This is more than a place to buy garlic and greens. It's a place to eat lunch, listen to live music and soak up the small town atmosphere. The Olympia Farmers Market is located downtown at 700 North Capitol Way. This traditional Asian garden, designed in the ancient hill and pond style, honors Olympia's sister city Yashiro, Japan . Classic gates, built without nails, open into a walled world where splashing water muffles the sound of the city.
Smooth stones contrast with lacy maples and spiky clumps of iris.
Two cutstone lanterns and a 13-tier pagoda were gifts to the garden from the city of Yashiro. The State Capitol Campus Washington's opulent Legislative building, completed in 1928, was the last great domed capitol built in America. Set on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, it stands 28 stories high. Forty-two broad granite steps lead up to the entrance which symbolize Washington's place as the 42nd state in the Union. A team of thirty artisans spent five years carving the building's details in sandstone, marble, and wood, Stone ox skulls circle the base of the dome in a frieze that commemorates Washington's ox-cart pioneers.