snow on the sahara

So I went to Japan.

I've been holding off from posting more than one-offs because I wanted to talk about the awesomest vacation of my life first, but I'm not sure what to say now! Maybe just that I had a wonderful time with utenatai, fanartist and elhermano, who was as cool as advertised. I'm not sorry I spent all that money and got laid off halfway through--I'm glad, because who knows when I'd have the next chance?

In some ways, Japan is nothing like what anime prepares you for. In others, it's exactly the same. My first bleary-eyed impression on the train from Narita to Tokyo was "the landscape looks just like Katamari Damacy."

I took a ton of pictures, so I'm gonna break the trip recap into a few posts. The italicized commentary is from a mini-trip log I kept for the first half of the trip. Kinda gave up after that due to busy-ness (or possibly being laid off and not wanting to write that.) Took enough pictures to make up for it, though.

So! Let's get this party started.

( Day 1: Plane )

( Day 1.5: Katsutaro )

This is what fanartist and I did yesterday. (No, they're not all mine. Shocking, I know.)

You could say I was drowning my sorrows, I suppose, but to be honest I think we would have bought them anyway. The salesladies at Mandarake totally wished they worked on commission.

This was not my idea.

But I fully endorsed it once it was suggested.

Anyone who thinks this wish was too frivolous for the shrine should check out some of the other stuff hung up there.

...and my body has NO idea what time it is.