How Do You Do, and Other Greetings
I would very much like to recap my yearly pilgrimage holiday to Japan as, "Epic trip to Japan was epic. The End." But I feel that certain people on my flist will not be satisfied with that, so herein I present a round-up of the main exciting highlights. Which may or many not include a large number of photos of plastic!John and plastic!Rodney.
On the first night I arrived, I went to a baseball game in gleeful anticipation of Morimoto's incredibly revealing tight trousers, and Inaba's gay love for aforementioned trousers Morimoto. Alas. It was not meant to be. They were not playing. And to make it worse, our team lost the game. Happily however, Jen and I were able to succesfully stalk two beer girls, and we were all sitting in the awesome(ly loud) cheering section. This had the dual benefits of keeping me awake, as well as being a bit of a new and exciting experience.
We were sitting just below the trumpet section. Good for staying awake. Bad for continued hearing abilities.
Some days later, Evil Son, Jen and I all went to some gardens and tea house where we... well. Enjoyed the tea and the gardens.
They were quite pretty. And in no way did we have a two-hour long conversation about how Kouyuu might fall in the pond and nearly drown, requiring Shuuei's manly, heroic rescuing skillz. Oh no. We contemplated zen thingies.
Also, in no way did we spend a lot of time positioning and taking photos of the boys. In this photograph, cienna is clearly just stretching, and not attempting to get the most dramatic and romantic pose possible in any way.
Nearby the gardens there was a temple.
plastic!John was purified...
And we were disturbed by the disturbing dancing and singing lions that gave you omikuji. Disturbingly.
Then, because being disturbed is thirsty work, we drank some ramune (even though it was slightly freezing) and ate some yakitori from some random little shop with a single booth made of old bits of wood and some plastic. As we sat enjoying our food and drink, some random teenagers demanded photos with us. We are just that brilliant.
At some point, I went to see a Takarazuka play which was very good fun. The costumes were amazing, there was a character with long, white hair (who I gazed lovingly at), and there was some very nice best-friend tru love/betrayal/epic death scenes. In conclusion, HOT.
On to Kusatsu then, where we spent a couple of glorious days hanging about in burning hot water, then freezing to death because it was SNOWING. A LOT.
Central Kusatsu looks like this. It smells too.
There is a bath for your feet. It was warm. But the rest of you wasn't so much.
On the full day we had there, we visited three baths. The first was outside, and it started to snow. We passed through lots of steaming vents and pools to get there.
And past a nice creepy shrine too.
The second bath place was founded by some German doctor bloke who claimed the water was great. We think he was just lazy. We passed through a blizzard, up a hill, and along an empty road to get there. We realised at this point we had actually managed to reach the bottom of the ski slopes. Oops?
Unsuprisingly, more baths followed and by this point I was gettting wobbly. I wrote a fic about it.
On returning to the ryokan that evening, we noticed that Jen's name was helpfully posted n a large board outside the entrance. This was both exciting and bizarre.
Lastly, our room was great, and had a really amazing view. We wore yukata a lot. Inlcuding around town. In the blizzards. We were, at least, intellegent enough to wear several layers under them.
At various points, we were served enormous meals, often involving foods of uncertain origin that were frighteningly tasty. This was breakfast.
Back to Tokyo, where it was infinitely warmer and there was requisite doujinshi shopping. New fandoms are evil and leave me skint. Jen and I had the enourmous luck, though, of walking in to a maid cafe in Ikebukuro we both know just when they were having a Hetalia event! This was both exciting and deeply traumatising. The staff were acting very much in character, which meant that Japan was polite and sweet, Italy was very cute, America was friendly and England... oh England... England was rude and moody. We both picked the English set (because we wanted tea and scones) which meant we got served by England too. I nearly had a heart attack when she called me "omae", and when she said "oi!" to get my attention. I was deeply afraid of her. Jen says this is because she talks like I do, which I should probably find offensive but actually don't. Anyway, we had a picture with America and England, as that seemed most appropriate. England was not enthused.
America kindly gave us a photo each, which is a beautiful thing and really shows those maid cafes really do know what we like. XD (England's almost smiling! It's shocking!)
We also went to the intensely amusing and GHEY Saiyuki Musical. Seriously. They took all the gay bits from the manga and got people to sing them. It was exactly like that.
In truth, it was a lot better than I had been expecting. All the Ikkou were very good. Kanon was played by a guy. There was a man in drag. There was lots of hurt/comforty stuff and emotional hoooooolding. And a very random interview thing at the end which was a little bit epic. As I couldn't decide on any photo sets, I bought a folder of the Ikkou, because they were all too cute.
They had some cut-outs to play with outside the theatre too. We played.
Finally, we had a couple of Hanami parties. One was a bit trashy, in a gravel park in Ikebukuro, but it was still very nice. And there was sake. The boys had a romantic time.
We went to the Shinjuku Park too, which is one of the nicest in Tokyo I think, and illegally drank beer and sake. And then went for tea. I like tea.
As always, it was all over too soon, and I spent far too much money. And bought far too many books. But oh well.
On the first night I arrived, I went to a baseball game in gleeful anticipation of Morimoto's incredibly revealing tight trousers, and Inaba's gay love for aforementioned trousers Morimoto. Alas. It was not meant to be. They were not playing. And to make it worse, our team lost the game. Happily however, Jen and I were able to succesfully stalk two beer girls, and we were all sitting in the awesome(ly loud) cheering section. This had the dual benefits of keeping me awake, as well as being a bit of a new and exciting experience.
We were sitting just below the trumpet section. Good for staying awake. Bad for continued hearing abilities.
Some days later, Evil Son, Jen and I all went to some gardens and tea house where we... well. Enjoyed the tea and the gardens.
They were quite pretty. And in no way did we have a two-hour long conversation about how Kouyuu might fall in the pond and nearly drown, requiring Shuuei's manly, heroic rescuing skillz. Oh no. We contemplated zen thingies.
Also, in no way did we spend a lot of time positioning and taking photos of the boys. In this photograph, cienna is clearly just stretching, and not attempting to get the most dramatic and romantic pose possible in any way.
Nearby the gardens there was a temple.
plastic!John was purified...
And we were disturbed by the disturbing dancing and singing lions that gave you omikuji. Disturbingly.
Then, because being disturbed is thirsty work, we drank some ramune (even though it was slightly freezing) and ate some yakitori from some random little shop with a single booth made of old bits of wood and some plastic. As we sat enjoying our food and drink, some random teenagers demanded photos with us. We are just that brilliant.
At some point, I went to see a Takarazuka play which was very good fun. The costumes were amazing, there was a character with long, white hair (who I gazed lovingly at), and there was some very nice best-friend tru love/betrayal/epic death scenes. In conclusion, HOT.
On to Kusatsu then, where we spent a couple of glorious days hanging about in burning hot water, then freezing to death because it was SNOWING. A LOT.
Central Kusatsu looks like this. It smells too.
There is a bath for your feet. It was warm. But the rest of you wasn't so much.
On the full day we had there, we visited three baths. The first was outside, and it started to snow. We passed through lots of steaming vents and pools to get there.
And past a nice creepy shrine too.
The second bath place was founded by some German doctor bloke who claimed the water was great. We think he was just lazy. We passed through a blizzard, up a hill, and along an empty road to get there. We realised at this point we had actually managed to reach the bottom of the ski slopes. Oops?
Unsuprisingly, more baths followed and by this point I was gettting wobbly. I wrote a fic about it.
On returning to the ryokan that evening, we noticed that Jen's name was helpfully posted n a large board outside the entrance. This was both exciting and bizarre.
Lastly, our room was great, and had a really amazing view. We wore yukata a lot. Inlcuding around town. In the blizzards. We were, at least, intellegent enough to wear several layers under them.
At various points, we were served enormous meals, often involving foods of uncertain origin that were frighteningly tasty. This was breakfast.
Back to Tokyo, where it was infinitely warmer and there was requisite doujinshi shopping. New fandoms are evil and leave me skint. Jen and I had the enourmous luck, though, of walking in to a maid cafe in Ikebukuro we both know just when they were having a Hetalia event! This was both exciting and deeply traumatising. The staff were acting very much in character, which meant that Japan was polite and sweet, Italy was very cute, America was friendly and England... oh England... England was rude and moody. We both picked the English set (because we wanted tea and scones) which meant we got served by England too. I nearly had a heart attack when she called me "omae", and when she said "oi!" to get my attention. I was deeply afraid of her. Jen says this is because she talks like I do, which I should probably find offensive but actually don't. Anyway, we had a picture with America and England, as that seemed most appropriate. England was not enthused.
America kindly gave us a photo each, which is a beautiful thing and really shows those maid cafes really do know what we like. XD (England's almost smiling! It's shocking!)
We also went to the intensely amusing and GHEY Saiyuki Musical. Seriously. They took all the gay bits from the manga and got people to sing them. It was exactly like that.
In truth, it was a lot better than I had been expecting. All the Ikkou were very good. Kanon was played by a guy. There was a man in drag. There was lots of hurt/comforty stuff and emotional hoooooolding. And a very random interview thing at the end which was a little bit epic. As I couldn't decide on any photo sets, I bought a folder of the Ikkou, because they were all too cute.
They had some cut-outs to play with outside the theatre too. We played.
Finally, we had a couple of Hanami parties. One was a bit trashy, in a gravel park in Ikebukuro, but it was still very nice. And there was sake. The boys had a romantic time.
We went to the Shinjuku Park too, which is one of the nicest in Tokyo I think, and illegally drank beer and sake. And then went for tea. I like tea.
As always, it was all over too soon, and I spent far too much money. And bought far too many books. But oh well.