04.22.2010

Shibuya crosswalk, Tokyo

Just one stop from Harajuku, less than a kilometre down a gentle hill, so if youre not carrying too much shopping, its an easy walk, just follow the train line south. If you see Tower Records you’re heading in the right direction.

Coming by train to Shibuya, which lets face it, is one of those Tokyo “musts”, you get to witnessed one of the world’s busiest stations in full stride. But don’t let photos from above fool you, while yes it is busy ALL the time, once you’re in the midst of it, its no different than any other major train station round the world, even if its comparative to Grand Central, Paddington or Guangzhou Rail. Likewise for when you step out of the station and into the infamous Shibuya crosswalk aka Tokyo’s Time Square. From above it looks like ants before a storm but in reality its no different than jaywalking cross Adelaide and Edward streets in Brisbane (though if you’re going to jaywalk here, do so at your own peril!). Just get to the front before the walk signal goes then skew off on the road of the direction you want to go, sorted. A bit of extra pep in your step to keep ahead of the surging masses doesn’t go astray either.

Shibuya, Tokyo

Shibuya could very well be Japanese for department store since the place is littered with them. Shibuya 109 (buildings 1, 2 and 3), Parco (buildings 1 and 2), Tokyu and OIOI Marui City are the notable mentions, though the whole “suburb” is pretty much one department store with a huge variety of stores.

Some of our faves were Bic camera their website says it all, electronics galore, one of the more well known stores with English speaking staff on hand; the Disney store with its Alice in Wonderland staircase and across the road is the 500th KFC (has a plaque n all :p ).

Sneaker-wise there’s another Adidas store, the usual scattering of ABC mart’s and THE KiksTYO, not a large range of sneakers but a few rarer models and of course their famed apparel and tees. There are also a few smaller independent sneaker stores near Parco (and a TGI Fridays 😉 ).

How do you know you bought a genuine KiksTYO tee? It comes in a box 😉

For toys you’ll want to try and find Mandarake. The building isn’t very well signed but it is called BEAM, head up 3-4 blocks on the main street from the Shibuya cross walk in a north west direction and you should stumble on it. Depending on the direction you come from you might catch a glimpse of the “BEAM” on a cyclinder structure on a corner. Its in the same building as RECOfan if that helps!

Mandarake is def. targeted to an older market, mainly because of the vintage collectibles. Wall to wall glass cabinets housing vinyls and figures that either were clearly someone’s fave childhood toy or the yellowing plastic of a original sealed toy from a child with some serious self control, all sporting hefty price tags to match. On the plus side, since they do deal with a lot of used items, you can pick up current stock at a fraction of the price, if the box has been opened. Most are still in mint condition and have all their parts. There are also shelves and bins of bits and pieces and clearance items for those that don’t mind a rummage.

I walked out with a bunch of Revoltech figures, a model kit Space Cruiser Yamato aka Starblazers (one of my childhood favourites!) and of course the obligatory Transformer (and random Gashapon :p).

As mentioned RECOfan is in the same building, one of the larger music stores that also do used items and records. Roughly about 5 times the size of Rockinghorse Records in Brisbane you could easily spend a day crate digging. Good thing is the sections are well labelled in English and are alphabetically broken down into genre and artist with a fair serving of rarities and country only releases. If you don’t get your fill here, there’s also Disk Union and “Dance music records” stores with a block or so.

For some sightseeing novelty check out “Love hotel hill”, basically a small lane dedicated to the oldest profession in the world. Good for a laugh or a quickie.

If you’re hanging around into the evening and want to get your boogie on then Shibuya is also home to Womb one of Tokyo’s biggest nightclubs with matching exuberant entry fee and drink prices. Check the “Womb cruise” party in May 2010 on a boat that looks like its come straight out of the Thunderbirds!

Tokyo part #1 – Ueno for a day
Tokyo part #2 – Getting round Tokyo, Ueno Sakura at night
Tokyo part #3 – Harajuku
Tokyo part #5 – Kichijoji and Shinjuku
Tokyo part #6 – Akihabara
Tokyo part #7 – Odaiba and Leaving Tokyo

Photo Gallery Here

04.21.2010

Yoyogi Park entrance, Harajuku, Tokyo

Amai Undogutsu 😉

Thanks to the ever delectable Gwen Stefani, most people know of Harajuku for its “girls” and its “lovers”, but there’s a reason why Gwen and millions of other people are infatuated by the area and that’s its over the top fashions. Think kandi raving goth punk p0rno star and you’re getting close. A lot of layering, off cuts, frays and safety pins mixed with classic maid or school girl outfits.

Takeshita Street, Harajuku, Tokyo

Straight out of Harajuku station you pretty much fall into the thick of it, ie. Takeshita street (don’t worry, itll get less funny after a day, but then itll get funny again). The closed off street extends a few blocks and is packed with a variety of stores, mostly clothing, with a couple run of the mill sneaker and sport/skate stores. We were there on a Tuesday during school holidays and the street was pretty well jammed moving at a “bottleneck at a music festival” rate. If you’re going to go on a weekend, be prepared to get the elbows out if you want to zigzag between shops.

A side note, watch out for the African looking guys trying to be your friend, they’re only there to drag you into shops or sell you dodgy merchandise/tickets (to who knows what!). They seem to be of European background but speak a few broken languages.

Meiji Jingu Shrine, Harajuku, Tokyo

Speaking of the weekend, it is still the best time to check out Harajuku, mainly for Yoyogi park for its circus of Harajuku girls, performers and those crazy rockabilly Elvis impersonators. While you’re in the park, take the short walk to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, one of the most popular shrines in Tokyo, to stay a few prayers and maybe bless your feet for all the walking you’re about to do 😉

After Takeshita street, *snicker* venture out into the surrounding streets for more of the larger designer stores. A further block or two you’ll find many little lane ways of designer labels and boutique shoe and clothing shops. Brand stores like Adidas originals, Nike iD, Burton, Element along with some of Tokyo’s finest collector sneaker stores, Atmos, Undefeated, Chapter, Kicks Lab and of course for the everyday releases, the Japanese Footlocker, ABC Mart. While you’re in the area check out the many vintage clothing stores, Heatwave is one of the bigger names. There’s a huge variation in quality and selection so you might have to try a few different places if you’re looking for something in particular but like any “op-shopping” the best buys are the ones that you never expected to find.

For lunch I recommend the pocket kebabs. A little store with the long lunch line near Forever 21 (the American version of Supre’ but they sell guys clothes as well). There’s a few of these places through out Tokyo, basically two European guys with a well established little shop, have a photo of themselves in the window and make a killing. Very friendly and picked the Aussie accent straight off the bat. Crikey! The food is little thrown together because of the pace they work at but still fresh and very tasty.

Optimus Prime, Kiddyland, Harajuku

Finally you cant go to Harajuku and not hit up Kiddyland. I know, sounds a bit suss but I promise there’s no Manga p0rn! It’s pretty much the same as Yamashiroya in Ueno but with some floors solely dedicated to one character. So for all the Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Rilakkuma fans your prayers have been answered. For the lads, by pass the fluff and head straight to the top level for all your action figures, collectibles and vinyls needs. They definitely had one of the biggest selections of Kid Robot, Tokidoki and similar vinyls that I saw in Tokyo.

Heading back to the train station pop into the 100Yen store (Daiso) for any last minute travel basics or pretty much anything for that matter. Basically the 99p/Crazy Clarks Japanese equivalent but everything is 100Y (roughly $1US). Some of the items are very cheaply made while others are actually quite good. We picked up luggage straps, padlocks, stubby cooler, belt and a few other bits and pieces all for a buck each!

Tokyo part #1 – Ueno for a day
Tokyo part #2 – Getting round Tokyo, Ueno Sakura at night
Tokyo part #4 – Shibuya
Tokyo part #5 – Kichijoji and Shinjuku
Tokyo part #6 – Akihabara
Tokyo part #7 – Odaiba and Leaving Tokyo

Photo Gallery Here

Moshi moshi!

Well the 10 days or so (who knows with all that date line crossing and red eye flights) in the USA flew by and we were back in the T-Y-O. This time a bit more confident of where we needed to go and what we needed to do to get there.

First up, some tips for traveling by public transport in Japan. Buy either a PASMO (pink and blue) or Suica (green) card from the vendor offices round the airport terminal (basically the “metro card” equivalent for any major city). The company colours are also painted round the respective ticketing machines so its easy to spot them when you need to top up your card. We chose Suica cos it had a penguin on it 😉
The card is 2000Y and comes with 1500Y credit (roughly $20/15US respectively) and can be used on pretty much all public transport in Tokyo and a fair portion of Japan. If you take the Keisei Limited express train from Narita airport this will cost you 1000Y and will take you all the way to Ueno (end of the line). The trip takes about 75min and can get quite crowded. Taking your backpack off and throwing it up in the luggage rack helps save space and your shoulders when you’re standing.

If you want a more luxurious experience with reclining seats, luggage areas, vending machines and a saving of about 10-15min off your journey time then take the Keisei Skyliner. All seating is reserved so check your ticket for your seat number. The premium is double what you pay for the standard ride but it is nice to have a metal bottle of Pepsi and a nap without being squashed up against some stranger or having them fall asleep on you. Even during peak hour it was only half full.

You will also find the PASMO and Suica cards work in a variety of businesses. Convenience stores, take aways, some restaurants, duty free and shops in the airport/train stations, handy if you haven’t had a chance to track down a Travelex which will more than likely happen. They are few and far between, so you might want to cash up at the airport or hit the Travelex site for locations. While a lot of the little market stores have EFTPOS, as it goes for traveling anywhere its always good to have a bit of the folding stuff on hand, just in case.

Generally, getting round Tokyo, if you stick to the JR Yamanote line you really can’t go wrong, just make sure you’re heading in the direction you want to go!

Back into it, I like to think I’ve got a pretty good sense of direction and have no problems reading a map, but when people say “Japanese streets can get confusing” believe them and again, don’t trust Google maps!! Some streets are lanes that look like drive ways, some lanes ARE driveways that go the whole block and a lot of them are poorly signed/unsigned. Travel tip: if you don’t know where you are, you won’t know where you’re going!

So misjudging a bend for a corner we set off on a lovely 45min walk in the wrong direction with 2 heavy suitcases each in tow. After some backtracking and cross tracking we still managed to over shoot the hotel wandering the backstreets in it’s surrounding blocks. Thankfully that renowned Japanese hospitality and courtesy to strangers shone through with locals more than happy to help point us in the right direction. One lady out for a cycle with her toddler on board even circled around a couple times to make sure we were heading the right way. Very much a refreshing and welcomed change compared to the States where you couldn’t even pay for good help, and more than often you had to, even for the most remedial of requests!

But I digress. That night we headed back out to the park, noting on our way in how close we were to the station (bout 15min walk) and how wrong we got it. Though its always nice after a walk around to start spotting familiar landmarks/areas.

By now the majority of blossoms were well in bloom and so were the festivities. Families and people of all ages gathered under the trees on tarps and blankets for the Sakura celebration, most completely oblivious to the mercury barely staying in the positives (though a down filled Northface parka does help with that!). There were even areas roped off and set up as makeshift restaurants, complete with boxes for tables and cushions.

With more than 1000 trees in full bloom, Ueno park looked like it was dusted in icing sugar. Truly beautiful.

Tokyo part #1 – Ueno for a day
Tokyo part #3 – Harajuku
Tokyo part #4 – Shibuya
Tokyo part #5 – Kichijoji and Shinjuku
Tokyo part #6 – Akihabara
Tokyo part #7 – Odaiba and Leaving Tokyo

Photo Gallery Here

You know you’re on a good thing when you need to upgrade to a bigger and better venue! While KGS loses some of the street vibe from the previous under bridge area, it does lend itself to much better viewing for the audience.
One thing that wasn’t lost was the energy, fun and variety of breakers and performers. Props go out to Sammy and her all girl crew showing the boys how its done 😉

Check out all the action Here

Over the next month or so, I’ll be summarising our recent holiday to Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York City. Posts will include our personal highlights along with tidbits of info on general travel and sight seeing in these cities and of course tips on shopping, most notably sneakers and toys (:

Pour yourself a nice warm glass of Saki, first city up is Tokyo.

Once seen as only the country that made cars and tv’s, the land of the rising sun has long shed its industrial stereotypes and has been recognised as one of the world’s leaders in fashion. Most notably heavily influencing Australia’s own fashion sense since the turn of the millennium, however to us here at SBM, fashion is dead and its all about the toys! ;D

We had a day stop over on the way to the USA so instead of getting loosing our minds in the airport for 12 hours we did a quick scouting mission in to Ueno. This worked well as this was not long where we were staying for 4 days on our way home, but also home to one of the biggest blossom festival areas in Tokyo.

Walking through Ueno park (up the stairs between Ueno and KeiSei stations) we saw the festivities were just beginning with stalls and decorations being set up. Most of the trees showed little signs of blooming except for the one at the entrance which had its full bloom on display giving us a teaser of what was to come.

We checked out the Ameyoko markets under the train line and surrounding blocks from Ueno station, which later became our savior for a last minute suitcase purchase when we realised that we went way overboard with the Boxing day style of shopping, but more on that later.

Across the road from the station is Yamashiroya, 6 floors of toys, games, anime, collectibles and everything to make you feel like a kid again. You could easily spent half a day in there with a limited vocabulary of “awesome!”, “awww that’s SO cute”, “wtf???” and “I don’t care, I’m buying it”. Of course with that kind of diminished rational we walked away with a pillow sized Kirby plush and Revoltech Yamaguchi figure set without any thought of the frustration that we’d endure from lugging them tens of thousands of miles across the globe in the coming weeks.

Just before we headed back, we walked a few blocks south towards Akihabara to find a sneaker trader called Buy Sell (Ueno). Their stock isn’t huge like K-Skit (but who’s is??) but they have a decent selection of new and used (in various conditions) sneakers, clothing and accessories. Definitely one of the bigger selections of clothing compared to similar sneaker shops.

If you’ve been into sneakers for even the shortest amount of time you will know that there’s no real holy grail out there and there’s no one store that sells all the “best” models. It’s all just a matter of how deep your pockets are and if you’re willing to not pay rent for a month or 2. That said, they still had a few of the rare exotic models along side cheap dunks in colourways not available in Oz. Check out their frequently changing stock listing on their site, updated regularly.

A side note which I wasn’t going to go into (out of embarrassment!) but will as a courtesy for future travelers to Japan – not all signs that sprout “anime” and have cartoon caricatures are toy stores. You’ll know as soon as you step in the door, the over abundance of middle age to elderly men, the curtained cubicles with shoes and pants at the door, possibly someone snoring, oh and the wall to wall of Manga p0rn aka Hentai! Don’t know what the local name for these places are, but it seems pretty much like a self service library if you will. If you’re female or are traveling with one, you’ll be met with an abrupt “no no, men only!!”. Say no more, reading you loud and clear buddy!

Here’s an example just around the corner from Yamashiroya

Moral of the story, don’t trust google maps! While it can guess within 50m as it says “approximate”, take heed! Unless of course you can read Japanese, then just back away slowly, you were never here.

Tokyo part #2 – Getting round Tokyo, Ueno Sakura at night
Tokyo part #3 – Harajuku
Tokyo part #4 – Shibuya
Tokyo part #5 – Kichijoji and Shinjuku
Tokyo part #6 – Akihabara
Tokyo part #7 – Odaiba and Leaving Tokyo

Photo Gallery Here

The bubble wrapping of Queensland continues with the further push of restricted operating hours for clubs and pubs. Hundreds of people including punters, club owners, hospitality staff, djs and bands showed up in force to voice their opinions against the further backward measures from the Queensland government.

Gallery Here

More info Here

Gallery Here


Fancy yourself a bit of an artiste? Got skills for a right proper burner and not just lame toilet tagging? Do you have the same destructive loathe for food as Pro Hart? Or do you just like drawing REALLY big?

Whatever your penchant, if you think you’ve got what it takes to tackle a 3 storey building with your art Times Square style, then this is your chance!
Seminal Brisbane radio station, 4ZZZ is looking for someone to blow a load of their creative juices over their whole building! All you have to do is send in your designs and tell them why you want to do it and if they like it, your work will be immortalised into Brisbane’s history! Wowsers!

Send entries to: info@4zzzfm.org.au or post to 4ZZZ, PO Box 509, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane 4006
Entries close: 30th May 2010

03.19.2010

Bon Voyage!

by admin

It’s finally here! A well deserved holiday!
We’ll be jet setting off to America, the land of meat, cheese and a weakening exchange rate as well as Japan for the annual cherry blossom festivals!
Of course there are going to be plenty of photos and write ups on sneakers, toys and general shenanigans upon our return (:

Watch it lady I’m walkin here!!

Sayonara!

The first Roller Derby of the season for the Sunstate Roller Girls kicked off with the Liquorice Short Shorts taking on the Golden Roughs. Don’t let the sugary names fool you, these girls are definitely hard boiled!

Gallery Here

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