portland

i'm typing my first post from a wifi readied coffee shop. this is kind of exciting. i'm now looking for wifi hot spots just so i can be online. anyhow, i'm in portland, downtown. it is quite small compared to seattle and san fran. it's a saturday afternoon and there's plenty of parking and not too big of crowds. the place itself is full of brew pubs. but there was a nice little weekend street market thingy with live music that was quite fun. there are parts of downtown by the water but it was too far to walk to. i might drive by it before i leave for eugene.
i asked one of my golf mates yesterday what there is to do here and he basically said that if you like beer, portland is the place for you. it is what he calls a small big city. there's not a lot of land to expand so the new buildings grow upwards to accommodate the growing population.
downtown portland can be walked acrossed town in about 20 minutes. the people seemed friendly enough.

the pictures are of the street market and chinatown. they were right next to each other.