I met an Internet friend "in real life" for the first time yesterday. (By "the first time", I don't mean just this specific person, but anyone I've met online. That is a phenomenon worthy of an entire post of its own, which shall come later.)
At any rate, this friend has been visiting family in Seattle and took the train down to Portland for the day. It was a glorious spring day, sunny and cool after almost a week of cold and rainy weather, and we spent the afternoon walking around downtown Portland. Newly emerged from my post-Katrina cocoon, I'm ready to explore new places, and I got to see several yesterday.
On the west bank of the many-bridged Willamette River, which runs from the south through Portland to its confluence with the Columbia River, there is a lovely waterfront park on the former location of a four-lane highway. Between the Burnside and Steel Bridges, the city maintains the Japanese American Historical Plaza, dedicated to the American citizens of Japanese ancestry who because of fear and ignorance were forcibly deprived of their possessions and confined to internment camps during World War II.
In the memorial garden designed by landscape architect Robert Murase are sculptures and large stones inscribed with poetry about the Japanese settlement of the Pacific Northwest. This one in particular spoke to me:
I look forward to someday meeting internet friends in person. The memorial garden sounds like a must-see. Washington state is on our list of states to visit.
Posted by: Sharon | Monday, May 11, 2009 at 07:50 PM
The Pacific Northwest is a physically beautiful and historically fascinating place to explore, and it's also interesting from the "people" standpoint. (I mean that in a good way, since my living here is a deliberate choice.)
Posted by: Kitty | Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 03:00 PM