we arrived at about 5 plus in the afternoon. got a cab to our hostel and checked into our beautiful room! then after gathering info about portland and mt. st. helens, we headed out to attend the damien rice concert. =) and we sat on the bus and overshot our bus stop. almost got lost.
me and shian chi waiting for the bus. as you can see, the weather was very very nice. about 15-18 degrees.
here are blur pictures of damien rice. because using flash photography is not ethical during a concert like this, plus it's not nice, hence the pictures are all blur. sigh. need a tripod. but then again i wouldn't lug a big tripod to a concert. here is damien on his guitar. just him and the guitar and the spotlight. his voice is amazing.
zoomed in. he's wearing a nice vintage tee with a blazer and pants. nice combi.
lighting design was excellent. that's all i can say.
after the concert. =)the next day was a shopping day+explore-downtown day. shian chi and i are natural shopaholics. hence we bought quite a lot of stuff, for ourselves and gifts too. for lunch we went for...
a japanese buffet! at todai restaurant. their lunch buffet was not bad for its price. the dinner one has more stuff and is more expensive. the sushi was ggoooddd. so were the rest of the food.
happy happy.
the mandatory downtown shot of portland. wah not enough light.
in the heart of downtown portland. nice place to chill with a coffee and your dog on a warm day.
the hawthorne district where we stayed. it's this quirky, vintage, hippie neighbourhood of portland.
the next day, we all piled into a rented Ford Expedition SUV that seats 8 people and went on a roadtrip! i love roadtrips. we took a 2.5 hour drive up north into washington state and went east to mt. st. helens. i was the navigator while alvin, the only guy with us, was our driver.
oh here is alvin! i love the car. it's something i would get next time when i have kids and dogs. haaaa. long time to go.
the drive on I-5 was smooth and the sights were breathtaking. it's amazing how america is blessed with beautiful sights. and come to think of it, so is china and the european countries and russia and south america and australia and many places. and yet so often in our pursuit of wealth and material things, we forget the beauty of nature.
the long winding road. this was off I-5, on a state highway going east.
as we go higher and higher up the casacade mountains, the sights got more and more pretty. love the meandering river.
the road stretches, seemingly to eternity.
the thing about renting your own car as opposed to following a tour group - you can stop anytime along the road to admire the scenery and take pictures! here are all of us. from left: me, suhui, yinyin, alvin, jieying and shian chi.
car partners shot! alvin and me, with the beautiful mountains and valley behind us.
so i wonder how many of you remember our geography textbooks on the eruption of mt. st. helens in 1980. till now i still remember that case study, because the eruption was SO severe. and really huge in magnitude.
self-shot! the lumix is good. haaaa.
all of us again.
mt. st. helens was covered in clouds that day. but you could still see that it was like half a plateau and half a mountain. because the impact of the explosion during the eruption blown it's entire summit off. and because it was a sideways explosion, the crater now is asymmetrical. and till now, you can still see it.
we stopped at one of the crater lakes because it was just so beautiful. here is a single drop of dew. =)
me and yinyin sitting on a log just at the bank of the crater lake. it was so quiet and serene.
us again. the other girls were too scared to climb on it at first. so it was only yinyin, alvin and me who did. after a while, they joined us anyway. haha.
at the johnston ridge observatory, where there are shops and a film screening and a ranger talk and a cafeteria. i like this shot because the heights are so perfectly lined up. and of course the background.
just in case you still haven't seen the volcano in my pictures, see the top 1/3 of this picture on the left, you could see the base of the volcano, then it all becomes clouds. that's st. helens, with its flat top.
this is the lake we were at just now. the water reflects beauty in its own beauty.
back on the road, on the way back to oregon state. for factory outlet shopping. hahahahaaa.
crossing the bridge that separates washington state from oregon state.
after shopping we drove back to downtown portland and went to have chinese food at chinatown. the food was not bad and not too expensive. and we were having fun laughing at alvin's pathetic attempts at speaking mandarin to our waitress. and she was so amused by him too. it is alvin's trademark to speak weirdly to waitresses at chinese restaurants. it happened in vancouver too.
the next day, we had to return the car but we all were so tired and i was the first one up. seriously for both mornings i had to go wake everyone up. we packed and piled everything into the car and drove to the bus station to deposit our bags. then we had to pump gas into the car to full, so we spent another ridiculous 45 mins driving around downtown to look for a gas station. we gave up and decided to go into a grocery store to ask, and it turns out, it was just one block away from the grocery store. well done.
so with a full tank of gas, plus we were kind of late already, we headed back to the car rental place and guess what. there's a gas station just next to it. well done.
then we had to argue our way out of the extra one day charge, which practically doubled the price we had to pay. good thing we were successful so they only charged us for one day.
and after a walk downtown and a visit to abercombie and fitch (again), we headed home in our favorite greyhound bus. and i still managed to do some readings for class. =)
exciting trip, this is.
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