As a native of Portland, I have seen the city change quite a bit during my time here. Today there are more cranes than ever as the city is rapidly growing. It is almost difficult to walk the sidewalks with so much construction everywhere. Since I am a person who is fascinated with architecture, I set out to capture some older buildings. These buildings are beautiful in their own way and have a story.
So you’ve got your bags all packed and you’ve set your sights on Portland. You can’t wait to visit – and why not? It’s a great city! You have some awesome activities picked out, you know the best restaurants to hit, and you might have even timed your trip for one of Portland’s summertime festivals.
But there are still a few things you should know before you arrive in the Rose City – things others are unlikely to mention when trying to entice you to visit. To ensure you have the best time possible, here are five things you should not do.
Continue reading “5 Things to Not Do in Portland”
Portland gets a lot of winter rain and even more cloud cover. Between October and May (and often well into June), the sun seldom makes an appearance. The moisture certainly makes for beautifully lush landscapes, dreamscape waterfalls, and mystic moss-draped forests, but it can get a bit dreary after so long.
However, our summers are simply to die for. And suffering the rain only makes them that much more special.
The beauty about living in a temperate climate is we have wonderfully mild summers. And this is when visitors and locals alike come out in droves to enjoy the many outdoor festivals in our riverside Waterfront Park – a prolific display of our affection for this beloved season.
Continue reading “Portland: Summertime Festivals”
Last week, we shared with you some of our favorite local restaurants. They couldn’t all fit into one post, so I hope you’re still hungry! Here is Part II of our culinary highlights from Portland.
Continue reading “Portland: More of Our Favorite Restaurants”
You’ve gotten the preliminary tour.
You’ve seen the local highlights.
Now, let’s talk about food.
Portland is known as a big foodie town. We love our food. And living here as long as we have, we have found our favorite spots. So when we have guests, here’s where we take them.
Continue reading “Portland: Our Favorite Restaurants”
We get visitors all the time to our humble city – and who can blame them? It’s a popular destination. There are certain spots to which all the guides will point tourists, and those are nice… but there’s so much more to offer. After we’ve given our guests the preliminary tour, we hit up a few of our favorite spots. Here are some things we like to do – as locals – when visitors come to town.
Sure, we love traveling, but we realized that others like to travel to Portland as well. So we thought we’d throw in a mini series on our beautiful home city.
We get visitors all the time, and we love playing tour guide and showing off this gorgeous area. There are many places we love to take guests, but we typically start with a sampling of our city. This is what that looks like.
A sensation only just now gracing our United States shorelines, cat cafes have been widely popular in Japan for many years. The world’s first cafe actually opened in Taiwan in 1998, but the concept was quickly adopted by the feline-loving, pet-deprived, Japanese culture. Because of its popularity, the idea is commonly attributed to the latter (After all, they even have entire islands dedicated to the fuzz balls (a must on our return bucket list)!
Thus, upon deciding to go to Japan, first on my list of activities was a visit to a cat cafe or two.
Continue reading “Cat Cafes – The Best Thing Out of Japan Since Anime”
