03/28/15 Pike Place Market Tour with Karen

I'm going to start with a picture today.

Al getting ready to be a Seattle tourist

I made reservations for The Taste of Seattle Tour - Pike Place Market to begin at 10:30. We were supposed to be there 20 minutes early so we planned to leave Karen's house around 9:40. We left Karen's a couple of minutes late then that was compounded by rush hour traffic or just plain traffic in the city that made us later and we missed a turn but I got a picture of  the home to the Seattle Seahawks . . . .that was cool.

Seahawks Home Field

We found the parking garage that they suggested but had no idea where to go from there until Al saw a sign for the elevator to the market . . . .we took that and arrived at the market about 10:40 so I called the number they gave us and the very nice lady on the other end directed us to Dilly's Doughnuts where we were able to met up with our tour. The best part about it was it was the 1st tasting spot on the tour. The tour consisted of about 12 people and a guide named CJ. We made several stops through the Market, learned some history and had a really great time. One of the best stops on the tour was at Pike Place Fish Co.

Known for it's famous throwing of the fish, CJ asked if anyone from our tour wanted to try to catch one. A guy named Peter volunteered.  Karen took a video  . . .see below

 

 

These are my pics of the fish throwing.
 This is CJ our guide with the fishmonger . . .I think his name was Eric.

 Eric getting ready for the throw. See the fish in his hands

Fish in the Air

 Peter missed and someone from behind the counter tossed the fish back to Eric . . .who caught it.

On one of the next stops we got to see what it was like behind the counter of Chakas Cherries and taste some delicious chocolate covered cherries . . . yum!

Look at the beautiful Spring Flowers. The huge bouquets in the front were $10 to $15. The all smelled so good.

Karen and I at Pike Place Market

One of the last stops on the tour was outside of the "Original Starbucks" In actuality the original Starbucks was down the street but burnt to the ground so they used the original license to open this store. There a bunch of rules that stores have to follow to be in the Market and so Starbucks sort of skirted the rules for this store. Note the original logo in the window. The musician playing outside was very good. They have rules to follow at the Market too. They can only play at the music notes painted on the sidewalks, they can only play for 1 hour at each spot and then they have to move and they have to get a $30 permit for the year to play.

The tour made it's final stop at the end of the Market Place. We had some fabulous crab cakes from Etta's Seafood, nearby restaurant of a famous Seattle chef Tom Douglas. Outstanding . . . .almost as good as those we get on the Outer Banks.

A few parting words from our guide and the tour was over. I would highly recommend it to anyone coming to the city from out of town.

As we walked back to the elevator and our car I took one final picture of the Seattle Great Wheel . . . something for next time we come to town along with visiting the Space Needle.

We made our exit from the city before the afternoon rush hour. We watched some TV (to catch up on NCIS before the 2nd part this week) and talked for awhile at Karen's house then decided to have some Lunch/Dinner/Happy Hour at The Alehouse. A very nice place to go and not very far from Karen's house.

Not the greatest picture of us but I'm posting it anyway.

Tomorrow we are going to find a geocache in a nearby park, relax and spend some more time with Karen.