Bears!

I managed to visit the Oregon Zoo at the exact time as 300 students - the winning streak continues. The zoo is undergoing renovations but most of the rest is pretty damn nice - the most impressive part is the Pacific Northwest area. It's a series of bridges and walkways that give you the impression of being in a national park. Bears, cougars, bald eagles...really well done. I would feel embarrassed about the Valley Zoo but at this point we've all pretty much written that one off.
Decided to walk up to the Japanese Garden, since it was in the same park area. Attempted to take a shortcut through some of the park trails which turned out to not actually be trails and wound up smeared with mud, which did not get me as many awkward glances as I thought it would. Go go Oregon. The garden itself was less interesting than the trip there, so I headed back downtown and had lunch at an awesome cafe - fast food dumplings and bao. Nom.