A Very Important Date

For Christmas this year I told Jeff that all I wanted was a date in Portland, a chance to be in the city and enjoy some of the ammenities that we are lacking out here on the coast. So he very sweetly planned a wonderful day in Portland...although things didn't go exactly as planned. The day ended up being terrific though!

The gift from Jeff that I opened on Christmas day was a gift certificate for a half hour couples massage at a place in SE Portland. Because that was only going to take up a half hour we decided to plan a few other activities around it.

We left home at 10:30am and had planned on getting lunch at one of our favorite little downtown Mexican restaurants, Cha Cha Cha's, and then we were going to head straight for IKEA. Well, as we were driving along Hwy 26, we passed the sign for the Zoo and I commented that it would be a perfect day to go to the zoo since it was a beautiful, sunny day but not hot (actually quite the opposite of hot, 39 degrees). So we agreed to scrap IKEA, because we didn't really have a purpose in going there, other than to just look around. The restaurant we wanted to go to is downtown, so we thought we could just dash in there, grab a delicious burrito, and then head back to the zoo. Well, obviously we have not been to downtown Portland in a while because we completely forgot that they have practically the whole place torn up with construction on the new MAX line. So it took us 20 minutes just to find a place to park! Then, we got to the street where the restaurant was supposed to be, only to find that the building was completely gone! It's just a big muddy hole! This was terribly sad because it was one of our favorite restaurants. We think they must have relocated because the have too strong of a following to just close.

Luckily, just two blocks down was another fantastic, uniquely Portlandy place called Hotlips Pizza. I had a slice of their daily special which had goat cheese, roasted red peppers and pesto sauce (YUM!) and Jeff had one with lamb meat and we split an apple soda (they didn't have their delicious blackberry soda on tap that day, but the apple was excellent too!). So with happy tummies, we turned around (after getting tangled up in the construction again) and headed to the zoo.

Jeff realized when we got there that he hadn't been to the Portland zoo since he was just a little guy, so we had fun feeling young and exploring the zoo. We got to watch the elephants be led through a series of commands by their trainers, and the orangutangs (sp?) blowing bubbles in their water bowls. There were a lot of little kids there and it is always fun to see how excited they get with every new thing they see! Unfortunately the "African safari" animals weren't out because it was too cold for them, but we've seen those in real life, so it wasn't too great of a disappointment.

We left the zoo at 3:30, knowing we had to be in SE PDX at 4:30, and being a Friday afternoon we figured we'd hit crazy traffic on the Marquam. Fortunately things moved along fairly well and we got to our destination with plenty of time to spare, which we used up trying to find the parking lot. Portland, with all it's silly little one-way streets and bridges is not the easiest city to find your way around in.

Our massage was at Aqua Terra. Jeff found them online because they specialize in couples massage. The massage therapists are a married couple and they were fantastic! They knew a lot about massage, reflexology and pressure points. Afterward Jeff and I both commented that those were best massages we've ever had! The place was just one little room on the 9th floor of an old building. They had a created a wonderfully relaxing environment with candles, music and aroma therapy.

After the massage we went out to sushi, which was one thing we had both really missed having. You would think that the coast would be a convinient place for sushi, but I think it's a bit too "exotic" for many people out here, at least judging from the responses I've gotten whenever I mention it.

Usually when we go out for sushi we go to a place like Sushi Boat or Sushi Land where the sushi comes out on a conveyor, but Jeff had found a place just a mile or two from where we had the massage, Called Yoko's, that he thought we should try. It wasn't the kind with a conveyor, just menus, like a normal restaurant. I was kinda nervous, because as much as I enjoy sushi, I don't know much about it, so the conveyor is great because I just pick out whatever looks good, even though I have no idea what's in it. I didn't know what I would order if I had to order off a menu. When we arrived I got even more nervous because it is definitely a "hole in the wall" kind of place, but it just happened to be one of those amazing little "hole in the wall" places! Jeff and I were really adventurous and ordered one of their signature rolls, the Poki roll; Ahi and yellowfin tuna with cucumber, avacado and green pepper garnish. De-li-cious!

Again, with happy tummies, and happy bodies to boot, we got back in the car, navigated our way out of Portland, stopped at Target for some "necessaries" and started home. It was definitely a day well spent in Portland!