portland is awesome

so I thought I would be able to post some photos from some awesome places we went today, but we didn't bring the right cord for the camera. So... that will be a while. But I can link some things up and talk about how cool they are.

did I mention I love Portland? Lots of fun shops, places to eat and indy record stores and thrift shops and gardens and pretty trees (magnolias and dogwoods and red buds blooming all over!) And there's a Whole Foods market right in downtown... just lots of yumminess everywhere. I got a tasty organic microbrew at a pizza place (where the server was very excited about the prospect of fresh herbs on our pizza). Much coolness. It's beautiful here. Okay! On to the links!

Today we at at Hot Pot City, where you pick a soup broth flavor, and they bring it to you in a pot with a cooker under it, and then you get whatever meets and veggies and spices and noodles you want at the bar and dump 'em all in and watch it cook up. Pretty cool!

Then we went to the Japanese Garden, which is the most authentic outside of Japan. It was absolutely beautiful, and we took a whole bunch of photos, (which I guess I'll put on flickr when we get home).

Then we went to some shops, including a couple of cool yarn shops. I found some great stuff in Lint... I got a bunch of wool yarn... some to make a felted bag for me (since my first attempt turned out great), some to make Angela a felted bag with, and some that was on sale that I just had to get cuz it's awesome (usually $17 a skein, marked half off, so I got all 3), and I'll figure out what to make later. Let's just say I spent way too many $$ at Lint. But Chris told me I could get it as my anniversary present, so hooray (he got some used CDs at some indy record stores).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Powell's Books is pretty darn awesome and huge.

We dunno what else we'll do with our next couple of days. We have two days where we only have film festival events in the evening, and then Sat/Sun will be all day, all night film festival stuff. So we have two daytimes to fill with random fun. I guess we've got to figure out what else we want to do. We do know that we want to go to Imago Dei Community Church on Sunday morning. I listen to their podcasts every week, and I really like the pastor. It's a pretty huge church, but I think it is worth checking out.

So that's what we know so far. And now I'm gonna go rest before we head out for some dinner.