August 2017

My old college roommates, Kelly & Priscilla celebrated my birthday in Portland, Oregon & Seattle, Washington.

Day 1:

I had an early flight than Priscilla & Kelly. I landed and took a bus/train to our stay. If I remember correctly, it was only $2 bus/train ride from the PDX airport – super cheap!

Then I checked us in at our Portland International Hostel stay. It was a very nice hostel, with a lounge, courtyard outside, a lot of advertised events, and even a small restaurant connected to the Hostel. Our room wasn’t ready, so we got ready inside the common area restroom LOL. The hostel had a storage area for our luggage.

We stayed in a 4 female bedroom and the room was tiny. It’s pretty much a long hallway and 2 bunkbeds, 4 lockers between the bed, a tiny small desk, a few hooks on the wall, and the mirror on the door. It was doable. The bathroom and shower was outside in the hallway, but it was all private.

Then we ubered over to the Japanese Garden. Use your school ID to get a discount. The garden was calm and peaceful.

Then we walked across to the Rose Tea Garden, which is free. There were so many colorful roses.

Then we went ubered to downtown and walked all around to: The Powell’s City of Books, Pioneer Square, Nike Store, etc.

Super chills vibes!

Then we went to the infamous Keep Portland Weird sign and saw Voodoo Donuts across the street. We didn’t get any, but Kelly got Blue Star Donut the next day 🙂

Then we ubered to the other side of Portland and ate at Pok Pok. The chicken was bomb!! Definitely a long wait. There weren’t any seats at the restaurant but the worker told us that there was a brewery nearby and we could bring the food in. So we had our dinner ToGo and ate it dinner at Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom. After that, we did a brewery hop…and I’ll tell you how it ended haha.

Hopworks Urban Brewery was chill.

I forgot what this placed was called, but it was all apple flavors and ciders, really good.

& our last one, which was 10 Barrel Brewery Company…we got 20 and only finished like 7? LOL. It was a waste…(sorry). We are so full, bloated, and exhausted from a full day in  Portland.

Day 2:

This is technically a half day in Portland, because we were on our way to Seattle afterwards. As mentioned above, we went to Blue Star Donut and Kelly got a donut.

There were a lot of food trucks around downtown Portland too so we got some Korean food (rice, egg, beef, cucumber, carrots, and kimchi) for lunch on the train up to Seattle.

Then we ubered to Portland Union Station and began our 3 hour journey to Seattle, Washington. I bought the tickets beforehand on Amtrak. I really enjoyed the ride. It was so beautiful seeing the ocean and mountains. It did not feel like a 3 hour ride at all.

The train ride that we took was Amtrak and it had power outlets. I really liked it and would take it again in the future.

Overall, I like Portland. We wished that we had another day, because we wanted to go hiking. We did 1 day in Portland and 2 days in Seattle. It was all short in a Friday-Sunday weekend – but I would say we did a lot for that short of a time and enjoyed it all. With that said, I will be back to Portland and will go hiking next time. Until then, enjoy the Seattle blog. Thank you, Portland!
#viviansventures

As always, thank you for visiting Vivian’s Ventures. Have you been to Portland? If so, tell me in the comments/reply section of your experience. What should I do there if I go back? If you haven’t been, tell me what you are planning to do there. Any questions or comments, let me know.