Graduation Celebration in Japan: Days 1 and 2

Day Zero / One

I wasn't sure whether to call this days 1 and 2 or just day 1, because in some ways it felt like 2 short days, and in others it was like 1 really long day. Eventually I just settled on calling it 2 days of time, but only 1 day of trip.

A 2:30am start to any day is the height of stupidity, especially if you're accustomed to staying awake beyond then on a fairly regular basis. I would not recommend it under any circumstances if it can be avoided. Nevertheless, that's exactly what I ended up doing. Stupid 6:15am flight. Even worse is the fact that it was delayed until 7:30am, so it turned out that I didn't need to wake up that early after all! Not that they knew ahead of time, or even at the time of the flight. They delayed it once, then undelayed it, and then redelayed it! Apparently they thought they'd have to wait on a plane to get in, but then decided to use one that had been waiting there overnight, but didn't tell the crew, so saved no time in the long run. Kind of frustrating. Thankfully my layover was long enough that I was in no danger of missing fly connection, but it was still a pain.

I was flying United, so naturally that meant problems all the way. Not only was that first flight delayed, but the entertainment system for the LAX->NRT leg was broken, so half the time I couldn't watch any movies without them being rendered unwatchable by the constant freezing and skipping ahead. I did get about 2 hours of smooth video across the whole 11 hour flight, but most of that was spent rewatching parts that I had missed due to the skipping before. I realise it's kind of unreasonable to blame United for a computer error like that, and they are giving some compensation (in the form of a voucher for money off another flight), but that's just the sort of thing that I expect to happen when flying United.

Graduation Celebration in Japan: Intro

Man, it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. October, huh? And that was about something that I did the previous December. Wow. But as long as that's been, it's been even longer since I got to travel anywhere exciting. It'll be three years this June since I went to Russia, and I really haven't been anywhere since then. I mean, I've gone and graduated twice since then (most recently this past Thursday)! I'd say it's about time for another trip.

And so, we end up here: a Japan trip. Now, I've technically been to Japan before, but a) that was a long time ago (Christmas 2000), b) we really didn't go anywhere outside the airport except for our hotel, and c) goodness knows I'm a lot more interested in Japan now than I was then. So, when I heard that a group of my friends was going at around the same time as my graduation, I leapt at the chance.

The schedule is kind of frenetic in terms of traveling, since we wanted to visit a whole bunch of locations across the entire country. We're going to start out in Tokyo for a few days, before moving west and south, hitting up the big/important cities (i.e. Kyoto, Okasa, Hiroshima...). We'll go hiking on the island of Yakushima (part of the inspiration for Princess Mononoke, apparently), before booking it north all the way up to Sapporo to see the lilacs, and then return to Tokyo to head home. The whole thing will take 14 days (not as long as Kenya, but longer than England).

All that travel has kind of forced me to pack lighter than I ever have for a trip this long. I'm going to try to live out of just one carry-on sized backpack, which will definitely be an experience. Being an international flight, I've got 2 free checked bags, but I'm not going to get to use them! Kind of frustrating after paying for a bag so many times on domestic flights. Obviously, this also means that this isn't going to be a big shopping trip, but if I can at least get a copy of She and Her Cat -Everything Flows- (releasing at the same time that we arrive), I'll be content.

I leave tomorrow. Morning. Stupid early. It's gonna be great. I'm going to try to update this blog along the way whenever I can, as with previous trips, so that interested people can follow along. I honestly have no idea what the internet situation will be like though, or how much time I'll have to prepare a post, so we'll just do what we can I suppose.

And on that note: let's get this adventure started!

Christmas in Canada: Winnipeg

Oh gosh, I've put this off for way too long... I was originally going to publish this back in January, and then in March, and then I thought it would work well to publish it for Christmas in July, and then... you get the picture. But hey, I've finally buckled down and finished it off. That's right, the story of what I did at Christmas is coming some 10 months later. Enjoy!

Actually, once again for Christmas I didn't travel to any exotic locations. In fact, it's probably going to continue that way for the foreseeable future, because I don't have any trips planned at all right now, including this upcoming Christmas. I haven't had any trips since then, either. It's kind of sad, but maybe in a year or two I'll get to go somewhere. Goodness knows I love to travel!

So, instead of traveling far away, I went back home to Canada to get my yearly snow and cold fix, and while I was there I spent a couple of days in Winnipeg. I've always loved going to Winnipeg. It's probably the place I've visited the most, so the city has quite a bit of nostalgia value for me. Yes, there are plenty of reasons to complain about it (like the roads; no planning whatsoever!), but I still look at it through rose-coloured glasses. For the past several years a new museum had been under construction in Winnipeg: the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Last September (the one in 2014) the museum finally opened, and I decided that while I was in town, I was going to check it out.

Sports: Why Bother?

New post! Yay! And it's not even directly anime related! See, I can think about other things. Sometimes. This is actually the first post in quite a while that I'm writing kind of on the spur of the moment, without some sort of outline prepared in advance. The goal is to write, edit, and publish the whole thing all today, so we'll see how that goes. I'll try not to ramble too much, but as per usual, I make no promises.

As the NBC announcers have been reminding me for several weeks now, it's championship season in many sports. In tennis, the French Open is wrapping up this weekend. In horse racing, today is the Belmont Stakes, and we had our first Triple Crown in 37 years! Both the NHL and NBA playoff finals are swinging into gear. A little over a month ago, Mayweather and Pacquiao had their big fight. In soccer (football), the English Premier League just ended, the Champions League final was today (congratulations Barcelona), and the FIFA Women's World Cup started today as well (in Canada, and we won our first game!). Looking beyond championships, MLB, MLS, MLL, and NASCAR are all running too. There's a lot of others too, but way too many for me to keep track of. Heck, it almost seems like American football is the only sport out of season right now. With all these sports competing for viewers, it begs the question: who cares? Actually, let me rephrase that. Obviously there are a lot of people who care. Odds are that everyone who will read this cares. The real question is: why do we care?

Baccano! Quality/Content Review

Baccano! isn't the easiest thing to assign a genre to, so I'm going to go ahead and call it a "period action mystery." I mean, it's set in Prohibition-era New York, there are crazy fight scenes in every episode, and you have no idea what the heck is going on for the first half of the show, so it seems fitting. This is one of the shows that I've heard about for many years, but just hadn't made the time to actually get around to watching it until now. It's a critical darling, for sure, and now that I've seen it, I think I can understand why.

The show aired in 2007, and was animated by Brains Base. This was really their first major work, though nowadays they're known for Natsume's Book of Friends and Durarara!! as well (the latter of which is often compared to Baccano! since both of them are adapted from light novel series by the same author, Ryougo Narita). The Baccano! novel series has 21 books, and the first 4 are covered by the anime. Sort of. There were 13 episodes that aired on TV, and those cover the first 4 books. An additional 3 episodes were released on DVD later, which cover the events of book 14, which was released after the anime. So maybe that book adapts the anime... These three episodes are basically a coda to the rest of the series; the main plot wraps up in episode 13.