Exploring Portland On TriMet

Last Wednesday, we woke up to a dry and sunny day. Hubby suggested that we should take advantage of the good weather to explore Portland city while he was at work. So I quickly got the kids ready and walked to the TriMet station, Orenco St, which is just across our apartment. Both Emily and Jared were excited as they have been watching the trains passed by every few minutes from our apartment window. I paid USD5 for an adult day pass and USD3.30 for a Youth day pass. Jared gets to ride for free. Very worthy indeed..

Within 10 minutes, we were on the Blue MAX train heading towards city centre. Our first stop was Washington Park where the Oregon Zoo, Children's Museum and Japanese Garden are located. We did not visit the zoo, waiting for the 2nd week of next month to get some discounts on the entrance tickets. 

After spending some time there, we hopped on the train to continue our journey to Waterfront Park. This park runs along the Willamette River. As the weather was good, many locals jogged and hang around the park.

                                      

Saturday Market Pavillion shelters Portland's Saturday Market on the weekends

Next, we took the train to Pioneer Courthouse Square, located at the heart of downtown Portland. 

Getting ready for the Christmas Tree Lighting event on the evening after ThanksGiving Day.

Portland's Chinatown area

We saw the Central library and decided to make a stop there. Library is huge compare to what we have back home :( The other day we dropped by the Hillsboro Public Library and borrowed 44 books for the kids and 7 magazines for myself.. how wonderful.

Our last stop was the Powell's Books bookstore, claims to be the largest new and used bookstore in the world. 

It was already dark when we came out from the bookstore and we headed to the nearest station to catch a train tothe blue line station to change another train to get back to our apartment. By this time, we were all worn out from the long walk, except for Jared who was comfortably sitting in his stroller most of the time. I was not paying attention to some announcements made in the train that we should abort the train to catch another train to the blue line. When the train crossed a bridge, I realised that we were heading on the wrong direction based on the map. We quickly got down on the next stop. It was dark and cold, so it wasn't that fun to be standing by the roadside with 2 kids. Emily was a little nervous, but I assured her that we will be able to catch the next train home, thankfully Jared was already asleep. We waited for more than 15 minutes but no train was insight. The station was empty too making us doubt if any train will be passing through at this hour. We were so glad when few people came over to the station and in a short while the train arrived...Pheww.. Relieved to be warm again sitting in the train.

Back at the Blue Line, waiting for a train to bring us back to our apartment.