In Seattle

In Seattle

On Monday, I worked for the morning and then in the afternoon, went into Seattle with a retired Boeing Engineer, Ernie, who I’d met at the bar the night before.  He kindly offered to show me around and I took him up on the offer.Seattle is a really pretty city that reminds me a lot of Melbourne.  I think this is because it’s of a similar (maybe slightly smaller) size, can be walked around, and was also built with gold rush money.  Architecturally, there are lots of interesting buildings.Of course I saw a Starbucks, although I’m told they are not as succesful now as they were, and not even the preferred chain for Seattle coffee drinkers.

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Ernie suggested we have lunch at Shuckers, an old fashioned style oyster bar in the Olympia hotel. Seattle is famous for it’s seafood and the salmon in particular was exceptional. I think I ate salmon about 4 times during my stay and it was always exceptionally good.

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After Shuckers we worked to the Public Market. This is very much like Victoria Market in Melbourne, but a bit smaller. It was still good fun to have a look around.

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While we were there, I was amused to see Pikes Fish Market, the “home” of the management book “Fish!”. You may not of heard of this, but it was the rage in the corporate world a few years back, so it’s kind of amusing to see the people in question the book was based on.

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The story is simply that Pikes are famous for having fun at work — and they do. Tossing whole salmon back and forwards across the counter, all shouting out when they make a sale, pretending to throw kids across the counter. For every person buying something, there was about 10 standing watching. There was a very ugly fish in the centre of the display called a Monk Fish, and whenever anyone stopped to look at it, they would pull a string hidden in the ice which made it open it’s mouth, scaring the person who had stopped.After the afternoon in Seattle it was back to the hotel where I met the Microsoft people for a reception drink which was also fun.