Big In Japan: Day 1

By Corey Koniniec
Nov 5, 2006

I had just returned from five long weeks on the Mack Dawg Worldwide Film Tour and was packing up my car getting ready to move from Lake Tahoe to Orange County, and get ready for some early season riding at Big Bear. As I carefully placed the last box of crap into my truck I got a call from Pierre Minhondo, director of the 2006 Mack Dawg movie People, asking me to go to Tokyo, Japan for the Japanese premier of both M.D.P. movies People and Follow Me Around. Without Hesitation I answered with a resounding, “Hell yes!” Finally after years of hearing the stories and dreaming of its wonder, it was my turn to explore the land of the Rising Sun. Japan baby, here I come!

Someone once told me that to make it in this industry you have to have an Apple computer, the newest iPod, drive an Audi, and be invited on a trip to Japan. With this Japan trip I will be two out of four down, I guess the Audi and the I-pod will have to wait! With all the excitement flustering in me about almost making it in the industry, the twelve hour plane ride, seven gorgeous Korean stewardesses, a two hour bus ride, and one nerve-racking subway trip flew by in what felt like a few moments and all of a sudden I was at the Shibuya station in Tokyo, Japan.

Imagine NYC’s Time Square with double the amount of people during rush hour, and nobody speaks a lick of English—that’s what Shibuya is like. So with my bags in one hand and my camera in the other I set out to find the rest of the rest crew. I'm such a rookie. Two hours later, an hour after the premier had already began and deeply lost in translation I somehow luckily bumped into Japanese photographer Kazu, whose normal broken English seemed crystal clear at this point. Kazu pointed me in the right direction to Club Asia and the rest of my American crew consisting of Mack Dawg super director Brad Kremer, K2 veteran and one my favorite riders Louie Fountain, my good friend and K2 snowboarder Shaun McKay accompanied by girlfriend Kelly Simpson, and the smooth and stylish TransWorld SNOWboarding cover boy, Aaron Bittner.

When I arrived at the front door of Club Asia I was anxiously greeted by K2 Japan’s marketing girl, Hisoka Nonaka, who immediately grabbed my bags and rushed me up onto stage where I was reunited with my snowboarding pals. Once on stage, I found out that I had completely missed the showings of the film and had arrived just in time for the most awkward part of the evening, Question and Answer hour! Exhausted by the excursion so far and not really knowing what was going on, when it came around for me to answer the first question all that came out of my mouth was, “I love Japan!” and I put up my fingers in the form of a peace sign. This seemed to work perfect as the crowd cheered and we continued to get our pictures taken, answer questions, sign autographs and sip on a few much needed cocktails. As the last t-shirt and poster were signed we said our goodbyes to Hisoka, Fujitsu and the rest of the K2 Snowboarding Japan crew while Brad Kremer and a few Japanese High Cascade diggers took the reins and lead us into a full-scale adventure into the heart of Tokyo.

First stop of the evening was of course to eat and drink! What better way to learn about a culture than to immerse yourself in their traditional food and alcohol? There is no better way, so that is exactly what we did at a little restaurant below the streets of Shibuya. Once inside we took off our shoes and set in for a feast of raw fish, soba noodles, and plum wine. With our bellies full and our heads beginning to spin we didn’t even notice the disappearance of Louie Fountain, oh well, it was time to see what Tokyo really had to offer and we weren’t going to let a man down ruin that!

We continued ten strong, blindly following the Japanese diggers single file into a Japanese arcade and directly into a photo booth that on occasion might fit five small Japanese girls. However this wasn’t just any occasion, we fit all ten full grown Japanese and American men and women inside this thing and took one of the most unique and strange group photos I have ever seen. This wasn’t your average photo booth either, were talking multi-angle, multi-ethnicity, multi-backdrop, twenty sequence photos. Would you expect anything else? Well you should because once we actually got everyone out of that thing we continued around to the back of the booth to look at our photos on duel screen monitors and do some post production work on them as well. Brad Kremer had some alcohol induced red blemishes on his face so of course we had to do a little touch up work. Once we were finished the computer printed out a few and then sent a .jpg file to all of our Japanese friends cell phones. No big deal, off to Rapoongi.

Rapoongi is the party district of Tokyo and if there is one thing I learned from my trip, Tokyo has a district for everything. Party district, traditional Japanese massage district, snowboard and skateboard district, etc … Our cab driver dropped us off in front of an unmarked building and we were all hustled into an elevator that was about the size of the photo booth. A ring sound came overhead and we came to a quick stop. When the doors swung open we all realized we had just been led into single best Karaoke bar in all of Tokyo! Oh yes folks, if you have seen a movie that takes place in present time Japan recently, you know that the Japanese love Karaoke and so do I. After a few drinks and feeling fully confident in our skills on the mic, Brad and I quickly ordered up a little classic from a band called Styx. If your familiar with this band you might have heard a song by them named Domo Arrigato, Mr. Roboto. Oh yes, I was drunk and from what I recall Brad and I nailed it. Or at least I thought we did it until the bar manager got up and sang a Japanese pop song hit complete with back street boy dance maneuvers, tambourine tricks, and even putting himself inside the roulette table and spinning himself around. Absolutely amazing would be a perfect description of what we all just witnessed.

With the 3 o’clock hour fastly approaching, we stumbled back to our hotel and hit the floor like a ton of bricks. Check back tomorrow for more stories, photos, and video to see what happens next on the K2 and MDP Tokyo tour! Here are the captions for each of the photos Bittner420-make up something Club Asia- outside Club Asia CoreyKaroake- singing Domo Arrigato in the Tokyo after hours Group-On stage and on the spot with Q&A Time Groupies-our biggest fans Karoake-the bar manager who out did us all KellyandShuan-k2's Shaun McKay with his girlfriend Kelly Simpson. That's right Kelly Simpson Louie-make up something Louie-for someone who's been there seven times he still looks shocked. Tokyo Subway Photobooth-the product of our photo session Shibuya Square-the Tokyo's Times Square. Now you know what I was up against Shaun-Throwing stickers into the crowd Streets- The streets of Shibuya WAC-make something up