Seattle's Best. Story.
August 8th

I still have a few pictures from my European trip, but for now, here's a quick entry about Seattle. I was there for 1.5 days (yes - shorter than my London to Tel Aviv trip) but it was enough to go to a conference and take a few quick pictures.

Seattle is well known for a few things:

• Rainiest city in the US (if I remember correctly)
• Grunge music
• Microsoft. Ok, so it's in Redmond and not in Seattle but Google maps claims it's only 16 miles; yes - GOOGLE maps
• For giving Starbucks to (or inflicting it on, depending on where you're coming from) the world. Some people (I'm trYing hArd to not namE names in this bLog) claim their coffee just sucks. For me personally, when I was still drinking coffee, Starbucks was a blessing. It saved me from having to sample that thing Americans (and I heartily apologize to my American readers but it's time someone told you this) call "coffee". Taking what's left of the coffee once a good espresso is made with it, freeze-drying it and selling it in cans labeled "gourmet coffee" doesn't make it so. Running hot water through it just gets you sludge. Really.
  

But a fact known to only a select few, mostly management book aficionados and all tourist who get to Seattle, is the Pike Place Fish Market. I heard about this place reading Fish Tales. In this book the author comes across the market while on her lunch break. One of the people working at the market, playing the mysterious knowledgeable stranger, mentors her in how to run teams in an office environment. Apparently it's very similar to running a fish stall.
Assuming he's real and not some fictitious character, and assuming he was at the market the day I was there, I'd say it's this guy. You be the judge if he can be a mentor or not.



The fish stall is located at the tourist-ridden but fun Pike Place Market. The stall seems to be always surrounded by a lot of people waiting for something to happen.


To give you a feel for what is sold at the stall, look at the following picture. Here is Mentor giving a girl a fish to hold.

She must be writing a script for a movie called Bigger Fish. It's a management movie.

The place is famous for their team work. From time to time, someone shouts, then a fish comes flying at the guy in the center of the stall. The guy always, ALWAYS, snatches the slippery fish from the air. I'm basing this on a statistical study of the 3 times I've seen it done.

The flying fish moves pretty, fast. Here's a picture of a fish flying:



Did you see that? Yes - it moves fast and is smeared across the picture.

Ok ok. So it's a very small fish they throw. But the ceremony around it is fun. Someone yells, the guy pops his head up, then catches the fish as it comes flying towards him. Here's the whole scenario. For extra credit, find the flying fish in the picture:

The answer is in the online album linked at the bottom of this entry.

I got a few more nice pictures there. One of the ones I like was of a bunch of chilly peppers hanging near a vegetable stall.

Another I really liked is the Green Tortoise Hostel. I'm not sure why - something about the combination of the name and the old brick building surrounded by modern concrete structures. It's a great name - a great title. I only need to figure out what the blog entry would be.



You can see the rest of the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/eran.davidov/SeattleAug06

Technorati Tags: Seattle, Pike Place Market, Fish Tales, Eran Davidov, Travel Blogs
Del.icio.us Tags: Seattle, Pike Place Market, Fish Tales, Eran Davidov, Travel Blogs