it was a good thing we didn't go driving all the way to the coast because just driving up to the mansion (which was on top of a hill) was kinda scary. but when we got there it was pretty cool. we didn't go inside the mansion (you had to pay, and i'd rather see nature than the inside of a house), but we walked around the gardens outside.
imitation of a tree:
there were surprisingly a lot of japanese plants around the grounds, like the red japanese maple trees were all over the place, making the garden look really cool with leave-less red and brown trees, and some evergreens mixed in.
so after the mansion we finally made our way to the japanese garden, but when we got there...
it was closed! BOO!
i guess that was a good thing too though, because we had a hard time walking the icy steps just to get to the entrance to the garden.
so after that we decided to get a head start for the concert instead. we drove to salem (about an hour outside of portland), stopped off at an outlet mall along the way (sorry, no pictures from there, but there were a surprising amount of asian tourists at that mall, like FOB no-speak-english asians, weird...). once in salem we had a bit of a hard time finding the arena, but once we did we were ready for RELIENT K!
okay, so not a lot of photos from the concert obviously, but we had pretty decent floor seats and everyone was pretty close to the stage, so it was a great concert. we didn't watch the two opening acts (b. reith and stephanie smith) because we were starving and got some burritos instead (but we heard them, they were not bad). they only did a few songs each, which was perfect for an opening act, then we got seated for relient k! they started with "sleigh ride" (cool), but then their lead guitarist wasn't there, so they did an acoustic set, which was very cool because the lead singer is great on piano so it made for a good set. they did "forget and not slow down," "therapy," and "who i am hates who i've been" along with a few more christmas songs. luckily, though, they brought in the guitarist from the opening act's band to rock out "be my escape" and finish with another christmas song. it was sweet! after they were done it took toby mac for-e-ver to come back out and finish off the concert. i don't really care for toby mac (think white rapper + christian radio + black eyed peas wannabe back-up singers), but he actually put on a pretty fun show, lots of lights and excitement, not too awkward, so all in all pretty good.
after a somewhat long drive back to portland i thought it would be appropriate to end my trip on the last night with a nice, eccentric portland coffee house... and i got just that.
i don't actually remember what this place was called, but they had some funky art on the walls, a weird altar with creepy-looking dolls, and just lots of look at. i also had a gingerbread dessert and a latte, yum.
so that's it! it was a fantastic 4-5 days in portland, i loved playing tourist and brandi was an awesome tour guide! i definately got to see everything i wanted and more. relient k rocks! i have new appreciation for hawai'i weather and although i kinda liked the cold and being able to bundle up at christmas-time, i definately would not be able to live in that kind of weather on a daily basis. one thing i do want to take away from this trip, though, is how to live life like a tourist. to be able to start out each day with the goal of going on an adventure. i mean, a lot of the things that i found so neat about portland were things that people living there go through every single day, so if i can flip that way of thinking around and see those great things in MY everyday life, how much excitement and zest for life will every single day bring? i mean, hawai'i is a great place to that right? so live like a tourist, find the good things in the world around you... every day.
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