Portland!

1st/2nd Nov Trip to Portland (Sat/Sun) = lots of Tax free Shopping!!

We took Greyhound from Downtown Seattle to travel to Portland, Oregon – the state south of Washington. Total journey was about 4 hours as stops were made at various places. Hee.. so count as i visit all these places already?:p

-Greyhound Terminal in Downtown Seattle-

- Me on the bus-

-Tacoma, Washington-

-Olympia, Washington-
Capital of Washington State


-Vancouver, Washington-

We finally reached Portland at around 12p.m and we were greeted by rain rain rain.. kind of dampen our mood cause we were still not sure how to take the public transport. So we walked from the Greyhound Terminal to Portland Saturday Market… wasn’t very far though. At the market, they sold all kinds of art and craft stuff that was made by the locals.

-Me finding the Saturday Market on the map-

- Streets of Portland.. near the bus station-

-Portland Saturday (and Sunday) Market-

-Interesting headgear made of kitchen utensils in the market-

After walking around, we had lunch..

-Phat Thai noodle-

And then we headed to the hotel to put down our bags. We managed to find discount for a boutique hotel: Hotel Fifty (or else we had to stay in an inn with feedback from past customers that it was not good). The hotel was way nicer then we expected!

-Hotel Fifty-

-Area around our hotel-

After that we headed to Lloyd Shopping Center! The whole downtown was free ride zone (as in Seattle) and they had this tram system that was very efficient and fast. So we kind of decided that we would stay in the free ride zone for the next 2 days.. also no time to go and explore outside the zone.. Lloyd Shopping Center is the nearest and biggest shopping center near downtown Portland. HUGE with lots of shops! Haha we stayed at the mall from 4pm-9pm.. can say shop till we drop.. :p

-Tram in the free ride zone-

Along the ride to Lloyd Shopping Center..


-Statue outside Convention Center-



-Lloyd Shopping Center-

After shopping crazily, we want to get dinner from the food court in the shopping center. But we could not finish it.. so quarter of it was left for breakfast... :p

Next morning, we woke up and left the hotel at 10.30a.m.. Daylight savings also ended that day at 2a.m.. At that time all the shops were still close.. so we went to walk along the river which was just next to our hotel.

Then we took the tram all the way to the last stop of the free ride zone and walk back in the direction towards our hotel.. by then the whole place was still like a dead town.. Not much attractions within downtown itself.. just more shopping!! If we had time, we could have gone outskirts.. lots of stuff to see there but too bad no time.. So we ended up walking and shopping around downtown from 11a.m-3p.m and by then we were dead tired.. collected our bags from the hotel and we made our way to Chinatown.

-A church in Downtown Portland-

-Downtown Seattle and shopping centers-

At Chinatown, we wanted to visit the Chinese garden that was there but as we were hungry for not eating lunch.. (we only ate breakfast, which was the leftover from dinner :p) we decided to settle dinner first. Dinner was dim sum!

We asked the waitress why downtown was so quiet and found out that the place was mostly office buildings.. so it is like a dead town during weekends. By the time we ate finish it was only 5pm and the whole place was so dark. The Chinese Garden was also close liao…

-Entrance of the Chinese Garden-

So we headed to the Greyhound Terminal to wait for our 6.30p.m bus home.. but luck was on our side.. the 5.30p.m earlier bus was running on a late schedule and the driver was announcing if whoever wants to get to Seattle could get on his bus. Nothing to do so we took his bus back to Seattle.. but we felt like everyone on the bus was blaming us for the bus leaving the terminal behind time.. like the bus was waiting for us latecomers to board.. Anw the bus reached Seattle about 45mins earlier then our expected arrival time.. so got to go back to the loft early (with our big big bags.. :p)