Click on images below to enlarge:
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| In and Around Red Lion Hotel on the River
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| Our spacious corner hotel room in the Red Lion Hotel on the River.
| Our room's view of the Columbia River and, across the river, Washington
State.
| Our corner patio.
| The Interstate Bridge, connecting Portland, Oregon, to the confusingly
named town of Vancouver, Washington.
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| This building uses a chain to direct the water as it comes out from the
drain gutter. Neat! A drain chute that can never clog.
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| Portland Food Cart
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| In downtown Portland, one street of food trucks. Quite a variety of
architectural styles.
| Another row of food trucks, with the intriguing boolkogi (bulgogi?)
tacos at left.
| The distinctive Swamp Shack looks more permanent than most. Its kitchen
is a trailer with a wooden enclosure.
| Bag-pipers near a Celtic food stand.
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| Cool murals on the side of this truck.
| Some food trucks were actual RVs.
| I bought my lunch from this nondescript stand, Happy Grillmore.
| We took our food to eat at these covered benches by this closed Thai
food truck stand.
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| My sandwich, "the larry", containing pastrami, turkey, pepper-jack
cheese, arugula, spinach, and dressing on a ciabatta roll. It was
decent. It grew on me, especially when I got bites of the thousand
island (?) dressing and cheese together.
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| Historic King's Hill Neighborhood
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| A large house and enormous tree in the historic King's Hill neighborhood
in Portland. Note Di Yin in the bottom-left, providing a cue as the
size/scale of the tree.
| This neighborhood is very leafy.
| One house has a tall, dense bamboo garden. I like the sprouting feel of
this grove.
| A stately home with a nice, multi-tier garden rising up to the house's
ground level. It looks there are some cactuses in the garden.
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| Portland's modest skyline, as seen looking east from King's Hill.
| Somewhere in this neighborhood, we spotted this backyard patio, placed
on a hill so that it sits at the height of lower tree tops and has a
good view. I said that if I owned this house, I'd eat a croissant
breakfast at the table every day and make passers-by jealous.
Di Yin took this picture.
| This understated, moss-covered bridge is actually much higher than you'd
guess. Look how tall and narrow the supports are.
| A fairytale house with a nicely landscaped lawn.
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| A video showing one house's really cool outdoor moving sculpture. I'm
not sure if it's electrically-powered or wind-powered.
| An attractive home with lots of south-facing windows. Also, its
overflowing garden feels abundant but not excessive.
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| Cacao
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| I admired this display of single-source chocolate bars. Apparently one
company puts cacao beans from different countries through the same
manufacturing process, thus allowing you to by bars from Madagascar,
Cuba, Ghana, and more to analyze how the growing conditions alter the
taste of the resulting chocolate.
| Though Cacao, a chocolate shop, is a small space, everything feels
carefully chosen.
| Cacao's menu of hot and drinking chocolate. Drinking chocolate differs
from hot chocolate in that drinking chocolate is denser, more
chocolate-y, more potent, and hence correspondingly served in smaller
cups.
| My flight of drinking chocolate. Due to their thickness (made from
cream) and intensity of flavor, they reminded me of the
hot chocolate at Burdick's in Cambridge).
I found the spicy
dark chocolate a bit shocking, yet Di Yin liked it the most of the
three. The standard dark was more appealing to me. The cinnamon
chocolate felt festive. For details on the ingredients, see the menu
(the previous picture).
Incidentally, these cups are small, perhaps
four ounces each.
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I also bought three chocolates for later:
- a chocolate with peanut butter and jelly inside. Made by Theo
Chocolate.
- a chocolate with a raspberry filling. Made by Fran's
Chocolates.
- bananas foster chocolate. Made by DePaula Confections.
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