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Restarting the blog in…. a few days!

I visited more historical and cultural attractions this time than all the previous times put together! So this is back to the usual Japanese culture filled posts .  Click on for more sights and sounds straight from Kyoto!

Shrine at the end of the Philosopher's Path

The trip this time was split into 2 days, and the first day was mostly spent navigating the Philosopher’s Path in Kyoto.  The path starts at Ginkakuji and heads south ending at Nanzenji.  It’s named the Philosopher’s Path because a famous Japanese philosopher, Nishida Kitaro, used to use the path for daily meditation.

Entrance to Ginkakuji

The path starts at the Ginkakuji, but it’s under construction so sadly it won’t actually be worth entering until 2010.

Themed Trinket shops line the streets

All sorts of trinket shops line the streets, including the cat one above.  At this point the rain was getting real bad so we took shelter in a nearby and had a completely unfilling lunch that also cost me an arm and a leg.

The path is lined with Sakura trees.

While walking I stumble upon a shrine.  The name was Toyo something, but I can’t remember anymore .  I should really tag my photos in the camera.

The approach

Moving on!  I find yet another random temple that was supposed to be closed.  However, they had the gates open due to some construction work they were doing.  I played the dumb foreigner card, snuck in, and took a few photos.  I do wish they were open as the temple looks rather grand.

Following the path farther south we have a much smaller compact shrine.

Which also happened to be very nearby the very famous Eikando shrine.  The entrance fee was a steep 600 yen and photography was banned inside the shrine .

Pillar of light from the heavens!

The Eikando temple also features an amazing garden.

At this point it was getting pretty late, and we headed back to the hotel before getting a taste of the night life.

Just 3 more pics!  Hang in there everyone!

My friend and I actually went for Yakiniku and karaoke, but I forgot to take pictures :’(

I’ll have day 2 of the trip up tomorrow.  In the mean time, I need to get the adrenaline running to fight my jet lag .

Gifts I received and not quite sure how to bring home

However, one thing I did do that totally surprised me, was make a real impact on my coworkers.  I even got marked down as being optimistic under any circumstance as a strength :O.  Somehow they were happy enough with me that they organized a farewell party for me and gave me a few gifts.

I got a good bye card sort of thing, where everyone wrote a short message on it.  I’ve seen this done in North America, but it’s the first time I’ve gotten one on a piece of cardboard.

Awesomeness

From some coworkers, I also received a complete set of the Nausicca, Valley of the Wind manga.  Apparently the movie only covered the first two volumes, I can’t wait to get home and dig into this.

Nausicca, the complete works

I also received a RX-78-2 Version 2.0 Gundam from some other coworkers :O.  I was so surprised when they gave it to me.  I guess I gotta try real hard to make this one nice too .  I’m sure my coworkers are waiting for pictures of the completed one.

A Gundam!

And of course, going home requires… packing… sigh… I didn’t want to send boxes home before, but this is looking a little impossible.  Oh well, back to packing!

I do think I'm rather good at packing things into boxes.

Gundam in the Evening

However, we did manage to see one thing together, the Gundam.  There’s been like 10 bazillion shots of this thing already, but I thought I might as well add mine to the pool.

There’s a huge crowd that gathers around the Gundam, as the Gundam is part of a larger festival.  There are all sorts of food stalls including matsuri main stays such as yakisoba, takoyaki, etc.  Out in front, there was a line for people to walk underneath the Gundam, touch it, and gain a sense of scale.

The feet are about as tall as a person.

From Behind!

There's a huge crowd surrounding the Gundam. People take pictures with everything from $2,000 cameras to cellphones.

This thing is friggin HUGE.

Jetpack!

GANBATTE GANBATTE GUNDAM!!!

Well that’s it for my Gundam post.  I guess I failed at making my pictures better than the rest of the pool out there, but I tried .  Until next time!

My attempt at a good Gundam Picture

Sorry, just one picture for now.  I need to fix my chronic hard disk space problem.  Yes yes, delete the porn I know the jokes .

Sorry, I haven’t been posting recently, but I’ve been super busy finishing up the work that was left to me after Obon.  I do have yet another post about travel .  This time it’s the Isumi Konata house in Satte, Saitama.  It’s a recently opened “tourist attraction” where the district is attempting to draw anime fans and their spending to the area by refurbishing a house in a manner that is consistent with Isumi Konata’s house from Lucky Star.  If you are a Lucky Star fan that’s planning on going, I strongly suggest you bring someone with you that knows Japanese.

The taxi driver was lost, but once I saw the mailbox I knew we were there.

The website for the venue is actually over here.  To get there you need to find your way to Satte station all the way out in Saitama.  Once there you need to check the list of ticket vendors for that month.  We got lucky this time, since the vendor was the convenience store right next to the station.

Satte Station

The ticket is actually an A4 paper that doubles as a map.  Ironically, for all the fanfare about how this was supposed to bring tourism to the area, the taxi driver didn’t know where it was.  The ticket is actually only valid for 1 hour from when its purchased, which is really extortion imo.

Ticket/Map

Time to head inside!

A Birthday Party Announcement

Apparently the author’s birthday and Konata’s mom and dad’s birthday are all very close.  It looks like they’ll be having a birthday celebration of some sort.  For the rest of the post, I guess I’ll keep it to mostly pictures.  Sorry but this is going to be picture heavy.

On top of the shoe cupboard...

Everyone was crowded around Konata’s room, so I want to Yutaka’s room first.

I can't even remember what Konata's cousin was like but this is her room.

Surprisingly faithful to the anime...

Studying?

I guess she isn't that smart

Sailor Fuku?

I think she needs a new pc too...

I guess she needs to make her bed too.

They even made a Lucky Star Collector’s room of sorts.

Oo...

I finally got around to visiting Konata’s room next, but the other members of my group were still there!

Konata no heya

The house is awfully small, going in smaller groups is definitely better.

I didn't realize Konata was into Initial D and Tony Taka...

I guess she played her strange MMO from here....

Being able to name everything on the shelf has made me realize I probably need a break from this stuff.

Next we have Konata’s dad’s room!

It's surprisingly devoid of stuffs

But it comes with a shrine for Konata's "dead" mom

Onwards to the top floor!

The top floor is a lounge for resting and working on their ridiculous quiz

If you do manage to complete the quiz correctly, you supposedly get pins that are illustrated and autographed by the artists.  Fortunately for me, I think Lucky Star art is flat out terrible, so I don’t really care if I don’t get one .  The quiz itself is friggin ridiculous.  It’s not even a quiz about Lucky Star or any of the author’s works.  It’s a quiz about the author’s life, which I know absolutely nothing about.  So I ended up filling in random numbers, maybe I’ll still get a prize? .

Announcement board + guides for finding the real life references used in the anime.

I'm guess these cards are rare? I really don't care much for trading cards either.

Oh yes the dining room.  They even hooked up PC’s to help you with the quiz…  Considering that there’s also a time limit in which you have to see the entire house in… I do get the feeling the quiz is a trap.

Bah, I can't get the windows to not overexpose themselves.

Tim futilely tries to take a pic of the chocolate croquette he bought from the snack bar.

Oh and we get a nice postcard as thanks for visiting .

Alright, and so we’re done with the house…  Gotta check out back for a spot that was used in the opening.

Next stop Washnomiya Shrine…  As it turns out, this is actually a popular otaku gathering place for everyone in the area.  We even got a few Comiket survival tips from these guys.

FEENAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This crazy guy has monitors looping the Shuffle opening in his car....

Nanoha Itasha!

Shana bikes :O

One of the otakus who's doing handmade Luck Star fans

Oh right the shrine lol.  It was closed and it wasn’t that amazing .

The entrance

Um... wee building

It was getting late, because it took too long to get the team together.

Alright time to head to my capsule hotel, snapping shots along the way

Yoshinoya.... weee

And some ramen to wrap up.

Yum.

I guess I’ll  provide a bit of a brief article on Comiket 76 and my experience to hopefully help out other people who are heading there without experience to make this more interesting.

The line at 12:45AM

The event itself is 3 days long, spanning a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, be prepared for a sleepless weekend if you are planning on getting the goods you want.  The picture above was taken at 12:45AM, there were roughly 400 people in line at that point.

It seems so empty right now... The line at 12AM.

Ugh, ISO 1600 is totally unusable on the Nikon D60.

At around 3:00AM the staff finally show up, and the line is split into more manageable chunks and the top 2000ish of the 200,000 attendees are moved onto the veranda.

Soo many people

The poor people who don’t make it onto the veranda have to put up with the extremely cramped main line at the bottom of the stairs which stretches on for miles.

The line at around 5:50AM, before the first monorail train arrives.

If you're stuck in the main line, get ready for a tight and excruciating wait.

Hehe, I'm heading in first

Though being up so early means that I can see the sunrise .

Sometimes you might even get treated to a rainbow!

Next thing you should know is, you need a team .  Goods will sell out really fast in Comiket, unless you divide the labour and everyone gets goods from a different section, it is hopeless to get everything you want.  From Dannychoo, our team was 13 strong in the beginning.  We even had a sushi dinner together to commemorate the occasion.

Here's a few of us

Here's some more

That sushi plate was super expensive .  Some plates were even as expensive as 5 dollars.  I ended up calculating my total after each plate and was slightly full after 1300yen, at which point I stopped eating.  I was planning on getting a cup noodle with another person, but we had to do something which is the next step.

Going to Comiket requires a plan.  You need a  battle plan where the labour is completely divided.  It is impossible to cover all the ground in time when you’re alone.  Everyone needs to write down what they want, the show floor needs to be divided into manageable sections per person, and the money needs to be distributed before hand.  Furthermore, it is actually impossible to look around comiket with the number of people.  There is hardly enough breathing space, let alone looking space.  The actual distribution of the goods can happen after the end of the day’s events.

Tim from Timkoh.info looks in the printed version of the official comiket catalog to find his goods

Our hastily prepared moving path for one person.

The catalog is released 2 weeks in advance of Comiket in both CD and printed versions for 2,400 each.  Inside, every participating doujin circle and vendor is listed along with their location and which days they’ll be present, everyone in the group needs to look through this and write down what they want.  Although the catalog does list the official vendors, there is a separate brochure for the official vendors hall which does it much better.  Make sure everyone looks through everything there or be prepared to miss things.

Next up is exhaustion.  Because of how everyone must line up extremely early there is a very real risk of overexhaustion.  Our group rushed the planning so everyone got even less rest and as a result we had a large number of casualties. You need to plan well in advance and make sure that everyone is well rested.  After the day’s events everyone needs to be resting to be ready for the next day.  Lack of rest leads to a lot of dumb choices like somehow we put the same people getting Nanoha goods onto getting the Tony Taka goods.  They’re both incredibly long lines and in the end very few people got their Tony Taka .

... There were only 4 of us left by day 3

Lastly, the lines inside the independent artist section are just as long as those for retail booths, but they have far fewer numbers of goods.  If you underestimate them you’ll be left completely empty handed.

At least 2000+ people were in line for Tinkle

The commercial hall is a MASS of people.

To put it into a perspective, a  friend and I, lined up at 12AM, got inside the expo at 10:15AM, and we only managed to secure ourselves two of the last few remaining Tinkle sets.The lines are usually far too long, so they are divided into subsections that are more manageable.  50 or so people at a time are then told to raise their hands and moved from section to section until they reach the main booth.

The man is holding up a sign that says 列の途中 which means that this is only the end of a subsection of the line.

At the end of every line is a sign that says 最後尾 or the end of the line, usually the last person in line holds this up.  When a new person joins the line, the sign is passed along to that person and so on.  DO NOT cut into the subsections or you will be removed.

A bit of an obvious tip, but bring plenty of water.  You need to stay hydrated to stay alive.  If you collapse, all this suffering will have all been for nothing.  The line for going pee is also massive though, so drink in moderation.  Also, I suggest you not bring snacks as you will simply be weighed down by them.  Once the line stabilizes and you can sit and leave the line, you can visit McDonald’s or a number of convenience stores nearby to pick up your necessary refreshments.

Last tip, you will be standing for a good number of hours, so bring a picnic mat or chair so you can rest while you can.  A light sturdy portable chair will be invaluable while you are waiting in these insanely long lines.

My friend brought his amazing red chair, I sure wish I had one too.

Oh well that’s it.  I ended up with a box full of loot on its way home as we speak!  Unfortunately, due to my lack of experience and lack of planning, what I got wasn’t actually that significant in the end.  Nonethless it was a blast fighting the battle with my friends, and I will hopefully be back again next time and reap a better harvest.

Limited gains, but I will be satisfied.

A lot of the people who went with me last time, won’t make it for next time.  So therefore, I’m asking now!  WHO WANTS TO COME WITH ME!  (Sorry for next time I meant C78, Finances won’t recover in time for C77 )

Today’s dinner was a rather interestingly made yakisoba.  I had this at the Odaiba Aquamall food court.  Yakisoba is really just simply fried noodles with fried beef, pork, or some other meat along with copious amounts of green onions and Japanese mayonnaise.   Simple, but YUM~!

In the mean time, I’m getting ready for massive delays because the earthquake in Shizuoka destroyed a number of highways and caused landslides in areas already soaked by typhoon rains.