If you've been following the blog you already know that I've been recently traveling through Asia on a 2 week trip to Hong Kong and Tokyo. Asia is one of the largest markets for sneakers, maybe even larger than that of the American market. I'm currently bloggin from hotel room in Akasaka, Tokyo and let me tell you that having been in Tokyo for only 2.5 days has been an experience of a lifetime. During my first leg of my trip in Hong Kong, I visited the infamous "Sneaker Street" located on Fah Yeun street in Mong Kok. I last visited this spot back in October '08 and was able to see quite a bit of kicks in the shops that line this street. This year I was able to see some stuff like the Spacejams ('09 Release) as well as the Air Jordan 1 Silver Anniversary edition in the stores. Unfortunately I wasn't able to snag a pair of the Air Jordan VI Motorsports @ the Nike Basketball store and wasn't too happy bout that. As a result, I didn't cop anything in HK this year in terms of sneakers but I will be back for a couple more days before I return to the Great White North.
Enough bout my trip to HK, the real experience has been in Tokyo which to me is the mecca of sneakers! I visited a number of spots during the course of the last 2.5 days and was pretty impressed with the number of stores and quality found in the Harajuku district of Tokyo. Most shops I found were located at Meiji-jingumae Station and there was some serious heat in these stores. A couple of standouts were Atmos, Kicks Lab and Kinetics. While scurrying around the small streets within Jingumae (4), I came across some smaller shops with some nice heat like the AF1 "Black Albums", Dunk SB "TIFFS" as well as your standard Yeezys. One thing I did notice was a common trend among most Japanese sneakerheads, they really like their Jordan 1's and let me tell you they fetch a good penny here! During my first visit to Harajuku, I snagged myself a pair of the AM95 "Neons" (Ltd. Edition) from Atmos. Nike recently released a new version of the AM95s for the European and Asian markets dubbed the Ltd. Editions which was meant to be a better rendition of the OG's than the model we saw released back in '08 in the North American market. On my way out of Harajuku I passed through a shop called Kicks Lab which in my opinion is the Japanese version of Flight Club. They've got some serious heat but enter at your own risk as their prices are so high they'd make you vomit. Case in point, I saw a pair of the AJ VI Motorsports and Spizikes (AJIV Colourway) going for 27800 Yen (approx. 365 CAD) respectively. Needless to say I wanted the Motorsports but NOT at the price lol. Finally as we exited Harajuku, I noticed a sneaker spot called Kinetics which had flyers up advertising the release of the AJ VI Motorsports for 21000 Yen (approx. 265 CAD) on 02/11/10. I talked to the store clerk who told me that they'd be opened on 02/11 at 10am so I made plans to be there to make sure that I didn't miss out again.
Today I woke up bright and early to make sure that I wouldn't miss out on these joints so I woke up and headed over to Kinetics round 9:30 am thinking that there might be a line up but there wasn't. I waited there till bout 10am when the guy at the shop told me that they'd be open at 12pm instead today. Since you know I hate to lose out on things, I stayed in the same spot for another 2 hours to ensure my pair. As a result, I was outside in the cold waiting for bout 2.5 hours for the shop to open. No one ever ended up coming to the line which was pretty surprising considering how tough these bad boys are to find at a reasonable price. After my campout for the VI's, I headed over to Kichijoji which is a smaller suburb outside of central Tokyo. This spot is known for their sneaker shops and I was on a mission to go and hit up two spots in particular; K-Skit and PX- Megastore which are both located at Kichijoji Station on Inokashira Dori street. I hit up PX-Megastore first to check out the prices as it's known to have better prices for the stuff they have (check out Tokyo Mike's article on both stores @ theshoegame.com). I found some stuff but nothing I really wanted so I headed over to K-Skit. K-Skit is one heck of a store, it's got crazy stock and some serious heat. If you check out their site @ k-skit.com, you'll see some stuff that looks pretty decent for the price, but what I noticed was that somethings are too good to be true. Most of the items there are in beater status mode. I mean for what you're getting its not bad but like most ppl, I don't really want kicks that are too beat. I went there with the intention of copping two pairs of AJ IV retros from '99 but only ended up leaving with one pair that were new but with some cracking and clouding due to age. I mean they set me back 18690 Yen (approx. 232 CAD) but they are brand new and have that Nike Air on the back...
Another day, another dollar...
mad jealous bro.
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