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HANSolo's FRKN Blog

Last weeks shananigans...

You know you're gonna have a good week when Frosty comes to visit on Monday. Such a happy and jolly person. Always puts a smile on my face that Frosty fella...

Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!


Later in the week was the Daft Punk concert. Prolly one of the best shows to date as far as electronic acts are concerned. Even worth putting up with fucked up kids all day. The light show was amazing and so was their set list of edits and mash ups.

Sooo many colourful lights.....




Encore!!! (stolen pic)


They really need to water down the bowl. Wayyy too much dust....


Im not so sure about high-waisted jeans making a comeback...



We (the wife and i) celebrated the annual chrissy lunch on Sunday just past. Some of my wifes relos were in town so we thought we'd get it out of the way.

I must mention that my in-laws are from the western suburbs and that her grandma lives in Werribee. So Christmas lunch, as always, is compramised of 10 meats and veg, heaps of dessert....and heaps of alcohol.

Not the best pics, but you get the idea. Ham, Turkey, Pork, Chicken and Lamb. It don't get any more Aussie than this.


And dessert was made up of 2 diff Pavlovas, Cheesecake, Pudding and this one which involved thickened cream and home made cherry sauce...


My nephew in-law almost lost the plot when he got this as one of his pressies. Apparently all his mates at school have already got theirs and he was the last one to get it. I have never seen anyone so happy about getting such a shite pressie...

You know Christmas is close....

.....when you start getting pressies all round!!!

Word up. Doesn't hurt to have mates in high places....


Also....some vending machine goodness from Japan, compliments of the JDS/Memphis/Dave Japan tour...

What I miss most from home...

I know you there are 24 hour places to eat in Melbourne. But they are far and few in between and the cuisine is pretty limited.

This is standard fare breakky from where Im originally from in KL. You can pretty much get this 24 hours a day anywhere.

Oh how I miss the food....

Oh So Fresh!!!

Compliments of Nike. Being sample size is like having a gift. Or is it like getting a gift..?

It's all about the hype.....

Such a hypebeast. This should make my tricks look fresher than ever....

SATURDAY MORNING...

So saturday just past was a bit of a mission and a half. Got like 4 hours sleep from the night before. Had to get up, grab Craig and go to this opening sale for some DJ Warehouse business. Apparently some really cheap DJ gear up for grabs.

No worries....I pick CWD up at about half past and we get there before 10 (when it opens). When we got there....there was about 250 people in a queue...and not only that, they were only letting in 6 people at a time. We ended up waiting in line for at least 2 hours and I didn't really even need to buy anything. Oh well....

I ended up buying some cartridges for my tunrtables. These things normally retail for $169 each - I got a pair for less than that.

These are it....pretty huh? Not sure if they were worth 2 hours of waiting in line tho...


And this is the person I blame. If he wasn't such a dude, I wouldn't be out of pocket, and I would have had a good sleep in on Saturday....

DC x PK Ripper

This has been in the office for the last few months. I can't believe how good it actually looks in the flesh....

I'm such a lazy bastard....

Where do I start....?

It's been more than 6 months since I even visited the blog section of SF. I might have even forgotten that it even existed till last week. To tell you the truth, I've been too busy reading into other peoples lives via their blogs that I sometimes think that I am part of their lives. Sounds a little bizarre - but I'm sure some (or most) of you know what Im talking about.

All this while I've been thinking to myself that I'm pretty lucky to be involved in so many things and blessed to know so many good people....why ain't I sharing my life as well? Thats when I remembered that I had already started my own blog.

The introduction of the phenomenon that is FaceBook also helped encourage me to start documenting again. When pictures of my high school days surfaced on FaceBook, I went digging for my old photos. And guess what? There was next to none. I suppose one big regret of mine was that I never took any pictures or more to the fact - I didn't really care.

So the biggest thing that has happened in my life in the last 6 months is that Sooz and I got married. For those who didn't know, we did it on the sly and jumped on board a plane and went on our honeymoon in Malaysia. I guess it was no surprise to anyone that we got married cos we've been together for more than a decade. There are pics of our wedding (which involved a trip to the registry and back) floating around the web somewhere. Ill link or post them once I get back into the swing of things.

MY TRIP TO HONGKERS

The last time I was in Hong Kong, I was 13. All I seem to remember were loads and loads of toys. You know...Transformers, Voltron, and 70 different types of Power Rangers. And the stuff they had was the 'proper' Japanese stuff. They were all die-cast - not the el cheapo plastic moulded knock offs we got. So you can imagine how excited I was when Woody gave me the thumbs up for a trip to Hong Kong, compliments of New Balance Australia.

Our guide, Alex Shepherd (Footwear Product Manager for Aus) greeted us at the Melbourne Airport and it was to be the start of my first ever excursion for Sneaker Freaker overseas.

I usually love travelling on planes. Something about the novelty of being in this big fuck off bus in the sky. How they keep those things afloat for hours on end is still a mystery to me. I suppose I just have to be glad that the probability of an airplane going down is less than say, getting hit by a car while crossing the street. This time round tho, the trip was rather long. We had to put up with a pretty lame selection of movies and a bumpy ride but I guess it's all worth it cos people have said that it's second best city in the world for sneaker heads.



Arriving at midnight on a Sunday also added to the seemingly long trip. But to our delight, we were put up at the 5 star LKF Hotel, in a party district called Lan Kwai Fong. Now the entrance to this place wasn't anything to scream about. In fact, it was pretty small with a couple of waiting area couches and a small three-person counter as a reception.



Walking into the standard sized room, the first thing you notice is the espresso machine. Pretty standard sort of fare these days I would guess. But around the corner, was a massive plasma television. This thing, I kid you not, was more than a metre wide!!! On top of that, the bathroom was top notch. To cut to the chase, there was a shower head stuck onto the top of the ceiling. It was like having a shower in a waterfall. That night we had a couple of quiet drinks in at one of the locals and retired for the night.



The next day, after 4 hours sleep, we all reluctantly crawled out of our beds and made our way to the New Balance HQ. This is predominantly the Hong Kong office, but it also houses the Managing Director of NB Asia Pacific and his crew.



That morning met some of the most important people of New Balance. Darren Tucker - CEO of New Balance Asia Pacific, AB - Head of NB Hong Kong, and Qing Ni - Regional Marketing Manager for the Asia Pacific Region; who is also heavily involved with the Hungry Dragon 574 project. Considering the heavy titles they hold, they are some of the nicest people I've ever met in the industry.

They showed us around the office where of course the showroom was my favourite part. It was hard for them to pry me away from the sample wall, as I have never seen so many different colourways and silhouettes in one place before. It was there where I realised that my karma had pretty much run out over the many years being sample size to brands like Nike and Adidas. To my dismay, most NB samples come in a size 9.5. I guess you win some and you loose some eh? Here are some to wet your tastebuds...











After a couple hours of rummaging through boxes of samples and getting to know each other, we left the office and walked to Harbour City. The walk took about 20 minutes, and what I can remember most were the hundreds of so called suit tailors vying for your business. I'm sure I heard on more than one occasion, "Sir!!! Cheap suit and fake Rolex for you sir!!!"



So we get to the harbour, and we could see across to the mainland..just. There was so much smog and haze that day, but according to the locals, this is the norm. And here in OZ we have a whinge when the smoke blows in from the bushfires!!!



Lunch consisted of standard local fare from a food court. This meal cost me
approximately AUD$3.



The rest of the day was spent walking around in circles through shopping centres and many streets filled with shops. I'm thinking the reason the population is crammed into small living spaces vertically is due to the fact that most horizontal spaces are taken up by shops. We also managed to check out Hong Kong's infamous sneaker precinct, Mong Kok. For freakers who have never been to Hong Kong before, this street will blow you away.



There are so many sneaker stores in the one area than there are normal stores in half of Melbourne. After checking out the first 10 stores, you soon realise that the stores mostly carry the same stock. I think the rumours are that 5 major families own most of these stores, and they all carry similar stuff in one way or another. You still have to do some digging because there is way too much stuff to just walk past the windows and decide there is nothing in there.



As we only had a few hours left to kill, we noted the good stores and planned to do some spot shopping the next day. By then we'd been walking around Kowloon for a good few hours, so finally decided that we should retire to our super comfy rooms and regroup before the party that night.

The launch of the 574 Hungry Dragon was held in one of Hong Kong's most exclusive clubs, appropriately called the Dragon-i Nightclub. Turns out, the club that hosted the launch was directly across the little street from the hotel we were in. They might have chosen is so that we could crawl back to our rooms with ease after the night's shenanigans.

The launch was attended by retailers and distributors, as well as some VIP's and a whole bunch of street media press from around the Asia Pacific Region.

There was a 'media' launch before the actual party and I was lucky enough to meet some of the NB crew from Boston. I didn't have much time to chat as there was a bit of a media frenzy with all the local press. I think I had the smallest camera in the vicinity, not to mention the smallest flash. I tried to blend in with the rest of the paparazzi, until they found out I was from Sneaker Freaker. All of a sudden I was in with the cool crowd. It still spins me out that SF is so massive everywhere else in the world. Some of them even think it's a major operation with teams of graphic artists and bloggers. All I needed to do was give em a card (and maybe a mag) and they were all up for interviews and having their pictures taken. Don't worry Woody. I didn't tell them anything.



A little bit about the 574 Hungry Dragon -

The 'Hungry Dragon 574' was a concept that came from designer Andrew Nyssen, who works out of the NB HQ in Boston. If you don't know who he is, I'm sure you'll hear more of this guy this year as he was also the designer for the latest Super Team 33 'Fish' series that was released a couple of weeks ago. His love of dragons shows as the shoes are decked out with super premium gold embroidery of dragons. The shoes come in 3 different colours - Garden Green, Blackberry Purple and Midnight Black and there will only be 574 pairs in production.

The highlights of the night were the crew of 10 Korean breakers called the 'Expression Crew', which they flew in especially for the night. These guys were awesome and they had a beat-boxer as well, who could prolly pass as the best I've ever seen.





Hong Kong's very own superstar DJ, DJ Tommy, supplied music on the night.

CHECK HERE FOR MORE PICS OF THE NIGHT

To add to this, New Balance has collaborated with fashion label 'Yoropiko' and have created a denim jacket and jeans set to coincide with the Hungry Dragon 574. 50 sets will be made and will only be available to purchase online on eBay starting at a reserve price of HK$18,000 for a set. Now before you go screaming about the reserve, you need to know that ALL proceeds from these 50 sets will go to raise funds for UNICEF. The online auction will start in March, as will be the release of the Hungry Dragon 574 around the world. Please check HERE for more details.



I remember asking why a launch party of this calibre was held on a Monday night. Someone was quick to point out that the Dragon-i Club was one of the most exclusive joints in Hong Kong. So much so, that models drink for free. That's why the joint looked like a 'fashion TV' after party later in the night. The best feature of this club, apart from the massive birdcage in the entrance and smaller cages (with real live birds) hung from the ceiling, was the bathroom/toilet. There were about 8 or 10 cubicles that actually make you wanna take your time when you're doing your business. If you're a chronic clubber, this is heaven.





I was also told that it was really hard trying to get everyone they wanted down, especially the local retailers because in Hong Kong, the shops open till 10pm. And most weekly meetings are held after work on a Monday night. So many of the top retailers and their crew didn't show up. Not that I noticed cos there was so much to look at (see models drink for free bit) and so many people to talk to.

That night I can remember going from the party, to a pub around the corner called 'Stormies', and then to dinner at a Thai place with all of the NB crew, bosses and all. We ate and we drank. And then we ate again and then drank even more. Best dish of the night were the lamb chops. Weird huh? We go to an authentic Thai restaurant and end up eating lamb chops? Ha!





We ended up at Stormies again after dinner. I retired shortly after as I felt like I had been awake for 3 days. We agreed to meet up for our final day at about 10am, which was awesome because we got to sleep in for once.



Our last day was spent checking out the rest of Hong Kong's shopping. We ventured out to Times Square to check out D-Mop. We must have got there just after 11am, but to our dismay they only opened for business at 11:45...!!! Our trip there wasn't all fruitless tho. There was an Adidas NBA Superstar display in the foyer of the shopping centre. The pictures aren't that great cos of the weird positioning of everything. But honestly, I think it was my dodgy photo taking skills that didn't do much justice for anything.



On one of the cab rides back to the hotel, we got this one cab driver. It might end up only being funny at the time, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. So we got in this cab. This guy was on the phone. Hands free cord from the phone tho, so it was cool. We handed over our hotel card, he nodded, and off we went. Ahh, the good old Toyota Crown LPG-ti.

Then there was a phone ring. Everyone kinda reached for theirs, but then the cabbie beat us all to it. Hang on I thought. Wasn't he already on the phone? Well, seems our mate here is a pretty popular guy. He's got 2. So he hangs up the previous call, takes his earpiece out and clips it on a magnet stuck to his rear view mirror. COOL!...or so we thought.

The second phone rang again in a matter of minutes, but the ring was different. Ok. So now he's got 3 phones. It was then when we started noticing all the little 'options' he had for his accessories. He had little magnets everywhere, so his wires didn't tangle. Any sort of holder you can think of - drink, sunnies, pens, notebooks, tissue box, CD's and of course, his 3 phones. Oh, and did we mention he had a 2-way as well? Yeah. That too. My favourite was the 'ciggylighterpoweroutletextension' hub - so he could charge all his 3 phones at once.

All that plus the standard stuff in cabs, computer booking thingy, eftpos, meter and bad seat cover massage beads. Like I've said before, my Cantonese is rubbish. But from what I could make out, he was some sort of bookie or agent of some sort of dodgy thing. He was so busy doing shit that driving through peak hour traffic was the least of his worries.

It never crossed our minds that we could have got into some serious accident, cos we were so intrigued with his mobile office. So dumbfounded at that there were 3 cameras in the car and no one thought to take a pic till we were out of the cab. This is the best we could do. If you look closely, you might be able to make some stuff out.



That afternoon was pretty much went like this: -

walk-cab-shop-walk-wait-eat-drink-walk-sit-wait-shop-walk-walk-cab

We did the last bit of shopping we had to do, bought boredom busters (PSP's), the others wanted new heat for the 'what did you wear today' threads. That night the big fella at NB and his very entertaining wife, Susan, hosted us at his more than decent apartment in, it overlooks part of the bay and is one hell of a view!!! Forgive my photoshopping skills as I ain't got none, but I'm sure you get the idea.



We watched the cricket there, I think it was NZ vs. England. For someone who didn't grow up with it, I didn't get it. I have always associated it with beer and getting drunk, but after that evening, I think I learnt a few things about the game. It ain't just an excuse to get pissed. ;)

Then they brought us to dinner down the road, still along the bay. Small joint called Lucy's that did continental type stuff - simple, hearty and fulfilling. I looked around the table after dessert and coffee and everyone looked like the day after you've done a triathlon. The last 3 days of non-stop everything had finally caught up. Happy and tired we thanked our hosts profusely for the super duper time we've had, and a wider understanding of how things at NB work. Simply put, if they do what they say they are gonna do, we should see some pretty awesome stuff from New Balance pretty soon.

And then we were off to the airport.

But it didn't quite end there...

There were 2 returning flights to Melbourne that night. One was at 7pm and the other at midnight. The earlier one was a direct flight, but the later one was via Adelaide. We wanted to try and get on the earlier one, but because it was close to the festive holidays in HK, there was a big waiting list.

So the agent had booked us on the later flight just to be sure we had a seat to get home that night even if we had to go via Adelaide. Alex got a call from his office in Melbourne confirming that there was no chance of getting on the early bird, so he confirmed our seats for the late one. Tuck looked after us till we had to head to the airport.

We get to the airport at about 10pm, just to be safe. Already dreaming about catching up on some sleep on the plane, we proceeded to the closest counter and hand over our passports. There was silence for a long minute. Then the tiny little check-in chick looked up with the most innocent eyes and said, "Your flight left 3 hours ago sir, you have missed it". She had to repeat it a few times before it hit us.

Apparently, there was a communication breakdown between the travel agent and NB in Melbourne. We received confirmation of our flights at about lunchtime, but the travel agent had forgotten to take us off the waiting list. Knowing our luck, we actually DID manage to get seats on the earlier flight; only we didn't get told in time, or at all!!!

No worries. Shit happens. Lets just get on this flight. Longer trip, but we still get home.

Then we hear again "Sorry sir, but you are not booked on this flight". We find out that when we were allocated seats on the earlier flight, the bookings on the later one were automatically cancelled so it wouldn't be a double booking. Great.

By this time we were in stress mode and almost contemplating staying another night. But then Alex pulled out his frequent flyer skills (and card) and did what he had to do. They told us that they could have a 'yes' or a 'no' in the next half an hour. The next flight outta there was 24 hours away.

Being almost midnight, HK International Airport was pretty deserted. The sound of trolleys being collected by airport staff, a few kids running around and the odd person looking for something to pass their time. And then there was us. Not knowing if we were waiting for nothing, or if we should just grab the next cab back into the city.

The last thing we heard from the little lady behind the counter was "Excuse me sirs, we have got some seats for you. They are not the best, but you have to hurry and clear customs now". Alex was so happy he almost burst into a million pieces!

The flight home wasn't much to talk about. We slept most of the way, and I think we had some fun when we had to transit in Adelaide for an hour or so. There were these two guys who looked like Bollywood versions of Starsky & Hutch. Both their hairdos were exactly how they were 11 hours before. I wonder what hair product they use?

Somehow this has turned into an essay...

I would just like to thank New Balance first of all, for making this happen (oh, and to Woody too for having prior engagements ;)), and secondly to Darren (& family), Adrian and Alex, for being the best hosts anyone could ever hope for on a typhoon 3 day trip (pardon the pun), to Hong Kong...primarily for the Hungry Dragon 574 launch. Watching how the company works to me is like pulling apart an engine and having a look at what it looks like and how it all functions.

And that was my trip.


PS. Here are some extra bits that I thought were awesome...


Parked in the foyer of The Peninsula Hotel...




There is no water restriction in HK - Yes, the shower head comes outta the ceiling...




The view from my bathroom...


A massive mosque in HK....???


Something tells me that there are lotsa Aussies in HK...


This is the industry standard when it comes to scaffolding...

I Love Kylie...