Went silent on you again for a while, but I was working hard all the way through….

In between official YOKA Series production, I did a small capsule for SIZE Magazine in China, an edition of 30pcs all sprayed by yours truly. I was never a real artist myself, but I think these came out okay.

New Balance sent over something that they knew I was waiting for ever since the tradeshow! The MA-1 inspired MT580, due out this A/W. Love the color combo and the Gore-Tex outter doesn’t hurt neither. Much much thanks to da boyz. I love it!

Shanghai. After all these years, how do you think it looks like? Still a farm land of sort? Nah.

Check out how Shanghai looks like at night.

Rosa, a great help from our studio. She gave me the bad news about her having to leave the company, BUT, the great side to that was that she’ll be going to Italy to continue on with her education. That, I absolutely support!

I went to Cheng Du City last month, this is one of the shots that I took, one that I like more. These were made with cow-skins, these were used as light-puppets from decades ago. Pretty nice.

You’d want to see more designer figures in this blog, huh? Sorry. You wait, my friends. Just wait.

We were quiet on the toy front for a while, that was because we were working on this new YOKA series for FAMILY MART. A 10-variants soccer-themed series, these will be available in FAMILY MART Stores in Mainland China starting June 1st til July 31st of 2010.

Very happy to work with the convenience store chain, as this will give us the opportunity to put YOKA in front of a more mainstream audience. Not about to go mainstream, but would definitely want to see their responses to what we do. Unfortunately, for our YOKA collectors in other countries, we cannot distribute this series internationally as these are exclusively for FM. We do have something else for you all, will show you that next week.

Been here in Shanghai for 8 years, and tonite was my first time going into Shanghai Stadium to watch an event. How slow am I??

DIAMOND LEAGUE, that was the event.
Usain Bolt was running the 200m race. That’s why a bunch of PUMA friends went, and I was lucky enough to get a ticket from them. I must admit, I’m no fan of track events, but this was a good experience。

Stay busy, Armin!

Jeter being interviewed after her win. Needless to say, she is FAST~~

Here’s the reason why we were there.

I missed my shot~!
He didn’t.
Set a new record for Shanghai’s 200m.
19.76 seconds, that’s all he needed to cover 200m.

Usain Bolt. 200m.
19.76secs.

And of course, there was Liu Xiang for 100m Hurdles event.
Crowd favorite, being in Shanghai and all.
However. No, shouldn’t say that. I should say: Hey, he came in 3rd!!
Congrats~!

Thx Julian and Armin for your kind invite.
I had fun~

Last week was Mainland’s Labor Holiday Week, I took it easy for a change and just walked around the city.
However, due to the World Expo, the city of Shanghai was packed.
I didn’t go to too many places, I don’t like crowded places…

I got my new Oakley shades on, with cell phone on hand, just twitted just I found interesting as I go.

An installation by Dior. A giant handbag?

Expensive “mansions” in front of SoleGoodz, gees, we used to just call these “apartments” in Toronto… they called them “mansions” here,… so that they can sell for more..

A nice set sitting in our neighbor’s shop window.

I enjoy honesty. And this is how we are when we are looking for loo…. haha

Kobe enjoyed a few days in the sun as well! This kid is growing up to be a chubby one!

New Balance’s M1300 JP special model officially drops at SoleGoodz in Shanghai tomorrow. We are stroked to get the rights to offer this gem to sneakerheadz here in the Mainland. Ming was in time to get the new renovation done, and the new fittings sets off this pair of M1300 perfectly.

Frankly, I’m glad this finally goes on sale tomorrow, ‘cos I’ve been getting calls daily from friends wanting to cop this. Okay boyz, come grab them tomorrow and stop calling me!!! haha

JonOne and Mai were in town for the weekend. Really nice catching up with these two wonderful individuals. The trip was too short though, not much time for sight seeing and such.

Why was JonOne in Shanghai?

He was there, with Madame Magda, hosting an art performance in this amazing art house in the city of Shanghai. Inside an old house, you wouldn’t know what it is unless you walk in there. Beautiful place Madame Magda got there. Anyways, what was the performance? John did…

a little voodoo practicing… (yeah, black magic in Shanghai, good choice of location, John)

a little painting, with chinese ink.

and a little crying on the ground….

Ok ok, you are getting this from a guy who surely doesn’t know too much about performance art! But for those who knows JonOne, you know he did something really good.

John and Mai, see you next time when you visit! Great seeing you!

Chris in Beijing set this one up, we believe this is gonna rock all the kids in the capital city! Mademoiselle Yulia and DJ KYOKO will be taking control, don’t miss out if you will be in Beijing by any chance!


I’ll be there, see you there?

So much going on these 2 weeks, is getting me all excited~~
A few new lines I’ve been working on will come to fruition soon, very soon.
And new toys will also see the light in May. You won’t disappoint, I assure ya!

SoleGoodz got its new shipments of both Puma and New Balance, we were a busy tied up with those for a bit. Hot stuff though, gotta check them out. With all these talks about the Shanghai Expo, I’m sure some of the visitors are sneakerheadz and vinyl-headz. Hey, you know where we’re at! Swing by to adFunture-Land~ haha

SoleGoodz
351 Zi Zhong Rd.
Shanghai PRC

Greg was in town, so we met up for some spicy Chinese food. Is always nice to see Greg, and damn happy to see the MISHKA outfit is doing so well. LA store and then the Tokyo store, etc etc, all good moves. We were talking about Twitter and since that’s “blocked” in China, we use something similar by Sina. We were taking photos for the respective sites.. yeah, we are geeks…

Hey, he picked this dish, not me!!
Is not as spicy as it seems with the chillies and all. How was the food? Ask him for his opinion.

We hung out til midnite, so that Greg can get me a birthday drink! haha yeah, is my birthday TODAY. Another year older, another year closer to 2012! (if you believe that sorta thing..)

Went to this MESA bar, asked the waiter for their best cocktail, and he brought us these…. “oh is fun, you can mix it up yourself, blah blah blah..” Dude, you gave us a small glass of rum, some sugar syrup and a few slices of lime. Needless to say, no, we didn’t really enjoyed it~~ SO, we went off to another place and ordered a bottle of whiskey. Yeah, stick to something simple~~

Greg, great seeing you again, my friend. And it was great to drink with you and Mike in the early hours on my birthday!~ Getting up to get to work was a bitch, but it surely was fun! haha And like I said, that MISHKA x Rebel8 Fitted was sick! Very nicely done~~ We expect to see more and more folks rocking Mishka here in Shanghai!