When I was doing the photos for the last post, I decided (out of pure boredom) to take a few pictures of my room. I'm a big anime fan and I really like collecting figures. So my room is full of figures, although let's face it, you can never have enough. It's not a particularly big collection. But I hope you enjoy looking at them plastic as much as I do! Now that I look back, it's amazing how every figure, every item in my room has its own history, its own story. 

This is the Nanoha shelf. The two swimsuit ones from Gift are really nicely sculpted, and are easily my favourite figures out of the collection. The other three are by Kotobukiya -- the one featuring the young Nanoha running with a toast in her mouth is incredibly cute! Nanoha is one of my guilty pleasure shows, mostly because of the fact I watch it for the gayness. The movies in particular were very, very gay, but when it's between girls I consider it to be almost un-sinful. A`s is definitely the best out of the trilogy: plenty of emotions, plenty of drama, and Fate's character development went to a whole other level. Then there's the season 1, of course. StrikerS is so bad that I can't even finish it. I look forward to the new series (Vivid) as well.

The wall scrolls are from a local convention. The print quality isn't very good but it makes for great eye candy. I actually quite like Fujima Takuya's drawing style despite how repetitive it is. I'm pretty certain that he can only draw one type of face, though.

My Strike Witches shelf. Honestly, I really prefer the Alter versions (which I'll of course be buying), but the Kotobukiya collection really began with one discounted Minna figure I purchased from AmiAmi. Naturally I won't let Minna sit by herself, so in came Lynette and Erica and the rest of the crew. The figures were actually bought from an anon from /a/, who really tried ripping me off. I was too smart for that and got a pretty good deal, until I realized the shipping would've balanced out any bargains I would've gotten from getting it from him, rather than buying second hand ones from Mandarake. Such is life.

The posters were printed and framed by myself. The frames were from a second hand shop. Misuzu is pretty cute, easily my favourite! She's like my goddess, almost. Then there are also the Clannad girls at the back. I am totally unashamed when I say: I really like cute girls. I can't repeat this enough.

The Dokidoki Precure plushies were bought from a convention when I was in America (in Oakland, out of all places). The other plushie was pulled from a mystery bag (along with a Bento box and a tiny One Piece figure that I was totally uninterested in). And there's also Yuru Yuri pillow, which certainly is very, very hard to get now because it's a prize from Taito and they go out of stock incredibly quickly. I really should've gotten the Kyouko one as well, but there was just no room in my luggage. I've actually never slept with the pillow since I feel very uncomfortable doing so, and hugging them isn't very comfortable So they just have to sleep on the floor. Sorry!

Ah, the outside world! This is the view outside my window.

And now we are back inside. On the top shelf, there's Ultimate Madoka by Good Smile Company and the entire collection of K-on figures by Alter. Ultimate Madoka received the biggest hype when it was announced, but it was honestly really overpriced. I almost regret buying it because of how much the price dropped just a few weeks after it was released since they made way too much. Not to mention that Madoka wasn't my favourite show by any means. The K-on collection started with Azusa, then came Mio and Yui and everyone else. It took me nearly a year to get them together.

In the middle row, there's Makoto (which I just reviewed), Kotobukiya Yui and Mio, and Rakka by Yamato (which, if I'm not mistaken, is sadly out of business). And at the bottom there's a bunch of prize figures: a collection of Sora no Woto figures from Taito, Sega Uiharu and Saten, and the MegaHouse Ranka Lee. At the very bottom (which you can't see), there's also a few tiny figures of the Madoka girls. 

The story behind several of those figures is actually quite fascinating. About a year and half ago, while browsing /jp/ (out of all places) I came across a thread where a guy is giving away his entire collection since he's moving to Japan. So he gave me all his figures, and I only needed to pay shipping. Which was quite a lot, since he was from France, but it was a huge bargain. I wonder what he's doing now? In any case, I was only starting to collect figures back then, and my budget was small, so small I could barely afford the shipping! And to think that if I got the rest of his collection, a Kuroneko or a Senjougahara could be on my shelf as well. Such is life.

The Sega Uiharu and Saten were actually bought because I was involved in a gift exchange on /a/. Back in 2011, some guy had the genius idea that we should do a gift exchange on 4chan for Christmas. It was organized by someone called Sandy (who, it turns out, was a slightly overweight woman living in Minnesota, but I can't remember now), and I was assigned with someone in Auckland. His request was that the gift should have something to do with his 'waifu', Uiharu from Raildex. So I bought a figure for him and after that, some really interesting email correspondence.

Things would've gone fine until the day he decided we should meet in real life. On the day of my birthday, the anon came to my house with a birthday cake. Then it turns out that the anon was actually a girl! It was super awkward for her, and she looked exactly like Tomoko from WataMote with her glasses on. I bought her a cake as well for her birthday, but our correspondence stopped after that since things got too awkward, I suppose. I hope you're doing fine, Debra. 

(I also got to know a Brazilian guy who met his girlfriend and fiancée from Germany via this crazy gift exchange on 4chan. But I guess that's a story for another day)

Another picture of Misuzu.

The plaque on the right has a really interesting story behind it. I got it when I was on exchange in California. I was with an acquaintance with mine, and we went together to San Francisco's Japantown to attend their Sakura Blossom Festival. When we were finished, we went to the bus stop, and I saw a girl writing calligraphy on the side of the road. Her name was Tomomi. My acquaintance and I were trying to guess her age, and we thought she was twenty. It turns out she was 35, and used to be an ER nurse until she decided she was going to be a children's artist in America. Crazy!

More pictures of girls from Key. The one on the left is by moonknives and easily one of my favourites.

Back to the main shelf. I used to be really into buying DVDs and BDs, but there's really no point besides it looking nice on the shelf since all the anime is on the computer already. I only like the artboxes and the packaging, unfortunately. I also have a ton of manga on the shelves, some of which were mailed to me by my aunt who lives in Japan and has a successful business managing sake bars for drunken Japanese businessmen.

That's everything about my room which I consider really interesting, I suppose. I think the living environment of an individual really reflects the kind of person he is. But I can't really say what kind of person I am. I'm just going to try my best making my room as comfortable as possible and perhaps replace some of the old wardrobes in the near future. Maybe some new posters here and there. 

This week had been pretty busy. The next few weeks are going to be even more so. Tests, assignments, essays...these things just pile up and go on and on! Not to mention all those info sessions and conferences that I'd really want to attend. My schedule will be pretty crazy. But I'm sure I can pull through. After all this is over, there's going to be two conventions I'd love to attend. I'll be also receiving the Eve no Jikan BD set, which actually came from a Kickstarter thing which I threw a bit of money into. I guess that's something worth looking forward to. But anyways, onto what this post is going to be really about: the two figures I received yesterday. One of them is Makoto, by Max Factory while the other is Ranka Lee, by MegaHouse. Let's start with the Makoto.

When I first started watching anime back in high school, a show that had a pretty huge impact on me was Kanon (the KyoAni version, not the awful Toei version). Not many anime fans will look back to their first few years of fandom and not cringe a bit. For example, you might've really enjoyed Gurren Lagann back when you were a teenager, but as the years go on you would start to enjoy the subtle comedy of K-on or the pure love in Nanoha, and think that Gurren Lagann is something only immature teenagers might enjoy. But to this day, Kanon still remains one of my favourite shows! KyoAni really did an amazing job bringing the Key VN to life, and this is something you'd really appreciate if you (like me) read the VN and play spot-the-difference.

Makoto's face when she's the newest member of the Chloe harem...

Mwahahaha

It's hard to say who my favourite girl is. Right now, I'd say that they're all pretty great! But back then, my absolute favourite was Makoto Sawatari. I felt so sorry for her, and it made me really sad that she 'died' (sort of) and didn't come back. Key is just really good at manipulating emotions with cheap tricks, like killing off your favourite character with an incurable disease. In any case, I like to buy figures of my favourite characters and Makoto is really high on that list.

I picked up this figure from Mandarake for 5000 yen, which definitely wasn't cheap considering that this figure was second hand and opened. Most figures from Key tend to be slightly overpriced, especially the ones from older shows (it'd be really hard to find a figure of Misuzu, for example, even the prize figure from the Key 10th Anniversary thing). But it's in very good condition, except that the box is slightly creased.

The figure is pre-painted and ready to display right out of the box. I really really like the sculpt, which I think is based on a popular promotional image of the anime. I love her pose. It's dynamic, it makes her hair look as if it's really waving in that winter breeze, and you get to see her panties too! Alright, scratch the last one. That's definitely not a good thing! In any case, it's a nice sculpt. Her hair is made out of soft plastic, which makes the figure a bit more resilient.

The paint job is also really nicely done. The lines are crisp, and the colours do not bleed into each other. There are no uneven sprays and her facial expressions are spot on. There's even a bit of blush under her eyes, which makes her look extra cute (but as we all know, Makoto is 100% cute already, so those blushes make her look 120% cute, which is, like, way over the limits!). Nice attention to detail there.

The only thing that could've been improved is the base. It's just a plain white base with the Kanon logo etched on it, but perhaps they could've made it a bit more exciting. Maybe make it so that it looks like a sidewalk with bits of snow on it (which is what Kotobukiya did to an extent with their Nayuki Minase figure). But that's just me nitpicking. This figure was a really nice purchase, and I can't wait to buy the Ayu one as well.

And now, to our next figure...the Ranka Lee!

I'm not usually someone who's really into mecha. I've watched a few, but big robots hitting other big robots have never really been my thing. It didn't matter if the show is about drills or standing awkwardly in an elevator, mecha just doesn't seem that appealing to someone like me. I am totally unashamed when I say: I love cute girls! Cute girls are really the best.

Macross Frontier used to be the biggest hit back when it first aired in '08. Time sure passes quickly! But back then, everything had Ranka Lee's face on it. It's mostly because of her song, 'Seikan Hikou' and that iconic wink with that ultra, super-duper cute 'Kiraa!' that must've caused an epidemic of nosebleeds. But the show itself was actually very, very good. It continued that tradition started by SDF Macross: a mix of singing, missile spam and love triangles. It's something that really resembles 'pure entertainment', and it really delivered.

Honestly, between Ranka and Sheryl, I actually like Sheryl a bit more. Mostly because Sheryl has blonde hair, and I really really like girls with blonde hair. It's almost like a disease! However, I actually slightly prefer Megumi Nakajima over May'N in terms of the style they sing. May'N is a bit more mature while Megumi sounds more like an idol. Nowadays, people only know about Yayoi and Anzu and Chihaya and Eri and Honoka. But there's something special about Ranka's charisma that trumps all those idols that came out recently (and yes, I don't think very highly of Love Live, but that's a post for another day).

This is actually the first figure by MegaHouse I've ever bought, so I was eager to see its quality. It turns out the sculpt was actually by Alter, which reassured me that the sculpt at least would be very good. The figure also cost me 5000 yen, the difference being that this one is unopened.

As I expected, the sculpt is really nice. What really sets this figure apart is that you can take it apart and choose whether or not to display her with her clothes on. So you can actually undress her and show Ranka singing in a bikini! I don't really like that, however, because I didn't spend 5000 yen just to get the Ranka Beach Queen. And she looks better with clothes on, anyway. It was pretty awkward taking off her clothes because I felt exactly like Satou from NHK. Isn't this some sort of an otaku fantasy, that you get to take off the clothes of your favourite anime character? Well, I don't really know, but I'm sure some others must've enjoyed it more than I did.

Her clothes and hair are made out of soft rubber/plastic, but it's still probably quite easy to break it considering how tight the joints are. In fact, I had major problems putting her corset back on because there was very little space between the joints. Beyond that, the figure is pretty much perfect. The paint job is spot-on, as usual, with very little bleeds or uneven sprays. And the base is transparent, with Ranka Lee's signature imprinted on it. The figure also came with a few accessories, including an alternative facial expression and a microphone, but I decided not taking them out since they are bound to get lost since they're so small.

I've got a few figures on my mind for my next purchase. There's one more Kotobukiya Strike Witches figure I'm getting (Sanya) and also the swimsuit Hayate by Gift. Beyond that, I can't really think of anything since my room is literally packed, and it's really hard to find any more spaces to display plastic. Then again, it's been so long since I bought a figure (8 months, to be exact), and my disposable income has to go somewhere, right? Figures is actually a pretty acceptable hobby (financially) because if you live frugally, they are quite affordable. So more figures are coming my way, while I sit in front of the computer eating ramen. Such is life!

The study break has arrived about a week ago and there's still about a week to go. Besides teaching English and some occasional reading, I haven't really done much. I'm still contemplating whether I should write the third part of the Seattle trip -- something tells me that the part of the story that matters to me had already finished. We all know what happened in TI4 and there's really no need for me to repeat things. Not to mention that my friend completely screwed up all the photos I took with the players there. Such is life.

This post is going to be specifically about Hearthstone. In particular, two decks which I've played quite a bit for the past two or so months. To be honest, I'm still pretty new to the game. I've only started playing seriously since May, and I only have about 600 wins. I haven't played any TCGs besides Yugioh and a bit of MTG, and I wasn't very good at either. So please take everything here with a grain of salt! I'm pretty bad at games. But anyways, here are the two lists.

The first decklist I want to share is a variation of Zoo which I've been playing for about a month and a half. I have about 300 or so wins with Warlock, 99% of which were from Zoo and I'd say that my winrate is probably something like 60%, maybe a bit higher than that before Hunters became popular. 

Acidic Swamp Ooze is probably my favourite tech card. It gets a lot of value against Control Warriors, Hunters and the occasional Miracle Rogue. Against Hunter, I will always keep this card because getting rid of Eaglehorn Bow is a huge tempo swing. Same goes with Warrior. Against Rogue, you need to be careful not to play this card too soon, since a 1-2 weapon has little value and Ooze dies really easily to SI:7 Agent.

I used to despise Zombie Chow in Zoo, but now I consider this card to be key in winning with Zoo in this format. There's a misconception, I think, that Zoo is an aggro deck (my friend even suggested putting in Leeroy), whereas it's really all about board control. Specifically, Zoo's winrate goes up so much if you can stabilize the board by turn 5, and you need to make sure the deck has enough 1-2 drops that are resilient enough in the early game. Argent Squire used to be decent, but it's too weak to random stuff like Earthshock and Acolyte of Pain. Zombie Chow, however, eats up Mad Scientist and Creepers, and you usually don't have to worry about its Deathrattle, since the point of this card is to trade, not to hit face. Together with Flame Imp and Voidwalker, the 6 1-drops help to give the deck the consistency it needs since you really need to put on pressure from turn 1.

The 1 Owl is mostly there due to the Hunters. This card shuts down Mad Scientist and Creeper, and I usually keep this card in my starting hand. The best early cards vs Hunter are usually Voidwalker, Owl, Ooze and Harvest Golem. That's how I usually mulligan this matchup. I used to run 2 Owls but it's very cloggy. One additional thing: save the Owl for Tirion versus Paladin.

I prefer Shattered Sun Cleric over things like Scarlet Crusader because it goes better with things like Egg and skittles, and having a more resilient board in this format, is better than aggression (which is what Scarlet Crusader is good for). I only run one Void Terror since any more is too inconsistent. Dark Iron Dwarf is a nice card but there's really no room for two since so much of this deck is about the early game.

Doomguard's actual effect:

Charge. Battlecry: Discard your other Doomguard/Soulfire

I'm still thinking about the number of Abusive Sergeants and Power Overwhelmings I should run. They are cards that helps a lot with trading, but having too many clogs your hand. With that being said, the two copies of Power Overwhelming actually helped out a lot in the Hunter matchup, which is basically a race to get the other guy to 0 life first. Usually Hunter wins since the Warlock hero power gets countered hard by Hunter's, so Power Overwhelming can be really clutch.

That's really all there is to this deck. I think people write off Zoo as a sort of auto-play deck that requires no thinking, but it really doesn't play itself (unlike something like Aggro Warrior). There are other things such as keeping the amount of minions vs Hunter to a maximum of two (to the impact of Buzzard + UTH), and to stop lifetapping at a certain point vs Druid (to prevent the Force of Nature + Savage Roar combo), although I really can't list them all here. 

The cards which could work in this deck include Undertaker (although you'd need a few more Deathrattle minions, Leper Gnome being probably the best one) and Loatheb. Loatheb is particularly good in theory since as a win-more card you drop at Turn 5, it stops board clears and usually wins you the game if you already have a good field. I really don't like random cards Voidcaller and Stalagg and Feugen and things like that, since they go against how this deck is designed to be: a mix of early game pressure and board control. For this reason, I also consider Hellfire to be quite bad.

Zoo's popularity has taken a big dip recently. It hasn't done very well at all at the recent tournaments (VGVN, WEC etc), and the reason for that, I think, is less due to the rise decks like Mad Scientist Hunter and midrange Druids, and more because of how the deck naturally works. Zoo is such a straightforward deck that it loses to itself sometimes. There's rarely a moment to playing Zoo where you can genuinely outplay your opponent. Sometimes you just have to hope your Soulfire doesn't discard your Doomguard (which happens to me all the time), and if you don't establish board presence by the first few turns, you will slowly die to control decks with no way of coming back. It's a fun deck, but I think Zoo's era is pretty much over. It's still okay for climbing ladder, though.

In my next post I'll talk about Shaman.

EDIT:

I've been climbing ladder for the past few days. Besides the occasional Shaman, I'm also experimenting with an undertaker version of zoo, which has been doing pretty okay. The biggest changes are obviously the two copies of Undertaker, replacing the Abusive Sergeant and the one copy of the Power Overwhelming, as well as Loatheb.

Out of all the matchups, this deck seems to do surprisingly well versus Face Hunter, although it seems to do okay versus other Hunter matchups as well. And by 'okay' I really mean breaking even, since Hunter has a natural advantage versus Zoo at the moment. Turn 1 coin into Undertaker + Zombie puts so much pressure on Hunter, and if you draw into something like a turn 4 Defender of Argus, your chances are very good. It's just that Hunter gets a ridiculous amount of card advantage from Buzzard UTH (the only board clear in the game that also gives you hand advantage), and you have at most two turns after UTH for Zoo to push for the win. Which is why Power Overwhelming is so damn important here.

Loatheb has been a really amazing card so far. Not many people expect this card in Zoo, I guess (but every deck runs Loatheb, really). If I play this on turn 5 with a big board, I usually win outright. With coin, I will usually keep this card versus Miracle Rogue. Even towards the middle-game, Loatheb is never a bad top deck. It's just a solid card that trades well and doesn't discard your other Soulfire on summon. Really good meta-call.

I really don't like Undertaker nor Zombie Chow, but as one-drops they really help Zoo in catching up with other decks in this increasingly aggro/fast meta. Zombie Chow's heal effect has never really hurt my chances in pushing for the win, since my board is usually too powerful for the +5 to do anything. Undertaker, on the other hand, can be a totally dead draw late game, but that's what you get for focusing on the early game so much.

The ladder, as I experienced it, seems pretty diverse right now, which is obviously completely contrary to reddit's constant complaint of Hunters. The decks to beat right now, besides Hunter, are Zoo (I played quite a few Zoo mirrors), Fast Druid (aka Kolento's list with Oozes and Spectral Knights), Paladin and Deathrattle Priest. I also see Warrior Control from time to time. Hunter is the only bad match up for Zoo. Every other matchup is at least 50-50, and if I verse other less common decks such as Ramp Druid (which I think is a bit slow for this meta), it's 70-30 in my favour. But this meta is very fast, and very aggro. Which I don't particularly like. But hey, I guess I'm the one contributing to the problem.

On the next morning, I went out and decided I wanted to go to Seattle. The drowsiness really settled in on the way there. I couldn't remember what happened, except for the fact that I ended up sleeping on the shoulders of an old woman next to me. It was very embarrassing, and while I kept on apologizing she just smiled and told me to 'lean the other way'. I thought that if I didn't sleep for that journey, I would've probably died.

Part of what really attracts me to this city is really the architecture. Seattle's city planning brings me closer to the concept of the 'garden city' than any other cities I've been to. Unlike the carefully planned utopia that the garden city is (in theory), Seattle is full of life. On one side, you see the drab, Internationalist office buildings that look more like rows of concrete domino. On the other side, there's the Seattle Library by Koolhaas, which till this day I've only seen in books but never in person. And amidst this crazy mix of the old and new lies plenty of trees and foliage that makes the summer sun just a bit more bearable.

Tourists do strange things to the places they go to. Tourists go to places looking for authenticity, the source of culture, the genesis of where exoticism originates. But the moment a place is crowded with tourists, that feeling of discovery simply disappears, and you are left greeting your own countrymen. This is precisely what I felt when I went to Seattle's fish market. It's pretty disappointing when you see that no one is really buying anything, and everyone is preparing their cameras so they can take a photo of some fish being thrown. I think there is a sort of absurd comedy to know that a fish's 5 minutes of fame comes a few moments before its death.

The phrase 'concrete jungle' might be a bit of a cliché, but it actually describes Seattle pretty well. San Francisco, with its trams and its culture, is a city of history and mysteries. But Seattle is completely transparent. Seattle hides nothing. Just like the brutalist buildings and modernist architecture that dots the skyline, Seattle seems to say that it doesn't have much to say. When form simply follows function, and the function turns out to be that of 'creating square shelters', you get Seattle.

Sometimes I wonder why anyone would bother travelling. Is there still a place in this world that is left uncultivated by humanity, a piece of virgin land waiting to be discovered? If only that is the case! Because this world leaves nothing to adventure. It is methodical, overpriced and a chore. My vacation is now a part of my work. A vacation is a part of a routine. To climb the Space Needle is also, I suppose, a sort of a routine, something you tick off a bucket list. Here's my insight into the experience of climbing the Space Needle: it's the same feeling you'd get climbing any other 300 feet towers.

Travelling is full of surprises. I don't read a lot of maps, so I was astounded when it turns out that Key Arena was in the same place as the Space Needle, and that I get to see what the venue for TI4 was going to like. Well, it didn't look like much. I had to sneak in from the back since the place wasn't open to the public. A dozen people saw me but no one cared. Which goes to show how lax the security is over here. I was very excited to see the giant screens and the player booths.

In every city, there are three types of districts. The old districts, the new districts, and the new districts pretending to be old districts. San Francisco's fisherman's wharf belongs to the third category. Berkeley belonged to the first. Seattle also has its old district, old yet covered with foliage, filled with life. You could smell the marijuana everywhere! It was a mix of homeless people, marijuana and artists (which is not to say that homeless artistic potheads don't exist). But it was absolutely beautiful. I felt at bliss walking there. For it was one of the few genuinely pleasant moments I spent in Seattle.

Seattle is a temperamental city. It likes to rain when I don't want it to. So on the next day, when I really really didn't want the city to rain, it rained. Raining makes people morose. I am a person, so I got pretty morose. The gentle rain made the concrete structures stand out even more against the grey skies.

The buildings are looking towards the harbour and into the oceans like giants standing shoulder to shoulder. At the harbour itself there is a big Ferris wheel. There was no one on it. And yet it kept on spinning, which made the scene even more melancholic than it should be. The ocean waves have found the refuge in the harbour, but where would I find mine? And yet it just kept on rotating, as if its tireless motion would go on forever, without purpose. And then I started thinking about Honey and Clover. Then I looked into the ocean, and the waves crashing against the rocks and the corroding harbour and thought of that quote from Shuji Hanamoto:

"Loneliness comes suddenly like waves and recedes just as fast. That continues on forever. It's the same for you. It's the same for everyone." 

Perhaps it was due to the fact that my friend was supposed to come, and that it would've been very pleasant if he had come to a date with me, but being in the aquarium felt almost unbearable. While the children around me pointed gleefully at the starfish and the sharks and rainbow fishes, I felt indifferent. There was not a trace of excitement to this journey. Not a single moment when I felt that perhaps, I should open myself up to this world of wonders. For I think, for the first time since I'm here, that I've travelled several thousand miles so that I could descend to the valleys of sadness here on the harbours of Seattle, so that amidst the grey clouds I felt homeless.

Back when I wanted to be an architecture major, I spent a lot of time reading books about architecture and one of the names that popped up repeatedly was that of Rem Koolhaas. I remember him most vividly because he was responsible for designing that abomination in Beijing and I really wanted to see in person why anyone would commission him to design anything. Then I came to the Seattle library and I immediately changed my mind.

Libraries are usually places where you read books. It also tends to hold a lot of books. If the modernist was commissioned to design a place where you can read books and hold a lot of books, he'd give you a really big and square concrete and glass box. But that's not very interesting. It's a bore. So instead of a square box, the Seattle library gets turned into a deranged box, a crazy box or whatever you call it.

After that day, I realized that deep inside, perhaps this journey had been a mistake. Despite those rare moments of joy, the return to America had been neither pleasant nor welcoming. Time after time, my mind would wander back to the moments I spent looking out into the ocean on the harbours. Watching the Ferris wheel rotating around and around, over and over. Sometimes, you travel a thousand miles so you could escape from humanity, and just watch the raindrops make tiny ripples on the ocean waves.

Last month, I went to Seattle to attend this year's The International, a video-game tournament. It had been the second time this year I've been to America. I went to San Francisco for about four months to attend school, then I went to LA for my holiday. As much as I wanted to go to the East Coast, Seattle was actually one of the cities I really wanted to visit. And the fact that the place pretty much gave birth to a video game that I was really into, was the nail on the coffin for my decision to attend TI4. As usual, I took plenty of photos. My two weeks in Seattle, now that I think about it, really brought back a lot of memories -- for better or worse.

Centre court, Honolulu airport. I chose Hawaii Airlines because it was the cheapest option and because I originally wanted to go to Pearl Harbour. Well, I didn't get to go. Honolulu airport was unlike any other airport I've ever been to. For a place that's absolutely filled with the Japanese, this place felt nothing like Narita. It was very relaxing, very laid back, and the tempo of life here seemed to be very slow. Even the security guards were Hawaiian shirts and spent most of their time making jokes and socializing with the passengers. Occasionally you could hear the sound of ukulele. It was quite a pretty sight.

And here are the runways. That was the plane I boarded. The place was incredibly humid and hot. This was the closest I've ever gotten to the Equator. It was winter in New Zealand. I wore a woollen jumper to Hawaii. It was a big mistake.

A friend of mine came to pick me up. I was going to live at this apartment for the next two weeks. How I came to know him is actually bit of an incredible story. But that's a story for another day, I suppose. He also held up a hilarious sign which made this exhausting journey a bit more bearable.

He was living with a room-mate who was studying CompSci at the University of Washington two blocks away. He also read Dostoevsky and Ayn Rand, and my impression is that the latter had a profound affect on him since he was mostly indifferent to me and just about everyone. He spent most of the next week or so in his little corner, watching video game streams. He also ate a copious amount of bacon, and the smell of frying lard 7 in the morning made me feel very, very sick.

It was very, very hot in Seattle. It was actually cooler to stand outside in the sun then to be baked inside in his apartment. It was quite a nice place to live in, except for the fact that the rent was really high since it's so close to the university. His apartment definitely felt more sophisticated and probably more comfortable than the apartment I stayed in at Berkeley. But I couldn't bear the heat. So I went out.

Foliage outside the apartment. Very pretty. Already it seems that I must've been thinking about home, since I was looking at the blue skies and thinking about how closely this place resembled New Zealand.

University of Washington, Tacoma campus. It was a very, very beautiful school. There were lots of trees, unlike the University of Auckland which felt more like a jungle of concrete and glass. Down the lane you can see the Museum of Glass and the local history museum. My first impressions of Tacoma had been really good. But it felt different from Berkeley. Tacoma was an industrial hub, intersected with rail roads. It was not very cultural, it was very rustic, rugged and coarse. Berkeley had a lot more culture.

Union Station. 

Museum of Glass. It's literally what the name of the place suggested. There was a walkway over the rail hub that connected this side to the actual museum. The architecture had a Frank Gehry feel to it. The place, like the adjacent history museum, was almost devoid of people. The other side was connected to the ocean, and you could smell the tangy scent of saltwater. I spent a few minutes looking at the forest of sails and the dinghies and boats gently rocking in the water.

Downtown Tacoma.

As you can see, there really aren't a lot of people here 8 in the morning. By the time I got back to the museum, though, people were already lining up in droves at the local Starbucks. There were so many coffee shops here. Seattle gave birth to Starbucks, after all.

I also went to the local history museum. The place wasn't actually very impressive, and as expected I was the only person in there. The only thing that caught my sight was a gigantic model rail road. Like a child I spent about twenty minutes just staring at it.

I really don't see how this is supposed to make history cool. They were trying to brand people like Rosa Parks as some sort of cool role models for kids, with stuff like "Well, did you know that Rosa Parks didn't give nobody her bus seat? That's so cool!" The fact that I'm here at the museum is the living evidence that history is for wimps.

I didn't do too much else at Tacoma. In fact, there wasn't really that much to do to begin with. The weather was incredibly hot, and even with fans running 24/7 the apartment wasn't getting any cooler. The qualifiers for TI4 was also on, and my friend spent most of his time watching that. Thanks to the heat, I couldn't remember too much about the next three to four days. We didn't eat much, either. My friend was an awful cook, so I made curry which he really liked. His roommate also liked it and in a rare display of sympathy, he came to me asking how I made the curry so delicious. He also said that I would make a really good girlfriend, and I said that I wouldn't mind being a girl in my next life. We also went down to a Pho place, and in the end we went there so many times, I got nauseous just by smelling coriander. He promised me that we'd go to Seattle together but that never happened, and we just sat in front of the computer watching Twitch streams. I guess he really wasn't the outdoors type. It would've been a lot fun going out with him. Well, it would've been.

My friend and I were so incredibly different. He was a misogynist, while I'm a pretty big supporter of woman's rights. He was an atheist, while I'm Catholic. I believed in racial equality while he really, really doesn't like spics. I'm a vegetarian, and as a response he held up a giant chunk of frozen beef and proceeded to point to his stomach. I believe in environmentalism while he really couldn't care less about the melting of ice caps. I read a lot of books, while the only thing he reads are Twitch chat and Skype convos about who the best girl is. He was pretty big and tough while I'm a bundle of sticks. I make my bed every morning, while his bedroom resembled a war zone. And most importantly of all, he liked Chitoge while I liked Onodera. We must've been both thinking that the other guy is nuts.

A few days later, his friends (who were also TI4 attendees) also arrived. That made for a total of 7 people (8 if you include his old room-mate) and things were becoming unbearable. The heat and the fact that so many people were crammed in such a tiny space was making me very, very uneasy. I was also the only person there who showered on a daily basis, so not much could be said about hygiene, either. I wanted to clean up his room but my friend wasn't very happy about it (later on, my father commented that this was exactly how his college dorm was like, so it seemed like I was the outlier here). In any case, it wasn't very comfortable for me, but there was no point complaining about free lodging. Especially when my friend is actually such a nice guy in real life.

So yea, this is part one of my story. Next, I'll be going to Seattle.