Portland - Day 2 with Photos - Part 1

Day 2 with Photos... Saturday, April 4

We started the day off pretty early. Around 9'ish we left the hotel and walked a few blocks to the Tri Met station. This turned out to be quite interesting. Apparently, since Portland is known for it's efficient public transportation system, we were quite excited (yeah, San Diego hicks we are) to ride the Tri-Met. It's like the San Diego Trolley basically. Well, these trolleys, or street cars, as they call them here, run every 10 - 15 minutes.

This morning happened to be unusual. Waiting at the station with us was a fellow tourist, an older woman, another older lady with a dolly cart filled with supplies for a picnic, and an older well dressed gentleman toting a little shopping bag. He helped us try to figure out the ticket machine so we wouldn't end up buying the wrong tickets. He was waiting to go up just one block. After 15 minutes, he told us that this delay was unusual. In his words, "In all of my years in this country, this has never happened". You would have thought it was the end of the world, with a statement like that. He was really quite nice and we chatted for a bit while waiting for the street car. He mentioned that he once visited San Diego after hearing that we were from there. Incidentally, the man was from Jordan. His accent was hard for me to place. After another 15 agonzing minutes had elapsed, the man decided to walk to his destination rather than wait for the street car. It was probably faster for him anyways!

The woman with the dolly cart told us that she was on her way to go to a picnic to celebrate the Persian New Year. She was from Iran and was planning to meet a friend. She asked to use my cell phone to call her friend (she ended up leaving a message). She was super nice and found out from another person working near the station that the Yellow Line Street Car had an accident. They would use another line in its place. By this time, is was about 40 minutes after we had arrived at the station. After a few more anxious minutes, we spied the street car several blocks down. Finally! We boarded and saw a huge family that resembled the "fookin' elephants" from "In Bruges"...If you haven't seen that movie, you MUST SEE IT! Now! Colin Farrell is hilarious, as is Brendan Gleason (yes, "Mad Eye" Moody from the 4th Harry Potter flick, "Goblet of Fire"). Devastatingly smooth in his killer deadpan cockney delivery is Ralph Fiennes as the mob boss. Loved that movie!!! Back to Portland...here's a quick snap from our stop before heading over to... Washington Park. More info here...The ride was pretty quick, only making a few stops before we arrived at the park.
Washington Park is quite expansive! It has a Forestry Museum, a Zoo, Children's Museum, the International Rose Test Garden (which we originally wanted to see but since most of the roses weren't in bloom, didn't bother), hiking trails, the Japanese Gardens (which we came to see) and the Hoyt Arboretum.

There were so many types of giant trees there. It was amazing. The weather was pretty nice - sunny and mild, but it got a bit windy at times. I'm glad I didn't bring my heavy jacket because I would have been sweating like an animal in heat there.

More of them thar' tall trees. Sorry I wish I could identify these...

That's Bert down below, walking up the hill. TC and I had scrambled up this hill laughing. We were going to follow a trail to get to the Japanese Gardens. We didn't know it would take about 30 minutes to get there!!!!

There was a little lookout point on the trail where you could see these mountains:

There's Mount St. Helens! This is the view facing Northeast of Portland...

The trail kind of meandered a bit with a few switchbacks on this one hill. We also saw a lot of moss covered trees and logs like this:Same log - TC was tempted to walk across it, but I wouldn't let her.

We hiked a bit to get to the Japanese Gardens...For those of you that know me, I'm not a big fan of "hiking" for fun. I absolutely hate getting dirty and I don't like the smell of nature on me. After the shit I went through last year, I decided to "live a little" and enjoy life more, which meant being open to experiences like hiking and sacrificing my vanity so I could have fun with my family. I have to say though, this trek through the woods was pretty fun. I'm glad other people were around and it wasn't like we were walking through Camp Crystal Lake or that forest from the "Blair Witch Project" or anything! TC really enjoyed walking through the trail and seeing the moss covered trees and picking up sticks and branches. we saw a lot of other people out and about that day, including hikers who put these saddle like backpack things on their dogs! There were only a few muddy spots where I felt compelled to roll up my jeans...After about half an hour of hiking (it may have taken longer), we finally got to the Portland Japanese Garden! More info here:
This garden is considered to be one of the most beautiful authentic Japanese gardens outside of Japan. It sure beats the dinky one we have in Balboa Park. It's really peaceful here. I kind of wanted to blast some Rick James "Super Freak" or better yet Journey's "Any Way You Want It" (a "Caddyshack" reference there) to break up the stillness in the air. There was also a sign that politely asked visitors to NOT use their cell phones so that it would not disturb others who came to enjoy the serenity of the gardens. Well, I didn't get the memo until later because I took a phone call from Knitting Diva's brother (who we were going to meet in a few days) in some pavilion. Bert, however, used his cell phone before we were about to leave and a worker came up to him and asked him to use it OUTSIDE of the garden! Phone Nazi!

Here's the "Heavenly Falls" which is found in one of the Five Gardens here. This was in the Strolling Pond Garden and the Falls are supposed to represent the Milky Way.

I liked the various paths in the gardens:

More steps:

Lucky for us, there was an Ikebana Exhibit going on. Ikebana is the Japanese art form of flower arrangement.
An arrangement using Anthuriums:
A flower shrine to Buddha:

This one was quite dynamic and used large twisted branches and yellow flowering branches: An arrangement featuring Heliconia Pendula:

This is the Sand and Stone Garden:

After spending a few hours here, we headed back. We caught a tram that dropped us off at the foot of some hill. Then, we caught a bus that brought us back to the Tri Met station. Thank God for that because there was no fkg way I was going to hike back the way we came. It was lunch time and we were getting hungry and I wasn't in the mood for walking even more! The bus driver was really nice to us. In fact, most of the people we met in Portland were super super nice and easy going.

Ooh, ghost orbs in the tunnel!

One of the many solar powered "Smartmeters ":

Here's another one . We didn't really use our rental car except to get out of downtown to farther places. Most of the time, we just walked since downtown Portland is pretty compact.

Here's one of the many Benson Bubblers scattered throughout the city. Established by city icon Simon Benson who thought it would be a good idea to have fresh water for the citizens, as well as provide an alternate source of refreshment other than booze. I wonder if that worked? I thought this was cool to look at since there were four fountains instead of just one. More info about the bubblers here and here .

Next up...part 2 - Our lunch at the Portland Market, coffee, doughnuts, Velvet Paintings and comics!