Category Archives: Stores and other places that sell you things

It’s the Year of the Dragon

What luck! The family decided to get out of the house today and each of us picked a place to go. Dear daughter wanted to go to Uwajimaya in the International District of Seattle. When we got there we learned that it is the Chinese New Year and they were having special events, such as a dragon parade. While we were there was grabbed lunch in the food court and picked up some groceries (pocky, drinks, fortune cookies). Uwajimaya is a wonderful store, which is full of treasures. It actually started in Tacoma, but when the US entered WWII the family was sent to Tule Lake Internment Camp in California. After the war, they felt more welcome in Seattle and settled themselves and their new store there. It was a loss for Tacoma! It is the largest Japanese grocery store in the Pacific Northwest.

http://www.uwajimaya.com/

   

Harbor Freight Tools

I was sent to Harbor Freight Tools at 5401 6th Avenue  Tacoma, WA 98406 to purchase knee pads. They had really good prices, perhaps because of the sale, and some unusual products. Their website is http://www.harborfreight.com/

Moon over QFC

I went to a late Holiday Party last Friday and dashed into the QFC at 4101 49th Avenue Northeast
Tacoma (Brown’s Point) for a goodie to bring.They really have a great bakery. I picked the yellow cake on the bottom row, third from the left and it was as good as it looked! This appears to be the only QFC in Tacoma, with other locations including Gig Harbor and Parkland. The chain is headquartered in Bellevue, WA and has about 75 stores in the Puget Sound area. Kroger required the chain in 1998, though QFC has maintained its own identity.

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Washington State Surplus

Washington State sells equipment that it no longer needs at their General Administration Surplus location at 7511 New Market Street, Tumwater, WA 98512.  My dear husband thinks it is great fun to go there and buy stuff for pennies on the dollar (if we need it or not). Today we bought a couple of VGA cords for me and some speakers for him. In the past he’s come home with a nice, rolling desk chair for $15 that we’ve used a great deal. Mostly they stock office furniture and equipment, but they usually have a nice selection of knives taken from people flying in commercial planes. Last time I was there, they were selling large crab traps!

http://www.ga.wa.gov/surplus/index.html

Mattress Mania

 

I’ve gone past Mattress Mania at 2901 S 12th St., Tacoma, WA 98405 plenty of times, but on Wednesday I paused to consider it for a moment. The Tacoma Public Library indicates that in 1909 the site was occupied by I.E. Russell Drug Store and in 1930 by Twelfth Street Drug Co. and in 1950 by Fowler’s Twelfth Street Drug Co. The Pierce County Assessor’s Office shows that the building was constructed in 1938 and I’m unsure if the original building was demolished

Pierogies at the Russian Market in Tacoma

About 16 years ago I tutored a lovely woman from Russia in English. We worked together a couple of years and while we were fairly different we really got along. Towards the end of our time together she had her 10th child and her husband left her to return to Russia.

I remember one holiday season I was given about 10 passes to zoolights. I had the brain storm that it would be fun to take my friend and her nine (at the time) kids and I would buy the tickets for me and another friend. I told her there was no cost, but because of our language differences didn’t even try to explain that somebody had given me complimentary tickets.  When we met up at Zoolights, I was surprised to find that my Russian friend had indeed brought her nine kids, as well as her folks, her sister, her sisters six kids and maybe a few more.  Ummm. I really didn’t have the funds to cover that many and they sure didn’t either. So we sent the large Russian contingency in first with all the tickets that we did have. They handed over the tickets and the poor zoo worker started counting them and counting the crowd (all of whom were jabbering away in Russian) and then the zoo worker threw up her hands and ushered everybody in! Problem solved.

All of this came back because my dear daughter informed me yesterday that she had to have pierogies for dinner. Her father had recently introduced her to pierogies and she really took to them! And apparently the pierogies at the the Russian Grocery were the very best.  The Russian Grocery Store’s real name is Friendly Foods and it is located at 3612 Center St #B in Tacoma. It is the size of a large convenience store and is stock full of foods imported from Russia. Most of the customers and workers were speaking Russian (which is what reminded me of my friend!).  I picked up three types of pierogies, though there were probably another eight types there — mostly meat, but also a black cherry. The store included a wonderful bakery case and a deli.

Bridgeway Market in Purdy

I have a couple of blog rules.

  •  Be safe
  • No photos of kids (maybe a crowd with some kids in it, but no kids on the playground or alone because I don’t want to be creepy!)
  • If I have more then one potential new place of the day, take the one that is the furthest away or would be the most difficult to get back to.
  •  If I absolutely can’t get to a new place that day, the world will not end

So, I missed two days because of Christmas (and that’s OK) and today I found myself at Bridgeway Market in Purdy (6707 Tyee Dr NW, Gig Harbor, WA 98332). Purdy is an unincorporated community just north of Gig Harbor. I was expecting to find an upscale, small market, but it is really more of a large convenience store. It has a basic selection of groceries and snack foods, and a fairly large assortment of beer and wine. In an attached space there is a small teriyaki restaurant. What distinguishes this small market is its location on the Burley Lagoon next to the Purdy Bridge. I could smell the salt air when I opened my car door.

Rankos Pharmacy

Rankos Drug at 101 North Tacoma Avenue in the Stadium District has been around since the late 1930s and operated along Pacific Avenue from the late 1920s. The buildings original owner occupant was Gray Goose Coffee Shop & Confectionery. Rankos is family owned and independent and in addition to the pharmacy it has a small post office and an interesting assortment of gift items. I picked up a darling stocking stuffer for dear daughter and some cough drops.

Their website has some wonderful historic photos that are worth a look. http://www.rankospharmacy.com/

Walgreens is now open

The Walgreens at 4315 Sixth Avenue has previously been the site of a small strip center. (See entry http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=1128). The store is next to a drive though Starbuck and while the construction was under way, it was really difficult to partake in a coffee fix! But now that the Walgreens is open, the two uses seem to be sharing their common ingress and egress without too many difficulties. The store is extra clean and the employees welcoming.

City Blocks for Serious Fun

Yesterday I stopped at Freighthouse Square for dinner before I went off to a class. While there I stopped at City Blocks, which is at 440 East 25th Street, Suite 46, Tacoma WA 98402. Their facebook page says that they are the “The world’s only public LEGO Commercial Art Studio”. Indeed when I visited they were happy to show me the Lego custom pieces they were working on and they were pretty cool! More info can be found on their Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/cityblocks