I guess I’m just so amazed at what a cool place Portland is. Years ago I was shown Periodicals Paradise, a store with aisles and aisles of recent and not-so-recent issues of popular magazines – something that is hard to find anywhere. It’s got great bookstores (the world famous Powell’s, not to mention zine and other stores like Counter Media (and other places right nearby, on the 900 block of SW Oak), and finally I went to Hippo Hardware & Trading Company.

It’s a big old house or some kind of store from way back, many floors, little zones just filled with stuff – it’s like what Restoration Hardware promises to be – a dreamy junk store with knick-knacks, handles, drawer pulls, walls, windows, lights, jammed into little wooden rooms with old dirty stuffed toy hippos peering at you from unlikely places.