Japan Day 3: Washinomiya Jinja.

Warning: Many many photos!! ^^

A 700 yen, 1hr 15mins journey towards the small town of Washinomiya, in the Saitama Prefecture, was definitely worth it despite the rain which fell on this day. I went to visit the "workplace" of our beloved Hiiragi twins from Lucky☆Star, Washinomiya Jinja.

Well, I was so excited over visiting the place, till the fact that I forgot to take a photo of the infamous entrance to the shrine -.-", so here's the anime version of it!!

Once past the torii gate, it's a small pathway towards the main shrine. Since it was a weekday and the fact that it was raining, there was hardly anybody around.
Some visitors taking a look at the ema plaques. I'll come to the ema later.
Here's the "washing" area, where you cleanse yourself first before going to pray before the Gods.And here's the main shrine. Threw a 100 yen coin in, and did a little prayer. If only I could do it Pixel Maritan style, "To show our appreciation for so much power, Marines keep heaven packed with fresh souls!" (Taken from Pixel Maritan Drill 3, Lesson 42, in regards to when Maritan was making a wish at a shrine lol ^^)

Once making a wish, I went to buy a ema... which costed 1,000 yen??? Wow they sure know how to leech money lol.Anyway, here's my ema which is to the left of the Miku one (you should know why I had it placed here ^^). I realised upon seeing my photos, that I actually miswrote "blog" as ブロク instead of ブログ, I forgot the extra " at the top of ク -.-"; I also noticed the last part of my last sentence was abit weird, I swear I didn't know what was going through my mind when I wrote that (なはいい?? What the hell is that?). I think it was supposed to be without the な in it.

Anyway, the rest of the ema below are ones which I found that were quite nice; in fact there were too many nice ones that I had to be selective, but here are the chosen ones.
Tsukasa and Kagami ^^. This plaque was huge!! It is about the size of 6 normal emas pieced together.
A couple of really good ones placed together. I suspect they were all from the same group or a single person. The shading techniques looked the same, and there was some numbering system on them all.
School Mizugi + swimming tube Kona-chan found! Moe! The bottom Tsukasa one is in Thai. (Edited: Thanks for the correction!)
Kona-chan x Kagamin ラブ ^^.
Another batch shot of emas. Spotted 2 Korean ones! Couldn't find any English plaques around though, maybe I should have did mine in English -.-"
There were some emas, instead of actual writing with a marker on it, the person had already pre-printed the image and words on sticker paper, and came to paste it on the board. Pretty nice too. The one of the left is pre-printed, while the one on the right seems to be hand-drawn. Very very close to the original. As for the website on the left ema, I visited the site, and it seems that the guy is a regular visitor to the shrine, making new boards every now and then and putting it up. To save you all the trouble of typing that webby, let me hotlink it here for you. Has very nice photos of various emas too.
Kona-chan stole Hayate's costume!
I would say this was my favourite ema of all. A really moeliciously cute Kagamin and Tsukasa together. Too bad it was located right at the bottom corner.Prayer for a good job(?). I'll need one too in like 3-5 years time once I'm done with studies.
Patty Moe and Peace!!The main cast all together.Another Kona-chan x Kagamin ema. ラブ ラブ!! Why wish for warm weather?? And here I am wishing for cold weather -.- We need to change places/countries instead ^^.
Being a "designated anime" shrine (LOL), it was also invaded by other animes. Here's the Dango Daikazoku.
I have no idea who's this character though, but was one of the better artworks around, deserves to be posted.
I basically ROFLed myself to death on this. Setsuna F. Seiei from Gundam 00 reference.
That's about it for the emas. I actually spotted this Haruhi Itasha being droven while walking towards the shrine, but waited till I was leaving to take some photos of it, since I found it at the carpark on my way out.
The dashboard is littered with Haruhi related stuff. Nendoroid Petit Haruhi set spotted!!And if you didn't noticed, there's a Haruhi Papermoon doll in the passenger seat. That would have costed him 380,000 yen... rich! But if he could afford a car and even itasha it, I guess he would have the money anyway. In front of the torii gate, entrance to the shrine, on the right side, there's a rest house there where you can have a light snack. And yes the rest house looks like the one in the OP too. This chalkboard was just outside of it, cute art ^^.
This seems to be a permanent fixture in front of the rest house. I want to take it home!! お持ち帰りたい!!
It seems that the people in Saitama is really jumping onto the L☆S bandwagon. This eatery was located along the stretch of road from the train station, towards the shrine. 700 yen for some Kagami Soba/Udon?? or 800 yen for a Tsukasa Katsudon? No thank you lol. I wonder about the quality and quantity of the meals though...

That's about it for Washinomiya Jinja. The rest of the day was covered with rain, and I didn't want to risk having my camera soaked while trying to capture photos of the city (we only went Ikebukuro later in the day). Risking my camera here was another thing, I'll be a waste if I came all the way and didn't take a photo, so yea I was taking photos in the rain without an umbrella, good thing it was only a light shower.

I'll be taking a break from posting tomorrow, since I'll be occupied for most of the day; with our Team Blue "One with Nature" Figure Photoshoot tomorrow afternoon, a NTU hall recommendation interview in the evening, and a meet up with some BMT Kestrel June 06' platoon-mates for a BBQ at night. Here's wishing you all a enjoyable weekend!! Signing out.

P.S: I'll like to put a thanks out to Zyl from hontou ni sou omou? for his pioneer L☆S Pilgrimage trip, which was used as reference for the trainlines towards the small town of Washinomiya. Thanks ^^. (I have no idea how to do a pingback to the post though -.-") Hope to be able to do the complete pilgrimage in the future, going with a non-otaku friend is boring when it comes to these kind of stuff.

Lucky Star - Kumikyoku 'Lucky Star Douga'

Did a post on this song before, but having seen this [MAD] remix ver. video, I just had to post it again, and I'm still addicted to the song. Truly epic!! The way they made the scenes flow from one to another, and the added clips from parts of the series were quite nice to see, as it goes along with the music. (Love the intro scene by "Animate" Tenchou @ 2:51) Will be posting both nicovideo and youtube links for all, but if possible it's alot more fun to view on the nico version, the comments made it even better/funnier to watch. Thanks to bj0rN for linking this video on his post, don't think I would have found it (not that I know it exist) by myself. Enjoy and Signing out.


Nico Nico Douga Version, requires an account to access though.


Youtube Version, but the lack of flying comments on the video while it's playing doesn't amuse me. For the non-nico users I guess. For those wondering what I just said, when using Nico, other people adds comments at certain time slots of the video while watching it, the site saves the comment, and flies in/display that comment on the video while it plays. Unique way of watching videos, but sometimes it's just abit distracting, especially when the comments floods the video.

Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day to all!! Lucky Star Style ^^.

As everyone should know today is Valentine's Day, one of the days in a year where a big fat hole gets created in the guy's wallet. I definitely would prefer the Japanese version of Valentine's Day, where the girl gives chocolate to the guy, then the guy would return the favour on White Day (14 March), rather than "our" version where the guy usually foots/plans everything. Either way I'm once again going to spend this day as per any other normal day because: 1. I got to go camp and work, 2. I don't have a girlfriend ><.
Hatsune Miku VS Kagamine Rin - Chocolate☆Magic.
Dedicating this song and Wishing a Happy Valentine's Day to all the couples out there. And also good luck on making sure all those planning goes through smoothly for the guys, so that all the effort is not gone to waste. Signing out.

Misc.

One of the times I wished I lived in Japan. If I did I could just go down to my neighborhood friendly Akihabara (or whichever anime shops in Japan) and grab a copy of Dengeki G's Festival Vol.11. But looking on the bright side, it seems that KKnM did bring it in, and hopefully when I go this Saturday it'll still be there. I just want the Shiro Dakimakura!!!
The photos of the loots will be delayed, maybe tomorrow or the day after, but surely before the end of the week. I'm currently half-dead from playing paintball in the afternoon, part of my squadron/flight "cohesion" day. 3 games all clean sweep victories for my team.

A song that I'm currently addicted to, but due to it's length (15mins+) it is split into 2 halves. It's a combination of various songs (mainly character songs) from Lucky☆Star. It's really addictive. Enjoy. Signing out.


Lucky☆Star - Kumikyoku 'Lucky Star Douga' Part 1/2


Lucky☆Star - Kumikyoku 'Lucky Star Douga' Part 2/2

Songs used: Part 1
1. Ne-Ni-Ge de Reset! (Tsukasa, No.2 on Favourite LS song list)
2. Cosplay no Kokoroe (Patty)
3. Kosutte! Oh My Honey (Konata + Patty)
4. Ore no Wasuremono (Minoru Shiraishi)
5. Kaorin no Theme (Minoru, No.3 on Favourite LS song list)
6. Koi no Minoru Densetsu (Minoru)
7. Gravity (BGM Insert)
8. Minimum Tempo (Yutaka)
9. Shiawase Negai Kanata Kara (Kanata, No.1 on Favourite LS song list)

Part 2
1. Dondake Fanfare (Konata)
2. Misoji Misaki (Akira)
3. Aimai Net Darling (Akira + Minoru)
4. Mo, Mousou Machine (Hiyori)
5. Moe Yousotte Nandesuka (Miyuki)
6. Yuuchou Sentai Dararenja (Konata + Patty)
7. Kenka Yoho Jikan Dayo (Kagami-sama!!)
8. Mokutto Yasumi Jikan (Minami)
9. Kaeshite! Knee Socks (Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa and Miyuki)
10. Motteke! Sailor Fuku (Same as above)

Further Updates on Japan.

Over the past few days I had been writing a few possible posts for the blog in a small notebook (130 x 90mm), even one that spans about 11 pages long (for those who know how's my handwriting is like would know it's really small so the content is lots), but doesn't seem to be the right time to do a post on it, and I don't think I would be posting it since it's just long. Maybe when I get back from Japan, do some editing to it and then post it up. See how it goes.

Spent the whole day today adding more information into the itinerary, information on how to get to the attractions, reconfirming train timings, choosing the best route to take for minimum waste of time, updating Doujin Circles' booths for Comiket, printing of maps (those which I could find, but not much) for navigation and packing my bags for the trip. 2 x long sleeves shirts and 1 x pants still not dry, but should be ready by tomorrow. Everything else is more or less ready accounted for, including charging of the batteries for cameras (1 DSLR + 1 compact)/handphone/zen vision, separating the yen into multiple piles and kept in different locations and making sure I have the Air Tickets and the 21 days JR Railpass in my bag.

So many things had I wanted to do when in Japan, but couldn't due to time constraint. Would have loved to go on a Lucky☆Star Pilgrimage like Zyl, or actively look for the scenes from Byousoku 5cm like windbell, though I might find some as I'll still be around the Shibuya and Shinjuku area. Oh well, as a consolation, I'll be doing a small "pilgrimage" when I'm in Kyoto, checked the address but not sure how to make my way there, will do my best though!! (Since there's only 3 of us, let's omit Miyuki when taking the photos I guess . Sorry to the Miyuki fans out there!!)I think a few of my friends, and many people out there just can't understand why we otakus exist, and why we go to the extend of visiting "places" related to them. For me, I want to try experiencing the supposed "atmosphere" of just being at a certain location, and relating it to a show one would had loved. And mainly, I CAN'T RESIST CUTE THINGS!! I'll just go KYUU~!! whenever I see something cute and just have the urge to hug it. I love collecting stuff toys and all those cutey items, and anime also vastly contain the cute moe factor that just makes me wanting more. People might say it's an escape from reality, but I think I'm coping just as well in the real world as in the virtual world. Or let's just put it that there's a certain romance in anime that only some people can appreciate.

I do get this once a while when I'm just so into it.

When planning for this trip, I didn't know where I wanted to be to spend the New Year at. To truely experience New Year in Japan, it has got to be going with the crowds and be at a shrine/temple, but the problem was I didn't know which shrine to be at! Eventually I narrowed them down to the Meiji Shrine @ Harajuku, or the Senso-ji @ Asakusa, though would had preferred going down to Kyoto to Kiyomizu-dera Temple, but due to Comiket I'm stuck in Tokyo. I still haven't chose which to go for New Year, will do so when I'm there. Might even choose another shrine in the end who knows? Need one with cute shrine maidens ^^. What started out as a "backpacking" trip, has changed to one which is just like a tour, just without the tour guide. Being a first time planner, and first time going to Japan, I dare not take the risk of "let's hop here and there and see where we end up!" and getting lost, or worse, not having a roof over our head in the middle of winter, and I wanted to go Comiket so badly that the schedule had to work around it. Also including the fact that I wanted to be in Tokyo when it's Christmas, it sure was a hard time to plan with these constraints.

I had also heard that quite a few places also don't allow photo-taking, but being just a trigger-happy person with one, I'll try to find ways to do so. Worse come to worse when they come up to me, there's always this reasoning ^^.Did I ever mention how much I love Lucky Star?? Looking at all the screenshots I'm sure you do now hehe. Signing out ^^.

Note: I'm still not sure whether to pack the "Starfish-shaped Ear Muffs" into my bag cause it's just sooooo cute!! I swear it's Fuuko's influence!! (For those who don't know who's Fuuko, go watch Clannad. ^^)

Japan Trip Status Update.

Lack of posts and it's not due to being lazy!! A long needed break today after a weekend of which mainly involves me moving around and never being at home. Having friends coming back/visiting SG all within a span of a few days can be seriously taxing.

I'm more or less set and ready for the Japan trip, only left packing the new clothes that I had bought over the weekend once they're dry. I'm actually lacking in actual lessons (20 2hr lessons of Elementary4 Japanese), no JLPT under my belt, usage of the language in an actual conversation, but with my only comfort being able to understand (70-80%?) of the language when watching raws of JDramas and animes. I'm not sure if this is enough, but that's all I got for this trip. Would like to maybe do a JLPT3 next year and hopefully get a JLPT1 when I finish my University (I'll be entering into NTU next year as a second year student in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics Stream, so I should finish by 2011)

Right now while doing this post, whenever I need to think of what to type, I'll just alt+tab and be reconfirming all the train timings using hyperdia. But to make sure they're totally correct, I still intend to buy a rail-timetable when I arrive this Saturday. I just hope that whatever that I had planned stays that way, so my efforts would not go to waste. Doing all of the other final checks too.

First on my shopping list has got to be the catalog for Comiket73, after all it's the biggest highlight for this trip. I've already checked, double-checked, triple-checked the Doujin Circles allocated booths that I have high-priority on, and just praying the amount that I'm setting aside is enough for all the goods I intend to get. Being a first-timer, I'm actually not sure of what I'm supposed to do, besides all the information that I had gathered from other fellow bloggers who had attended Comiket before. I do know that the event starts at 1000h, but is reaching Ariake at around 0900h late? Or should I be even earlier? Sadly there was not much information relating to "what's a good time to start queuing for a earlier entrance". After all I'm S'porean and yes I'm kiasu too. Gotta catch them (doujins) all!! And I've decided not to do a write up on the rest of the shopping list cause it's too long. (Laziness bug strikes again!)

I'm like this now!Hope I don't end up like this lol. Love Kagami-sama + Tsukasa!!

My wallet is surely going to feel lonely too after Comiket.

From reading my posts, I'm sure I give the impression of one who do lots of planning, making sure everything goes as planned. The answer? Yes, I do prefer making sure of everything, after all this is the first time I'm actually doing the planning for a holiday, and the first time I'm going on a trip which will last more than 21 days. This trip spans from 15th Dec to 7th Jan, a grandtotal of 24 days, visiting quite a few cities, Hokkaido (Hakodate, Sapporo, Noboribetsu, Asahikawa, Niseko), Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka and Nara. I'm totally excited and can't wait to depart this Friday night!!!

Planning for this trip started back in mid-July, after hearing that 3 of my cousins were going Europe for 25 days, and they invited me. However the dates they had chosen was ones that I didn't have enough leave to cover (I'm still doing National Service). I had one more cousin from the group though, who didn't want to go but wanted to travel somewhere else, and he did mentioned something about Japan, and that just triggered the spark in me to plan this trip for him (nah it's mainly for myself!!!). Another friend of mine was also interested, so this trip consists of us 3, and the fact that we're all into anime allows me to make this trip slightly more orientated for anime! Cheers for more trips to Akihabara + 3 days of Comiket!! Even trips to Nakano Broadway, Otome Street (Yes I know it's more for BL stuff but there's Lashinbang nearby, courtesy to Windbell) and Nipponbashi in Osaka. Introduction to the few "Sacred Places" thanks to Lucky Star!! Too bad no Kichijoji and Osu in Nagoya planned for this trip lol.

However, from the experience gained from planning this trip, I don't plan to do another one for quite a while. The amount of stress that builds up when planning which cities to go, how long to spend in each city, how to move to/around the cities, what to do when things goes wrong, accommodations, air tickets..... it just rushes to your brain!! I've had nights where I would have nightmares of the trip, like forgetting the money, missing crucial trains (Night train Tokyo - Aomori and back), forgetting important documents... just mentioning some of the few which I've had. The worries just compounds more and more, but don't intend to mention them in case Calvin kills me for giving him more worries when he reads this post.

The shopping list for the trip just keeps growing by the day, to the point I really doubt the amount that I'm bringing would be sufficient unless I remove the purchase of the lower-priority products which I can surely get back in SG (eg. manga series). But, if all else fails and I decide to burst my budget (which I'm already doing by at least 1.5k SGD), there's always the Credit Card!! I do wonder if there's any UOB ATMs in Japan so that I can withdraw money from them (not sure if I can anyway).

It's funny though. I started this post with the intention to talk about other stuff, but in the end I'm just ranting about my Japan trip so much that I just changed the topic and do one dedicated to it. I really pray and hope everything goes has planned and not like what happened to this post (sudden change). I'll do up another post after this but will only publish it tomorrow, letting you readers to absorb the mass page of text here. Until then signing out!

Note: Thank god for Blogger's draft saving abilities. I thought I lost the whole post when I accidentally clicked the BACK icon. Would have had no intention to redo the whole post lol.

Anime Figurine Check List!!

I'm sure as most of you know I'm an anime lover. But in recent times, with slightly more cash on hand, I've lost to the Dark Side and have started to collect Figurines. So far none of them has arrived as they're only being released next year, but I have already pre-ordered them so when they are released, they're shipped to my house and will begin their term of moe~fying my room. Now on to the figures!!

This is my first ever figurine "purchase" which was made back in September, but sadly would only come in March08 as it has a end-Feb release date.1/8 Scale of Sawatari Makoto from Kanon, Maker: Max Factory
Retails for 5,800 Yen
More pictures at Good Smile.

A month later, in October, my second "purchase". Will also arrive only in March08, end-Feb release date. Well I would say these could be considered my birthday presents ^^.1/8 Scale of Shana from Shakugan no Shana, Maker: Kotobukiya
Retails for 5,040 Yen
More pictures at Hobby Stock.

Then came mid November. This figurine was already on the pre-order list for quite a while (since September), and not sure whether I would be able to get my hands on it. But still placed an order on it. Hopefully I would be able to get it. If it does goes through, this would be the first figurine to grace my room as it's set for a Jan08 release, so will have it by February. Sadly I couldn't get hold of the limited edition white version of this figure so the original would just have to do. 1/8 Scale of Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière Bustier Version from Zero no Tsukaima, Maker: Alter
Retails for 5,040 Yen
More pictures at Hobby Stock.

Last but not least, a pre-order which I managed to psycho Calvin into getting it together with me, the latest craze in the "Otaku" world, Hatsune Miku Nendoroid. Mentioned before it's from Vocaloid 2, a singing synthesizer program. First time they are making a figurine which doesn't originate from an anime or manga. All I can say it's tooooooooo cute! Sadly it'll only grace my room in April08 as it is a March release. By the way Nendoroid figures are like super deformed version of the character just for clarification.Non Scale Hatsune Miku Nendoroid, Maker: GSC
Retails for 3,000 Yen
More pictures can be found at Good Smile or Mikatan Blog (a GSC employee).

Sadly I was too late for pre-ordering the Lucky Star Nendoroids, and am stabbing myself for not noticing much earlier. Actually, I couldn't find the pre-order on neither cdjapan.co.jp nor Play-Asia. Seems to be a Japan Exclusive release, though I didn't know KKnM was taking some pre-orders for it till I found the link this morning (seriously way tooooo late).

Most of these findings were from dannychoo.com, a blogger who resides in Japan and brings some insights of the Japanese and Otaku culture. One of the best sites I've seen, and one which I visit about 3-4 times a day. There's also a RSS feed of his site on the right sideboard of this blog. Another RSS feed is of Akihabaranews.com, which brings information of the latest gadgets and hi-tech toys from Akihabara in Tokyo Japan and in other Asian Countries. 2 Great sites, 2 RSS feed.

For those who are wondering where I got the Miku Clock from, it was also via dannychoo.com. You can get it at Miku Clock, but the site is in Japanese so not everyone might be able to navigate it. I actually used a online translator to translate the site to follow the steps to implement it onto this blog. I can't remember the steps and too lazy to do it again.

For those who after seeing these pictures of the figurines and plan to convert to the Dark Side, one note of advise to you, it's going to be a huge expenses unless you are able to control yourself. There are at least 4-6 other figures that I would love to get, but for now I need to save. However if temptation wins you over, there's always the right sideboard, scroll down to the Play-Asia link, click on it and go pre-order your phat loot there. Signing out.

Undergoing Tweaking

Slowly as it may be, the site is still undergoing minor tweaks here and there. I hope to get everything done by this weekend, or the next. An actual post should be coming soon, it'll either be a review or a photo post should I manage to get my Photoshop working.

For the time being here's a video which I enjoyed. The character in reference is from Vocaloid 2, Hatsune Miku. For those who doesn't know what is Vocaloid, it's actually a singing synthesizer program produced by Yamaha. As you can see there's MikuClock to the right of my blog, and it's really cute i think ^^. Program used to draw the image is called SAI. Currently it's Japanese Language based, but i believe an English version is coming out soon, or it's already out I'm ain't sure.

The songs "sang" in the video is by the voice of Hatsune Miku. The songs in questions are in order, Cardcaptor Sakura - Platinum and Lucky☆Star (Tsukasa Hiiragi / Kaori Fukuhara [Voice actress]) - Ne-Ni-Ge de Reset! Hope you'll enjoy!! To listen to the original version of the songs please click the link which is embedded into the song name.



Disclaimer: All videos are not done by me. Though I don't know who is the original creator (besides the CCS one), but they are all great works. Job well done!