Adventures in NYC: After Irene

As you may know, over the past weekend NYC was completely shut down because of this little hurricane Irene thing. And even though the storm had come and gone by the time most people woke up on Sunday morning, NYC was still a total ghost town all day. But since I was already forced to stay in New Jersey for an entire day and had the homie Mehdi visiting New York for the first time on this unfortunate weekend, we ventured into desolate streets of Manhattan...

Some amazingly simple yet stunning street art that can be seen on about 10 or so of these lamp posts by St. Marks and Cooper Union. Must have taken forever.

Setting up for SeriousWapanese x FuckYouJohn
















Fucking Jersey... but the random adventures and seeing the city so crippled without trains was definitely worth the trip in.



-john-

Adventures in Japan: Kyoto Retreats

As you may or may not be aware, I've recently moved to Osaka, Japan, where I'll be working for the next few months before I move back to NYC to take over the world (so sorry, it has definitely left me little time to post on here). But now that I've been here over a month and settled, I'm making it a mission to post more often and more importantly take more pictures to share. I'll start it off with my recent trip to Kyoto, which unfortunately didn't involve much fashion but it was damn beautiful and I think I got some shots that portray the place and the people well...

Pretty much ever city is built around some sort of water and this portion of Kyoto is especially nice since you can actually go down in the river banks n chill, fish, or find an expensive restaurant to enjoy the view.

It's still eye catching to me, but kimonos are a completely normal part of life here... which is probably why it's odd to them that I'm trying to take pictures all the time.

Especially coming from NYC, its unreal how nice everyone is out here. There's no such thing as "don't talk to strangers", because there's no need! We've even befriended some school kids that commute on the train by themselves at the age of like 7. School kids are especially friendly cause they love speaking the little English that they know.

Can't even describe the randomness of "Mushroom: Pretty Space & Bar"

Delectable hot pot

Especially in the southern part of Japan, takoyaki is super popular, especially as a late night snack with beer

This dude was the man. He felt bad that he couldn't let us in a temple since it was just after 5pm... so he gave us free canned coffee and a great broken English conversation.

Stumbled into some sort of street festival, no clue for what but everyone was decked out, even these little girls in kimonos and dudes marching down the street in some ceremonial fashion...

And you can't escape these people in anime costumes promoting god knows what... but people never get tired of it.

Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see of know more of or what direction you'd like to see these Adventures posts go in. I generally just snap what I find visually cool, but I'm down to hunt down things for you guys (food, fashion, street snaps, signs, whatever tickles your pickle).

Sayonara for now.

-john-

Adventures in The City: Views n Shoes

Honestly I'm still struggling with the name for this segment, but for now it shall remain to be called "Adventures" and will basically be the photographic documenting of my day to day with a D90 strapped to my shoulder. I'll try to keep it interesting and fresh and thus will probably keep it weekly or bi-weekly. This post is all from yesterday...

The view from my bus stop in NJ ain't bad when the weather ain't bad

Epi

Hit up Barney's to check out all the amazing things I can't yet comfortably afford.. and saw that charming sign by the escalator

The detail on these Bottega sneakers was pretty ill

Had to hit up my old stomping grounds to see all my favorite people over at Niketown

Then it was out to conveyor belt sushi with my homie Jane at Sushi East (go there for salmon Tuesdays!)

Jane put me on to this awesomely detailed speakeasy called The Blind Barber... great ambiance



Then finally back to Jersey were I just can't get enough of this view at night. The low fog and long exposure makes it look a little extra epic too.


If you have any ideas for the title of these Adventures posts, please leave it in the comments section... and also if you have any feelings about me posting personal pics rather than just straight fashion and news all the time. I'd love the feedback, good or bad.


-john-

More Adventures in Montreal

Here are some remaining pics from the last couple of days that we spent eating, shopping and exploring around Montreal.

We headed to Montreal's Chinatown for a very nice dim sum meal. I don't think I know anywhere in the world that there isn't a damn wait for dim sum.


As nice as it is to hear, French is still kinda hard to understand.

We were able to hit up 2 really good stores in Montreal, the first being Off the Hook. Off the Hook carries tons of lines including but not limited to The Hundreds, Twelve Bar, Stussy, Staple, Mishka, and their very own line Rated Rookies. They are conveniently located right in the downtown area of Montreal on Rue St Catherine.

A more upscale boutique in the SoHo area of Montreal, u&i also caught my eye as they carried the likes of Junya Wantanabe, Acne, Vivienne Westwood, and more. Also right around the corner from u&i was another upscale boutique by the name of Duo. Duo carries YSL, Raf Simmons, Y-3, Super, and many more.

Right across the street from Duo was this amazing bistro Marche 27, where the menus are written all over the walls. On top of the amazing food, I thought this was rather epic.

We were also fortunate enough to meet up with Marcus Troy and have him give us the ins and outs of the Montreal fashion scene. We even got in a verbal war with some store clerks over the meaning of Swagger, which for the record can not be bought!!
He is a really inspiring guy with great vision, definitely be on the look out for this man to make serious moves in the near future. Be sure to check out his site MarcusTroy.com.

After all of that it was back on the road to Syracuse.

Thanks to Marcus, French Canadians, science & art, the hookah lady, a horse statue, and a few ignorant store clerks for making this trip what it was. We'll be back soon Montreal.


Check out the entire album of Montreal pictures here


-john-

Adventures in Montreal: Old Montreal & Centre Des Sciences

Old Montreal is just what is says, the OG version on Montreal where the city started, the buildings are epic and the streets are cobble stone. It's a really beautiful area with tons to see, eat, and drink.

I'm not sure what this building was but I'm sure it's something important.Forgive the ignorance Canada.

The old railway.

I think the button was broken or something...

Then we went to the Centre Des Science De Montreal. (Thats French for the science museum)

We got to look at ourselves upside down, in heat imaging and more.
How you gunna tell us that we don't wear heat now?? What??

Then right as the place was closing we saved the world for the next 70 or so years in this amazing world simulation game they have. We thought it was pretty impressive until we saw that someone else had saved the world for like 300+ years. (-_-) Sorry Earth.

Probably the best science museum I've been too, even though that Liberty Museum in Jersey is kinda awesome too. Anyways off the attack another day with our brothers to the north.


-john-

Adventures in Montreal - Bonjour

After one hell of a drive up through NY state, getting lost, and almost dying at a gas station and a truck stop, we finally made it to the land of maple, Montreal, Canada.

Almost didn't make it through the border cause our smart-assness was close to kicking in.

Next morning we had to live out of the car to change shoes and go.

Then, I can't lie we just started drinking early.

All you need in this world.

In Canada so I had to bring the Goodfoot scarf. Eh?

Old Montreal is quite nice.

Then to end an early drunked night it was off to grab some Canadian McDonalds. Can I just say though that Montreal McDonalds > Toronto McDonalds. Plus the McDonalds in MTRL have power outlets on the ceilings which is just confusing and awesome.


We got a little reckless a little to early and ended up PASSING OUT after only like 3 bars but it was still fun. Tonight will be better though, hopefully we can meet up with the man Marcus Troy and really see this place.

Eh?


-john-