On occasion, I write little reviews for CNNGo, CNN’s Asian Culture portal. None have made it to the main site in full form, due to the intentionally cheeky and unprofessional nature of the writing. A sample quartet of these posts are provided here for your entertainment.

Wakadaisho

Wakadaisho hosts a collection of vintage skateboard clothing, most exemplary being original Zorlac and Dogtown apparel. Occupying a musty retail space in Shimokitazawa, it’s a time warp for aging skaters.

There is a specific moment in time that Wakadaisho’s wares exemplify: the final days of skateboarding before hip-hop ran over it with a cultural truck. The clothing within the shop is a collection of late 80s skateboard brands- from the sanitary Powell Peralta skull-and—sword-laden imagery to Santa Cruz’s screaming hand imagery to the riskier edginess of Pushead’s stippled skating corpses for Zorlac. This shop is fraught with examples of a time when skateboarding was almost purely a punk rock pursuit, not urban swagger, oversized pantaloons, and Dr. Dre beats. The few skateboards that are within are fish-shaped, not the sanitized, ovoid wooden pills of today.

While much of this visual style has not aged gracefully, some elements have, and this shop is a resource for those interested in surveying the remnants of that time gone by- a time of pool skating, the birth of street skating, bad three chord music, and even worse attempts at creating a new genre of corporate-funded action sports-themed music, namely Thrasher Magazine’s brand of “Skate Rock”.

Along with the vintage skate gear is a sampling of vintage and retro blue jeans, Vision Street Wear sneakers circa 1987, contemporary skate backpacks, and tons of cell phone straps and keychains so integral to doing business in Japan.

Cafe Madu

“What with everyone carrying on about the greater Tokyo Burger Wars, one humble little chain of restaurants has singlehandedly beaten everyone to the punch by crafting the world’s finest BLT.”

I spent the bulk of last year’s Yokohama Triennale being hideously underwhelmed by the art within- the sole exception being Miranda July’s saucy installation in Yokohama’s Akarenga (Red Brick) warehouse complex. After checking that out, I found myself a wee bit peckish and decided to hit one of the restaurants nestled willy-nilly throughout the same warehouse.

Café Madu had a nice veranda, so I decided to give it a whirl. The English/Japanese menu had a fair amount of nice-looking offerings- the usual lunch sets with pasta, salad, and your choice of a beverage, but I eschewed those in favor of a BLT. Japanese BLTs tend to be made with thick Canadian bacon in lieu of North America’s crunchy, day-old normal bacon, making for a solid sandwich instead of a disposable snack.

What appeared before me minutes later was an inspiration- lightly grilled thick-cut bacon, fresh lettuce, a thin veneer of obviously handmade mayonnaise, and the tastiest white bread I’ve ever encountered, toasted to golden perfection. Eating that sandwich was a transcendental moment, it was so damned delicious. And it truly was a moment. I eat fast, frankly, but the sheer force of this sandwich brought about a primal state of ravenous, gleeful consumption rivaled only by sea salt butter caramel ice cream from Berthillon in Paris.

Café Madu’s BLT is the Reign In Blood-era Slayer of sandwiches. It hits you hard, fast, and unrelenting in its mission: to devastate your taste buds, leave your reeling, and just wanting more.

The Study Room

The Study Room is a science-themed shop for the curious child and his/her deep -pocketed parent(s). Young and old alike will be delighted by the broad range of scientific and pseudo-scientific buying opportunities within, guaranteed to be discarded within mere minutes by average children.

As a child, I was infinitely more interested in science fiction and it’s potentialities than any kind of hard science, with the exception being that of a possible future career as an astronaut. Being more of a dreamer than an egghead, those plans were laid to the side over time with a rich mélange of riding BMX bicycles, skateboarding, and listening to weird music taking prevalence over interstellar travel.

One girl that I went to school with was provided the opportunity of going to NASA’s Space Camp late in elementary school. To this day, I have never seen a human’s head become as swollen with self-pride as I saw that summer. This girl would lord her opportunity over us neighborhood kids’ heads all year, taking every opportunity leading up to and following her time at Space Camp to berate us with the details of the experience.

The following year, her folks hit a rough patch financially and in their marriage, and she was not able to go to Space Camp again. She was utterly devastated by her inability to float around in zero gravity, wear silver clothing, and feel so very, very special. This devastation led to her being pounced upon socially by the rest of the herd her age and resulted in daily tears on the school bus for months.

The Study Room’s pricey wares could have a similar effect upon your children, but they are very enticing nonetheless. Magnifying glasses, insect collection cages, skeleton replicas, geodes- all the ingredients for adolescent social leprosy are there for purchasing by the affluent parent with the desire to overcompensate.

Fruits Basket

This Shimokitazawa kids clothing and goods store has some of the best kids gear in Tokyo.

I’ve hit the magical age where ever-increasing numbers of my friends are procreating, both in Japan and abroad. While all good and fine, it means that the number of gifts that I am obligated to purchase for first-time parents is on the increase. With luck, my roaming around the environs of Shimokita landed me in a few decent kids clothing and accoutrement stores, though Fruits Basket stands out from the crowd.

Sometimes you just need a little something special for your friends’ imminent progeny.

For example, my friend Mort works as a garbageman (http://thankyoume.blogspot.com/) in San Francisco. Mort’s got a big mouth, a lot of charisma, and he lives in a fairly terrible ghetto in Oakland. He’s one of the only white people on his block, and as his wife is white, I assumed (properly, it turns out) that their first child would also be white.

I found the perfect shirt at Fruits Basket for their incoming offspring: a onesie bearing this dubious slogan in 120 point Futura, “I am a black man”. Perfect when paired with a sleuthily stunning extra-small Shelock Holmes-style cap for baby at a reasonable ¥4000 for both.

Morton now receives regular beatdowns on America’s mean streets as his child looks on in vaguely racist clothing. You too can live the fantasy.