Portland

Here I am saying goodbye to Canada for now, having watched the orcas and seals on my last Canadian day.

I love trains. I went by Amtrak from Vancouver to Portland Oregon.

 I spent the day there at the Portland Japanese Garden. It was so beautiful.I saw many garden spaces "forming nature in its idealized state". The tour guide said that the most expertise and time spent was on the garden that looked the most natural.

"No one will understand a Japanese garden until you've walked through one, and you hear the crunch underfoot, and you smell it, and you experience it over time. Now there's no photograph or any movie that can give you that experience."

J. Carter Brown

But I will try:

It had the desired quality of making me feel peaceful and reflective. Japanese design incorporates architecture, form and line, texture and colour--a great feast for the senses. I was in a heavenly peaceful state, even though school had started!

Late in the afternoon, I walked down the hill to the rose garden. There was a large amphitheatre and a "Shakespeare Garden" which was a little courtyard. This is a "test" garden, with tens of thousands of every imaginable colour and type of rose. I understood the concept of overpopulation!

 Portland Oregon is a very pretty city from what I saw although there also seemed to be a lot of homelessness. Portland hosted my first two uber experiences and my first airbnb experience. All highly successful and confidence-building.

https://japanesegarden.org/?utm_source=Website%20Button&utm_medium=Google%20Maps%20|%20Locl.io&utm_campaign=Google%20Maps%20Data%20|%202019