I had Veteran’s Day off last week and planned on going to the Japanese Garden for I heard it was free that day. I ran some errands in the morning and then looked up the hours while I was eating lunch. Closes at 4 – damn. I finished eating and quickly left for the train ride can take at least 30 minutes to get there.
To get to the garden, I can take the train to the zoo and then catch a bus that goes by the garden. I get to the bus stop at the zoo and look and the schedule and see that I missed it by a few minutes and that the next one was not for about 30 minutes. I did not feel like waiting so I decided to start walking. I could see on a map where the garden was, but had no idea how far I had to go.
About 100 yards from the bus stop I come across the entrance to Oregon’s Vietnam Memorial. Considering it was Veteran’s Day, I thought that this was meant to be, so I went in. It had a cool sidewalk design that was circled up along the hill. Along the sidewalk were 5 or 6 memorials split into groups of years that had the names of Oregonians on them that died during that time period. It also had a little history of what was going on in Vietnam at that time and, as a comparison, what was going on in Oregon. It was a very moving experience.
After leaving the memorial, I came across another trail and decided to take it to see where it goes. I guess I should mention that the zoo is located in Washington Park which is about 200 feet up in the hills and there are a lot of hiking trails in this area. I probably ended up hiking a couple miles and walked through maples, redwoods and other colorful trees. Never did make it to the Japanese Garden.
Here are some photos (or view the photos here):