After travelling from the other side of the world, I finally touched down in Auckland, albeit, 2 months earlier than planned but at least I got back. 20,000 km traveled in a week from Berlin – London – Seoul – Tokyo – Auckland. It was a hell of a trip and definitely a story to tell once the world settles down (or you can just go back and read my travel diary which covers it in detail!) Continue reading “The Travel Diaries – 9. Return of the Maori”
So, since the FB year in Review this time round completely sucked balls and since I have my own webpage, I feel it’s only natural that I post up my review here 🙂
It’s 2015 already, that came by quickly… In this day and age time really does seem to just fly by, with so much going on in our lives it makes sense So before getting into this year properly, time to reflect on 2014 which was another good year for me and have managed to solidify myself in the DJ scene more and towards the end of the year started working on connections to further myself in 2015. Its all about that ground work! Had plenty of little achievements in 2014 but the main highlights for me were
– 2nd Place BeFM (again)
– DJn for Redbull at UMF
– Looking after my health, dropping 10kg and getting my fitness buzz back on
– Globe Trotting (Bali, Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, Boracay)
– Meeting Jazzy Jeff!
– Starting a sport I have always wanted to do (Archery, new bow on its way!)
– Some crazy parties and nights out (stock standard as a DJ)
– Learning how to record and produce as well as hooking up with some new MC’s
– A pretty good year playing touch
 
So those are my highlights for the year, not bad but still need to keep building on them, had a couple of failed and missed opportunities last year but that’s just the way it goes. The failed ones are ones I chose to pull out of, the missed ones, well will be looking at changing those this year, so without further ado, my goals for 2015, these are the end goals, things I hope to achieve by the end of the year, there will be plenty of short term goals in-between, but these are what I ultimately want to achieve this year
– Travel to at least 2 countries this year (possibly more, depends if I can do a tour again this year)
– DJ at UMF and WDF again
– DJ on a big stage at a festival this year
– DJ a main set at one of the big clubs
– Gain a new residency
– Drop to 80-82kg
– Release a mixtape (Major Flavours style) using local artists
– Release a track of my own creation
– Perform a DJ/MC set of my own design (details will come later)
– Learn/Try a new sport (there is a couple I want to try again or pick up properly)
At the end of 2015, I will endeavor to revisit this list and see how much of it I can tick off! I might also add a few more goals to this list, but as of now, this is where my sights are set! Let’s go!
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
akadjblaze 