Here are some fun facts about Portland:

• It was named on a coin toss (the alternative was Boston, OR).
• It has the most authentic Suzhou-style Chinese garden outside of China.
• It has the largest independently owned bookstore in the world — Powell’s Books, which we visited and it’s HUGE!
• A new one from us: the number of “eclectic” people rivals SF…

Staying with the eclectic theme, we visited the famous Voodoo Donuts, known for its kooky donuts and unique decorations. We ordered a bacon maple bar and Oreos with frosting donut “Dirt”, among others. (Picture below.) It was a quintessential Portland experienced not to be missed.

After Voodoo, we ventured our way to Powell’s Books in the Pearl District, a young and hip neighborhood not unlike SOMA in SF. We were impressed by Powell’s; the four level building probably housed more books than Portland’s local library. Judging from the number of customers, it’d seem that the business of physical books is alive and well. We miss seeing such sight — finally, reading feels cool again!

From Powell’s we headed to Lan Su Garden, a classical walled Chinese garden in the heart of Chinatown. It was built in 2000, and the city hired 65 artisans from Suzhou to help with the project. We joked how it was ironic that we found the most authentic Chinese garden in Portland when we were just in Taipei in December. Needless to say, it was pretty impressive!

Our Portland adventure continued today with a visit to the Columbia River Gorge, but that will have to wait until tomorrow’s blog entry… until then!