Thorough look at the Pacific West Coast

Jen's note: Its not really the 1st Starbucks but actually the 3rd location. 1st Starbucks was in the basement of another building and that building was torn down. However still a good spot. Has the old bare-breasted logo. Only sells coffee so it doesnt compete with other Pike Place food shops.

Jen's note: I like to eat A LOT so I wasn't full. Food was more sweet rather than savory so that might have affected my opinion about the tour. Lots of good stories on the tour. Forgive my spelling but my favorite stops were Pirosky, Beecher's cheese (mac n cheese rocked), Daily Donuts. Beecher's mac and cheese was sooo good, we had a portion of the regular and the spicy for lunch - yummy. And then we had it AGAIN for lunch the next day.

hmmm nothing to brag about. It was also a cold overcast day and I was sharing a seat next one of many, Seattle's homeless people. FYI, if I was going to be homeless, I would be homeless in Seattle. They look happy in Pike Place Market.

Apparently old Seattle burnt down in 1889. The city decided to build the new streets an extra street above sealevel. The streets below became this seedy underground place for prostitution (24 hr seamstresses HA), drinking and gambling. Deitrich, our eccentric tour guide told us the history, architecture and fun stories of this underground labrinyth with great humor and sarcasm.

Sadly, it was overrated. We were really looking forward to this meal but they just didn't have enough staff to cover the traffic. We arrive at 8:20 for a 8:30 reservation and didn't eat till 9:45. Staff was really nice but when you are coughing up $300 for a meal - food should not take SO long. I ate took much bread because I was starving. 1st dish was too cold, like just pulled out of the fridge when it should have at least been at room temperature. Scallops and risotto was delicious. I had to pass on the lamb because I was full on bread by the time my meal came. Can't even remember the dessert.

So the car rental rep asks me, do I want a Chevy....something, something. I say if it can go up hills when I gas it - sure. He sounded excited to upgrade me to a novelty car named Chevy HHR. I was happy that it was orange. And that's the story of how we came to drive with Betsy. She's ugly and if I passed by her in NYC - I would check out the driver to see who's tacky enough to purchase her. But in her defense - she's been great so far.

Every town in the Northwest has a place called Pioneer Place. Seattle has a Pioneer Place. Portland has a Pioneer Place. This reason for this is not just that the people in the Northwest lack imagination, but also because every city was founded by pioneers about 100 years ago. So they named a square after them. I have to admit that if I'd founded a city, I would expect more than a square named after me. A museum would be nice, or perhaps a theatre.

Portland also has an Apple Store. Again, an unimaginative title. A lot of cities in the US have an Apple Store, named to try and encourage healthy eating. It's not working to date (at least for me at least...), but watch this space!

I like Westin more than W Hotels. It has brighter lighting. I love, love, love the heavenly showers, deep tubs and the comfy beds that you can sink in.

The main reason we went in to the Classical Chinese Garden was to use the toilets. With an admission fee of $14, this was probably the most expensive pee I have ever taken, but I was so desperate it was worth it.

Anyway, after using the bathroom, we had a wander around the garden. It was actually very pretty and relaxing. The Chinese know how to make gardens, although there was no space for badmington court. Probably something to include in version 2.

Its a nice walk. Bigger than the Seattle waterfront. Hate to compare to NYC again but its my only reference- its like Riverside Park. No one around - looks over the Williamette River. Saw an awesome basketball court under a bridge that didn't smell like piss, no graffiti -impressive.

Its like a mini-Soho but with wider streets and significantly less people. I like. They have stores like Whole Foods next to Puma, Adidas, Americal Apparel, and some shee-shee (luxury) restaurants.

I have to admit I don't like large bookshops. It's very hard to find any books that you actually want. According to the blurb, the bookshop has 1.5MM books in 3.5K different sections. However, there are still only a handful of books that I want to read in a small number of sections. So therefore all the bookshop's size does is make it harder for me to find the books that I want to read. You could spend all day in this bookshop, but only because you can't find the books you want. For me, the perfect bookshop would very small and contain only books that I want to read in one section.

Jen's note: Be warned - McMinnville is a small town that you can walk from end to end in 20 minutes. Cute but the town experience is over in a blink.

Jen's note: Fun, fun, fun hotel. Great views from rooftop bar - outdoor seating and big windows. Happy hour from 5-7PM -discounted food and beer. As for the room, we got what we paid for. It was a small room with a sink, barely a closet and the standing room was just wide enough to pop open my suitcase. Window was huge. I love the light. Shared bathrooms were clean but it was probably bc we were the only people there in April (which is considered winter season in Oregon). I would not recommend if you don't like dusty rooms - the hotel is 103 years old. But it has the character of a quaint old hotel. Convenient location.

Mike's notes: This was our first wine tasting, and our first wine tasting. I have to admit that I wasn't too sure what to expect. Here were my impressions:

1) More expensive than I thought that it would be. We had two tasting flights (each consisting of five glasses) and some cheese and the total cost was $30. The entire thing lasted for about half an hour or so. Which basically means that it is a lot cheaper to go to a bar.

2) You actually need to know something about wine. On the red tasting flight, we tasted five pinor noirs all from the Willamette (sounds like damnit) valley. While there were potentially small differences between the wines, it was tough to tell to be honest.

3) You don't get food with the wine, which you need with some of the red wines.

4) Finally, some of the wines that they gave you really needed 'laying down' for a while (e.g. five years). So we were tasting the wines very early, and expected to work out what they would taste like at their best. Very difficult indeed!

Jen's note: The building, however, was very nice. Known for being an environmentally sustainable building, the tasting area had lots of big windows which shined a lot of light on its clean, modern, birch wood interior.

Mike's notes: This was probably the best wine tasting we did all trip, simply because the host was so engaging and enthusiastic. There's so much that he talked about that I simply couldn't do it justice in this notes section. Therefore I won't even try. Just visit the winery - it's fantastic! Jen: Mike, the tasting room manager rocked!