May 6th, 2008 | Antonio Sureshot |

For several years, I had been using this humongous 31″ black rolling suitcase on all my flights. I got it several years ago from Eddie Bauer, because of their renown lifetime warranty. Well, sometime this past year, it finally broke.

Since I was in the market for some new luggage, I decided to buy hard case luggage, like what I see all the Japanese peeps rocking when I’m at Narita Airport. This type of hard case luggage has 4 wheels on the bottom, and it spins 360 degrees, so you can roll it effortlessly as you’re walking. The other nice thing about it, is you can roll it upright through the narrow center aisle of the shinkansen (bullet train), JR Skyliner or Narita Express train when you’re in Japan. The huge wide Eddie Bauer luggage I used to have would always hit people on the elbow as I passed through, and it was super embarrassing for me! I had to walk through the train, saying “sumimasen” and “ah! gomen! gomen nasai!” a million times. Not cool. Kiotsukau! Be more courteous when you’re in Japan!

After doing alot of searching online and not finding anything I really wanted, I walked into Macy’s with some friends and found a pretty pimp looking, big black 30″ spinning hard case from Samsonite. What made it even more perfect is the fact that it had a TSA combination lock (you can’t lock your check-in luggage unless it has a TSA approved lock nowadays). Perfect. I was sold! Bought that joint on impulse… it was kind of expensive (definitely more than what I planned to spend on luggage), but I figured, screw it… I should have some nice luggage - I travel so much, it’ll be worth it!

So now that my fresh black Samsonite hard case is chillin out happily in my living room… I discover the Samsonite Black Label store, by Union Square in SF. DAMMITTT!!! I didn’t even know Samsonite had a flagship store like this! It’s dope! It’s filled with all sorts of dope luggage from their higher end Black Label line.

I immediately spotted some super fresh luggage with a checkerboard pattern that I hella wanted… but damn, I just spent a few hundred dollars on my Samsonite hard case, which is pretty high end and fresh in its own right.

But damn, I wish I knew about the Samsonite Black Label store before I bought my hard case! I just might have been down to spend an extra hundred or 150 to get this super dope checkerboard pattern luggage, cause it would look so damn fresh on trips abroad!

Right? Peep it. Hmmmmmmmmm…