Fair and vintage hotel (Red Lion Hotel, Portland Airport)

The immediate area around this hotel is a bit on the wild side and it can be dark. However, just a few minutes by car away is Cascade Station. The area surrounding Cascade Station is pretty cool as it is relatively newly developed. I decided to book at Red Lion Hotel thinking it was just across the street from Cascade Station. I was travelling with my cousins in Portland and we checked into the hotel around 11 at night. When we arrived, everywhere was closed and the area around this hotel was dark. It was not as close to Cascade Station as I thought (it was about a 5 minute drive away so it still wasn't THAT far). The outside of the hotel feels a bit more like a motel as the hotel rooms are on the ground level and upper level.
There are two separate buildings (and from the looks of it, the second building of hotel rooms was placed in as an extension). The hotel from the inside does look like a hotel with the exception that the rooms are on the ground level. It also do have an outdoor pool, and a fitness room on the first floor. The fitness room isn't very big. It does have a set of weights, 2 treadmills and an exercise bike. The facilities are a bit on the old side and the area immediately surrounding the hotel does feel a bit dark. I also thought there was breakfast, however, I just found out once we arrived that it was not included. Once we finished checking in and got settled in our rooms, I can tell that the hotel does make an effort to maintain its rooms. The sheets were clean, but the coffee machine and furnishings were slightly on the old side.
I am not sure if I've spent too long in the car from my trip or just my body is funny, but my bed felt slightly lop sided (but not too much). In the rooms, there was a coffee machine and a cup that had an assortment of tea and coffee. Usually you would expect glass cups or paper cups with lids, but here they just give you a couple of paper cups. The washrooms also had a dryer and soap and lotion. The stay itself was pretty pleasant. However, my cousin said that he kept hearing the horns of trains. The light rail does pass by near here, so that may be a concern. Also, the location of the hotel is right under the flight path so you will hear airplanes land and take off. Personally since I am a nerd, I actually love these things, especially the airplane take off and landings. Each room cost about $120, and I would say the quality is fair, but it can slightly be a bit lower (considering there isn't any breakfast).

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Portland Sushi Hotpot (Portland Cascade Station) Review

There are not many places to eat at cascade station we find.We thought that since we came all this way we might as well find something we don't have back home. There were places like Red Robin's, IKEA, IHOP and etc... But they are everywhere and from the outside they don't look so special. As we walked around, we saw something that we don't have at home. It is a Japanese place that sells sushi and hot pots, and coincidentally  it its called "Sushi Hotpot".

  
 Even though the name doesn't sound too creative or appealing, the actual store is pretty legit. They have a revolving sushi conveyor belt that. Brings all different types of things from sashimi to calamari to sweets around.  This restaurant have a happy hour thing from 6 to closing from Sunday night to Thursday night.

In the two nights we were in Portland, we ate at this restaurant. The first night,which was a Saturday, all we ordered were donburis. Their donburis are only $4 each, and with no tax, and a fair portion and good quality, it is a steal! We ordered the pork katsu don, chicken teriyaki don and the unagi don. The pork katsu don was quite plain because it only had a piece of pork cutlet on it along with rice. In a sense it ws abit dry as it was lacking other things such as vegetables. Essentially, it is just a bowl of rice with a piece of fried pork on it. Even though the katsu don was a bit dry, the pork cutlet itself was good as it tasted not too overly fried or greasy. Next we have the chicken teriyaki don. This rice bowl tasted less dry than the pork katsu don because of the teriyaki sauce. The chicken teriyaki itself was fun if flavour, you can tell by its appearance that it was flame grilled, and it was full of flavour. Finally we have the unagi don. Eventhdough the unagi (eel) on the unagi don was abit thin, for the price that it comes at along with all of the vegetables that were included it is a good bargain.

     In addition, we also got a cup of calamari off the sushi belt and it was pretty decent. It was on a blue plate so the price was only 2 dollars. The quality was pretty good. The portion wasn't too big, it was fair.

    The downside to this restaurant, I must say is the fact that it is always busy and they way they organize their servers are like a gong show. There are only a few servers and all these seats, and they must clean up, be at the cash register, take orders at the same time. At some points during our visit, we would get random orders that the waiter forgot who ordered. Also, tryibg to call a waiter over to get something, it is alittle difficult because they are all over the place.

      The second day we decided to eat here again and try their rotating sushi bar. This time it was their happy hour, so we had to wait because it was slightly busy. During happy hour, everything on the conveyor belt was only a dollar provided that you buy a drink. The funny thing was we thought that the tea was free so we ordered tea, of which we realized later that it actually costs around $1.75 and we also ordered iced tea thinking that the iced tea is the drink we have for the happy hour. Compared to yesterday's selection of food on the conveyor, we noticed that there are less selection. Yesterday, there were calamari, sashimi, but today, there were none, and we found that the sushi seem abit smaller. It took about 10 plates of sushi to fill me up.