Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is world famous, largely because of it's appearances in movies, but also because it has a reputation of being a very large market that has a wide diversity of products, most of which are of some of the best quality you can buy the world over. I don't concern myself with shopping very much, and, though I have spent a lot of money on this trip, very little of it has been on souvenirs or other items to take home, but on food, transportation, and lodging expenses. I've even walked through a number of other world famous markets, and been quite unimpressed with most of the items they were peddling. Still, I wanted to see Pike's, and in particular, the fish tossing that is so often featured in movies and food tv shows.
I drove into the heart of the city of Seattle (though I had been at the Safeco Stadium the night before for the Mariners-Padres game, there are no Walmarts or truck stops in Seattle proper, so I had to stay the night in one of the suburbs), and located a parking spot on the street that was relatively close to the Pike Market (south of it, on University). The machine there wanted to charge me $8 for a maximum of 2 hours, and I didn't want to pay that much, so I paid more. I drove around the corner to a parking lot that seemed smaller than the number of car that were already in it, and found a spot. The lot had an "early bird" rate before 10 A.M. that was listed as $10 for the day, but the machine decided $10 wasn't enough, so it charged me $12.50 for up to 7:00 P.M. I figured that should be fine, and it would give me enough time to check out the market, then move on to something else. It turned out to be a good thing I moved to a cheaper spot that allowed me to park longer. Had I found the Pike Place Market parking garage, though, it would have been $8 for anytime before 9:30-9:30pm, which would have afforded me an extra 2.5 hours at a savings of $4. Wish I had realized that sooner!
I walked a few blocks north to the market, and turned the corner to a magazine stand, followed by a few small food vendors. Typical for a market. Then I got to Pike Place Fish (http://www.pikeplacefish.com/) - THE famous fish tossing fish mongers. The market got more impressive really fast, but they weren't throwing any fish - probably because they weren't getting many orders at that point, since it was only around 9:30, and the market was still mostly asleep. Still, the array of fish, crabs, shrimp, oysters, mussels, and other seafood they had out was beautiful and mouth watering.
Though I had looked up the name of the fish tossing mongers, I couldn't remember for certain that this was the one, though I was falsely under the impression that the whole market was filled with fish tossing mongers, but unfortunately it isn't. I continued walking along the upper level of the three story market, and found a variety of restaurants, bakeries, and flower vendors selling some of the nicest looking and fragrant flora I've seen. Continuing along the main walkway, there are many fruit vendors offering some rare and tasty fruits, mushrooms (including $40 morels), and nuts. They were offering samples of some of the tasty fruits, and I was more than happy to try them!
Occasionally, I had passed a stairwell or ramp leading down to the next lower level of the market, and near this point, I decided to go down and check out the shops down there. None of them were selling unprocessed foods, though there were a couple of restaurants, but the lower levels are dominated by specialty shops. I walked around, checking out the occasional shop, but these are more of the thing I usually don't like, as many of them sell things I can find anywhere. Some were of interest, though - one selling antique ivory carvings and other native made goods, another selling original and reproduction posters and magazines (not an extremely rare type of shop, but this was a pretty good iteration of one), and a few others, in this "Down Under" section.
Returning to the main aisle, as I continued further down vendors were starting to set up their booths of various craft items. After a while, the building ended, but the vendors setting out their wares didn't - they lined the street, extending the market well beyond the building. There is a road that runs behind part of the market, down to the water for ferry access. Across this street is the parking garage, and at the north end of it there is a small park by the water that offers some good views of Puget Sound. After meeting a family from Lakeland, FL who were going on a cruise, I crossed one of the pedestrian bridges, which took me back into the Down Under area, but this time, I walked through the lower level, which is only half fully empty, and the shops weren't as interesting.
I made my way back to the street level, and crossed over to the other side, where there are tons of restaurants, wine shops, trinket shops, and a cheese shop called Beecher's Handmade Cheese that had a very long line in front of it. I was curious why there would be such a substantial line for a cheese shop, so I went in for a closer look. The line was actually for a cafe section of the shop that sold sandwiches, so I usurped the line, and went over to the cheese case to look at the important stuff. They didn't have much out to sample, but the sales people were all very helpful, and allowed me to sample a few of their cheeses. I chose the balance of their Maker's Choice sample (just over 1/4lb), a double cream Monterey Jack, which was extremely tasty.
After walking for a while, and having discussed pricing with some of the people there, I decided to do what I had planned to do in Alaska - send some fish to my mom, so I called her, then went back to Pike Place Fish, which was now extremely crowded, and fish were flying on a regular basis. Mind you, I didn't go back to them simply because they were the most famous fish vendor, but they had a little better pricing on most of what I wanted to order.
Steelhead Diner
After submitting my order, I decided to have lunch (may as well spend some more money!), so, at the recommendation of one of the fish mongers, I headed to a restaurant called the Steelhead Diner. I ordered the Grilled Copper River Sockeye Salmon with Port Soaked Cherries, Smokey Almond~Rosemary Brown Butter, & Creamy Hominy Polenta. It was very tasty - which is great, because the only whole fish I ordered is a CR Sockeye!
The whole market isn't full of fish mongers throwing fish, but it was still a joy to walk through. Only one of the four fish companies there throw fish, but the others, including the oldest one of the market - City Fish Company (http://www.cityfish.com/), feature some additional offerings, often including more prepared cocktails, or even offering chowders and fried fish and chips. There are also some great shops and restaurants, street entertainers all over, and lots of great things to see and people to watch.
Space Needle
Because I had explored pretty much the whole market, I decided to walk to the Seattle Space Needle. I didn't know exactly where it was, but I had seen it when I was at the baseball game the night before, and it didn't look like it would be too far of a walk. Turns out it is about 1.2 miles from the market - a little further than I thought it was, but it wasn't too bad of a walk, and it was pretty easy to locate a few blocks into the walk. When I got there, the line to buy tickets was about a 30 min wait. I had forgotten to buy something at one of the shops at the market that I intended to buy, and didn't know when the shops close, so, since it was 4:30, and shops like these often close at either 5 or 6:00, I decided to hustle back to the market.
After I bought the forgotten items, I decided I should unload my backpack and the stuff I'd bought at my car, since it was getting heavy, and I wasn't needing any of the additional stuff I had put in the backpack (rain gear, shirt-jacket, hat, dried fruit, etc.). By the time I got to my car, it was nearly 5:30, leaving me with a 1.5 hours to walk back to the Space Needle (now 1.4 miles away), wait in a potentially 1/2 hr line, and go up and observe the city, and walk back to my car. I decided it was worth trying because I really didn't want to forfeit the remaining time on my parking spot and pay to park in a closer location, so I set out on a brisk walk to the Needle.
When I got to the Space Needle, the line had significantly diminished, and it ended up being about an 8 minute wait. I bought my ticket ($19), and headed up to see the city from the elevated perspective. It was a really nice view all around the Needle. Behind the downtown area, Mt. Rainier was well visible - much better so far away than it had been 9 days ago when I was actually there! the other mountain ranges, including the Northern Cascades and the Olympic Range were also visible, but not quite as much as Rainier. I really enjoyed the views from the observation platform, and would have really liked to stay up there to watch the sunset, and then to take some night time shots of the city, as I had done in San Antonio.
Unfortunately, it was now 6:40, so I made my way to the elevator down and glanced around the gift shop on my way out. At this point, I had 15 minutes to walk the 1.4 miles back to my car. I did so hurriedly, though some of the crosswalks didn't cooperate, and a couple I passed asked me if I knew where a Japanese Restaurant was around there. I ended up getting back to my car at 7:05, and it was in the process of not being towed or having a ticket written for it's expired parking permit. Still, it was time to go, and I still didn't want to pay to park anywhere else, so I knew it was time to get out of the downtown area. Also, throughout the course of the day, the mirror on my camera had stuck intermittently (a problem that didn't manifest during the baseball game, but that was getting frustrating).
I decided I should stay near town so I could take it back to the camera repair shop the next morning, which resulted in me heading back to the Walmart I had slept at the night before. What I forgot until I had almost arrived, is that it was Friday, and they don't work on weekends. I decided I'd go ahead and stay there, but instead of staying around Seattle, the plan was to move on with the route of the North Cascades, and if the camera kept acting up during that time, I could return to Seattle to have them check it out after I finish the loop.
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