Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Seeing China


My mother lives in Ohio and was here during Christmas for a visit. I wanted to be a good son/host and take Mom around and show her some of the sights of the Pacific Northwest, but unfortunately over the years we’ve already “done” the San Juan Islands, the North Cascades Scenic Highway, the Pacific Ocean, the rain forest, and the east-of-the-mountains desert.

I got it in my head that this time we’d go spend a couple of hours in China.

We drove to Portland. I’d done some poking around on the Web and learned that Portland has what appeared to be a pretty cool Chinese garden, and it turned out that it was indeed quite a place. Though the weather was chilly and a bit rainy when we visited and it wasn’t really the best day for a garden stroll, the winter season look of the place reminded me of Asian brush and ink art.

And Mom and I can add China to the list of places we’ve visited.