The Raging Bull

The day started early for Chris and myself as we headed out first thing to explore Forest Park in Portland - America’s largest in-city park. It was reported to have over 70 miles of hiking trails so we were looking forward to an enjoyable early morning run before Lui surfaced. We got lucky with the weather, it wasn’t raining for a change, but we were in for an unwelcome surprise with the trails. They were long and pretty, but very hilly and after a tough few days training I did wonder if it would be quicker to walk up some of them. After an hour of shuffling/waddling/crawling we decided enough was enough and made our way back to our airport motel where Lui was waiting.


Forest Park

Yesterday, despite visiting Nike Town, we hadn’t quite satisfied our need for Nike so as a matter of priority we first went to the Nike Factory Outlet which was near where we were staying. My quest to find a snazzy racing singlet to make me run faster is still ongoing and we were again out of luck here, despite almost hitting gold with a bright orange top which we discovered (fortunately prior to purchasing) it was actually a tennis top. It was fortunate that we went though as despite not finding the vest, we suddenly realised that we actually urgently needed other stuff…in this case a new watch for me and a mini basketball for Lui.

With our wallets feeling lighter we left the shop quickly before we ended up buying other stuff we desperately needed like a pair of shin pads or tennis skirt. The weather was still nice-ish so we headed down to Portland’s Japanese Garden which is situated just West of Downtown Portland. Although the garden’s weren’t particularly big, they were pretty and I enjoyed being chief photographer - a rare event due to my amazing ability to take a terrible photo. Below are some of my best attempts!


Pretty tower thingy in the Japanese garden


My first arty shot!


Chris totally unaware i snapped him!

Finally in the evening we made our long awaited trip to Duke’s Country Bar and Grill, a local establishment found on the internet and an extremely exciting prospect for boys because of the presence of a mechanical bull. It turned out to be a great place and despite being three hours (!) too early to ride on the bull, we entertained ourselves with a few games of pool, dinner, and a free line dancing lesson (Maybe I’ll stick to photography after all). At 9pm, it was the main event. At the front of the queue to ride the bull were Lui and Chris. Chris went first and made a reasonable attempt at staying on the bull, but Lui stole the show. Despite looking like a cross between a raggy doll and a sack of potatoes, Lui stayed on the bucking bull absolutely ages before finally being dumped on the landing mat. To make it even more entertaining he had a massive grin on his face the whole time!


Lui owning the bull-ride