OREGON
Oregon Road Trip - Day 6
I had decided when I invited my boyfriend to join the second half of the trip that we should stay an extra night in Portland so he could actually explore it.
I’m really glad we did. We started the day off with a coffee and pastry at Barista. I didn’t notice anything particularly noteworthy about my mocha or almond croissant but my boyfriend mentioned they hadn’t properly frothed the almond milk.
The weather was holding up pretty well but it was due to rain around 1 PM. We planned to walk to the Japanese gardens at Washington Park so we knew we had to head out early to avoid being rained on. It was a very manageable walk for us and the park is pretty spectacular.
The trail we were walking up towards the gardens felt like a real forest just smack dab in the middle of the city.
We saw the rose gardens although there aren’t roses yet. But there were cherry blossoms galore!
We passed by this Holocaust memorial that was very sobering.
And then made our way to the Japanese Gardens. It’s 20 bucks each to get inside but it is well worth it.
There’s a little tea cafe inside called Umami Cafe that serves tea and cakes. We stopped there to relax a bit and warm up. I liked that the walls were glass so you could see the buildings and trees just outside.
There are a couple styles of garden to explore, with red Japanese maple, mossy hills, raked stone gardens, pagodas, cherry trees and so much more. We even saw a little art gallery of Japanese miniature carvings.
When we were done exploring we popped by the gift shop and my boyfriend picked up a little bonsai kit. It was right around 1 PM and right on schedule we felt rain coming down. We headed back to the Airbnb before it got too severe.
We had ran into our Airbnb host that morning and he suggested the local Thai place for lunch. However when I looked there were a couple of options for Thai in the area so I wasn’t sure which one he meant. We picked Red Onion Thai Cuisine and I got my signature pad thai. And it was really dang good! I thought the medium was just the right amount of spice.
We had a few hours in the Airbnb to hang out, digest and watch TV before checking out Powell’s and meeting my friends for dinner. We probably watched one too many episodes because we ended up only getting about ten minutes in Powell’s, unfortunately. I still managed to buy 3 books though!
It was raining pretty badly and parking was a disaster but we met my friend and her husband for dinner at Bollywood Theater, only a little late. The portion sizes look a bit small but the food packs a ton of flavor in. Justin’s tikka bowl was particularly memorable.
After dinner we got Salt & Straw AGAIN! I know, we’re bad tourists. After that we parted ways with my friends and headed back to the Airbnb to enjoy some of the hard seltzer I had picked up in Astoria.