Portland Day 2: Japanese Gardens and International Rose Test Gardens

Portland has a large park, called Washington Park, that is similar to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or Lincoln Park in Chicago. It includes a large forest with hiking trails, a zoo, a Forestry Museum, a Japanese garden, and a rose garden. Today, I went to the Japanese garden and the rose garden.

I took the light rail to get there. Everything went smoothly until I missed my stop -;) The light rail goes under the park, the announcement was garbled, and I didn't realize that a display shows the name of the next stop as well (a nice touch). It was pretty easy to backtrack.

The subway station for the park is really cool. The walls of the station have a display about the development of the horse. The elevator up to street level shows a picture of the geology between the subway level and street level, and shows a display of how many feet above street level the elevator is.

I took a shuttle bus to get to the Gardens (the park is that big). The driver told me where to get off, and I went to the Japanese garden.

I had gotten a late start, and missing my stop made me even later. I came into the gardens in full goal-oriented mode, "okay, I want to see this and this and this--and here's the most direct route--and then I'll go to the rose gardens." Then I realized how silly I was being. I plopped myself down in front of the waterfall in the picture, and spent some time watching the waterfall and the koi. I then took a leisurely stroll around the gardens, stopping and sitting on various benches. I would have liked to sit and read for a while, but I was aware that I had time limitations. I would have liked to sit and write. I decided that I really would like to see the gardens in the rain sometime (although some of the paths would be slippery.)

Eventually I left and crossed the street to go to the rose gardens. The place is huge; the rose garden in San Jose would fit into it several times over. I never realized that there were so many varieties of roses. It also has a Shakespeare garden with a quote about a rose and plants that are mentioned in Shakespeare's plays. I sat in there for quite a while. It has a grass-and-stone amphitheater. I wanted to spend some time reading and writing in the amphitheater. I wasn't the only one with that idea; one guy was sitting using a laptop, and a woman was lying in the grass reading.

I didn't want to leave. I wanted to come back and hike the hiking trails. I stalled for time by eating the World's Most Suggestive Hot Dog, nursing a Diet Coke, and staring at the spectacular view of Portland's skyline. (Unfortunately, it was hazy, and you couldn't see Mount Hood.) I killed some time in the gift shop. (My personal fave was a t-shirt that said "Real men grow roses". Works for me -;))

Eventually, I did leave. The same bus driver was driving the shuttle, and he asked me how I liked the gardens. He asked me where I was from, and said, "I suppose that you wouldn't want to live here." I told him that, indeed, I was checking out Portland as a possible place to live, and we got into a lengthy discussion about Portland and San Jose. I regretted having to leave the bus to catch the light rail.

I got back downtown, checked out some of the shops, and hung out for a while.

When I came here, I fully expected lightning to strike and I'd fall in love with Portland. It hasn't worked that way. Instead, the place has been steadily growing on me. I'm feeling extremely comfortable here, even when I got mildly lost today. It seems really surreal that I'm going to leave on Friday. I'm going to leave with a longer list of things that I want to do in Portland than I had when I came here. I'm already planning to take some weekend trips up here.

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