Oregon Coast - Part I

From Portland, we drove through Beaverton heading towards the Beaches. I had read an article about Astoria in the New York Times, so I wanted to stop there first. We ate lunch at Fort George brewery which was recommended by Lizy's friend.





After lunch, we explored downtown Astoria by foot and wandered into this antique store.



Astoria is also best known as the town Goonies was filmed in, so references to the movie were found everywhere. We even stopped by the house where the main character lives.





The house has an amazing vantage point of the town, and we could hear sea lions on the piers barking, so we decided to investigate.





It was starting to get late in the afternoon and we wanted to get to Cannon Beach before sunset, so we took off and drove about 40 minutes south to the Inn at Cannon Beach where we were staying for two nights. From the Inn, we walked across the street to the beach and Haystack Rock to enjoy the sunset.





It was such a beautiful evening, photographers had flocked to the beach to capture the rock bathed in light at dusk.



We got a closer look at the creatures clinging to the rock at low tide.



As we returned to the Inn, rabbits had emerged from their hiding places to eat from small patches of grass. They were the biggest wild rabbits I had seen, unfortunately the light was too low to take photos of them. Once we got to the Inn, we ate granola for dinner and watched Goonies on DVD.

A good resource for the Oregon Coast is a publication called Coast Explorer.

Portland, Oregon

On Saturday, we had breakfast at Paradox Cafe, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant. I had a tofu scramble hash.



After breakfast, Travis and Lizy drove us to the Mississippi Avenue area in Northeast Portland to browse the neighborhood. We got to see The Rebuilding Center (used building material non-profit resource) and The Meadow (salt/chocolate/flower shop).



We got some tacos at Por Que No?



On our way to Proust!, we ran into one of the guys that we had met at the B&B on San Juan Island! It's such a small world. We then went to snack on fresh handmade pretzels at Proust!, and Andy fulfilled his need for Kostrizer.



We headed back to SE Portland, ate dinner at Las Gorditas, which has a ridiculously large vegan menu. Then we met up with Nick (owner of Bunk and Carol's brother) at Apex.



The next morning, I decided to take it easy with the camera. We ate a hearty breakfast at City State before we picked up our rental car. Andy and I went for a solo tour of Northwest Portland where he had stayed last time. After exploring the 23rd Street area, we ate a late lunch at Cha! Cha! Cha! in the Pearl. On our way back to meet up with Travis and Lizy, we drove by Em Space, a community letterpress studio, and New Seasons to pick up food-related gifts for our family.

We went bowling with Travis and Lizy's friends from the digital design company, Instrument.

On Monday morning, we were scheduled to depart for the Oregon coast, but Andy wanted to grab a bite at Pine State Biscuits. I had the Mushroom Gravy Biscuit with a side of braised collards. I have to agree with Andy that this place has the best biscuits ever!



Of course that led to coffee at Coava before we parted ways with Travis and Lizy.

Scenes from the Amtrak Cascades (Vancouver to Portland)

We got up really early to catch the Amtrak Cascades train which departs the Vancouver station at 6:40 AM. For the most part, the train follows the very scenic coastline into the U.S.



We filled out immigration papers (entry back into the U.S.), sent our luggage through the X-ray machine, and hopped on board the business class car. The trip to Portland is eight hours, so we opted for business class for the bigger seats.

These photos were taken along our journey in between stations with the Hipstamatic app.

 
 
 


Once we got into Portland, our friend Travis, with whom we were staying, picked us up from the station and took us to his new studio space called The Fieldhouse. He runs a design studio with his girlfriend, Lizy, called Scribbletone and shares the space with Jolby & Friends, and Cuban Council.



After the tour, we met up with some of their friends at Bunk Bar, which is owned by my friend Carol's brother, Nick, who Andy had become friends with on his last trip to Portland. We had some drinks and scooted over to Biwa for dinner. I had the onigiri, tofu cake (highly recommended!), and udon noodles. We returned back to Bunk Bar to close the night out.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - Part IV

Our penultimate day in Vancouver, we took the #44 bus from Nelson/Burrard all the way to UBC Campus to visit the Museum of Anthropology. We were quickly immersed in Coast Salish art and totems from all over British Columbia.





We learned a great deal of the different native tribes that comprise the First Nations. We also saw the Hiroshima exhibit of photographs by Ishiuchi Miyako of clothing and accessories left behind by the victims.

The museum not only contains artifacts from the First Nations, but it also has an impressive collection of objects from all over the world. They even have a searchable database of these collections.

We spent the early half of the day at the museum and decided to return back to downtown Vancouver to continue our eating quest.

We were drawn by the diversity of food on Denman Street, so we ate a second lunch at Damso, a Korean restaurant. I ordered the Very Very Vegetarian Bimbimbap.



After our meal, we took the same walking loop we did on our first day in Vancouver but made a detour through Stanley Park. We had room in our bellies for more food, so we stopped at La Belle Patate for Poutine. La Belle Patate was the only poutine restaurant that offered a vegetarian gravy.



Andy enjoyed the french fries topped with gravy, cheese curd, and peas, but I can't say it was my favorite thing to eat.

Thursday was our last full day in Vancouver, and we had to depart our awesome AirBnB condo, since we had only booked it for four nights. I used my Marriott Rewards points to book a room at the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown. Luckily we didn't have to go too far and just put our packs on and walk a few blocks to get there. The room wasn't ready, so we left our bags at the front desk and had a soy latte at Caffe Artigiano (which came highly recommended by Lili).





For lunch, we had read great reviews of a restaurant on Robson Street called Chongqing that specialized in Szechuan cuisine, so we popped in there for a bite. I got a vegetarian Hot and Sour Soup and Green Beans in Black Bean Sauce. Writing about the green beans makes my mouth water still. They were so tender and perfectly cooked.





We did a little shopping on Robson Street to work up our appetite for dinner. This time finding a place was a little tricky especially if you're a Yelp user like we are. Vancouver has a few places with 4.5 stars and a ton of 4 star restaurants. It seemed like we had visited all the 4.5 star restaurants that were within walking distance and our budget. Also, because we were visiting in the lowest of the low season, some restaurants were closed. We settled on Aki Sushi in the West End, since it was only a few blocks away from our hotel.

We tucked in early at the hotel because we had to catch a very early morning train to Portland the next day.

Vancouver/Whistler, British Columbia, Canada - Part III

We rented a car to drive the Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler. On our way to the rental car office, we happened upon Occupy Vancouver which had set up a tent city at the Vancouver Art Gallery.





After picking up our rental car, we headed to North Vancouver via the Lions Gate Bridge.



The Sea to Sky Highway was breathtaking, and unfortunately I was ill-equipped to capture the beauty and majesty of the drive. We got some shots when we stopped at Shannon Falls.



Arriving in Whistler, we went into Whistler Village hoping to take a gondola ride up either to Blackcomb or Whistler Mountains, but all the gondolas are closed this time of year. It's the lowest of the low season. We were bummed to say the least, and I guess I should have called ahead of time, but we were glad to enjoy the scenery. Many of the stores in the village were open and gearing up for the start of the season.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - Part II

On Monday morning, we began the grand neighborhoods tour of Vancouver by foot. We hiked over the Granville Bridge to Granville Island and got the best view of Vancouver.



Once we found ourselves on Granville Island (home of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design), we made our way to the Granville Island Brewery.



After the beer tasting, we found a entire artist collective on the island. One of the neatest artisans handcrafts brooms from broomcorn and manzanita.

We were getting hungry, so we went into the Granville Island Public Market to grab some lunch. It took a long time for us to decide what to eat, there were so many fantastic vendors, and our stomachs were grumbling.







I finally settled on a pita filled with piping hot lentils.



Andy made his own baguette sandwich with elk prosciutto, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

After lunch, we walked to the Kitsilano and South Main Street neighborhoods. We got a little turned around, but managed to hop onto a bus which took us to Yaletown. Yaletown is a bit like Vancouver's version of SoHo, with just as high of rent. Andy wanted to pick up some beer and was flabbergasted by the prices. Apparently alcoholic beverages are taxed at 12% making it so expensive.

For dinner, we went to Guu Izakaya. It was our first oden experience. I ordered the Mochikin (sticky rice in tofu bag) and Konnyaku (Japanese yam cake) oden, Crispy Vegetables Bean Curd Rolls, and Sata Imo (Panko-breaded taro potato croquette).







We were sitting at the bar, and Andy's neighbor to his left struck up a conversation with him about his ochazuke. Apparently the fellow had never ordered it in a restaurant, because his mother makes it at home.



We found that they were big snowboarders and go up to Whistler regularly. They've been attempting to surf, play a round of golf, and snowboard all in one day. They gave us some tips for our day trip to Whistler as well as Vancouver eating advice.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - Part I

We left Victoria on Sunday morning by bus which took us to the Swartz Bay Ferry. After all the ferrying we did, it's really easy when you're a backpacking to buy a ticket from a kiosk and hop on, it looks like if you've got a car, you'll need to do a little more planning.



Making the crossing to Tsawwassen (the ferry terminal for Vancouver) takes about 1.5 hours via BC Ferries. At Tsawwassen, in order to pay your fare when boarding the bus (#620) that takes you to the SkyTrain into Vancouver, you'll need coins. Luckily the woman behind us was prepared and was able to help us out! Canadians are nice like that. From the bus, we transferred to the Canada Line SkyTrain (Bridgeport station) into Vancouver City Centre.

As we walked to our AirBnB condo, we came across JapaDog.

This was not a chance encounter, in fact, it was very much planned. Ever since we had seen the Vancouver episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, we have been dying to try out JapaDog, and we couldn't wait a minute more. With backpacks still on, Andy and I each got a dog and devoured them before walking one more block to where we were staying. They have several veggie dog options, and I got the Veggie Terimayo.





Our AirBnB condo was just like it was described. Lili (the owner) welcomed us, and we settled into our digs for the next four days. This was our first experience with AirBnb, and it's a great alternative to staying in a hotel.





We figured we would take it easy on the sightseeing in Vancouver and focus on food. We walked down Robson Street for window shopping, and took Denman toward English Bay Beach. We stopped at a brand new store specializing in nuts called Ayoub's Dried Fruits and Nuts.



Then we continued on our way to English Bay Beach and encountered Beijing-based artist Yue Minjun's sculptures of laughing men called “A-Maze-in Laughter."





We decided to call it an early evening and walked up Davie Street and stopped in at a grocery store to stock up on breakfast items and Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix for dinner.