Pike Place Market, Seattle (Picture heavy!)

Hubby and I were in Seattle playing tourist recently, so of course Pike Place Market was a must-see for us ^.^

Some of these pictures are from mum in law and some are from aunt D. They both took some really great ones!

The original Starbucks Coffee shop. Yep, this is where it all started. Apparently you can't directly apply to work there and all the baristas in the shop are experienced baristas transferred here from other shops around the country. And also, the street performers around the market stick to the rule of "2-hour slot," meaning they have to move somewhere else after every 2 hours so someone else can take the spot. Pretty neat!

We checked it out and bought some coffee beans as gifts ^.^

Looks pretty...normal inside :P

We were told it's always always crowded here, especially during morning rush hour, even with several other Starbucks around the corners...

Yes, I was a dorky tourist and these gals were so gracious as to oblige me.

Watching my Sea Salt Mocha made ^.^

The weather was beautiful that weekend, and we were told that unfortunately, it's not like that all the time and most of the time, it's rainy and gray in Seatttle. Boo.

Yes, we were photo-bombed and it was pretty hilarious ^.^

 

This is the stall for Stickman Leather, an indie leather craft store where we stopped to take a look...    

...And walked away with 3 beautiful hand-cut and sewn belts for hubby.

One of the belts was too long, so the sales-guy but and waxed it right then and there for us.

Even then, hubby liked his belts so much he returned to the stall the next day and came back with yet another gorgeous briefcase (the Lindy bag), which we brought back to Japan with us and he now carries it to school up in Tokyo ^.^ I was eyeing a few items as well, particularly the Molly Penny bag, but my beef with these bags is that they are heavy, and I prefer my bags on the light side because, well, I'm going to put stuff into them...

Another leather accessory stall next to Stickman Leather.

And mum in law snapped this picture of me snapping a picture of hubby ^.^ Isn't she funny?

Those are chile pepper bouquets.  

I never knew chili peppers can be so colorful!

 

Close up of the chili pepper bouquet. They look delicious, don't they? Haa...

This is Macrame Name Bracelets stall where I bought name bracelets for mum in law, aunt D. and her friend D., myself and hubby (which I wear lol...), and my sister ^.^

Pretty flowers ^.^

A street performer playing the erhu, my second favorite instrument next to the plucked zither. Check out Chthonic, a Taiwanese metal band who incorporate the erhu into their music, and The Hsu-nami, a New Jersey based "progressive erhu rock" band that was even featured in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic!

....And I have no idea which instrument this is, but it sounded really cool!

So this is where they would toss the fishies around, which is horrible because it bruises the fish and it won't taste very good anymore, but hey, it attracts visitors. I guess.

Check out those gigantic lobster tails! 

Just look at all that super duper fresh seafood!

Further down the market.

We bought a bunch of dark chocolate covered cherries at Chukar Cherries as gifts for our family and friends. These are dried cherries, not maraschino cherries, so they are a lot less sweet and retains their tanginess. They make an addicting combination with dark chocolate!

A fruit market.

The other end of Pike Place Market.


I've never seen such enormous garlic in my life! It'd probably take us several months to finish that...thing.