Top is this dude at The Portland Saturday Hippie Market drumming on large plastique buckets and on the lower foto, in the bottom left, there's a guy playing a Didgeridoo in accompaniment!
Top here is the grand splendour of the gateway to Portlandia's Chinatown! This has GOT to be thee saddest Chinatown on the West Coast (hell, even Victoria British Columbia has a more vibrant and active and larger Chinatown, and THAT isn't saying much at all) as the Chinatown itself goes three blocks down past this grand portal and two blocks over and that's it.....sooooo, what: Maybe six to nine square blocks (and even THAT FIGURE is being generous).
The sad fact is that there aren't even any Asian people in PDX's Chinatown anymore! It basically now consists of Pearl District rejects (the $6.00-per-Latte drinkers) and drooling developers and that's about it! The vast majority of Portlandia's Asian population reside and work and play along 82nd avenue......sooo, demographically, THAT is PDX's REAL Chinatown. Hell, even legendary restaurant Hung Far Low left "Chinatown" and ran away to 82nd.......
Middle pic shows an example of the area's thriving "adult" industry.....further down that street is Portlandia's favourite contemporary interpretive danse studio, The Magic Gardens!!
Later on, went out to Sauvie Island and watched my buddy Gord do a few dry runs on the beach before attempting to Kiteboard in the Columbia River.
-E-
