Home tourism
I’m a believer in occasionally practicing tourism in one’s own city or even neighborhood–hoping, of course, to draw more of the positive and less of the negative from such an activity. When I’m abroad, I go out of my way to see new neighborhoods, to eat at new restaurants or street food stands, to chat with people I wouldn’t ordinarily think I’d have much to talk about with. When one lives somewhere for an extended period of time, of course, it’s easy to fall out of this mentality: why should I explore something new when I already have a nice neighborhood, a good group of friends, a selection of favorite shops? I get busy, after all, and the familiar is easiest. In this spirit, and bearing in mind that I am on vacation, I want to explore a few new things in Portland, a city I’ve lived in since I was four. A few days ago, I walked around a street in North Portland that became popular after I left for college, and a few things caught my attention:
While these may look like floor tiles, they’re actually blocks of salty minerals ostensibly mined from the Himalayas, which, I learned, one could use in a variety of novel ways: as a butter dish (to impart a salty taste to unsalted butter), as a slab to heat and cook eggs on (in order to salt them), as a way to quickly salt-cure sashimi, and so on. I’m too practical to abandon the practice of simply sprinkling particle salt on my food, but this was quite novel. The weather was rainy and humid that day, and the salt blocks inside the store seemed to have responded by becoming slick and wet to the touch.
On the same street, my mother showed me this entryway to a warehouse for used and spare housing materials–brought in as a tax-deductible donation and then re-sold for a reduced price. It’s a beautiful addition to the building.
Here’s a closer look at the flowers adorning the upper branches of the trees.
On another outing, I realized I’d forgotten how stunning the natural beauty of Oregon (and Washington, across the river) could be. I’m not a great photographer, though, so you’ll have to partially take my word for it.
Portland and Oregon may be rather quiet and a wee bit provincial sometimes (markedly fewer people in New York than in Oregon look at me as if I have two heads when I say I’m studying Arabic), but visiting has reminded me how much I love the city and state for what they are.
