The weatherman kept his promise: warm, around 69-72 F, sunny, blue sky , just the right conditions to explore
Portland in a bit more detail. Thanks to a public holiday ( Labour Day ) traffic was minimal nevertheless many
people out and about.
Portland really is a warkablecity and a very green one as well. Lots of trees and flower arrangements make
this a very nice city indeed.
First I headed to Pioneer Courthouse Square, the “living room” of Portland, right in the centre of the town. A huge
square, lined with trees and the oldest public building on the west-coast: the court house. Interestingly there are hardly
any big buildings in town. Only two and they are both banks: Wells Fargo and Bank West. All other buildings are 10-15
floors at most, mainly only 3-5 floors. The city is also very keen to keep its heritage and seems to spend a lot of
afford in retaining the old buildings by making them useful in other then their original designed way. A great city
to explore on foot, tram and train.
I bought a ticket for one of those hop-on/ hop-off tours to see as much as possible and concentrated afterwards on the
few things I wanted to look at a bit closer.
One of those places was the Chinese Garden but before I did that I had some lunch at one of those street kitchens and
treated myself to an “Philly Cheesecake”. No, this is not something sweet, actually is rather spicy:
Thin sliced Sirloin steak grilled with onions, ball peppers and mushrooms, finished with white american cheese and served
on a soft hoagie roll. A bit messy to eat but great !
O.K., now the Chinese Gardens. An oasis of peace and tranquility right in the city, completed in 2000. Portland's
Chinese sister city, Suzhou, is famous for its beautiful gardens. Most of the building material, including 500 tons of
rock came from China and 65 artisans from Suzhou lived in Portland for 10 month while creating the garden. The garden
features more then 300 plant species and cultivars found in Chinese Gardens.
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