The New "Tell Us About Your City" Thread

[Nique]

Portland, Oregon

Pretty much everything good about Seattle you can get a reasonable facsimile of in Portland with 45% less douchiness. Good coffee places (but still way too many Starbucks), Good and occasionally great local food, music scene, Kumuricon (V. Seattle’s vastly superior Sakura-Con). Portland is divided into 5 pretty diverse sectors. There’s the 4 quadrants - NW, SW, NE and SE Portland, then what used to be the city of ‘St. John’s’ is now North Portland.

North Portland is mainly residential so there’s not much to do aside from some good places to eat - tons of coffee places pop up all the time, a really good theatre pub (part of a great local chain) or buffalo wings, or just some greasy spoons, that sort of thing. South West and South East are mainly commercial /downtown area, so there’s lots of shopping and theatres like the Schnitz. One place you need to stop by is Powell’s ‘City of Books’ Bookstore and basically you can’t not come out of there transformed into a huge book nerd.

North West Portland is the worst. Here you have the pretentiously named ‘Pearl District’. It is essentially a place for the affluent hipsters or yuppie on the go. Ok, well, actually there are some neat places there but it is very trendy and it bugs me except for we have, like, 13 gelato places within a 4 block radius.

Some stuff I like to do:

Food
Saburos
The Original Hot Cake House
McMenimins


Arts/Theatre
Arlene Schnitz
Portland Arts Museum

Scienceing!
Oregon Zoo
OMSI

Scenic
Japanese gardens
Rose Garden at Washington Park
Pittock Mansion

People Watching
Ride the Max
Pioneer Courthouse Square

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Originally Posted by Nique

Portland, Oregon

I've always wanted to visit the Northwest states sometime. My sister's going to college just outside Portland, so I figure I could pal around withmooch off of her if I ever go

[katiuska]

Originally Posted by Nique

Pretty much everything good about Seattle you can get a reasonable facsimile of in Portland with 45% less douchiness.

Yeah, that's basically what I've heard. I've only seen Seattle for all of like a day, though, so I can't say much one way or the other. I will say that I don't think I could love a city that names its stadiums Qwest and Safeco.

Portland, however, is pretty awesome.