Joey Redmond - My Blog

It’s a sad thought but Joeyredmond.net has NOT been updated or maintained at all so I am going to move the blog to one of the “Staff” blogs at Wrecked Magazine. Currently as the head editor/part owner of the magazine that is where I seem to spend all of my off time from doing client work so it makes sense to stick my blog over there. Now go visit the blog, I promise you this one will stay updated!!!!!!!

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

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After visiting Joe Gibbs we headed to Lowe’s Motor Speedway to enjoy the longest race of the season mileage wise in NASCAR. 600 laps around the track in Charlotte would put each car on the track to quite a test. The Nationwide race the night before was excellent as Kyle Busch took home the victory in the #32 Dollar General car. Here is a little video from victory lane I shot.
Kyle Busch wins another race

Before the 600 we grabbed some Vietnamese food with Phil and the Theory guys at Pho Real in Charlotte. It was an excellent place and I got a great meal with fried rice, eggs, and beef!

Also before the race Kyle Busch visited the Coca-Cola stage on Speed Street to do an interview. After Kyle Busch took to the stage Stanton Barrett also came by for a chat with the fans.

Here is a view of the track from the back stretch of Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Coca-Cola 600 from Hospitality

The beef curry was so good at Bape Cafe!? we had to pay it another visit and with full stomachs in toe walking around Harajuku that night we decided to go visit the Bape Store in Harajuku. The store is in a very discreet location off the main roads of Harajuku. In fact, while I was wandering around Harajuku a few days before I almost found it while cutting behind the huge Ralph Lauren store (I just took the wrong alley).

The store looks like a diner inside a building with a very western flair. The outside diner shell almost reminds me of  a place locally called in Atlanta called Marietta Diner. Probably the closest I was going to find to it in Harajuku at least.

The store has some amazing colors that flow very well together and many rooms with different products and elements to purchase for the Bape fan.

The design firm Wonderwall did am amazing job at building this massive structure in Harajuku and my favorite section design wise of the store was by far the top floor where the shoe display is.

After hopping of the Yamanote line we ran right into Yodobashi which is basically a Japanese Best Buy but way more amazing and perfect.

On the eight floor we found an excellent model car collection and I was able to find an EG6 for my friend Yoni at Exedy. When we came out to Japan in January we looked high and low through Osaka and could never find him a EG6 model car but I finally completed the mission.

Many of the subway bands I had a minute to listen to at Shinjuku Station were awesome but this band at the Akihabara station easily had a crowd of  50-100 people dancing along with the band.

The crowd was insane but was managed well due to the main road being closed. It allowed people to not be limited to the sidewalks which was good because I don’t know how you would of gotten anywhere otherwise.

We were about to die of starvation and just got done telling some Japanese girls how we knew about Akihabara and we stumbled upon this Denny’s hidden in this alley. It was amazing, they had some awesome Japanese dishes, it was a nice choice for lunch in the area.

After eating it was time to play some video games at the huge Club SEGA housed in the center of Akihabara.

Jayke wanted a photo of himself in Japan but little did he know this guy was throwing up some Asian scissors behind him for the picture!

A ton of English advertising just doesn’t come off correctly in Japan but this one took me back. It was basically like a Sears from the outside and this was the sign that hung out right in front. Warm welcome and cool price!

After a good 30 minute hiatus from video games we found Taito Station in Akihabara which was the same number of floors as Club SEGA and offered just as much fun. We got hooked into quite a few games of Tekken 6!

I have no idea but it got taken……

This one I just couldn’t believe with my own eyes. I found Mountain Dew in a vending machine off the main roads in like a neighborhood in Akihabara! This is the only time I have ever seen Mountain Dew in Japan.

After the excitement of finding Mountain Dew we took our beverage and all our video games we snagged and headed back to Shinjuku for the night.

That sums up Japan in a phrase better than about anything else I could say. I enjoyed more time and spent more money on this trip living in Japanese arcades sometimes not even really knowing or understanding what I was playing. Here is a photo I snapped on the way to Club SEGA in Shinjuku.

Here is a game that entranced Jayke and myself on the trip and played videos of other video games and random things on the bottom screen as you played.

Playing a drum game at Club Sega in Shinjuku-Ku

I hopped on the Odayku line in Shinjuku and got off in Gotemba Station and headed out to Fuji Speedway for the race weekend. It was my first time seeing D1 since the 2004 JGTC race at California Speedway. It was my first time to witness professional Drifting outside the United States and it was a blast. Rain plagued the event but the crowd and the entertainment was still there! Check out the gallery I shot for the D1 event. Wrecked Magazine Gallery.

I was reading on some girls blog about how great Bape Cafe!? in Harajuku was and I had my doubts but I was close by after visiting the BBC store. Right before I caved in to visiting I read something from the New York Times that called it one of the three places you must eat in Japan and I was sold.

If you get off the JR Yamanote line it is tucked away around a few turns but it shouldn’t be that hard to find. I managed to figure it out by memory from a bad map drawn on the BAPE website. I ordered the beef curry at BAPE and was blown away by how good it was. It was the best food I had eaten in Japan to date.

I even though my Diet Coke’s presentation was spot on at Bape Cafe.

The music I thought was pretty killer but it was far from Japanese. It ended up being a Friday night DJ on Power 106.7 they were piping in which is a famous radio station out of Los Angeles.

The place was amazing and I recommend it as a must visit when your in Harajuku. If you want more information on it, just visit the BAPE website BAPE.com and click on Bape Cafe!?, I cannot shoot a direct link because the website is in flash. In the BAPE Cafe!? section you can preview the whole menu and get directions from the train station. To close off this post I threw in some photos of me walking around Harajuku.

I got shot down taking pictures at BBC Harajuku real fast by some employee’s but I scavenged some entertainment for you from some other locations. Let me tell you first off you could miss this place looking for it no problem. You walk down this alley and weave down this road forever passing Supreme and some other well known streetwear stores until alast, you find BBC tucked away in the Basement floor of this building pretty much.

If you walk straight through the automatic doors you will find your way through a space portal that says Wealth is of the heart and mind if i remember correctly. Once you exit the space portal you find yourself in the middle of the Billionaire Boys Club side of the store.  This is definitly the cooler side of the store and where I made a purchase of a Summer 08 tee before the line came back to America.

The Ice Cream side of the store was on the other side of the red spaceship but you must walk back through the space portal to access Ice Cream. Ice Cream was setup like a small ice cream store with shoes in the ice cream dishes behind the counter and all. A very solid setup on that end as well and one of the best clothing stores in Harajuku I visited this trip.

You get to take home your purchase in this awesome little bags. Here is a picture of mine back at my hotel room. They have the spaceman from BBC on the other side of the bag in a black colorway.

I woke up at the Keio Plaza Hotel and searched through Shinjuku most of the morning. The night I got in it was raining so I didn’t really do much but visit Club SEGA and settle in. My first order of business was to visit SofMap to purchase a JDM Thin White Playstation 2. I picked up a ton of games for it including Intial D and Gran Tursimo Tokyo Edition. I even snagged Gran Tursimo 5 Prologue for the PS3 back home.

Right down the street from Shinjuku Station is a huge Tatito Station (the founders of Space Invaders) have a huge 8 story arcade filled with some exciting video game action.

Japanese arcades are very different from ones in the United States, many people can be found on dates in suites, and most girls come by the droves to visit the third floor which is photo booths.

Battle Gear 4 is an amazing racing simulator that has a full simulation mode that requires you to use the clutch while shifting your vehicle. For extensive players you can even by a key for 500 yen (around $5.00) that saves your game and progress on the key for when you return to Battle Gear at any arcade. It even has a pretty sweet Drifting mode that allows you to utilize the real e-brake. Here are some more photos of the system.

Here is the in car view while driving a Honda EG6. The cluster, rev limit and details of the car are very accurate.

This is one of the main intersections I walked through everyday on my way to the train station in Shinjuku. The crowds become huge during busy travel times of the day that you can barely cross the road. In the background is my favorite Japanese fast food place called First Kitchen.

I left for Tokyo a day earlier than Jayke as he connected in Narita to Changi Airport (Singapore) for the trip of  the year to date. Delta just started a direct flight from ATL to Narita which was amazing cutting out a leg to get to Japan. Earlier this year the re-route in Detroit was brutal! Delta has amazing leg room on the flight.

My seat controls on the airplane. Sleep mode is the best invention ever.

I never was awake for the meals on the flight but I made the third meal served on the plane which was this odd breakfast. The rice side was pretty good for plane food.

Delta provided hours of HBO Entourage for my entertainment on the flight.

I got into Tokyo in the early afternoon  (I think?) and hopped on the JR Narita Express which dropped me off at Shinjuku Station.

I arrived in Shinjuku-Ku and walked outside the station to this sight. It was truly amazing but that is all you get for now. I will keep you updated on the adventures of Japan.