Ventures Marketplace at Pike Place Market - Helping Beginning Artists to Become Entrepreneurs

Of all the places we visited in Seattle, the one place we spent the most time and enjoyed the most was the Pike Place Market Centre.


There were many things to see and lots of shops to visit.

Th

We recently visited the Ventures Marketplace at Pike Place Market.

Among the numerous stores we visited at Pike Place Market, Marketplace stood out the most for me.









The goal of the Ventures store is to " empower individuals with limited resources and unlimited potential to improve their lives through small business ownership."

Ventures Marketplace, Pike Place Market, Seattle

  The Ventures Marketplace is a modern, clean and hip store. We enjoyed looking at all the mechanize displayed throughout the shop. The items displayed  in the store were not only beautiful, but original, unique and practical.

Decorative signs made out of recycled colourful paper at Ventrues Marketplace

For instance, these beautiful signs in the store were made by a local artist who collected different types of used paper of various colour. These paper were rolled up and arranged together to form the background for the creative inspirational 1 word messages to be displayed in homes or offices.

What a great way to recycle used paper, books and magazines!

The artist's self introduction displayed at the Ventures Marketplace 

Another aspect of the Ventures Marketplace I found unique and touching was the self introduction written by the artists being displayed in the stores.

Very often we buy things without knowing one iota about the people or country who produce them.

But at Ventures Marketplace, I felt a sense of personal connection with the artists whose creative items I was admiring and might consider having some of them displayed in my house.






















Ventures Marketplace at Pike Place is an awesome store providing opportunities to local artists with limited resources to sell their creative work.

I was glad that we visited the store, I even gave a suggestion to the storekeeper for a souvenir plate made by a local artist. The store keeper assured me that she would relate my suggestion to the artist.

We plan to visit Seattle in the fall again and hope that I would be able to find the item to which I gave a suggestion for improvement in the Ventures Marketplace Store.


R.T.
Ventures Marketplaces Store
Pike Place Market
Seattle, USA

Pike Place Market, Seattle - My Most Favourite Market in North America!

Before we came to visit Seattle, I heard of Pike Market from friends who visited there before.
We have our own market in Toronto and I have visited many other local farmers' markets.
However, nothing compared to what we saw at Pike Market.

Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, USA

Pike Place Market is located on the waterfront of Seattle overlooking Elliott Lake.
 It has been crowned as the most instagrammed location in Washington State for 2017!

An old book store in the old section of Pike Place

It  is a big place with a number of buildings and there are many things so see.

 We spent an afternoon at Pike Place Market and visited mainly the craft building, the produce and fish market.

Artwork and paintings by local artists for sale everyday at Pike Place

Life like flowers made out of clay at the Pike Market

I enjoy doing crafts and love spending time looking at interesting and original crafts such as these lifelike tiny flowers made out of clay above; and

Below the creative 3 dimensional pictures sewn together with a beach theme.Totally loved it!

A fabric art piece sewn together with  numerous 3 dimensional figures on a beach theme

We could have easily explored the market for a whole day getting lost among all the shops.

An abundance of fresh fish and seafood for sale at the Market

We tried a number of freshly prepared food at the market including clam chowder, a mussels and clam combo platter, some rich Russian pastries.

Huge King Crabs and seafood at the Fish Market

There was an abundance of  fresh seafood, produce and good restaurants at the Market.

Italian Caulifower

In the Produce Building,  we saw a few vegetables which we had never seen before such as this Romanesco ( Italian cauliflower).

I wish we could have bought some home and tried them.



















When we were tired, we took a break and and tried some local food.


We tried the crab seafood sandwich served on biscuits in the new building of the market.

We also stopped at Beecher's, one of the food stores.  It is not just a restaurant. It is a cheese making store.

We sampled the cheese produced at the shop. There were freshly made grilled cheese sandwiches,  macaroni and cheese or other food items for customers to purchase and enjoy.

Cheese making at Beecher's Pike Place Market

While enjoying the food,  we could sit and observe the entire process of cheese making from the beginning to the end at the store.

A free lesson and demo on cheese making.

Very interesting and educational!

Nice music flowing out of this store selling LPs.

A shop selling 3D wood puzzles at Pike Place

There were shops and stalls selling crafts, gifts, clothes, accessories and antique items such as comic books, LP records.

A shop selling old coins and posters.

I wonder how long it would have taken us if we had stopped at every store and taken a quick look.











Too bad, we did not have time to do that.

Ventures Marketplace, Pike Place Market, Seattle

Of all the things we saw, there were three stops where we enjoyed ourselves the most:

1. The Crafts Building
2. The Ventures Marketplace store selling unique gifts from local entrepreneurs
3. The Giant Shoe

A humourous sign displayed by a shop owner at Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market was a fun place to visit, browse, explore, shop and eat!








We had a hearty laugh reading some of the humorous signs we saw at the Market.

I thought of my brothers and the men who own tools when I saw this sign!

I couldn't help to compare my height with the tallest man in the world when we passed by the Shoe Museum.

We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of our visit and we would definitely come back again.

Pike Place Market, Seattle

Pike Place Market, with free admission, is a must see place for visitors to Seattle!

R.T.
Pike Place Market
Seattle, Washington
USA

Visiting the First Starbucks Store at Pike Place, Seattle, USA

Seattle is a city where many big American business  and companies were started and are currently located.

Starbucks, opened its first store right here in Seattle.

There are currently over 400 Starbucks stores in the city of Seattle alone!

The first Starbucks, at Pike Place, Seattle

Seattle is a city with a strong coffee culture. We have seen many other coffee shops around besides this coffee giant.

We came across the first Starbucks on our very first night  here.

It was well past 8pm on Martin Luthur King Day, a public holiday in the U.S., so there were few people in the store. We were lucky.


The next day when we passed by the same Starbucks in the morning, there was a lineup outside.

The first Starbucks was established in 1971 at Pike Place, Seattle, in the state of Washington, USA.

1971 was a very special year for our family and I will remember this date for sure.


















Starbucks has built its brand identity since the beginning with the company's belief in offering its customers a relaxing and enjoying experience. 

It has created a third place, between home and work, where people can enjoy a cup of coffee.









 A phenomenal success after 47 years and without spending money on advertising, Starbucks currently has 26,000 stores in 75 countries! Starbucks' success is attributed to the fact that it has been able to deliver its brand consistently and effectively in all its stores across the world.

Self serving counter, the first Starbucks Store, Seattle

The first Starbucks store is still decorated as it was when opened in 1971.


We saw the original cupboards, flooring and serving counters all in dark colour but faded from that era. However, the store did not seem to have any seating for its customers at all.

Jeannie, our friend from Vancouver told me that the coffee from this Starbucks store was extraordinary good. She kept going back there as it served a special quality of coffee reserved only for its first store customers at Pike Market.















She and Andrew  bought a big bag of this special coffee back to Vancouver.

As for me, I am satisfied with the coffee we have in Canada!

R.T.
First Starbucks Store
Pike Place
Seattle, Washington
USA

Learning about the Injustice Done to Japanese Americans on Bainbridge Island

Bainbridge Island is a quiet and picturesque suburb of Seattle.

 To get to the island, you need to take a 35 minute ferry ride from  the Seattle terminal.

The population of Bainbridge Island is only about 25,000 people, with many of the residents commuting daily to work in Seattle.

There are a lot of parkland and forests around.

Right by the ferry terminal, we saw a market for commuter as well as a bike storage place.

Since we only had a few hours to learn about this island and its history, we visited the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum.

Displays in front of the museum

Only a stone throw away from the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal, the museum was easy to find after a 5 minute walk.





















We toured the museum, listened to the museum staff and watched a 20 minute video and learned about the mistreatment of Japanese Americans by its government at the time.



















In March of 1942, two months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 and ordered Japanese Americans to be evacuated from Bainbridge Island.

All people of Japanese decent
 ( aliens and American citizens)  had six days to prepare for their evacuation.

At the time, Bainbridge Island was a small rural community with a population of about 3000 people.

On March 30, 1942, 227 Japanese Americans, men, women and children were removed by armed military personnel to a relocation camp in Manzanar, California.

Bainbridge Island was the first community on the west coast affected by this unjust wartime decision.

In the end, about 110,000 to 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were interned in the western interior camps. 62% of those interned were US citizens.

Source - Wikipedia

Chief Seattle speech was on display in the Bainbridge Island Museum

A force evacuation meant that Japanese Americans lost their civil liberties, their jobs, properties and businesses at the time.

A perceived threat by the American government that Japanese Americans could be spies for the enemies drove them to intern an entire segment of the population by race.

I often wonder Germany and Italy were also at war with the allies at the time. However, no German or Italian Americans were forcibly removed from their home towns in America during WWll.

Therefore, what was the real motive behind the Japanese Americans' internment?

An antique shop on Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA

America always prides itself as the land of the free? How true is this, really?






















After visiting the museum, we strolled along the main street in the Bainbridge downtown.

Downtown Bainbridge is small and neat reminding me of a small village.

Downtown Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA

There were bistro tables and chairs put out for visitors and pedestrians visiting the area.

Winslow Mall, Bainbridge Island

 Winslow Mall is located on the downtown main street.

Since it was a cool winter and rainy day, there was little vehicle or pedestrian traffic on the streets or in the mall

But the area was quaint and pretty, a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Seattle.

Night View of the of Seattle's Waterfront, USA

The Great Wheel at night, Seattle

We bought some small souvenirs from one of the stores and took the ferry back to Seattle.

The night view of Seattle from the ferry was awesome!

We had dinner at a restaurant close to our hotel.

It was a tiring but fun day for all of us!




R.T.
Bainbridge Island
Washington State
USA