PORTLAND

We have stayed three nights in Portland, a truely trendy city of 2 million people. There's downtown with its free public transport system; the Bohemian Hawthorne district across the river; and the leafy western end of the city, Washington Park. We spent a tranquil two hours in the brilliantly designed Chinese Gardens constructed on one downtown block

Ray stands amongst the Bonsai Trees

Elegant Ming style furniture within the scholar's study

The ceremonial terrace before the room where important guests would be greeted

Carefully patterned windows which allowed the rooms' interiors to merge with nature outside

The clever design of each area of the garden ensured that you could partially observe other areas giving the impression of far greater space than the single block on which the garden had been built.

Washington Park contained the zoo, the rose garden, and the Japanese garden. Here are a few choice pictures of animals we saw in the zoo. A Malaysian black bear:

An Indian elephant about to go into the water but scratching his foot with his trunk first:

The family get-together:

A fruit bat:

A meerkatA giraffe with baby gazelles

A cerebus monkey:

Then there was the most spectacular rose garden with over 6,800 bushes:

A perfect specimen:

Some unusual hybrid colours:
Over the road was the Japanese gardens:

Pat enjoying the sunshine in the peaceful surroundings:

A very large koi carp

Statuesque imagery:

Colourful bushes:

Imagery on a conceptual level, a zen arrangement of stone and sand