weekends.) Make sure the bus is going to Bellevue, not West Seattle. It should take about an hour to get to the Bellevue Transit Center. From there, walk west two blocks on NE 6^th St. and north on Bellevue Way NE two blocks, and you’re at the hotel. The area around the Hyatt Regency Bellevue is also served by bus routes going all sorts of other places, but that’ll be a different article.

Secondly, food: There’s plenty of upscale restaurants that will jump right out at you, but there are more than a few affordable places as well. The nearest one is the Needs Deli, which is on the second floor of Bellevue Place, the same complex of buildings that contains the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. It’s a small grocery and deli counter, where one can get sandwiches and breakfast food.

I found several other nice low-price restaurants in the immediate area. The Greek Kitchen in the Bellevue Square Mall also made it possible to spend less than $10 on a dinner. The mall also contains a McDonald’s, and a Specialty’s Bakery that offers soups, sandwiches and pastries. Just after you take the skybridge across Bellevue Way, there’s a new Asian dumpling restaurant called Din Tai Fung, where they make the dumplings in the window. (At first, you might think they’re perogies!) Here’s a link to a clickable map of the Bellevue Collection. (That’s the name for all the skybridge-connected retail shops around the hotel.)

If you’re willing to venture outside the family of indoor shopping centers, there is the Chipotle Mexican Grill at 10503 NE 4th Street, and Casa D’s Taqueria, an independent taco counter at 102 Bellevue Way NE # B. (That last one was my favorite of the group.)

There are also two reasonably priced Mediterranean restaurants right around the same area: Garlic Crush, 102 Bellevue Way Northeast, and the Mediterranean Kitchen at 103 Bellevue Way NE # 103.

One other choice is an outdoor pizza kitchen, Tuscan Stone Pizza, at the intersection of Bellevue Way NE and Main Street. They’ve rented the parking lot of a closed-down fast-food place, and they have wood-fired pizza starting at $7.95. I ate there once back in the spring, and it was good stuff.

Finally, your cheapest option of all for food would be the Safeway grocery store at 300 Bellevue Way NE. It’s a full-service grocery store with a deli and bakery.

You might also want some low-priced recreation near the Hyatt Regency Bellevue as well. One opportunity you won’t want to pass up is the Bellevue Arts Museum, which offers free admission on the first Friday of every month. November 4, 2011 will be the first Friday of the month, and that’s right at the end of the council. The exhibitions will be “Travelers: Objects of Dream and Revelation” and an array of objects by the architect and designer George Nelson. It’s at 510 Bellevue Way NE, just three blocks south of the hotel.

Also, there’s a movie theatre adjacent to the hotel, the Lincoln Square Cinemas which has 16 screens, including one IMAX screen. Prices range from $8.50-$10.50.

And believe it or not, in all this stacked-up shopping mall space, there’s a bowling alley wedged in here. The Lucky Strikes Lanes and Lounge offers a 16-lane alley. It’s accessible by skybridge from the hotel.

Finally, if you’re in need of some quiet time after a plenary session tired you out, there’s the Bellevue Regional Library at 1111 110th Avenue Northeast, a four-block walk to the north and east of the hotel.

Other cheap spots to think about: If you get overenthusiastic at breakfast and spill egg on your riasa and you need a dry cleaner, you might consider Andre’s Cleaners at 240 Bellevue Way NE. It’s a few blocks away and might be cheaper than the hotel’s in-house service.

If you are a bachelor third-year seminarian and happen to find the perfect future matushka at this council, you might consider a bouquet from City Flowers to impress her. It’s in Bellevue Place, the same complex of buildings that contains our hotel. Another option for flowers is the Safeway, as mentioned earlier, and Lawrence the Florist at 224 105th Avenue NE.

Two other places that deserve mention: The Bellevue Square Mall contains a thrift shop, and it’s got pretty good merchandise. It’s the Bellevue Lifespring Thrift Shop and it’s definitely worth a visit. Finally, if you want chocolate, visit Oh Chocolate! In the Bellevue Square Mall. It’s a place that offers premium chocolates that can be organized into a variety box, but the cheap treat is a basket of chocolates that they keep at the front. The basket contains slightly malformed chocolates that are discounted and still really tasty.

The 16th All-American Council will take place during a special time for Washingtonians – the return of the salmon! September and October are the big months for returning salmon, and you’ll be able to catch the tail end of this event.

Salmon are a big deal here for several reasons: they’re tasty, they provide jobs for thousands of fishermen, and their return means a great deal to the local Indian tribes.

Near the conference site, there are two places to view the fish. The first is the Ballard Locks in Seattle, which is the third-most popular tourist location in the city. The locks have a fish ladder with a series of windows that allow you to watch the fish as they go from Puget Sound into Lake Washington, where they find their way on to Issaquah Creek and the Cedar River to find spawning grounds.

The Ballard Locks were built in 1916 to allow ships to pass between Puget Sound and Lake Washington. The project also involved diverting a salmon stream into Lake Washington (as opposed to directly into Puget Sound), so the Army Corps of Engineers installed a fish ladder so the salmon could go between the saltwater ocean and the freshwater lake and streams.

This fish ladder has several large windows were you can watch the fish swim past. Most are 24-30 inches long, but sometimes a much larger one comes on by.

The Ballard Locks are also an amazing place to visit simply because of the locks themselves, which regularly allow large fishing and shipping vessels through. The large water gates open and close and act as a water elevator for the boats.

The other place is the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, where the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife helps the salmon population by incubating millions of salmon eggs and releasing the tiny fish each spring. In the fall, the salmon return home, and staff members catch the salmon to obtain their eggs. From the hatchery bridge, visitors can see the adult salmon digging their redds (nests) and spawning in Issaquah Creek. Visitors can also get an up-close, nose-to-nose view of the salmon from the hatchery’s glassed-in fish ladder.

Both locations are about 20 minutes by car from the Bellevue Hyatt Regency. The Hiram Chittenden Locks, as the Ballard Locks are officially called, are at 3015 NW 54th St., Seattle, WA. To get there via bus, take Metro Bus 271 marked “University District” from NE 8th Street and Bellevue Way NE. (This is just outside the hotel. You will need to cross Bellevue Way, but don’t cross NE 8th Street. The stop is in front of the Cost Plus World Market.) Take that bus all the way to the end of the line at NE 42nd Street and 15th Ave. NE (should take 25 minutes or so). Transfer to Metro bus 44, marked “Ballard” and take that all the way to end of the line. (Another 20 minutes or so.)

The Issaquah Fish Hatchery is located at 125 W. Sunset Way, Issaquah, WA. Getting there by bus is a little more challenging, and it might be better to find a friend with a rental car if you don’t have your own.

To get there by bus, take Metro Bus 271 marked “Issaquah Transit Center.” (This is the opposite direction as what you would take to the Ballard Locks. From the hotel, cross N.E. 8th St., and wait at the stop at N.E. 8th St. and 106th Ave. N.E. This is in front of the Bank of America branch. Be sure to ask if the bus goes all the way to the Issaquah Transit Center.) Take that bus to the end of the line, the Issaquah Transit Center (about 45 minutes) and then transfer to Metro Bus 200 marked “Issaquah Community Center”, and take it to Front Street and Sunset Way (about 15 minutes) and walk west on Sunset Way about one-quarter of a mile to the fish hatchery.

As you’ve probably noticed from all your conference materials, the 16th All-American Council is advertised as taking place in Seattle. But, the actual conference location isn’t actually in the city limits of Seattle. It’s technically in Bellevue, Seattle’s neighbor just across Lake Washington.

Seattle is certainly the Large Northwest City that everyone knows about, and that’s the airport at which you should be planning to arrive. But, for those of us who don’t exactly live in the city of Seattle, we just say that we’re from Seattle to make it simpler.

When big events happen on the east side of the lake, it can get a little complicated. For example, whenever Microsoft holds a big event at its headquarters in Redmond (immediate neighbor to Bellevue) it drives the locals crazy that everyone says “welcome to Seattle.” As an aside, I was born in Redmond in 1979, but whenever I try to explain that to someone out of state, it takes way too long and I just say “Seattle.”

This little fib is no big problem, but it can complicate things if you’re at the airport trying to tell a taxi driver where to go – Bellevue and Seattle are two entirely different destinations, and you have to cross one of two floating bridges to get between the two. Another caution in names here is that you have to be sure you’re going to the Bellevue Hyatt Regency, the full name. There is another Hyatt hotel in the City of Seattle, and if you end up there, you’ll be about 10 miles from where you want to be.

If you are thinking about trying to find a hotel with a lower rate, be sure to look for somewhere in or close to the city of Bellevue.

Think we’re crazy? Yes, some of us wanted to put “Bellevue” on the promotional materials, but then some East Coasters said, “That’s the name of a big mental hospital.” So we couldn’t do that. Anyway, be sure to look at a map before you plan your trip.

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