October Trip 3.2: Portland (Oct 17)

After a tiring journey to Portland, we finally got a good night rest in our lovely B&B, the Terwilliger Vista B&B. The website has more pics than I do, but in case you are too lazy to click the link:

The stairs leading to the main entrance of the B&B.

Garden at the side.

Our B&B is situated in a really green and expensive residential area on a hill just southwest of Portland downtown. The houses in the area look like this:

Today is the only day we have to explore Portland city. I didn't really do much research into what's hot in Portland, but I knew that there are nice gardens in Portland, as well as wineries and breweries. The latter two are of little interest to my mom and me, so I focused on the gardens.
We were also advised to visit the Oregon coast, particularly Cannon Beach which is about only 1.5 hours west of Portland. I wanted to do that too but in the end, we had no time for the sea. Sad. Well, I still think that Malaysian beaches (when they are clean) are the best in the world (call me biased, so what?)...so probably little loss there for me.

We started our day with breakfast prepared by our innkeeper Samantha. She said it's called "Dutch Baby". It was pretty nice, very sweet, with lots of berries in it. Unfortunately I couldn't finish it as I had to leave halfway through breakfast to pick up our rental car.

After we acquired our Nissan Versa (which is a pretty good drive, better than our Ford Fiesta during our Grand Canyon trip that had issues going uphill...), we drove to Washington Park. In Washington Park, we visited the Japanese Garden, International Rose Test Garden and the Hoyt Arboretum.

The Japanese Garden was...neh. I mean, it was a nice Japanese Garden but I was never too sold by Japanese Garden anyway. Even the 'Zen Garden' doesn't appeal to me. It all seemed too...manufactured, though if you just ease a bit, everything blends in together and it all seem to fit very naturally.

I actually love the girl on lion pictures the best. That shows how much I love the Japanese Garden. $8+ admission too, for a small but definitely vigorously maintained garden.

The International Rose Garden was much more to my taste. I have always liked roses only because they are such perfect embodiment of love. I may write a separate piece on that so let's avoid the sentimental (i.e., bullshit) stuff here. There are many roses there, all planted neatly in rows. There are also annual competitions held there where the most popular/best looking rose is picked. The competition has been running since 1919. The gold medalist of each year is planted there so we technically saw the most beautiful roses in the world since 1919.
There were many people at the Rose Garden. Many people were also sniffing away at the roses. tangent: I heard one Indian man called his friend "Rahul~". Wow. I miss Bollywood movies!!

Additionally, I learned some new stuff about roses at the Rose Garden. I like that.

Hoyt Arboretum was huge, much larger than we could cover. So we didn't even try. We went to the magnolia grove but all the flowers have come and gone :(. That was that.

Next up we headed to the Portland Saturday Market at the Waterfront area. Strangely and luckily for us, the Saturday Market is also open during Sunday!

I asked Mom to look at the menu while I snapped some pictures of the road. Mom gave me her conclusion of the Polish stall "same food as elsewhere...sausages and burgers. no need to eat here lah". So we didn't.

Somethings we just feel like chopping our heads into two, don't we?

 the Bridge next to the Waterfront.

Many people were out that there basking in the sun and enjoying the cool (chilly!) Sunday afternoon.

[continued]

It was only 4pm+ when we finished the Saturday Market (which also opens on Sundays). Dinner reservation at The Chart House was 7.30pm, so what should we do? We decided to find a place to enjoy some hot chocolate and coffee, but alas it seems that the area around the Waterfront in Portland catered only to beer-drinking people as there were more pubs than cafes. Dismayed, we flipped open a travel magazine, looked under 'Bakeries' and just picked one randomly. Bliss Bake Shop, you were the lucky one!

Bliss Bake Shop serves cakes, cupcakes and ice-cream. Seemed like cupcakes were their specialty so we ordered three--Mocha, Cookies'n Cream, and Pumpkin.

I believe that was our first time eating cupcakes of this sort. I didn't fancy cupcakes because I found them too sweet. Well, cupcakes are kind of a new trend in Malaysia now, cupcakes like these.
Yes, they were indeed too sweet for me but nevertheless, I must admit that they were pretty good. $2.75 for one, what you expect?

Having read several business books lately, I learned that businesses need to have a targeted niche, and a specific, narrow targeted niche would be better. Thus whenever I enter a business establishment nowadays, e.g., restaurants, cafes, hotels, boutiques etc., I always observe their decorations and their layout, their systems, their emphases...trying to see if they channel all their energy into addressing their targeted niche.

 They had a corner with toys for kids to play.

 Halloween-themed cupcakes on a shelf decorated with things that kids would love to play with.

Aprons for kids. Mom and I thought that the pink polka dot one looked nice, but it was $25....

K, after our cupcakes and sugary treat, we drove back to our B&B, got some rest (I blogged, Mom showered) and then walked over to The Chart House for our dinner.

Dinner was awesome, as in..the view of Portland nightlights was awesome, the food was awesome, the service and ambience were awesome, and the price was awesome too...for them. We really enjoyed our dinner, not to mention that the restaurant printed our names on the menus they gave us, and then rolled them up in ribbon for us to take away. Nice touch. Samantha, our B&B innkeeper, made the reservation for us and treated us to a Lava Cake for dessert. Nice touch on her part too.

 East side of Portland. The big black stretch across the lower middle was the river.

 Soup Sampler. Clockwise from lower right: Clam Chowder with quite a heavy touch of wine/champagne/some liquor, a chill soup that tasted like Mexican salsa (I like!), and Cream of Mushroom. All very nice.

 Coconut Crunchy Prawns with Sweet Plum Sauce. These were prawns fried in batter with grated coconut on them. They were good. I have never tasted prawns fried with coconut before and I was pleasantly surprised. Mom thought that the fried prawns in Malaysia were crunchier and thus better.

 My Spiced Yellowfin Ahi. It was grilled on the outside and semi-cooked on the inside, though the texture was really good and it didn't reek of any raw/fishiness at all. Some ginger/soy sauce combi with wasabi. So good~

Mom's Bake Salmon with Pilaf Rice. Hers had a heavier taste than mine and was good too!

We took our time through our dinner, while three different birthdays were celebrated in the restaurant that same night. I couldn't recall the last two lines of "少小离家老大回/归"....but mom remembered the whole poem. Darn me. It was a quick and brisk walk back from the restaurant to our B&B just across the road because.....it was a cold night.