Japan – akadjblaze

Review: June, July & August

September 18, 2014September 18, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in Monthly Reviews

Ok so it has been a busy last few months, 3 trips overseas, various gigs as well as my usual ones so here is a quick recap of what I have been doing these last few months

June

Well June was a interesting month, I got to do some pretty cool things and also finished my 12 week challenge, 10kg lighter and back up to maybe 75% on the touch field

– Spent my birthday and long weekend running around Japan buying as much stuff as I could! Harajuku for clothes and Akihabara for my anime obsession

– Next weekend was UMF which I got to jam out in the redbull party jeep, pretty cool that I got to go to UMF, wasn’t the greatest of festivals but it is def one of the biggest in Korea and around the world… just a shame the line up was mud

– Spun at venue, nothing but old skool and a bit of a MJ tribute. Also it was a great crowd for early on so made the night even better

Well that was June, short but eventful.

July

July proved to be less busy, was back at venue again but the night ended up being a dud unfortunately. The main thing for July was taking on a new residence at King Club, however that ended up being short lived. Scroll to the bottom for that story…

– I spent most of the time working on my BeFM set.

– I did take a trip to Taipei which was a lot of fun

– Met with Blossom Day which was a kick start to working with JC

– TBT at Venue with Pinnacle and Rich Ben, pitty it was a dud of a night

And that was July

August was a good month

– 2^nd Place at BeFM with a trip down to Busan, rocking it out on Gwangali

– Went to WDJ Festival with DJ Korea, jamming in the tent again, but to less fanfare than last year

– Started to do some proper work with JC, exciting times ahead working with her, but did have a fun night out at Bar Fly

– Started on some other projects including learning to produce music

And some other random things I got up to in August…

Went to the One Piece expo in Seoul, it was cool, mostly based around the Marine Ford Arc which was of course total epicness! (Full review in another post)

Went to my first Baseball game in Korea

And that was August, simple but fun, Sept is halfway done but it is also turning out to be another great month, it’s already coming into Autumn and the end of the year is rapidly approaching… again…

So here goes with the King Club story

My hours at bar fly changed to the late shift, so it opened up a time for me to play somewhere else, I was going to look at a second residency after summer since I am usually busy during summer but King Club offered so I thought why not, they are under new ownership and have a new direction that wanted to go in so at first I was excited about working there, because honestly I never liked the place at all or the people that use to frequent it but the hope that it would change and the possibility of the place had me in… But as I began working there it was quickly apparent that any change was going to be slow if at all. The American soldiers still frequented the place, and they bring their own brand of bullshit with them (for the 4 weeks I was there, there was at least 1 fight each weekend…) as well as wanting to hear all the new shit that you can’t dance too. The music they (the boss etc) wanted me to play wasn’t the kind of music the crowd they want to attract want to hear (I even had the bouncer? stop me at the door and start going on about some shit with the music, I just gave him the yeah whatever, like I’m going to listen to you look and walked on by, I listen to the crowd and the boss, not you) and it was just becoming apparent that the direction they wanted to go in was pretty blurry. Also at Bar Fly, the boss asked me to switch back to my old time, so since they come first, had to talk to king club and see if could switch up the schedule, the problem is all of the DJs there have a second residency that is more important to them than king club so none of them can change, which was fine with me, I was the late comer to the party and also working there was really starting to become an annoyance rather than fun, not to say I didn’t have some fun there thou! The place has a lot of potential, always has, and has some good people working there but as is always the way, direction needs to be decisive, not blurry… and changing styles up between the military and Korean/expat scene… seriously there is a reason why I hate Itaewon and even more so hate those young American soldiers and all their bullshit. I avoid the place like the plague

My Japan Excursion Pt.3 – Mugiwara

June 12, 2014September 16, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in DJ on the Road

Well since I am a bit of a One Piece fan I decided to give it it’s own section, thou it will be kind of short. Anyways, OP is one of the most popular running manga’s maybe of all time, and its been around for years, the manga consistently sells strongly and the anime itself is up to episode 650 ish and it is unlikely that it will slow down with many fans all over the world, so what better for any fan than to check out the Mugiwara store located in Shibuya

The store is located on the top floor of Parco mall, it is easy enough to find if you have a map, the first time I went to japan I literally just stumbled upon it, lucky this time I knew where to go and it was actually my first point in call, since its pretty easy to get to from Shibuya station and from there its only a short walk across to Harajuku

The store itself is really like any other fan store, it has some life size figures, theme music blaring and of course all your little bits and pieces related to OP, but mainly things like souvenirs, a few clothes, stickers, key chains, cups, posters and things of this nature, they have a few toys but not that many, if you want to find OP related toys and figures your actually better off going either online or to Akihabara (or a big name store) as this store is really geared more towards the souvenir side of things (thou you can find a couple of limited edition toys there)

Anyways, it is still worth visiting, you will likely come away with something you like, prices seems reasonable enough and the location is good, there is also a few other stores related to anime in the same building too.

There is one place I did miss on my trip there and that’s Nakano Broadway, which in hindsight is a place I really should have gone to, it has tons of second hand anime stores in there as well as plenty of shops selling new stuff. But reading around it seems they don’t have much new exclusive stuff but if your looking for my retro stuff this is the place to go.

Well that’s it for my Tokyo excursion, pretty short I know, but hey, Tokyo is a big ass place and there are many different places where you will find all sorts of things, even when you have a good idea of where to go, there is always that random floor of some shopping mall that will have stuff you didn’t even know about, or that small side street store with boxes full of figures, if your short on time, hit up the places I have mentioned (and also maybe a jump store, they usually have anime related stuff too and are pretty common) but if you have more time… well good luck!

Ps. I had to borrow some photos from google since I didn’t end up taking many myself

My Japan Excursion Pt.1 – Harajuku

June 9, 2014September 16, 2014 by akadjblaze, posted in DJ on the Road

Well back from Tokyo, I really do love that city, its clean, interesting, has good food and nice people, oh and the shopping is awesome! Thus the reason why I headed over there in the first place, to go stock up on clothes, the only downside was the fact it was raining the entire time, not the best thing when your trying to carry bags and stuff around the place, however Tokyo in all its efficiency even packs your bags with plastic over top to keep the rain out! Anyways here is a recap of my shopping experience just in case you feel like checking out the areas I hit up.

Firstly Tokyo like any other city has its main shopping districts, usually divided up roughly into your certain style of shopping, eg big department stores (Shibuya) electronic zone (Shinjuku/Akihabara), Souvenirs, local products etc etc and of course within each of those areas will be small sub areas as well

Now my interests usually lie within the Urban/Youth culture areas where I can find hip hop/b-boy styled clothing and kicks. Now while you can find bits and pieces all over the place in department stores or flag ship Nike stores etc the best place hands down is Harajuku.

Now you can probably divide Harajuku up into 3 areas, you have the Main Street/boulevard which has a couple of big shopping malls with various high end stores scattered in between various coffee shops and other stores, then you have Takeshita Dori, basically a side street running mostly parallel to the Main Street that has all your other stores and most definitely the place you want to hit up. This street I would divide up into 2 sections, the first section that runs from the station to the first major intersection is mostly your cheap tourist trap stores with a few gems littered in between, the second section after the intersection is mostly your ’boutique’ stores where you can really start to find some good popular urban labels ‘but more expensive’ clothes.

The first section can be a bit of a mine field, you have a lot of touristy type stores and lost of highly annoying (and shitty sales manner) Nigerians’?’ Who wander the street trying to get you to come to their stores (usually run in concert I believe with a local) Now these guys I avoid like the plague, firstly their sales manner just pisses me off, sure I call my friends bro etc but if I am running a store, use some proper fucking manners, this isn’t the ghetto, excuse me sir sounds a lot better than being yelled at ‘hey bruah’. Secondly the stores they run have over priced generic shitty clothing imported from the same place as all the other stores these guys run… all over Asia! You will see the same shit in Tokyo being sold by the guys who run similar stores in Seoul, so if you want to wear the same shit other people buy then by all means go there, just remember to bargin them down because their mark up is already ridiculously high, I had one store (which was actually all Japanese) quote me a hat price, they said normal price was 6000yen, by the time I walked out the door it was down to 4500yen (there was no way I was buying it but as you can see, you can haggle with these people if your that desperate, just don’t buy their shoes)
On the bright side, in between the annoying stores is a couple of really good places, my advice is just avoid the Nigerians and go for the local run places.

Moving on past this area is the more ’boutique’ fashion stores, places where you can find a Bape store, or Kicks Lab among other shops that sell the more popular and expensive labeled urban wear. These stores unfortunately don’t have any bargaining room but you can pick up the occasional sale. But this is the area where you can definitely find some nice gear and it is worth having a good look around as most of the stores have lots of different stock and its all in the one area (the Main Street with a couple of side streets varying off to the big street) Not much to tell about this area except happy shopping and credit card beware!

Depending on your shopping style you can either burn through this area in an hour ish or you can take your time to check out the wears of every place, I would tend to allow for an afternoon at least, I’m a very decisive shopper and browse thru things quickly and I was there for maybe 3-4 hours (with a drinks break) so you experience may vary, also be aware this isn’t the only area to shop and if you are looking for very specific things, you might have to look elsewhere. As for sizing, that is hit and miss again, most common sizes are M-L but you can find XL in most stores (but not always however the L might just fit you, most L and XL will fit me, I’m kind of in between the 2 sizes so my guess is the sizing is kind of similar to western sizes, maybe one size apart) At any rate, happy shopping!