It was quite the change coming back from a few months in Central America to Portland, Oregon. The weather here is just incredible. Clear, blue skies and a nice gentle breeze. Not to mention the beautiful greenery here. What more can you ask for? It was nice not having a rainy day for once. I am staying with my friend Derrick Lepin, whom I met during my student exchange trip to Hong Kong. Derrick and I decided to venture out for dim sum early the next morning. I sure miss dim sum! We had a great meal together, reminiscing about the old times in Hong Kong and all the big meals we had there. We then went out to shop for our camping trip that we will do in a few days out to Olympic National Park. We stopped by a few camping/outdoor stores before heading to REI, one of the largest outdoor and camping stores in the US. It’s one of those stores you can spend the whole day shopping. They also had a huge labour day sale which I took advantage of. They had a rare medium-sized The North Face wind breaker jacket on sale. The original price was $79.00 but it was marked down to $54.83. However, since it was on the “clearance” rack there was an additional 50% off!! So I got the jacket for $27.41. It was a steal of a deal! I also got a pair of shorts and some travel khaki pants on sale. I love the no tax thing in Oregon!
We didn’t eat the rest of the day as we worked up our appetite for sushi for dinner. We went to this sushi place that Derrick recommended and it proved to be a good choice. We got there before Sherine (Derrick’s girlfriend) since we were already near the restaurant. We were hungry so we ordered an appetizer. Not sure what the exact name of it was but it was basically crispy octopus balls. So that was before our big meal. When Sherine arrived, we each ordered the Roll Combo which included 17 various sushi rolls, miso soup, green salad, and steamed rice. We also ordered another small sashimi dish with included 15 various fishes and included miso soup/cucumber salad/steamed rice. When we ordered our meals, the waitress looked very puzzled and thought we would never finish our meals. She even highly recommended another dish for us since she thought it would be better. She’s never seen anybody order 4 meals for 3 people before! Anyways, Derrick and I did manage to finish our own plates with ease and also helped to clear Sherine’s plate as well. We made sure we let our waitress know how much we ate. We even kept asking her for water since we overloaded on the soy sauce/wasabi. When she brought the pitcher of water to our table, I told her just to leave the pitcher on our table. She laughed and giggled like all the other Asian girls do. By the end of our meal, we basically cleared up every bit of rice on the plate. When our waitress, Kate, came by with our bill, she was amazed. In her 6 months of work there, she told us she has never seen anybody eat as much as we did. We felt honored. Even the chef guy came out to congratulate us. It was really funny. If that wasn’t enough, Derrick took me to this popular ice cream place, Coldstone Creamery to get a taste of the ice cream there. It was a good way to “fill in the cracks” from our meal!
Derrick and I just finishing up our sushi meal
The chef, me, and Kate, our waitress from Korea
