It's August in Portland and all is well. The weather has been good this year, we only got one week of really really hot weather so far. There have been more rain than usual, but that's ok in the summer, it's nice that it's not super hot.

We went to the street fair at Clinton/Division on the SE side of town. It's very close actually, just a few minutes drive. They had a little parade, looks like anyone can dress up and join in. We also got a little bench for our balcony from one of the stores there. We had lunch at a BBQ place, good chicken wings and beef ribs. We got the lunch special ($5) and that was perfect portion for us. Other people ordered a regular plate and they were huge.... If we ate that we'd be in food coma for the rest of the day. This is Stella scooter and the side car, I want one. 8)


Free Wizard of Oz play at Washington Park Amphitheater next to the Rose Garden. This was a lot of fun. It is outdoor so they had to be a lot more imaginative since they don't have as much props like in the theater. For example, the yellow brick road is a girl dressed up in a yellow outfit with bricks on top of her head and Dorothy had to follow her around. 8)



First Thursday and The Next Big Thing...
Every First Thursday of the month all the gallery and artists in the Pearl open up their space to show art works. The Next Big Thing is held by the Portland Transportation Commission to celebrate the completion of a section of the new MAX tracks. Portland is building more MAX tracks, in the downtown area, it will be from around Chinatown to PSU. This will be right near us so we'll have more transportation choices.
This Elephant statue is on the North Park block near Chinatown. I've been meaning to climb this thing for a long time. Yahoo!!!!

The original Hung Far Low restaurant. 8)
They actually moved to 82nd street now, but the sign is still here .
A loft building in Chinatown. A few loft was opened to showcase the artist's work. Pretty cool old style stair - 4 stories.

Some one working on a large graffiti art - at least it's on canvas and not on the wall.
BBQ, we didn't have any this time. This guy in the blue shirt next to Michelle is huge.

Afterward, we went to Pioneer courthouse square on the way home. Redbull had a photography display up. There are many cool photos, mostly extreme sports type.

SurfingSnowboard.
That's all for now. I'll call mom now. Happy 60th Birthday!!!! 8)

July 2007

We finally finished moving and selling everything. We also rented out the old place very quickly so no problem there. Downtown living is much more lively than Hillsboro, there are always something going on in the summer. Here are some random pictures from various events we've been to this July.

Free Jazz music at Wallace Park near NW 23rd. Nice little park surrounded by very nice old houses. Portland put on free concerts in various park in the summer, a great way to relax after work.

4th of July - We can hear the Blues Festival from our condo so we didn't go down much this year, just walked by. This year they had 5 days of music, it was hot though - 90 degrees. The fireboat came by and put on a little show.


We watched the fireworks from our balcony, we had an awesome view. Just when it starts to get dark, we could see fireworks going off all over the city, that was a great prelude to the big show.



We have a peek-a-boo view of Mt. Saint Helen from our balcony.


Sand in the City - sand castle contest. This year they asked for a $3 donation so we just watched from outside. "wish you were here"

The Hawthorne Bridge opens up for a barge.



That's all for now. bye. :)

condo update

Oh man, we are still moving stuffs and cleaning the old house. This is taking forever. We got about 99% of the stuffs moved, just a few things left in the garage.
Michelle graduated and her dad came up to attend the ceremony. We went sightseeing all over town and he helped clean up the house a lot too.
Here are a few pictures - as usual click it to see the larger picture.

The Hooding Ceremony was much nicer than the large ceremony in the Rose Garden. This is only for the Urban and Public Administration college.


We took the Portland Spirit sight seeing cruise. The ship went up the Williamette and we saw quite a few really nice houses next to the river as well as some cool boat houses.


Here is a couple of pictures of our condo as seen from the Portland Spirit. There are three buildings. We're the one closest to the river. We are on the 11th floor and have a great view of the river.



The view from our condo.
Mount Hood, OMSI and the Marquam Bridge (I-5)


Pirate boats in a staged battle. One of the ship is Lady Washington. It was used in the Pirate of the Caribbean movies. I'm using my x12 zoom camera here.



The Hawthorne Bridge. We can also see Mt. Adam and Mt. St. Helen from our balcony. They are a little hazy in the summer though.



fireworks from our balcony


We also went to the Rose Festival. This is the 100th year of the Rose Festival. It was raining like crazy and was very cold that day.


They also had dragon boat races the whole weekend.
Various Navy and Coast Guard ships also came in for fleet week during Rose Festival.

Close up of the tour ships.
OK, that's all for now. I'm taking 4th of July week off to relax a bit. I'll take more pictures and put them up on the blog. The inside of the condo is still a mess. It'll probably takes a few more weeks before everything is unpacked. I'll take a few more pictures then.