Leave the Path

Our last day in Portland was a good one. At breakfast (banana pancakes and scrambled eggs at the guesthouse) Emre proclaimed “Today, it’s not going to rain.” It seemed like a silly promise since it had rained at least three times per day since we’d arrived in Portland, but it turns out he was right. Yesterday was the warmest, driest, most clear and lovely day we saw on the whole trip.

Luckily, the one thing we had left that we really wanted to do in Portland was to go to Washington park. We left a little later than we’d planned, but by late morning we were riding the Max rail line east of the city. Washington Park is a hilly area several miles wide with several museums and gardens within it. We got off at the same stop as the zoo and consulted a map. The Japanese and Rose gardens were somewhat north of us, so we followed a series of interlocking switchback-dense trails up the hill. We were hardly the only ones visiting the park that day. We saw dozens of families out enjoying the miraculously cloudless sky. Over half of the visitors brought dogs. Often the trail wandered through a manicured garden or arboretum. Very few trees had blooms or leafs this early, but the magnolias were all decorated with big fuzzy buds just starting to open. At other places the trail moved through what I assume is more natural Oregon wilderness. In those places our whole field of vision was filled with vibrant green. Like the woods we saw near the coast, huge ferns and thick curtains of vines gave the forest a very primitive feel.

Eventually we found the gate to the Japanese Gardens and paid for our entrance. I didn’t really know what to expect from these gardens. I knew that they were several times larger than the Chinese gardens but I expected them to be somewhat similar. In actuality the Japanese gardens were very, very different from the Chinese garden we saw earlier in the week. We were lucky to catch a tour and to have an excellent guide who had lived in Japan for a few years before returning to Portland.

Our guide explained that Japanese gardens intentionally include very few flowering plants. The stone and water features used are extremely important to the garden design (this is similar to the Chinese gardens) but a majority of the plants are evergreens. As apposed to the sharp contrasts of the Chinese garden, most of the Japanese garden was subtly different shades and textures of green.

There were also fewer man-made objects in the Japanese garden than the Chinese garden and those that we did see (a tea house, stone lanterns, a couple bridges) tended to be very simple but elegant in design. I particularly enjoyed photographing the stone lanterns. All of them are hand-carved granite and most of them are antiques or symbolic gifts from cities or individuals in Japan.

The garden is actually a sampler of 5 historic styles of Japanese gardening. It was started shortly after WWII to repair Japanese-American ties damaged in the war. Despite the fact that it’s only 50 years old (very young for this sort of garden, apparently) the mastery of the gardeners made some of the clearings feel like they have always been there. Several parts of the garden that Emre and I wandered into after the tour seemed simply surreal, like they were just naturally perfect and had never been touched by human hands. A huge part of this effect was due to the moss. Apparently many people in Portland are annoyed by their natural bevy of moss (indeed I found sections of the city where my moss-points-north trick didn’t work because people had tediously cleaned the moss off of the large trees.) In the Japanese garden, however, they truly appreciate this natural treasure. Our guide told us about a former gardener named Sam who loved the moss so much that he pruned it with tweezers. Whole hillsides are covered with meticulously maintained velvety moss. It provides a consistent green background for the textures of the stones and plants of the garden. It is more regular in texture and requires less trimming than grass and it lends an air of age and solitude to even the busiest parts of the garden. The luxurious moss carpet of the tea house garden is so lovely and so fragile that we weren’t even allowed to walk on the path through it. (I would have loved to get close, but the rule is probably for the best since many of the visitors couldn’t seem to keep their feet on the stone paths.)

I was surprised that the garden included no bonsai. Many of the pines and other trees were carefully pruned to remain on a human scale (a charming contrast to those mammoth firs and cedars of the natural Oregon forest), but I don’t remember seeing any miniature or potted plants in the whole garden. My favorite trees were the ones I’m calling “Mario Trees” because they look like the strangely bubble-shaped cartoon trees from the Super Mario games.  I think they are a kind of boxwood but trimmed into these strange terraced shapes.  

An advantage of a larger garden was that even with the dozens of visitors there with us, we were still fairly spaced out. We saw many people with fancy cameras pausing by particularly nice views. There were also several families with small children darting about and looking for koi in every pond. Occasionally on the smaller paths people would get into one another’s way, but even with all those people it wasn’t hard to find a more quiet reflective space.

The water features were some of the most immediately noticeable features. They added movement and fluidity to the otherwise formal gardens. Several little ceremonial washing fountains were tucked away near the paths. A large waterfall emptied into a pool and a pair of streams passed through the park and joined a few small ponds. Some of the streams and ponds were crossed by simple bridges. In one of the ponds we found all of the prized koi (which include some of them the original fish introduced when the garden was begun in the 50’s) huddled together in the deepest part of the biggest pond.

There were also a couple of sand-and-stone gardens. Honestly I wasn’t so taken with them. I think that the act of raking would be therapeutic, but just looking at a raked garden didn’t do much for me. Another popular area of the garden is the overlook. The Japanese gardens are on a large hill looking west over Portland so they have arguably the best possible view of the city. From the overlook we could see the rooftops and towers of Portland, framed by the evergreens of Washington Park and against a backdrop of Mt Hood, Mt St Helens, and a bright blue sky. It was almost cheesy how good the view was on the day we were there. The photos look like cheap postcard pictures but I promise it was a beautiful sight.

After the Japanese garden, we stopped by the International Rose Test Gardens, known as a jewel of Portland and origin of the Portland nickname “the Rose City.” Unfortunately March is not the time for roses and the garden was very bare.

We meandered down hill from the gardens and, much to my surprise, found ourselves on 23^rd street not far from the hostel where we had stayed the first nights. From there we walked to downtown, popping into shops that interested us and thoroughly enjoying a view of the streets unclouded by rain. Because we’d missed lunch again, we opted for an early supper. We hadn’t tried any Pacific seafood as of yet and a quick internet search suggested a place called “Jake’s Famous Crawfish” as the place to experience Portland’s finest fish dishes. Emre was a little reluctant at first, having once ordered crawfish and been surprised to learn that it’s not a fish at all. We were extremely pleased with Jake’s, though, and the menu happily featured much more than crustaceans.

According to the story on the menu, Jake’s was established in the 1890’s and has, over the course of so many years, been frequented by an impressive clientele. The interior was very early-20^th century elegance, with heavy wood paneling, oil paintings of Oregon scenery, large stained glass lamps, and smartly uniformed waiters. Apparently this place isn’t a very well kept secret; when we sat down at 5:00 and the place was already busy and when we left there was a line of people waiting. Many of the tables were pushed together and we saw several very large multi-generational families feasting together. It was a wonderfully happy, established ambiance for a dinner. The menus at Jake’s are printed daily with a list of the fresh seafood choices and where they were brought in from. We both chose salmon for dinner. Emre’s was stuffed with crab meat and brie, mine was roasted on a cedar plank. Both were absolutely delicious, as were all of the side dishes and the extra-rich chocolate truffle cake Sunday. The service was excellent, as well, and we left feeling extremely satisfied and happy.

It was still light out when we left and we walked around the streets a little more, catching a few last glimpses of the city before catching the bus home. We spent the evening packing and went to bed early.

I really enjoyed my time in Portland. Emre’s favorite part was the Cirque du Soleil show (he walks around singing the songs). Mine was probably the light rail system (It’s just so practical! Why can’t other American cities get it together?) followed closely by the Chinese and Japanese gardens. The gardens were pretty, but more importantly they gave me a tangible reason to be interested in Chinese and Japanese culture. After an excellent tour of each garden, I left feeling like I had just scratched the surface of East Asian philosophy and history but that it would be a fascinating thing to study. On the whole it was a great experience and one day we’ll have to find an excuse to go back in the summer to see those roses.

Happy Easter!