Expat Bostonians

Pike Place Market in Seattle is one of those places you know is a tourist trap, but you have to go anyway.  Home of the dudes who throw fish (no, really, they throw fish), the ORIGINAL Starbucks and other quirky things, there really wasn’t any way I could skip it, even as my friend Kelli teased me about my taste in destinations.

Hard to describe, but Pike Place Market is a multi level (several floors under ground) and multi block experience.  There are restaurants, food stalls, flower stalls, shops, fruit/veggie stalls, craft stalls, and all manner of random thing to be found inside.

It’s hard to say if they’re more famous for this, the guys who throw the fish, or the original Starbucks.  I’ve seen this on tv on the far too many travel channel shows I love, but I wanted to see it in person.  Kelli humored me, as I’m sure she humors all her out of town friends, waiting patiently with me until they started throwing fish around.

Pike Place Market’s unofficial mascot, Rachel, a bronze cast piggy bank that weighs 550 pounds (250 kg), has been located since 1986 at the corner of Pike Place under the “Public Market Center” sign. Rachel was designed by local artist Georgia Gerber and modeled after a pig (also named Rachel) that lived on Whidbey Island and was the 1977 Island County prize-winner. Rachel receives roughly US$6,000–$9,000 annually in just about every type of world currency, which is collected by the Market Foundation to fund the Market’s social services.^[88][89]

Rachel provided the theme for the Pigs on Parade fundraiser that was first held in 2001 and was one of several events in various cities modeled on a similar 1998 event in Zurich; the Zurich event centered on cows and was the first of what have come to be known as CowParades.^[90][91] A similar Pigs On Parade fundraiser was held in 2007 on the occasion of the Market centennial, which happened to coincide with the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Pig.^[92][93]

source

Sunflowers!

Cherries and Mt. Rainier Cherries

In general, I like the produce I find in Singapore.  I especially love that strawberries are never out of season for very long.  There are Aussie, Korean, Japanese, and American strawberries, and that makes life good.  But the one thing we don’t find here is great corn.  You find small ears of corn, but nothing like large and robust corn ears that are widely available at farm stands locally to Boston every fall.  So seeing these ears of corn made me more than a little wistful.

The sign at the “original” Starbucks, which according to Wikipedia is really the second Starbucks (see bolded section below)…

The first Starbucks was opened in Seattle, Washington, on March 30, 1971 by three partners: English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker. The three were inspired by entrepreneur Alfred Peet (whom they knew personally) to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment.^[7] The name is taken from Moby-Dick; after Pequod was rejected by one of the co-founders, the company was named for the first mate on the Pequod, Starbuck.

From 1971–1975, the first Starbucks was at 2000 Western Avenue; it then was relocated to 1912 Pike Place, where it remains to this day. During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans from Peet’s, then began buying directly from growers.   Source

What I love is that the sign is the older logo, which has since become less explicit (no nipples on the mermaid, for example if you check your local Starbucks as compared to the sign above) and the store looks not so much like a generic Starbucks, but what it started out as…a coffee shop in a city that loves its coffee.

The obvious draw-back is that it is obviously NOT a simple coffee shop any more.  It is a major tourism destination for Seattle (so much that the Seattle.gov page has a dedicated page for it).  The lines and crowds reflect this, which detract from that.  But looking in you get an idea of what the genesis of Starbucks might have been like.

I loved it, and will probably explore it again the next time I’m in town.  We grabbed lunch at a restaurant, so I wasn’t hungry when we passed the fresh home made donut stand (which otherwise looked like a must-see).

One caveat for parents…Pike Place?  NOT stroller friendly.  Tons of stairs, not a lot of elevators.  Leave the stroller at home.

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Here is a shot I took of Mt. Rainier in Washington State on our drive from Seattle, WA to Portland, OR.

Things I learned today about Mt. Rainier as I was researching it for this blog post

• It is an ACTIVE volcano, although there hasn’t been a documented eruption in over 100 years  (I thought it was just a mountain)
• If it were to erupt, the resulting mud slides could take out part of Downtown Seattle
• It has glaciers on it (who knew a volcano could have glaciers?  Not me)
• In 1899, it was declared the 5th national park in the US
• There was a large controversy over naming it Rainier, when the local tribes had named it Tacoma
• On average, 2 people die each year trying to climb Rainier

Source: Wikipedia, the lazy person’s encyclopedia

Personally, I found Mt. Rainier to be gorgeous, although I never got much closer than it than this view.  My favorite viewing of it, though, was the day I visited the Space Needle, and was driving home around sunset.  As the sun’s last rays hit the mountain, the sky and the snow were almost pink.  It was breathtaking, and if I hadn’t been driving down a highway without a good idea of where it might be safe to pull over, I would have stopped to take pictures for at least a full half hour.  As it was, I enjoyed the show and was sad when my exit finally came.

Massachusetts does not have mountains.  We have the Berkshires, which are large hills, but nothing on this scale.  Even as I’ve passed through Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire (where the White Mountains are) I’ve never seen anything as gorgeous as Mt. Rainier (or, more to the point, the mountains in general in Washington State).  I was particularly fascinated when I stood on a beach, looking out at the Puget Sound and could see the mountains in the distance.  The Pacific Northwest is absolutely breathtaking.  I only wish it HAD rained while I was there so I could have seen the mountains without the smog interfering with visibility.

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This is the Space Needle.  It is Seattle’s famous tourist trap for those of us who like to see a city from up high (in this case, the observation deck is 520 feet or 184 meters off the ground…source).  When it was built for the 1962 World’s Fair, it was the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River, according to Wikipedia.

Cheesy as it might be, it was on my list of stuff that would be fun to do/see in Seattle, so on one afternoon that Kelli was busy, I went on my own (she begged me not to drag her there–much like several things in Boston, it’s one of those places you always end up with out of town visitors, and that loses its appeal fairly quickly).

I bought my ticket and rode to the top, wandering the exterior.  A friend called (the cell reception was excellent) so I decided to take a moment to sit and chat with her while I admired the view.  I picked a random bench that wasn’t near too many people (so I wouldn’t disturb others), which ended up being the best seat in the house for what happened next…

 A WEDDING BROKE OUT!

No, really, a wedding broke out.

The moment the Justice of the Peace asked people if they wouldn’t mind not walking in the small part they were taking up for the 5-10 minutes they needed for the ceremony, I got off my phone and enjoyed sharing this wonderful moment with the couple.

Best Wishes!

As you might imagine, I was kind of thrown by this turn of events, and forgot to take a lot of pictures of the skyline and the mountains.  Although, to be fair, as it hadn’t recently rained, the visibility was not fantastic, thanks to smog and pollution.  However, here are two of the better shots…

Mountains in the distance (I don’t think Mt. Ranier is one of them, but don’t quote me)

Edited to add–Yes, Kelli says that those are the Olympic Mountains.  Mt. Rainier is in the Cascade Range.  I have a gorgeous picture of it that I’ll share another time.

The city skyline (part of it).

It’s a touristy experience, and you shouldn’t expect much more of it than that.  For about 20 dollars you get a super fast elevator ride to the observation deck, you wander around looking at the skyline (which is pretty, although it’s much prettier I’m told after a rainfall when the smog isn’t so heavy), you take the fast elevator down and are deposited in the inevitable gift shop.  To be fair, though, I found great gifts for my girls–pj’s for Ellie and a onesie for the baby.  It’s not something you’ll spend all day at, and it’s next to another giant tourist trap (the Experience Music Project/Sci-Fi Museum–which I’ll write about another day) so you could spend an afternoon in the area.

But I still think it’s fun…once, maybe twice.

Filed under: Pictures, Seattle, US | 1 Comment »

My internet at the hotel has been unpredictable and cranky, so I’m going to make this fast.

My first stop was Alki Beach on the Puget Sound.  I enjoyed the mild heat (81F, 28C) as I strolled by the water.  I watched people paddleboarding (is that the right term for what he’s doing?) and couldn’t get over how gorgeous the mountains looked.

I wandered up to where the lighthouse is, but unfortunately it was closed.  However, just up the road, I found a small beachlet, with some gorgeous driftwood.

I stopped to take a picture of the skyline at a conveinently marked look-out point.

There were blackberries growing at the look-0ut point, so I used a technique I learned in photography class to keep them in focus while blurring the background of the Seattle skyline to make a picture I really like.

I stopped and had some bbq before heading to a glassblowing studio near Pioneer Square.  I didn’t take a picture, but I found the cutest blown glass teddy bear for the new baby’s room and I’m shipping it home to Singapore.  Then I drove to my friend K’s home and hung out with her and her gorgeous two kids (we met in a birth community when we were pregnant with our first–her R is 2 weeks younger than Ellie).  I ended the night with some retail therapy at a local mall, including some delicious chocolate covered strawberries from Godiva.

More later, depending on how the internet holds up here!

Filed under: Pictures, Seattle, US | 2 Comments »