Portland, Oregon

In February of this year I went back to Oregon to take care of a criminal background check for my new job. During that trip I took an afternoon to walk around the city of Portland, Oregon.


Portland is fairly clean, has some old buildings (the kind with character), medium sized skyline, and in general, is pretty cool. I thought this was an interesting combination of building designs to be next to each other.


Powell's Books is a landmark store in Portland. It's a huge used books bookstore. It is really easy to navigate though, because the store is divided into color sections depending on the subject. I bought a ton of books while here including the book "The Death And Life Of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs.


These elephants were situated in one of the parks sprinkled throughout the downtown area.


Portland has a China town complete with entrance gate and guardians. If you get this far, you are only moments away from a visit to the Portland Classical Chinese Garden. I recommend it. (photographs)


This was a nice looking mural I found on my way to one of the many bridges in Portland.


From the bridge, I took a photo looking across the river. The two towers you can see are the tops of the convention center.


I turned to my left for this photo. You can see another three bridges. I saw a poster in Powell's Books with all of the bridges on it. There are 10 bridges that span the Willamette River around the city's center.


This is the Pioneer Courthouse, located in Pioneer Courthouse Square Plaza. I was at the plaza for the 2005-2006 new year celebration.


Finally, here is another interesting shot of the cityscape.

On my next visit to Portland, I'd like to take a tour of the Shanghai Tunnels also known as The Portland Underground. Portland had the reputation for being the most dangerous port on the west coast in the late 1800's and early 1900's because of the chance you could be kidnapped and forced to work on a sailing ship.