Pike Place Market

A dear girlfriend visited Seattle two summers ago and loved it. She said I had to visit Pike Place Market. Of course I did. I fully intended to. A proper market selling local produce and seafood, it also held many stores selling locally handcrafted goods. Quite a good place to grab not-too-tacky souvenirs.

We went to Pike Place Market a few times. First to get breakfast nibbles (and Beecher's cheese curds!), then all those gorgeous berries, tomatoes and fruits to stock up in the fridges at the hotels wherever. It isn't just for tourists. It's also for locals to purchase their seafood, fruits and groceries too.

The first Starbucks was located at the row of shops across the market. Visited that original Starbucks once, and there isn't any necessity to visit it again. Plenty of tourists throng the place. All my favorite coffeeshops are not located downtown. Quite a few are located on the Hill, and the rest out in Ballard and Fremont. Even when I'm Mercer Island or Bellevue or Redmond (only 26km away lah), coffeeshops and indie stores (not malls) are places I'll make an effort to get out to once a day. Hehehehe. I'm a tourist, I can wander everywhere!

Everyone's prepping for Christmas. At the square where it usually stands empty in summer, it's filled with trees stood ready to be selected and sold for Christmas. Lovely smells and colors. They look like a few different species of fir and pine to me. Quite small. Perfect for a small living space at home.

Downtown Seattle is small-ish. Quite easy to spend a day strolling around the Waterfront, Seattle Art Museum, and the malls (Macy's, Nordstrom and Barneys) are just a few blocks away. Pubs and restaurants aplenty. However, if it's -3℃, it can get very cold with the wind whipping round towards sundown. It's gorgeous in the sun though. Seattle apparently doesn't get that much sunshine a year. It's usually cloudy, with thick rolling fog. All beautiful still. It's warmer now, but then the rains will come. Zzzzz.

Followed our hosts out to the Market twice. Those trips were fun because we got to buy shellfish and huge cuts of all sorts of fish we don't get the best of in Singapore! Things that we so wanted, but couldn't buy because we didn't have anywhere to cook! At least with our hosts, we got a full experience of the markets, and a beautiful invitation to eat the purchased produce at dinner. Wheeeeee. Weekends are the most fun as many do their shopping then. But weekdays are just as cool because tourists flock there. Buskers aplenty on weekends. Tip generously please. Some are really fantastic at their craft. Mondays aren't the best for buying seafood though; they don't look very nice. The uni and oysters didn't look like the colors they ought to be.

The man spotted oyster shooters and uni. Sea urchin pops, they call it. Whatever. We were so going to eat it. Hah. Raw seafood at 9am. Uni at that. Why not. Heh. I declined the oysters, but quaffed the uni. SLURP. At least this round, the man only had six oysters, unlike that crazy time at Sydney Fish Market.