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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Community Corner

There are many neighborhoods in Portland that are pretty well hidden from the average Portlander because traffic is low and the way to these places get very confusing really fast, but what you find are these tight knit communities where most of the neighbors know each other.  Not the "know each other" like saying hi only when passing by, but they actually hang out with each other.  Some neighbors plant vegetables together in the community garden, some have scheduled afternoon get-togethers, and some hang out in the community corner to talk or to take a break and read a book.  I've seen a couple of these community corners before in SE Portland and I've recently stumbled upon this one in SW Portland.  I'll never reveal the exact location of these corners because they should only belong to those neighbors that built it.  Last, I love the little details like the decorations the neighbors leave in this corner.  It's pretty cool.




Meow.


I love these kinds of places. 

Overlook Park

In Portland there are many city parks that you can go to, but for me the Overlook City Park in North Portland is definitely one of the coolest parks I've been to.  I love this park mainly because of the landscape.  The north end of the park actually a pretty steep hill, but still climbable and you can see some parts of the downtown skyline from the top of the hill.  Keila seems to really enjoy this park because she's a nature dog.   



Lick



I love the hill part at the north end of the park.



Keila loves sitting in the sun.


Bird!!!

After Hours

Once in a while I come home from work very late at night and usually end up taking some pictures around Pioneer Square in downtown Portland while waiting for the Max light rail to arrive.   Downtown Portland is actually a very nice place to walk around in at night, it's a one time thing everyone should do if you ever visit Portland. 


Finally the Max arrives.


Post Junk Festival

The Plucky Maidens Junk Fest was awesome.  I would definitely come back next year.  We had a good day and Keila also had an awesome time at the Edgefield.  Below are the things we bought that day.


We didn't get this at the Junk Fest but we found it at a flower shop that was closing down in downtown Montavilla.  We got this awesome ammunition box that supposedly came from the Army.  This piece belonged to the flower shop owner's brother.  Her brother mentioned to her that the Army threw away all the ammunition boxes because they have no use for them other than for transportation.  So he brought a couple boxes home and we ended up buying this one for $5.


We came home from the Junk Fest buying these rare vintage mason jars, the one made with the blue hue.  I love the bigger one a lot because we can never find them from all our adventures of mason jar hunting.   We got the small one for $7 and the bigger one for $8.50.  Love it.


Keila chilling on the grass while I was taking pictures of our finds that day.  


Sunday, September 4, 2011

Junk Festivities Duo

Again, this is the Plucky Maidens Junk Festival which was one of the coolest events that I went to in Portland this summer, located in the Edgefield in Troutdale.  There were many vendors that carry antique and vintage items.  I love this piece above and the typewriter below. 



Collage, a creative/artsy supply store located in the Alberta Arts District in NE Portland was one of the vendors in this Junk Festival.  They always carry cool items. 







Junk Festival

One of the most coolest places I went to in Portland this summer would have to be the Plucky Maidens Junk Fest located in the McMenamins Edgefield location in Troutdale, OR.  I love love love that there were many unique and cool items such as window frames, bottles, and various antique/old pieces.  One of my current obsessions are to find and collect old ball jars, the ones that are made with a blue hue like the one above.  I think these jars make a great piece for decor around your living space.  Price wise, it's really a hit or miss, many of the smaller items were actually not too expensive, the bigger pieces can get very pricey.  Most of the bottles were between $7-$10.  There were window frames with the pane still intact selling for $8 and there were items like old suitcases which go up to $70.  Plus there was a local Portlander which won the second season of HGTV's Design Star that showed up to this event,  it was Emilie Henderson.  I should've taken a picture with her.  Dang.




Some of the old signs were pretty cool.


 Love bicycles, this one was pretty expensive.



 More jars.


 So many letter signs that I wanted to buy.



I love typewriters, I just don't have any space for them in my house.

Part 2 coming soon.

Dim Sum for Breakfast

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I had a rare weekday chance to go eat dim sum for breakfast. We met up with my sister and mother to go eat at this fairly new place called HK Cafe. You know a dim sum place is good when the restaurant is packed with people, and not just any people, these were old chinese folks and on a weekday. Usually dim sum places are only packed on a weekend.  After the initial first bites of the usual dishes I usually eat, the shomai above and the ha gau below, I knew this place was awesome.  I recommend this place if you haven't tried it. It's very comparable to the dim sum in Wong's King.





The durian filled cream puff was pretty good. Don't try it if you don't like durian.

Summer Sounds

A while ago, I had the opportunity to attend a family Sunday bbq.  This type of gathering was different from any other bbq because growing up my family always gathered with other close families almost every weekend and had a good time with each other accompanied with food and singing.  Basically, I miss this feeling of a simpler time from my childhood where there was very good traditional Indonesian food, fruit drinks and just an awesome time with old timers poking jokes at each other and laughing my guts out while listening to them.  I really miss the food a lot, above is a prime example of what I ate very often growing up, traditional marinated sate (chicken skewer).  Below you might notice that I take many pictures of kids because they remind me of what I experienced when going to these gatherings when I was younger. What a great day to end the week.



 Love the hat.



 I was playing hide and seek with these two kids through the screen window.



I love the expression he has as he runs around the yard.





 In action.


 Good old singing



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