Day 13: Portland

Here we are, visiting one of the major points of the Great American Hipster Triangle.  Portland, that is.  At first glance, it seems, well....normal.  Just a well planned out medium sized city, albeit with ample public transportation a few more bridges.  

Our first touristy thing to do is the Lan Su Chinese Garden.  Modeled after the private gardens in Suzhou, China, it occupies a full block a little north of downtown.  Evidently, a city councilperson from Portland visited Suzhou and decided, "Hey, my town needs one of these, too!"  Which, if you've seen any episode of Portlandia, is exactly the sort of thing the mayor of that fictionalized Portland would do.

It is a exceedingly beautiful space, though.  From the walkways, made of carefully laid small rocks:

to its reflecting coi ponds:

and portalways:

Everything is done so carefully, and with purpose.  Nothing exists in this garden without having been placed there for a reason.  Windows and doors are set up to frame certain views, every tree is carefully planted and tended to so that it grows...just....so.  I tried experimenting with a square frame on these photos, rather than the normal 16:9, so we'll see if that helps the "framing" of things.

The teahouse on the grounds is quite lovely as well.  You pick a tea, and they serve it in an appropriate vessel.  However, there isn't much in the way of food.  And we were getting hungry.  We wandered into downtown, passed the famed Voodoo Donuts, which had a half hour wait to get in, at least.  Further along, we passed the famed food truck courts, but it was proving to be a typical Pacific Northwest day (cold and pissing rain), and we wanted some place to sit down inside.

We eventually stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant/hole in the wall called Santeria, which despite its incongruous name had quite nice Mexican food, with just enough of a hint of Tex-Mex (pinto beans rather than black, for example) to make it interesting.  Also, it shared a bathroom with the strip club next door (sorry, no pictures.)  Many of the male guests at the restaurant had the same reaction I did to finding this out:  Open door which one thinks leads to restrooms, see darkened room.  As soon as eyes adjust, realize that the room is in fact filled by large stage on which there is at least one semi-nude woman.  Pause as this information sinks in.  Decide that, since your date/girlfriend/parents are sitting only a few feet away in the restaurant, you may not really need to use the restroom at the moment, and go back to your table to relate this information to them.  Very entertaining.

We swung by Powell's books, since that's evidently something you can't not do while in Portland, and then back to our house.  Along the way, passed this:

Evidently Portland just lets its water fountains run constantly.  Bubblers, indeed.

This photo probably didn't come out too well, but after dinner Molly and I walked up the ridge to the west of Portland, and wandered around the hills there.  Even as it started to pour, it was fun to walk around a neighborhood built right up the side of a pretty steep slope.

This house had a pretty cool picture window in the front and back of the living room, so you could see downtown straight through it.  I would have taken the picture from closer, but that would be pretty creepy.

The view from just next to that house.

And, as always, my lovely wife.  It poured on us all the way down the hill, but that's the Northwest for you.