How can I write about going to Portland, Oregon and not mention Voodoo Doughnuts? I can't, so that's why I absolutely must (no, it's a law, I swear, just believe me!). This was a place that's been popular for over a decade and it was the place that everyone was telling me I absolutely must go to, probably they had never heard of anything else in Portland. To be fair, I hadn't either. I wasn't a huge doughnut fan, but I was a huge cupcake fan and isn't a doughnut just a flat cupcake with a hole ... VIEW POST
#FBF: Get Your Sugar Fix: Voodoo Doughuts (Portland, OR)
Zen in the City: The Lan Su Chinese Garden (Portland, OR)
A few days after I went to the International Rose Test Garden, my cousin and I went to explore the Lan Su Chinese Garden in the Chinatown area of Portland. It's four thousand feet - or one full city block - of walled-in Chinese garden. In other words: an oasis in a city when you need to get away from the traffic (and bikes) of Portland. Efforts to build a Chinese garden began in the 80's when Portland and the Chinese city of Suzhou became sister cities and finally construction began in 1999. ... VIEW POST
Roses in the City: The International Rose Test Garden (Portland, OR)
Given that I'm not a nature person, I sure went to a lot of gardens in 2011 when I visited Portland, Oregon. Portland is a very tiny city and they're very into the outdoors, so I guess it's fitting. The first garden I went to was the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. It's the oldest operating rose test garden in the United States and it's what gives Portland the nick name of "City of Roses." What is a "rose test garden"? It's a garden where different varieties of roses from ... VIEW POST
My Favorite Thing in the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR)
I'm taking the liberty this month to go back in time and remember my trip to Portland and Seattle during the summer of 2011. My cousin was doing an internship in Portland and I decided that was a good excuse to see some of the Pacific Northwest since I hadn't been north of San Francisco. I was in Portland for four or five days and then we spent a night or two up in Seattle taking in the uber hip vibe up there. During the days in Portland though, I was on my own since she was working. If ... VIEW POST
