Amtrak is my prefered way between Seattle and Vancouver because you don’t have to sit waiting to get over the border — it’s done much more efficiently on the train.

The area around the Vancouver train station is where you can see whores strung out on heroin. I just kept walking briskly with my two children past them.

As for public transportation in Seattle — the area downtown is free, including where the train station is in Seattle. So you can go to downtown destinations (Chinatown, Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, Aquarium, Art Museum etc.) for free on the bus. The north border of the ride free zone is Broad, which is within walking distance of the Seattle Center, which has more places you might be interested in going, like EMP.

unfortunately that is one place where my knowledge is lacking. I have never taken public transportation into the states. However they should have the information about trains going the other way (what goes down, must come up), if you can’t find it on their webpage my best suggestion would be to find contact information on their webpage and call/e-mail them to find out about the northbound trains.