Interesting clouds in the sky west of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Cancun, Mexico on November 1st.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Pike Street Market and the Space Needle - Seattle

Friday started off as a rainy day...welcome to Seattle!

We took the bus from the north end to downtown. It was about a forty minute ride and the bus stop was right out front of where we're staying. Pretty convenient, and priced at $2.25 ($2.55 CAN) per person.

The one bus brought us right downtown.

We went to the Seattle Tourism office and picked up some maps and other information. From there, we wandered straight towards the waterfront, and the famous Pike Place Market.

Pike Place Market.

Lots of people at Pike Place Market.

It's a bit of a touristy place, but it's lots of fun to explore. And although we wouldn't do any of our grocery shopping here, it's definitely worth a visit just to wander around, talk to the vendors, and try some of the many free samples being offered. Plus, it's the perfect place to spend an hour and a half or so indoors and out of the drizzle!


They have a public seating area and viewpoint where you can sit and eat if you brought a homemade lunch like we did.

Make sure that you stop in at the Market Magic Shop where the owner will do a magic trick for you. But make sure you say please!

And, we came across a Korean restaurant.

Have to say, it was pretty funny to come across this Korean restaurant the day after arriving back in North America from Seoul. The lady was pretty impressed that we said hello in Korean, and when we told her we had just come back from there, she said "I'm jealous!"

Lots of fruits and veggies!

This is a type of cauliflower. Never seen anything like it before.

Looks almost as good as Mexican produce markets.

The flower bouquets were really well done, and most were a reasonable $10.

Decorations made with different peppers!

By 1:30pm or so, it had stopped raining and we walked to the library. It's an interesting building, about 10 stories high, but missing every second floor in areas. Very different design, but also very difficult to photograph. We're doing an architectural tour tomorrow, so maybe we'll learn a little more about it then.

On the 3rd floor of the downtown Seattle Public Library.

From downtown, we decided to walk to the Space Needle. It's about a mile, so about a 20 minute walk. Or, you can take the monorail that was built in 1962 for the World's Fair and pay $2.25 ($2.55 CAN) for the two minute ride.

We chose to walk. There is no better way to get to know a city than by walking it! Besides, by this time it had started to clear up, and we even had a few glimpses of the sun.

View of the Space Needle zoomed in from a distance.

The Space Needle, looking up from the bottom.

View of downtown Seattle from the top of the Space Needle.

And, looking out towards Puget Sound.

The Space Needle is an interesting attraction. Built in 1962 in time for the Seattle World's Fair, it has become a very well known Seattle landmark. But although it's a fun trip to get to the top and look around, we can't see a lot of value in the $21 adult ticket price. 

Instead, if you want a view of Seattle, we'd recommend a visit to the Skyview Observatory on the 73rd floor of the Columbia Center. There, you only pay $12.50 for a trip to the top.

Of course if you did that, you wouldn't get the free cheesy photo of yourself and the Space Needle!


By the time we were ready to leave downtown, it was into Friday rush hour traffic. The bus route out of downtown was just crawling, so we decided to walk. And we ended up walking the entire four and a half miles (7 kms) back home! It took a little over an hour and a half, so not bad. And, we saved $4.50 in bus fare. :-)

We took our host Lauren out to a nearby taco place for dinner. The tacos were almost as good as the ones we'll be eating in Mexico in less than two weeks! Very authentic tacos at the TNT Taqueria on 45th St.! Three of us ate for $24 ($27.12), so not bad. 

18 comments:

  1. Thanks for the great tour of Seattle, love those markets always fun to browse.

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    1. The market was fun to look at, they had some pretty neat things there!

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  2. We enjoyed people watching at Pike Place Market. The Fish Market was a hoot.

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    1. Yep, there are definitely lots of interesting people there to watch. The guys at the Fish Market look like they have a ton of fun working there.

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  3. Pike Place Market looks like it would be a great place to purchase what you need if you were staying longer.

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    1. The fruits and vegetables look beautiful but if we lived there I am afraid that there is no way we could afford to buy them.

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  4. Did you miss the throwing of the fish at the Fish Market? Pure Seattle!

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    1. Nope we didn't miss it! Looks like the guys have a lot of fun working there.

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  5. 2.95 for a grapefruit?? We paid 79 cents yesterday in Toronto.
    Love Seattle. We took the Underground tour there and really enjoyed it.

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    1. We thought the exact same thing! We would never pay $2.95 for one grapefruit.

      The Underground Tour was very interesting and we enjoyed it.

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  6. We stayed at a bed and breakfast close to the water front on 4th of July. Awesome fireworks on a barge. The breakfast was out of this world...so good and they made us a lunch when we left to go exploring....saved money on food & the B&B was all that expensive. There is a hole-in-the-wall fish fry on one of the priers...fish was so good.

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    1. Glad that you were able to enjoy your visit here.

      We have also been able to have breakfast before we left the house and we also bought some food so that I could make sandwiches, some carrot sticks and fruit to take along with us for lunch. this certainly helps to keep our costs down as well.

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  7. We did the underground tour as well, the tour guide looked at my sandals and called them " rat hors d'ouvre trays"!

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  8. Be sure to tell everyone it rains all the time, that's what we do. And that big bright ball in the sky is just orange rain.

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    1. We've been doing great so far with the rain. When we have been out and about it has been dry. Hopefully all we will see of the rain will be that "orange rain". :-)

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