Bottling hipness
vzx:
Portland is big in Japan. I had no idea.
imagine when this hits anime
Portland’s the closest mainland airport to Tokyo Narita (beating Seattle by 5 minutes) and the exchange rate has been favorable lately so we’ve got a decent stream of tourists coming through. I guess they like what they see.
(the absurd lines at the city’s more gimmicky food chains - Voodoo Doughnuts, Pine State Biscuits, Salt & Straw ice cream - are always polyglot and there’s a mall downtown that as far as I can tell exists to sell luxury goods to asian tourists. I was there yesterday and the designer handbag places by the entrances were still going but past that was grim though they did a good job of disguising it - empty storefronts dressed as displays, filling the highly visible atrium floor with a mall operations office and a few national chains at least one sub-class level below what they would’ve had before and given way too much square footage - never seen a Gap with that much open space. I don’t know if that reflects a downturn in the tourist trade - more likely the Chinese economy than Japan, in that case - or just losing a big draw when the Apple store moved to its own temple across the street.)
