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With Devon Smillie, Tyler Fernengel, Bruno Hoffman, Ollie Shields, Fernando Laczko, and Alex Donnachie in Tokyo, Japan, for the G-Shock Real Toughness contest a few months back, it would’ve been foolish to squander the opportunity to ride street in one of biggest cites in the world with such an epic crew. So we arranged some local contacts, found a cheap hotel, and stuck around for a few extra days after the contest. Tokyo is so vast, insanely crowded, and security is on it, so riding street is not easy. Fortunately, as far as riding and filming were concerned, there were no sponsor obligations or clip counts to stress—and the sessions that ensued reflected that. The locals fed us a steady diet of predominantly ledge spots—and that was fine with us. The next couple days were super chill, consisting of fun spots, strange food, and more than a few street beers. The only sore spot on the trip was when Alex rolled his ankle on the first day at the first spot. After he did one of the cleanest and lofty uprail-to-hard 360s any of us had ever seen, we knew he was warming up for the hard 540, but he took his ankle out on the next try. Alex had to sit on the sideline for the rest of the trip, but he managed to hobble out every day and kick it with the crew, help film, and consume plenty of Kit Kats and other assorted candies. Meanwhile, local 13-year old Japanese prodigy, Rim Nakamura, subbed-in for a few of the sessions and totally killed it. Which was awesome to see—literally, a kid, just roll right into the session with some of the most bad-ass pros and just start shredding. Thanks to G-Shock, Hiroshi Uehara, Ken Jungnickel, Rim Nakamura, and all the other locals we met along the way.