This Week in Dulture…
Approx 7 minute read (cuz I was a tourist and jammed this issue)
😇 A taste of sneaker heaven
🏪 A hypebeast konbini
🗼 This emoji
⚡ Cool lab
Dulture weekly mix
As you’ll read below, I spent A LOT of time in sneaker stores this week.
When I walked into CarryMe in Harajuku the whole staff was just vibin’ to all kinds of tracks from the south. They’d be helping me and then all of the sudden just vibe out. Girl at the cash was rocking with everything they were playing while she was cashing me out.
You think when you’re on the other side of the world they don’t know what’s up but I dunno, a lot of spots playing bangers everywhere.
So I put this southern hiphop playlist together - obviously the south doesn’t have just one defined sound anymore so you’re gonna get all kinds of artists and tracks that you too can vibe out to like you’re working in a sneaker store in Tokyo.
Alright alright alright - last week I kinda put this neighbourhood on blast…but I did say I’d be going.
I just got back from Harajuku.
Provided you get out at the right exit (Takeshita Exit), you’re literally greeted with the gates of kawaii-culture across the street.
I have so many photos through the years of this gate it’s not even funny…I don’t know why I keep taking them
Takeshita street can easily be the definition of Tokyo for some. If you’re an Otaku, you’re basically getting everything you need on this street - card stores, gachapon spots (the vending machine with the trinkets inside the plastic ball), kawaii clothing, random trinket spots, animal cafes, and tons of food.
Now if none of that is for you, you can easily walk down Omotesando Avenue one street over - the famous tree lined street with every luxury brand known to man.
Trees EVERYWHERE
But if you’re looking for shoes like I was, you keep walking Takeshite Street for maybe 7 minutes until you reach the end, then walk across Meiji-Dori Ave. to Harajuku St. and you’re officially in the backstreets of sneakhead heaven. Atmos, Kicks Lab, Carryme, Snkrdunk, and a plethora of more spots line these streets.
Now’s the fun part, you just have to wander.
If it looks like this you made it to heaven (SNKRDUNK just down the street there)
In fact your only challenge is that these spots typically close at 8PM everyday so if you’re doing other things like shopping for your kids like me, you end up having to speedrun.
Here’s what I hit up:
First spot on the street you’ll pass by is Atmos Blue and then Atmos is next door. If you’re gonna go to Tokyo you gotta grab something from Atmos - they’re Japan’s beacon to the rest of the world.
Didn’t grab any shoes but their selection is fairly extensive in store. Atmos blue is all Adidas and then right next door is Atmos proper with Nike, NB, Solomon, On Running, and those types. There’s a next Atmos store in the area but we didn’t have time to hit it (the theme of this night).
If you know me by now you know I only really pay close attention to Nike - they’re had a bunch of exclusive AM95’s colourways but I’m not a fan of the big bubble so I grabbed a couple tees and socks and on to the next spot.
There’s another Atmos proper store but didn’t have the time :(
Atmos Blue - where Adidas head’s dreams are made of
We walked down to the first of two Kicks Labs. Picked up nothing - this store has a bit of a hiking/outdoorsy aesthetic. They also sell a bunch of Adidas, ASICS, NB, Puma - nothing that peaked my interest but if you’re a fan of these brands this spot is dope.
We didn’t have enough time but if you keep walking down past the first Kicks Lab, you get to the second one which is the one everyone goes to for Jordan’s, AM’s, etc etc.
We went back towards where we came from and I popped into Carryme. They have a massive wall lined with every exclusive Nike drop known to man - including the elusive Nike Mind slides….which were $400 lol. No clue why Nike is making these shoes so frigging exclusive.
Dope store, staff were SUPER friendly, none of that stushy stare at your shoes wondering why you’re there type vibes (goes for all of Tokyo tbh)
I picked up the olive AJ1’s I’ve wanted forever.
You can do so much damage to your wallet in a super tiny radius it’s not even funny.
Arigatou gozaimasu.
Don’t know if I’ll ever push the button on Travis Scott’s - these are dope tho
Family Mart But Make It Hype
The internet doesn’t need anymore cliché posts and articles on how good Japanese convenience stores are. Nah fr, we’re good.
But when Nigo does something in Tokyo, people generally pay attention.
Last month Family Mart announced their collab concept store, Famima, with Nigo. Essentially their take on what the future of what a Japanese convenience store could be.
So being in Tokyo, I obviously went.
On the outside, it doesn’t really look like a convenience store. It reminds me of a hip clothing store or pop-up you’d see somewhere in Shibuya or Harajuku - which is fitting given Nigo’s HumanMade stores can be found in both neighbourhoods.
In fact you could walk by and potentially not really know it was a convenience store if you weren’t really looking.
On the inside when you walk in it kinda feels like how a store would be set up in a TV show or movie. The aisles are perfectly spread apart with the products neatly lining each shelf and each aisle.
Amazing fried chicken straight ahead (red & yellow signage)
There’s this Marie Kondo vibe going on how the store is laid out - purposefully, intentional, not how you’d expect a convenience store to feel...which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just got this fresh vibe in the place.
Products themselves range from typical snacks and smaller grocery items to typical Family Mart convenience wear stuff to then the exclusive Famima stuff that Nigo designed.
Some of the exclusive Famima stuff included hats, umbrellas, water bottles, and trinket keychain/bag charm stuff.
These were dope umbrellas, if you have a thing for umbrellas
Cool little water bottles and convenience store mags
I think socks too (it’s hard to tell what colourway socks are exclusive or not as not all Family Marts carry all colours at times), and then you also had these simple basic t shirts, and of course Nigo’s Curry Up branded curry.
Although this is a Nigo partnered Family Mart, pricing for everything was still either cheap convenience store prices or very reasonable. Even the Famima branded stuff is decently priced - the hat I picked up was like $25 USD.
New fav hat, idgaf
No word on if any other Famima’s will be opening in Japan but this is a pretty cool konbini experience, worth checking out to grab some Tokyo/Family Mart exclusive stuff, especially if BAPE and HumanMade aren’t in the budget for your trip.
Good night Famima.
This photo kinda looks like a video game no?
Tokyo Tower Vs…
Doing the tourist stuff in Tokyo can be tiring from all the walking and crowds and long days and blah blah blah blah - as I sit here writing this recovering from a 13 hour day at Tokyo Disney Sea yesterday.
Tokyo Tower is one of those attractions that is hit or miss for a lot of people, especially since you can get city views (arguably better depending on who you ask) from places like Skytree and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building’s observation deck.
So we went to Tokyo Tower. I actually think Tokyo tower is a good one to check out, not just because of the views, but also because its history and significance to the city.
Being from Toronto, we take pride in the CN Tower - obviously y’all know about it because of a certain album cover but given it was the tallest “free standing structure” in the world at one point, there’s a level of importance we place on our tower - the same can be said about Tokyo’s.
The thing about Tokyo’s though is that it also represents the fact that the city burned down several times to literally nothing, especially after the 1945 WW II air raid bombings that effectively left the city as a demolished blank slate.
Hisakichi Maeda, a newspaper mogul in the 50’s, desperately wanted to build a radio tower that would surpass the Empire State Building but ended up settling for beating the Eiffel Tower when budget and materials became a constraint.
Coming out of the war at the time, there was an obvious need to boost morale and optimism in the city and the tower’s construction represented that. It also represented a time when everyday Japanese citizens were finally able to afford things like TV’s and refrigerators, previewing the economic boom the country would later see over the next 20+ years.
Also the tower is just mad cool - you really can’t take a bad photo of it.
The views from the Tokyo tower give you a pretty decent “in the heart of the city” type vibe. Comparably, the views from Skytree and the gov’t building are a bit more bird in the sky, above all the buildings atmosphere.
Dawg I don’t know what part of the city I was looking at but it’s beautiful nonetheless
Both options are dope but I love Tokyo as a city, the tower does it for me.
Check These Labs
Alright last touristy thing this week...because I’m headed home on Sunday lol. But c’mon, you gotta admit, if you’ve never been to Tokyo some of this is helpful for a future trip right? Right??…
Y’all gotta check out Teamlabs. There’s a bunch of locations across Asia in general but we’ve gone to both of them in Tokyo now at this point and *chef’s kiss*
Gif’s don’t do it justice but what can ya do
They’re basically like these digital meets physical art installations that you walk through and just experience. On the surface it may sound a bit boring, like how long can I spend looking at digital art? But honestly, the experiences are so immersive that you find yourself just staring at stuff and walking sloooooowly through catching vibe after vibe.
We’ve already hit the “Planets” location in Tokyo and that was great - it’s the viral one where your physically experience a lot of the installations, walking through water as lights and sounds and smells surrounding you.
This time we hit Borderless, just cuz we hadn’t before. I was told in the past Borderless wasn’t that great, that we’d prob need like 45 mins and we’d be out. We spent a good 2.5 hrs in the place and it didn’t feel long at all.
Borderless is this place where you walk through room after room, feeling lost, which is the feeling they kinda want you to feel as you walk. You’re supposed to be immersed in the experience, so much so that you lose yourself to some extent?
You choose a fish, then colour it however way you want and then they scan it and it shows up on their aquarium wall…so I advertised LOL
When you haven’t experienced digital art before, curated in such an intelligent way, you actually can’t help but get lost. The imagery is insanely good, flowers, birds, water, lighting - I don’t even know, a lot of it you kinda just leave to your imagination to sort out.
And if you put your phone down, it does wonders for your experience. Obviously I had to take a few shots to share here but for the most part, I didn’t have my phone out, I kinda just took it all in and it was very enjoyable.
Teamlabs locations are generally great ways to slow down when you’re on a tourist heavy trip or somewhere to go when it’s raining or mad hot outside.
If there’s ever one in a city you’re visiting, forget the reviews of what people say online, just go experience it for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
I guess that means ignore everything I just wrote hahaha.
