Walked down to Pike's Place Market today-- here's a shot of the outside approach.  The hotel (Sheraton) is about 5 blocks down Pike from the market, so you can come in on the top floor without any of the happy hillclimbing that you do from the other direction.

There's a particularly nice fruit stand outside the market-- prices, of course, are lower inside. :-)  But it was very nice and I took a couple of shots.  Quite an array of produce!

As you can see, they have some really nice flower-and-chili strings for decoration on their sign, and the whole thing is quite pleasant.

I tried a closeup of the chili strings, but it didn't quite come out as well as I'd hoped!

Right inside the market is the brass pig.   Folks sure do like to have their kids ride the pig! Had to wait a while to get a clear shot, with all the people putting little kids on top of it.  The pig symbolizes prosperity for the market.  There's probably some folk story about this pig, wish I knew it.  :-)   Note the trail of brass hoofprints leading to it, ditto on the story part. :-)  They each have names on them, and all the floor tiles have names as well.  I think these are benefactors who helped rebuild/restore the market at one point.  

Right behind the pig is a big show at the market-- the flying fish stand!  At least, that's what I call it, I'm not sure what the correct name is!  Unfortunately I lost a few pictures from a mistake in downloading them that I didn't discover until I'd deleted from the camera (oops!).  So the picture with the sign is missing!  However, here is a catch in progress; the guys behind the counter throw the fish to the guys working the outside, and they toss it back again too! They'll also throw one to you so you can say you caught it yourself! Ask 'em to wrap it first, though-- yick!

And right after a successful catch!  They toss those things around pretty fast, and they like to tease each other too.  One guy picked up a 40 pound tuna and the crowd went wild, but he put it right back again.  Ditto with the octopus-- unfortunately, another picture I lost.  Doh!!!

Now this is great-- they have a huge ugly fish, in this case a monkfish but in the past they've used small sharks, between two rows of fish on the ice of their display.  They tie a rope to its tail, and run the rope behind the counter.  When things are a little slow, they wait until there are little kids or teenage girls in front of that part of the stand, then ZAP, they let out a foot or two of slack!!!  The huge ugly fish "lunges out" (slides down the crushed ice) and hangs a couple of inches over the edge of the stand!  Screeches from the hapless victims, big laugh from the crowd.  Glad it wasn't me.  :-)  

Just to the right of the main entrance is a really nice flower stand that sells only dried flowers and bouquets.  Plenty of fresh flower stands further in, but this was pretty neat and very attractive.

Another nice produce stand, about halfway into the market.  Gotta shop carefully here, one stand will have some of your ingredients for a buck a pound more than the next one, but others at half the price-- go figure.  Surrounded by all these ingredients, though, I sure wished I had a place to cook while I'm here! 

Found a neat vegetable at one of the stands, something I call "fractal broccoli".  It's really "Romanesco broccoli" and is apparently quite an old varietal.  Very strange looking, but the sign proclaims it "sweet mild flavor".  Looks computer generated to me!

At the very end of the top floor was the dealer who makes kid's costumes and hats for all ages.  We got a jester hat for Mike when we were up in Seattle for New Year 1999, and I was very pleased to see the guy.  Turns out he has a website,  Just Horsin' Around , for his business.  I asked him if I could take a picture, and he agreed, and wondered if I could send him a copy since I had a digital camera.  I sent him the two pix below, and hope they are of use to him! 

There's a row of art stands outside, where I met one of the artists I like (completely by surprise-- the guy who did the pen and ink art that hangs over our livingroom desk, he was selling there).  Was just trying to get the art stands, but inadvertantly captured the smoochy people who I'd been trying to politely not photograph in earlier shots.  They seemed pretty wrapped up in each other.  I  missed Mike already. 

Right across the street from the row of art stands are some nice apartments with terraces and gardens.  Must be pretty fun to live on top of the action all the time.  Except when you want some peace and quiet, of course.

Saw the ferry come in, snapped a quick one of it on the docks down below.  You can get an idea of how fierce those stairs are if you come up via waterfront!!  Thanks but no thanks.  :-)

From a slightly different vantage, the Kingdome and the new stadium they are building next to it.  In the words of one resident, "we only voted it down in two referendums, so the city council went ahead and started building it-- hello?! anyone home?!".  Oh well.  

Okay, I'm overdue to get to sleep.  But because it wouldn't be a letter home without something to do with my cats, a gratiuitous Boo picture, sleeping in a box a month or so ago and not previously downloaded.  Boo in a Box!  The one, the only.  :-)

The end!