Vancouver to Seattle to Portland

Posted on 2012/07/17 12:06:40 (July 2012).

[Sunday 8th July 2012]
I had an early start this morning, as my train left Vancouver at 6:40am. Of course, being jetlagged I had woken up at 4:30am anyway.

I had slightly underestimated how early I should arrive for my train, not having given adequate thought to the fact that there would be border checks before boarding. It actually took about half an hour between arriving at the station and actually getting on board the train, but fortunately as the border checks were there purely for that train, they didn't leave without us.

The train journey from Vancouver to Seattle, where I'd decided to stop off for lunch, was about four and a half hours. The scenery was fairly pleasant, much of it coastal (or at least lakeside, it's a bit hard to tell in this part of the world). I spent a while sitting in the buffet car, which was also quite pleasant, and I was reassured to see the standard of food and drink on trains in the US was no better than it is in Europe.

I arrived in Seattle just after 11, and shortly afterwards met up with my friend David, who I used to work with in Tokyo, and has recently moved back to the US. We went to a place for lunch which I presumed to be a bit touristy, but nonetheless it was nice to be out in the sunshine on the waterfront. We had a long catch up about what we'd respectively been doing the past couple of years, and in particular David told me about the ordeal they'd been through last year after the tsunami in Japan. I really admired his ability to stay positive in the face of what must of been a really harrowing time - he even apologised later on that he had spent the time "complaining" as he put it. Anyway it was very nice to see a familiar face, and I hesitantly add a familiar place (this will be my fourth or fifth visit to Seattle, I lose track) part way through my journey through otherwise largely unknown territory.

I resumed my train journey just after 2pm, for the next leg from Seattle to Portland. The scenery was less interesting on this leg - less coastline and more small town America. Still, it was at least a bit shorter - three and a half hours - and again a stint in the buffet car helped to pass the time.

I arrived in Portland just before 6pm, and got a taxi from the station to the hotel, where a bunch of people from my project would be camped out for the next couple of days. I bumped into Walter as I was arriving, and after respectively dropping of our bags, we decided to head out and try one of the local microbreweries for which Portland is famous.

It's a funny sort of a city, Portland. I didn't ever get the feeling I was in the centre of it, it just seemed to a big suburb. Our hotel was in what felt to me to be more like a residential area - and tellingly it was more like a motel than a hotel - my room was on the ground floor and the door opened directly to the outside. There were a few restaurants and bars dotted around in the immediate area, but mostly interspersed with houses. The microbrewery bar we went to was in a somewhat unassuming (and unattractive) building, with a few tables outside in what essentially seemed to be the car park. Still, I suppose the beer was reasonably good. I quite liked the lime kolsch.

A couple more people met us while we were there, and the four of us made a plan for dinner - to go to a Thai restaurant called Pok Pok. This meant a taxi ride to some other part of town (which also looked at first glance like a residential area with nothing in it). We had a bit of a wait for the table so killed time at a bar over the road.

Everybody else seemed a lot more excited by the food here than I was - I had a "khao soi" - a sort of coconut noodle soup, which was really kind of boring. I think I may just not like Thai food all that much.

Headed back to the hotel after that.

That's so awesome! I've been wnntiag to take the train to Portland for a while now hope you plan to post a bit about your travels so we can live vicariously through you.

Posted by Maricela at 2013/03/17 10:28:21.

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