Travel Portlandia: Gardens Galore

The last of the Travel Portlandia series! (I believe so...) And probably, the most picture-heavy post of them all! After breakfast at the B&B, we did a silly back-and-forth thing. If you saw earlier, we were at the airport hotel Friday night, went to B&B for Saturday night, and then went back to same airport hotel for Sunday night. Every time we checked out, we went directly to the next hotel to drop bags off. Let's just say there was lots of traveling done on the train to and from downtown and the airport...

The first stop of the day was the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Old Town/Chinatown. It's an enclosed garden block that was by some sketchy buildings, if I do say so myself. The place itself is rather small, but I suppose it's a nice and peaceful thing to have close by if you're staying in the city.

It was raining on and off in the morning, but the clouds went away by the early afternoon. It actually got really nice that day that at some points, I didn't need to wear my jacket. We stopped by Portland Saturday Market for lunch and ate from the Polish food truck (I had pierogi and Yura had kielbasa). Afterwards, we waited in line at Voodoo Donuts for about 15 min before leaving... We barely moved 10ft! We instead walked to Blue Star Donuts where I got a passion fruit cocoa nut and pistachio cheesecake donut!

Yum...

...And then started the 1.5 mile uphill hike towards the Portland Japanese Garden. The distance itself is not bad and most of the walk was fine. But the last 0.6 mile uphill on a sidewalk that barely existed was fairly annoying and surprisingly hot and sweaty (too much info there?). But then, it seemed we reached the gate to heaven--err, the park.

The garden was very pretty and there was a lot of sun shining through the flowers and trees. There were also a lot of people so picture-taking was quick and shoddy at best. Yura was telling me all weekend that he needed to practice his "photography" and went on and on about needing to take all the pictures. I gave him my camera for this part of the trip. Most of his pictures came out blurry because he didn't let the camera focus. I also have so many pictures of random signs...

Yura likes taking photos of signs

We also stopped by the International Rose Test Garden, but since we visited out of season, none of the roses were blooming. I'd love to go back when they are in bloom though. There were so many empty rose bushes!

Sad over the lack of roses...

Afterwards, we had Korean barbecue for dinner (it was mediocre...) and then ice cream (was delicious!) before heading back to our hotel.

I wrote about some nice things we did, but there were definitely some negatives: some trashy downtown areas, lack of public transportation (worse than Boston at least), the food. THE FOOD! Yura and I were expecting so much from the food and went to places people raved about on Yelp, but we found most everything to be so blah! They seem to be so lenient with reviews, it was rather disappointing.

I'm not sure when I'll be back to Portland, but Yura is slated to go in about seven weeks from now. Perhaps, I may stay longer and give it another shot? Still have yet to go hiking!