354 Production

For those that are interested in what had been keeping me busy for the previous week, I have pictures up now showing my trip out to Illinois to help do job fair recruiting for my company. Of course pictures of me hanging around a booth at a job fair wouldn't be very exciting, so the pictures were mainly taken when I was hanging out with friends before and after the job fair. Just click on the picture below to be taken to the appropriate Picasa album.

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates. However, I recently went to Anime Boston, and now you can see my photos here !

My friend Craig came to visit this past weekend for Otakon 2010; I've now posted pictures of that. You can find the pictures here . A selection of some of the more interesting images are provided below. We actually ate at Geno's, but I took a picture of Pat's Autograph and small sketch from Hiroshi Koujina Everyone evacuating due to fire alarm at Otakon This Talim was apparently quite popular; She told me I was the hundredth-something person to take her picture. Craig as Adult Akatsuki Naruto with Rasengan was surprisingly popular. Dolphin Show at the National Aquarium that we saw after the con.

For those that may not have heard, I was on an Alaska cruise last week. I went with my brother and parents, and we took Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Star. I had a good time for the most part, but I now know that even with Meclizine, small planes are bad for me. Got wonderful views of glaciers though before I had to cradle my head in my hands. Anyway, I won't be providing a travelogue of this trip, as my brother will already be doing so, with pictures that are probably better than mine. As such, I defer to him, and you can check his website - http://www.andeys.com/ . He doesn't have anything up yet, as we just finished the trip, but he'll definitely be putting stuff up. Look forward to it!

Sunday, March 28, 2010 This was the last day in Japan. We got up and did any last minute packing, and Arnond borrowed my scale for his luggage. I headed out first, leaving my bags at the front, and went to Akiba for the last shopping on the trip. Arriving at Akiba on the last day Chris didn’t realize what time it was and ended up checking out of the room late. I hope that hotel isn’t unhappy with us, we certainly used their rooms in ways that I think they had never intended, but we certainly didn’t mess them up and properly paid for it all. I had lunch at Star Kebab, and I went back to the hotel to pick up my stuff, getting there a bit after 13:00. I ran into Chris there, and we both hauled our bags to Ueno, then Tokyo, and succeeded in catching the Special Rapid Narita Express that we had tickets for. Chris and our luggage in Tokyo Station We ran into Arnond heading to the hotel as we got to Ueno Station, so not surprisingly, he was unable to catch the same Narita Express...

Saturday, March 27, 2010 Chris and I got up kinda late, since we both wanted a little more sleep, and Arnond dropped by before heading out. He actually hung around for a while as I was prepping to go and Chris was doing laundry, even though we told him he should go ahead without us. He finally relented about going on his own and left. I left not too long after, but came back since I forgot my coat and money. By that point, Chris was about ready to go, so we left for the fair together and picked up train tickets to the airport for tomorrow. We tried the “back by popular demand” Texas Burger at McDonalds for lunch, and didn’t find it that great. We then went into the fair, and began walking around the trade show. As to be expected, there were flyers galore, and official booth cosplayers. Booth babe for SATELIGHT It seemed showing off anime on 3D televisions was a big thing this year, with several booths doing that. I was able to get some free custom stickers from the GONZO booth, ...

Friday, March 26, 2010 I got up and checked out today, and had the front desk hold on to my bags. I then rushed off to the IDOLM@STER machines to get my producer name right, which I did do properly this time. I also succeeded in trying the Mega Muffin breakfast meal set at McDonalds, which was basically a Sausage McMuffin with Egg, but with ketchup, bacon, and another sausage patty added. It was interesting, but I think I prefer the normal Sausage McMuffin with Egg. I then did a small bit of shopping, picking up a few Weiss Schwarz cards, and then I picked up my bags and headed to Osaka station to leave my bags there. I met up with Chris at Settsu-motoyama station, and he had invited Justin to join us in our visit to Konan University. The front gate of Konan University We walked there from the station, commenting on some of the stores that changed, and upon arrival, we found that the Ajisai room layout had changed a bit, with more tables than before, and that the office area had...

Thursday, March 25, 2010 Arnond and I both made our way to the IDOLM@STER machines in the morning and tried to get ourselves satisfactory Producer and Unit cards, but I messed up my producer name twice and decided to just try again the next day. I did a bunch of shopping, and then we headed to my host family’s house for dinner that night. We met up with Chris at Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi station around 6:30PM, and then went to my host family’s house. Some new greenery in Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi station I met their new exchange student, Ryan, and a couple of his friends. Both Ryan and one of his friends were from UIUC, and the third was from Canada. I got the feeling that Ryan was vaguely making fun of us and otaku in general during dinner, but I decided to not pay it much mind. I had a good time, and I probably interacted more with Reiko than I had ever done while I was living there. After dinner, Justin brought Chris, Arnond, and I to a Japanese plum wine bar that was cool, and I had...

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Today was more shopping in the morning, but since it was still rainy, and I wasn’t glad about how wet I had gotten the previous day, I finally got an umbrella from a 100 yen shop. We shopped around for half the day before we went together with Chris to Rokkomichi to visit and have dinner with his host mom. We originally planned to drop his stuff off, go to Sannnomiya, and come back for dinner, but instead we just stayed there once we got there. We ran into Justin, a previous exchange student I had met before, who was half living there, and we talked with him and Chris’s host mom. We had sukiyaki that night, and it was delicious. Arnond, Chris, Justin, and I all then went to have a quick look around Sannomiya, even though it was closed now, and then Arnond and I headed back to Osaka before it was too late to catch the last train. Chris and Justin in the closed Sannomiya shopping arcade Chris would be staying with his host mom for the remainder of the Osak...

Tuesday, March 23, 2010 We headed down to Osaka today, and checked into Hotel Mikado by the Shin-Imamiya train station. We then simply spent the rest of the day shopping around Den-Den Town. I discovered that the area now had a mascot girl named Neon, and was very tempted to buy a netbook featuring her on it. The ad for the Neon netbook Luckily, I kept my cool, and by the next day had realized that it would not have been a good purchase for me. Otherwise, it was nice going around, seeing how things had changed, etc. Arnond and I found an arcade that still had THE IDOLM@STER, and both of us would come by the next day to play a bit on their machines. The day was kind of crappy, with on and off rain, but I still didn’t decide to get an umbrella. We had dinner together at Oushou, and Chris got a huge “Super Spicy” Korean kimchee ramen set that he couldn’t finish.

Monday, March 22, 2010 This day, I decided to take my time in going since I didn’t want to stand in line for as long to enter, and I knew I wouldn’t be going early enough to be able to get in before a lot of big groups sold out. I showed up at the line at around 10:30, and apparently, so did Arnond. The line had spilled over already to the second Cosplay Area, since of course no one could get in until the event started at 11:00. It didn’t take too long for the line to move after the event started, and we were led to the first Cosplay Area, where I had waited the day before. I got in at about 12:30, and as I predicted, the popular places were all sold out. I wandered around for a while, picked up a few books, and found some interesting stuff in the travel section that I picked up. I met up properly with Arnond today at the Cosplay Area for our lunches, and I hung around the area to take pictures of cosplayers. Some Gintama cosplayers I got a few pictures of Chris, and it was real...

Sunday, March 21, 2010 First day of CS5! Arnond and I got up early and headed out separately to get into the line for entry at around 9:00. We both got in line by around 9:30. It was raining on and off, so it was interesting to see all the other participants suddenly whip out their umbrellas for the rain, then put them away when it cleared up again. Nearing the start of the CS5, we were entertained by some guys from a sentai series. Our entertainment as we stood in line CS5 then started at 11:00, but with the long line, I wouldn’t get into the doujin selling area until an hour later. It was amazing that even by that point in time, several groups had already sold out completely, and any popular groups were no longer taking requests for sketches. It was also quite a bit smaller than I had expected, and I was able to get around most of the booths with time still remaining before the doujin selling portion was over. I also stopped by the Bushiroad company booth to pick up some Nanoha...

Saturday, March 20, 2010 We woke up for breakfast at the lodge, and took the provided 9:30 shuttle service to the station. We again left our bags at a coin locker in the station, and did a bit more exploring. A view of the mountains coming up from the JR station We checked out Inari Shrine and also a temple, Kanon-ji, which housed a statue of Kanon that Kuukai had carved on his way through the area. We then went back to the station, picked up our bags, and left. I called this tavern (Kayabukiya Tavern) that was famous for having monkeys as waiters to try to get in  a reservation for later in the day, but couldn’t get a hold of them, so gave up on it. We instead made straight for Mito. Upon our arrival, we headed to the Mito River Side Hotel and checked in. Chris stayed in the room and worked on his FFXIII costume, while Arnond and I scouted out the Comic Market locations around town and also stopped in the local Animate. We returned to the hotel to meet up with Chris for dinn...

Friday, March 19, 2010 We woke up the next day and took the 10:46 Yamabiko to Utsunomiya and switched over to the JR Nikko line, which we took the rest of the way to Nikko. Arnond then informed us that the place we were staying would hold our bags, but wouldn’t guarantee them, so we ended up stuffing our stuff in a coin locker at the station before heading out to do sightseeing. We headed up to the major shrine and temple complex of Nikko, walking our way up the major road to get there. Arnond and I still had our backpacks, and so upon arriving at the complex, we left our bags with a lady providing bag holding services. We then got the combined tour ticket, and proceeded to explore the complex. I took pictures when I could, but many of the places did not allow photographs of the interiors. The main hall of Rinno-ji, the Buddhist temple that administers Tokugawa Ieyasu's mausoleum It was an interesting contrast to come here, as the shrines and temples were much fancier than yo...

Thursday, March 18, 2010 Arnond was in charge of the plan for today, and he graciously allowed us to go to Matsumoto Castle before heading to Tsumago, since we were unable to do it the previous day. We showed up at the castle not long after it opened, and it was a pretty chilly morning. It was a much less complicated castle complex than Himeji, with a very simple layout for the outer walls. There was a collection of donated period firearms on display in the castle, and the way displays were set up inside it was very similar to Himeji Castle. Some of the guns on display There were some interesting later additions to the complex, like one section that used lotus flower-shaped windows due to later influence of Chinese Buddhist architecture. This castle was also one of the few castles to have a moon viewing room, an addition used to entertain guests during the peaceful later years of the castle. The room was quite a bit more open than any other rooms of the castle, and the outside te...

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 I ended up waking up very early, like around 4:30AM, but then went back to sleep for a short while. Then I got up again and decided to write up the trip so far. After finishing that up, I got packed up so we could have breakfast and then leave. I went down at 8:30 for breakfast, and found a gorgeous meal waiting for all of us. The nice Japanese breakfast that came with our room Arnond came down shortly after, but Chris had gotten out of bed around 8:25, since he slept through his alarm, and the rest of us just assumed he knew what he was doing, so didn't wake him. He didn’t come down until later, after he got dressed, and managed to make it to breakfast before Arnond stole any of his food. Our first stop after checking out was to leave our luggage at coin lockers at the station. We actually managed to fit all our bags into one of the large coin lockers there. We then traveled to Shimosuwa Station to see the remaining half of Suwa Taisha,...

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 Today was our first day out of Tokyo. I had suggested going to Suwa both for the fact that it was a site related to Touhou, and because it seemed like it would be interesting. The main shrine there (Suwa Taisha) is extremely old, being mentioned in the earliest Japanese texts. Arnond had not yet exchanged his Japan Rail Pass, as he had wasted all opportunities to do so the previous day, so we had to wait for him to get that done when the pass exchange at Ueno opened up at 9AM. I picked up breakfast at First Kitchen in the meantime, and then we headed out to Suwa. We caught the Super Azusa train from Shinjuku at 10AM, and got off at Kamisuwa station. The station itself had a small hot spring for feet, which is something the area is known for, but we didn’t use it. The foot hot spring in the station We then checked into our ryokan, and boy, was it nice. Certainly a big improvement from the small rooms we were staying at in Tokyo. Anyway, we left our bags the...

Monday, March 15, 2010 Today was a day I had Chris put into the schedule to let me freely shop in Akihabara. I first got some laundry out of the way in the morning since we’d be heading out the next day for our excursions into Nagano Prefecture, then I headed to Akiba. Arriving at Akiba for the first time on the trip I believe Arnond basically spend all day sleeping, and then did his own laundry later in the day. Chris went and explored Tokyo after doing his laundry as well. Anyways, in Akiba, I started off the day by going to Star Kebab for the first time. I had heard about it on the internet, so I figured I'd give it a try. It was, in fact, quite good, and it threw me off a bit for me to order from a guy who clearly looked European, yet spoke perfectly natural Japanese. The Star Kebab stand I bought from Then I went around and picked up a lot of things from the list of items I wanted, as well any good deals on things I wanted but neglected to list. This mainly consiste...

Sunday, March 14, 2010 Arnond and I woke up early today, and moved the remainder of the stuff into my room. We then found that the hotel had been smart enough to figure out that the two reservations were connected and that we didn’t have to check out. Oh well. We then headed towards Reitaisai at Big Sight, leaving Ueno around 8:40AM. We used the Yurikamome Line to get to Kokusai-tenjijo-seimon station. Once we arrived, there wasn't a super line from the station to get in, so Arnond accompanied me to pick up some shikishi from a 100 yen store on Daiba. That turned out to be an error in judgment, as the line turned out to be in a very different place than my experience with Comic Market, so there was in fact quite a large line to get in by the time we got to it around 10:30. The crowd of people that was the line We finally got in at probably 11:15 or so. Arnond headed straight for the East 3 Hall to try to pick up doujin music, and I went to the line for obtaining permission to...