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Continuing
Mary Beth helped me out in figuring out where we had breakfast in Seattle. It was this yuppie/hippie/hip sort of place, but the crabcake eggs benedict I had was fucking phenomenal.
Now, back to Friday in Portland. I believe I left off with wonderful wonderful synthesizer modules! I believe that was the day we later went to the Lan Su Chinese Garden. It's an authentic Chinese garden right in the middle of downtown (Chinatown, specifically). It was real nice. Koi and calming Chinese stuff while over the wall you could see the city. They had a tea shop so we stopped there. Mary Beth had a crazy tea flight and I had this winter melon juice that was about the best thing I'd ever tasted. After this we went to Powell's. "City of Books" is right. It was an experience just walking around and being in the place. Literally takes up several floors of an entire city block (and then some as there are some categories that have had to spill out into separate stores, one across the street). I had a grand ol' time and picked up a few books. I thought to look up something on synthesizers so I went across the street to the store that has the science and specifically electronics sections. I did find something kind of what I was looking for. I also bought one of their t-shirts there. It seems in all this time we should have eaten something. Not sure. I do know we went and had dinner. We went out to this kinda far-out part of town where this place called Tanuki is. Turns out, the chef had just had a major eye injury and they were closed. We ended up eating at this place just a little down the street whose name had something to do with cats and was very good. Since we drove around Mount Tabor (this old volcano the neighborhood is named after and based around) we decided to go to the park on the top. Wasn't sure WHERE to go, so I followed the dictums of common sense and went UP. After navigating a residential neighborhood we snaked our way and found the park. Then it was walking up a whole bunch of stairs. I was proud because the old me would have been winded at just a fraction of the walk but I made it the whole way without getting winded at all. The view was nice up there. You could look at the city on one side where there weren't too many trees. I'm sure we ended up at a bar after this. Not sure which one. Maybe I can suss it out later.
Saturday morning we had breakfast downtown, circumventing the parade that was about to be underway, at Veritable Quandry. Once again the food was excellent, I don't think we had any bad food really. My rhubarb johnnycakes were so so so so good. We went downtown to the market and got some goodies for our picnic later in the park. So it was off the the huge park area. First we went to the Rose Test Garden. Before we went, I didn't even know Portland was "the city of roses." And we just happened to be there on the day of the rose parade and it was, of course, a big day for the Rose Gardens. A lot of damn roses. The best part was looking at the landscape and seeing the wash of an amazing variety of colors. After that we trekked to the Japanese Garden. In some ways similar to the Chinese garden (koi, etc), but it was open and much more minimal. There were rock gardens and a sculpture exhibit of Isamu Noguchi. Not familiar with him but some of it was good. We went back to this amphitheater area in the Rose Garden where a lot of other people were picnicing. We ate the stuff we got at the market: oysters, olive bread, sausages, some crazy pesto (we saved the yak jerkey! for later). The weather was wonderful and we sat around a while enjoying it. Oh, I should stop and really mention the weather THE WHOLE FUCKING TRIP. It was amazing! I was expecting some rain, given what I know of the Pacific Northwest, but there was no rain the entire time (almost). I did rain our last full day there, but only intermittent sprinkling that didn't amount to much. Anyway, beautiful beautiful weather the whole time. So we got back in our car and drove to the other side of the park: the Hoyt Arboretum. We hiked a little bit along the fir path. I was commenting to myself how well-labeled the paths were until we got to a point of contradiction at a fork where it told us one way and then back once we'd taken it. We just turned around and headed back to the city. We decided to just wander around a little on Hawthorne and I stumbled across Music Millennium (a, surprise, music store!). It was a really big indie store. I got some stuff. There was good stuff to be had, but a lot of lame stuff too. They just had a lot of stuff (I did much prefer the tiny concentrated awesomeness of Wall of Sound, but I enjoyed some cd purchasing). We stopped in some tea place after that. Some guy talked to Mary Beth while I was in the restroom and we discovered there was to be naked people on bicycles coming by. How about that? We didn't stick around there, though. We were off to find the esplanade down by the river. We didn't find how to get to it, but that's okay. There was a bar Mary Beth wanted to go to and when we got there we saw a sign saying their liquor license had been revoked and if the owner was reading this to call some given number. Okay. We went to another bar nearby. Then it was back down Hawthorne to the food truck area. Potato Champion was open this time so we got to have their awesome awesome fries. Mary Beth had poutine and I had pb&j (they were both phenomenal, have I used this word too much yet?). We also had berry pie. I haven't described this place yet. The food trucks are all gathered in a small lot. There's a tent with picnic tables. It's like a carnival for grown up food nerds (some kids too as there was a mini-carousel). Well, while there the World Naked Bike Ride events started happening in Portland. There were a few over there, but we started seeing naked people on bicycles! We left there and ended up going back about where we were and saw even more naked people on bicyles! The police were even helping out.
Sunday we started our adventures outside the city. We first tried to go to this one place that supposedly had great brunch but long waits. The line was very long. As it was southern food themed, we thought even if it was great the payoff wouldn't be worth the wait. So we went instead to a Scandanavian place (Broder). We had to wait there too, but they were better organized with the place next door open for sitting and coffee (of which Mary Beth partook, not me). And the food was delicious and not like stuff I'd had before or could have at home! I had these Danish pancake balls that were awesome. The rest of the day will come up in another post!
Now, back to Friday in Portland. I believe I left off with wonderful wonderful synthesizer modules! I believe that was the day we later went to the Lan Su Chinese Garden. It's an authentic Chinese garden right in the middle of downtown (Chinatown, specifically). It was real nice. Koi and calming Chinese stuff while over the wall you could see the city. They had a tea shop so we stopped there. Mary Beth had a crazy tea flight and I had this winter melon juice that was about the best thing I'd ever tasted. After this we went to Powell's. "City of Books" is right. It was an experience just walking around and being in the place. Literally takes up several floors of an entire city block (and then some as there are some categories that have had to spill out into separate stores, one across the street). I had a grand ol' time and picked up a few books. I thought to look up something on synthesizers so I went across the street to the store that has the science and specifically electronics sections. I did find something kind of what I was looking for. I also bought one of their t-shirts there. It seems in all this time we should have eaten something. Not sure. I do know we went and had dinner. We went out to this kinda far-out part of town where this place called Tanuki is. Turns out, the chef had just had a major eye injury and they were closed. We ended up eating at this place just a little down the street whose name had something to do with cats and was very good. Since we drove around Mount Tabor (this old volcano the neighborhood is named after and based around) we decided to go to the park on the top. Wasn't sure WHERE to go, so I followed the dictums of common sense and went UP. After navigating a residential neighborhood we snaked our way and found the park. Then it was walking up a whole bunch of stairs. I was proud because the old me would have been winded at just a fraction of the walk but I made it the whole way without getting winded at all. The view was nice up there. You could look at the city on one side where there weren't too many trees. I'm sure we ended up at a bar after this. Not sure which one. Maybe I can suss it out later.
Saturday morning we had breakfast downtown, circumventing the parade that was about to be underway, at Veritable Quandry. Once again the food was excellent, I don't think we had any bad food really. My rhubarb johnnycakes were so so so so good. We went downtown to the market and got some goodies for our picnic later in the park. So it was off the the huge park area. First we went to the Rose Test Garden. Before we went, I didn't even know Portland was "the city of roses." And we just happened to be there on the day of the rose parade and it was, of course, a big day for the Rose Gardens. A lot of damn roses. The best part was looking at the landscape and seeing the wash of an amazing variety of colors. After that we trekked to the Japanese Garden. In some ways similar to the Chinese garden (koi, etc), but it was open and much more minimal. There were rock gardens and a sculpture exhibit of Isamu Noguchi. Not familiar with him but some of it was good. We went back to this amphitheater area in the Rose Garden where a lot of other people were picnicing. We ate the stuff we got at the market: oysters, olive bread, sausages, some crazy pesto (we saved the yak jerkey! for later). The weather was wonderful and we sat around a while enjoying it. Oh, I should stop and really mention the weather THE WHOLE FUCKING TRIP. It was amazing! I was expecting some rain, given what I know of the Pacific Northwest, but there was no rain the entire time (almost). I did rain our last full day there, but only intermittent sprinkling that didn't amount to much. Anyway, beautiful beautiful weather the whole time. So we got back in our car and drove to the other side of the park: the Hoyt Arboretum. We hiked a little bit along the fir path. I was commenting to myself how well-labeled the paths were until we got to a point of contradiction at a fork where it told us one way and then back once we'd taken it. We just turned around and headed back to the city. We decided to just wander around a little on Hawthorne and I stumbled across Music Millennium (a, surprise, music store!). It was a really big indie store. I got some stuff. There was good stuff to be had, but a lot of lame stuff too. They just had a lot of stuff (I did much prefer the tiny concentrated awesomeness of Wall of Sound, but I enjoyed some cd purchasing). We stopped in some tea place after that. Some guy talked to Mary Beth while I was in the restroom and we discovered there was to be naked people on bicycles coming by. How about that? We didn't stick around there, though. We were off to find the esplanade down by the river. We didn't find how to get to it, but that's okay. There was a bar Mary Beth wanted to go to and when we got there we saw a sign saying their liquor license had been revoked and if the owner was reading this to call some given number. Okay. We went to another bar nearby. Then it was back down Hawthorne to the food truck area. Potato Champion was open this time so we got to have their awesome awesome fries. Mary Beth had poutine and I had pb&j (they were both phenomenal, have I used this word too much yet?). We also had berry pie. I haven't described this place yet. The food trucks are all gathered in a small lot. There's a tent with picnic tables. It's like a carnival for grown up food nerds (some kids too as there was a mini-carousel). Well, while there the World Naked Bike Ride events started happening in Portland. There were a few over there, but we started seeing naked people on bicycles! We left there and ended up going back about where we were and saw even more naked people on bicyles! The police were even helping out.
Sunday we started our adventures outside the city. We first tried to go to this one place that supposedly had great brunch but long waits. The line was very long. As it was southern food themed, we thought even if it was great the payoff wouldn't be worth the wait. So we went instead to a Scandanavian place (Broder). We had to wait there too, but they were better organized with the place next door open for sitting and coffee (of which Mary Beth partook, not me). And the food was delicious and not like stuff I'd had before or could have at home! I had these Danish pancake balls that were awesome. The rest of the day will come up in another post!