Trip update - week 2

Decided to do some shopping today, to make use of this luxury trip. Mission of the day was to get a jacket, my personal preference to get something that at least I can still wear back at Malaysia, so the moderate cold resistance is good enough for me.

After 2-3 hours of browsing through shops at Woodburn Premium Outlet, I still find the jacket I saw at Washington Square few days earlier suits me more, hence I left without buying anything of my initial plan, instead bought a few kitchenware that I am sure my mum will like them.

Headed back to Portland for lunch at 2-ish, decided to finally try the famous Portland food truck. There were few stalls there, some selling angmo food like burger and sandwich, some Thai food, some Mediterranean food. Needless to say the angmo food is getting the most crowd, with the angmo's acceptance level to foreign food. I picked the Egypt stall and ordered lamb Gyro. It was big for $5, taste was OK.

Lamb Gyro

Found out that the ever famous Voodoo doughnut was just few blocks away, since we have paid for the $6 parking, we have decided to explore around the area. The queue for doughnut is as crazy as before, we waited more than 30 minutes for our turn, under the hot sun. Yes, it's winter but the sun at 4 pm still deliver some degree of warmness, that I do not feel comfortable about it. About the doughnut, they are just doughnut, it's crazy how people would be willing to queue for it.

Voodoo doughnut

Crossed over the street to the Saturday Market. It was more lively that what I remembered last year when I was here, probably due to the better weather. Managed to saw some early blossom of sakura by the river. Next week or the week after should be ready for a full blossom view.

Cherry blossom at Portland waterfront

Next, towards the Pittock Mansion by the hill. The Pittock family was the founder of Portland City, the mansion located at the hill where it overlook the Portland Downtown area from top. It was getting cold as the night is closing, but there were still some number of people up there, some waiting for the city night view shots, some were modelling, some were just strolling around.

The Pittock Mansion

As it was getting cold and we weren't prepare to wait until the day light goes off, we headed back for dinner. It was a bit of disappointment without able to order the crab that was the initial hunt for food, nevertheless had a decent dinner as well.

That's the end of day-1.


Started day-2 with one hour lesser due to the daylight saving thing that I still could not comprehend. Had a healthy quinoa oatmeal as breakfast while taking away a panini for lunch. Well, you know how it tastes for healthy food.

Healthy quinoa oatmeal - Panera Bread

First stop was the NeahKahNie trail. Yes that sounded very weird to me as well, didn't really read through the history, I think it was some Indian word (I am guessing Red Indian instead of the Bollywood Indian). It was rated Moderate, but it was pretty simply IMO, more of a trail walking than hike, there were people jogging through the jungle that's probably the best evident. It was a short 70~80 min drive, with some fog encountered during the journey.

~10 min of foggy drive

The North trail head of NeahKahNie

We took slightly more than an hour to reach the summit, with some random stop and shoot along the jungle path. Weather wasn't too bad, it was chilling under the shade. The summit was a space of bald rock. It was ~1230 noon, the sun was right above our head. We as the typical Malaysians, couldn't withstand the heat and decided to walk back down to a more spacious and shaded place for dinner (I am trying to avoid saying the angmo being crazy about sun since we are the alien here).

From the summit

Initially we planned to go for Astoria Column since it's just less than an hour drive, but an outlet store at Seaside had us took a detour for an hour. Dropped Astoria since it's really nothing there, decided to head for Fort Steven instead.

Had a rough search on Fort Steven and its famous spot seems to be a shipwreck, and so we go for the shipwreck. It was cold by the beach, but the relaxing feel was really good.

The shipwreck by Fort Steven

Something about the wreck

Went back to Seaside for the seafood that I have been longing. It was a great discovery of the Seaside town street, it has quite some unique shop that worth a visit, unfortunately most shop were closed. The shops in The State close pretty early, some closes at 4 pm. It was crazy seeing the day was still bright but all the shops are closed down, this is especially ridiculous during summer when the day light goes off at 9 pm.

Anyway, went to Norma's for dinner, ordered King Crab and seafood platter together with oyster as appetizer. I have been search for crab, and I am totally satisfy with what I got here, although I just had a small taste of my colleague's plate. This is the first shop that makes me feel like paying a revisit.

King Crab - Norma's

Head back to Hillsboro at 8, meet a little traffic and reached by 10.

That's a wrap for week-2.