26 Hours in Portland: Wong's King

 After we checked out of the hotel the following morning, it was time to once again feed my constant dim sum craving.  After good but still somewhat lacking experiences in Seattle earlier this year and at a different place in Portland last year, I finally returned to my first love.  The actual name of the joint is Wong's King Seafood Restaurant, but the only seafood I've ever eaten there was served in dumpling form.  They have two locations (the second is in Estacada), but the Portland branch is the only one I care about because that's the one that serves dim sum from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. seven days a week.  I could go on and on about this place but, as this post is already so lengthy, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.  Mostly.

Seattle 2013 - Day 3

Our last day in Seattle was Groundhog Day.  The movie, I mean.  Once again, I was the first out of bed.  Once again, everyone else was stirring by the time I emerged from the bathroom.  And once again, they wanted me to go across the street to Starbucks for a carbon copy of their orders from the previous two days.  Little Sister tagged along this time though, lucky thing since Starbucks was out of drink carriers.  The agenda for the day was to pack quickly, head over to the Pike Place Market, return to the hotel to check out (the only thing about leaving that I was really looking forward to), and hit Uwajimaya in the International District on our way out of town.

Seattle 2013 - Day 2 (A.M.)

I don't know exactly what time I woke up.  All I know is that everyone else was still asleep so, as the lone male in our merry band of traveling Idahoans, I jumped at the opportunity to be first to the shower.  Like everything else about the hotel, the shower worked ass-backwards, meaning that you had to turn the faucet the opposite of the labeled directions in order to achieve the desired effect.  The sink was even more interesting, in as much that it didn't matter what you did with the faucet, the water was just going to be whatever temperature it felt like at the moment.  If you just let it run, it would go from cold to scalding and back again at random.  And don't even get me started on the toilet that required three flushes to dispose of a single used tissue.  By the time I emerged, scrubbed fresh and ready to take on the day, my companions were stirring.  To my chagrin, my state of readiness got me nominated to go fetch coffee and breakfast for the others.  At Starbucks.  Even if I liked Starbucks, which I don't particularly (gingerbread lattes aside), I just cannot see the sense of going to a different city and wasting time and money at a place I can visit any day of the week at home.  Still, I fancy myself as something of a gentleman from time to time, so off I went to fetch the various  pastries and beverages the ladies requested.

While they drank and munched and bathed, I bemoaned the fact that they had already gone through the complimentary coffee in the room by the time I returned, and the fact that the complimentary Wi-Fi was only marginally better than dial-up (does that even exist anymore?).  My plan had been to do sporadic posts during the trip when I had some time to kill, but with it taking twenty minutes or so to upload a single picture, I scrapped that idea pretty quickly.  Interestingly enough, the Sprint network is screaming fast in Seattle, so I used my phone for pretty much everything while I was there.

I had hoped that once everyone else was fully awake and put together, I could talk them into hitting the International District with me so I could take care of this dim sum craving that's been tormenting me since my last trip to Portland two years ago.  Unfortunately they also had things they wanted to do that I wanted no part of, and with only a day and a half to go before we'd be back on the road, we decided to split up.  The womenfolk began the long trek to the Space Needle, and yours truly headed to Chinatown.

Not the happiest place on Earth, but pretty close...