Pike

Pike Place Market is renouned as one of the markets of the world. I've seen it ranked in the top 10, but the internet is inherently biased towards the US (for instance look up the 10 largest canyons in the world and many sites claim that the Grand Canyon in the US is the largest, when it actually comes in at about third or fifth, and quite a few lists only include US canyons). It certainly reminded me of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, but it has a lot more eating places, and fresh fruit and vegetables that the Grand Bazaar doesn't, and it's smaller.

The fish tossing shop is in Pike Place Market, but unfortunately I couldn't get a photo of the fish tossing (there was a crowd watching), but I got this one instead - which puzzled me a lot. Why would Chilean fish come from Australia?

The first ever Starbucks store is in the market too. They have a special card you can get, but the queue was out the door.

After I visited the market, I went to the Seattle Art Museum. As well as European, modern and classical art, they have indigenous art from the South Pacific, North West America, Africa and from Australia (including a number of the most intricate Arnaham Land bark paintings I have seen). And then it was getting late, so I wearily climbed back to where I'm staying.

My apartment is in a nice area, and is very close to all of downtown Seattle (for instance it's only one kilometre from the market), but it takes a lot longer to get back, because it is all uphill, and the hill is quite steep. I thought I was getting just a room (it was the cheapest place I could find), and I knew it had kitchen facilities, but it is a beautiful Art Deco building, on the building register for Seattle. My (small - it is their cheapest) apartment has a small bathroom and walk in robe, a separate kitchen complete with oven, full sized fridge etc., and a large sitting area. The bedroom only just fits two single beds. It was cheaper than any Airbnb place that was available, closer to town, and better quality.