[Update Special] Jap Trip part 2b: Numazu Day 2

Continued from my last part 2a(you can see it here):

I stayed at Yasuda Ryokan(Chika's house) for one night. The stay consists of both dinner and breakfast.

The breakfast which was also luxurious as the dinner(but smaller amount which is good cos got a 'slight' bad experience from dinner- I'll elaborate at the end...)

A little video I took of the ryokan interior:

After that, we checked out to continue our stamp collecting.

The first stamp gotten for day 2 was...

It's kinda light...(but still better than Hanamaru's)

^RIKO's STAMP!!!

Actually. her stamp could be easily gotten on day 1(it was just sort of just beside the ryokan) but I wasn't sure of the place and when the counter auntie looked at me weirdly, I didn't dare go in further to the place...

Riko's stamp is at a place for people to go on a boat tour.
Outside the place is where Riko's first appeared in the anime where she was in Otonokizaka uniform, staring at the sea before stripping to jump into the water(and Chika rushed to 'stop' her)

Following that, the next stamp area is where 2nd single took place:

IZU MITO SEA PARADISE!!! And as the center of 2nd single, You's stamp is located there!

At first, we didn't go there cos feel that the entry fee was a little ex plus there is one more location that is much in need of time to go...(We did go in the end but it was after the collection of stamp was done...)

Moving on, we went to 三の浦総合案内所:

Quite a few LLSS posters~

 And this is where Ruby's stamp is(again, no idea y put her there~)

 Ruby's pink is so much darker than Riko's~

This is an information counter where LLSS fans can ask about stuff like locations at there. There are translation of english and chinese so international fans can also ask there:)

Oh and forgot to mention, it is quite a walk from Mito Sea Paradise to here; about 8-10 min walk and there is no distinct path but if you want to save cost, this is one way to go there or take a bus(that you need to do research on)

^I used google maps and it wasn't hard to find it since there is a sign board(as shown above) in both japanese and english.

After this was where the real nightmare starts...

From my part 2a post, I did say how it would be a bigger accomplishment to complete first part of stamp than the 2nd part because of this one location...

Kanan's stamp is at a place that is super, Super, SUPER far from the other!- And I am not exaggerating and that far is nothing compared to the distance of Chika's stamp of Ikebukuro from the others!!!

And this is also the location I was talking about when I said " there is one more location that is much in need of time to go".
While we do have the time... The transport wise was bad... The bus to go there only has 2 interval... Either in the morning at 7.30am(if I didn't rmb wrongly) or 5.30pm in the evening... And worse still, the place closes at 2pm... Sigh...

There is another bus that can go to the place's direction and it has more frequencies.
However it terminates at a stop that still requires at least 30 min walk to the place...

So it's either we give up or yolo or call a taxi which is hard cos we can't speak jp(well)

In the end, we took the bus with higher frequencies to the closest stop we can get and that was when the trouble started...

Upon reaching the stop, used google maps to see that it will be a long walk down(which is pretty much the only way unless we called a taxi...)

I was fine with walking but the same cannot be said of my family... And my aunt decided to try asking a shopkeeper for help to call a taxi(after buying something)
The shopkeeper was asking if we made reservations there(Kanan's stamp place is sort of a hotel) which we didn't(I mean if not for the stamp, I will really not go there...) and since we didn't, she asked why were we going there...
I wasn't sure telling the shopkeeper that I was just going there for this stamp collection thingy was a good idea and just gave awkward laugh of what to answer...

Luckily and really this is the first time I have ever felt so touched; the bus driver(of the bus we took to get to the terminal stop) passed at the shop(to rest I think) heard our plea and actually drove us there!!!!

^I was like 'What??? R u serious, Uncle???'

He actually sacrificed his rest time and drove us there!!! And I can't thank him enough!!!

I think if not for him, it was likely we called this a wasted trip and took the bus back instead...

And so here it is; OceanView Fujimi:

Suwawa(Kanan's VA), Anchan(Chika's VA) and Rikayo(Riko's VA) went here for a dive which they did an interview in the Diver magazine

And Kanan's stamp(with OceanView Fujimi's own stamp~)

And so, thanks to the Uncle, we could get to the place but now, the problem comes with going back too...

Looking at the bus stop, there's no bus until late in the evening(and I am not gng stay at that place for so long when I got other places to go...)

Again, taxi was the only way to go and we can try asking the hotel ppl for help.

And maybe luck was on our side; we spotted a taxi that came here but it was hired- the passenger hired the taxi to get them there and also waited for them to go to another place so we couldn't board that taxi...

However, after some awkward exchange, the taxi driver helped us to call a taxi!(yay) so one way or another, we were saved!!!

To add on, the hired taxi was a special designed LLSS taxi and it was Chika's design!!!

 Ahh~ Wish I could sit in it...

While taxi is kinda ex(but shared among ppl, it's not that bad), it saved us a lot of time!

The final stamp stop, Awashima Marine Park!!!

And the last stamp:

Mari's!!!(and on her birthday~)

Quick note: her stamp can be gotten at the ticket counter so you don't have to buy the ticket to go to Awashima Marine Park! As a first-timer plus it was her birthday, the trip to there was a must for me!

Mari's shrine at the ticket counter!

Spotted Dia Taxi at there

And I also met the taxi driver again at here after he drove the previous passengers as their last stop!!! It was quite a coincidence~

Here's the ticket design- It is a good souveir for a LLSS fan~

Oh and before I boarded the boat(haven't arrived), I bought a drink at the LLSS drink van:

(Ruby va) Furihata's sign

Erm, I forgot to take a pic of the drinks; got a Mari special, Riko and one other that I forgot of^^;

And each drink also comes with one coaster of HPT design:

Fun fact: The day I left jp(17/6) was the day the coaster design changed to Mijuku Dreamer design... Sigh...

Got the drink(finished it while waiting) and the boat came~

The boat has all the voice actors' signatures! And the boat ride is just around 10-12 min- Quite a short ride! Plus the last boat ride entry is at around 4.45pm so time is quite tight. And the waiting time for the boat isn't long; a few minutes or so:)

And judging from my own experience, there is no worries of no seat; the number of passengers that want to aboard is fewer than the capacity of the boat! Plus people tend to go to upper deck to see the scenery!

Upon arrival, there is a dolpin stage and performance at different timings.

Spotted 2 dolpins at one corner~

Just a straight walk up from the alighting port, there's a tourist shop that sold Awashima Marine Park exclusive merch, esp for LLSS goods!

And there are even the 3rd years' signatures and their drawn ema*

*Ema is like a type of wish slip for people to write their well wishes and hang at the shrine where the hung ema will be burned. More info over here

And like U's(if you visited Kanda shrine) which has special ema(at a price of 1000yen I think), LLSS also has and can only be bought here(Awashima Marine Park)!

^That is expected since the shrine that Aqours' members do their morning run is here at Awashima!!!(well it's called Awashima Shrine~)

Entrance of the shrine

Note: if you want to hang your ema at the shrine, do write your wishes before going up the shrine; there're markers provided at the entrance of the shrine!

Start of the real hell trek up

Just want to give a warning; this trek isn't exactly long(I've gone for even longer) but what's hard is the steepness of the steps and path up... The steps are like 45 degree steep so people trekking/walking up need to be careful. Plus, it can get very tiring at the middle... There is a rest area at the mid; which is also the place in anime ep 4 where Hanamaru asked Dia to meet her there to talk about Ruby.

The rest place~

It also has quite a nice view of Awashima so great spot to take a pic too.

Finally, reached!!!

Height of shrine: 137m~ 

The various ema hung there~

And the shrine!

After you climbed all the way, you still need to get down and in the same way you came up... But it is less tiring except that it is more dangerous as the steepness makes it harder to climb down...

I think it took me about an hour to climb up and down- partly cos I was carrying my heavy backpack while climbing up and down...

^It was super tiring that I wondered when will I reach! But the moment you see the shrine, you get a sense of accomplishment before dreading the descent(haha)

All in all, it is best to climb up & down without carrying any heavy items.(And to think Aqours' members climb this every morning... Maybe cos I was really overburdened by my heavy backpack...?)

Moving on or rather should hav mentioned this first; if you've walked from the souvenir shop, in the direction to the aquarium(if I didn't rmb wrongly..), you would see Kanan's house~

The rest area outside Kanan House;
Chika, You and Kanan were seen together
in both ep 1(Chika passing stuff to Kanan) and ep 12(They eating shaved ice)

Huge banner to congrats Kanan as 3rd single center!!!

Kanan's house in real life is actually a frog museum.

I didn't go in; partly cos lack of time^^;(And wasn't sure if it requires entry fee...)

And just beside it, there're penguins for ppl to see and currently there are image penguins of the Aqours' members!(identify by the tags on their flaps)

You can see the names here: source 

There are also other penguins with their names on the board; they hav tags of different colors to differentiate!

I didn't manage to get & see all of the image penguins cos some were hiding inside:

Ruby image penguin- Sanpin(female)

 ^This was the only one(at first) standing near the glass before a horde of penguins came towards the glass(maybe it was their play time?)

Yoshiko Image Penguin: Peace(Male)

Chika Image Penguin: Mikan(Female)

Riko Image Penguin: Kururi(Female)

For this, I'm not sure if this is Ruby/Mari image penguin

Dia, Kanan, You and Hanamaru image penguin were not seen but glad to see ChikaRiko image penguins!!!- Tho I don't see the diff... I mean if not for the tag, I doubt I can see they were aqours' members image penguins...

^Do give a search for them if you want(for fun and if you got the time~)

Next up, we went to the cafe beside the souvenir shop for a rest(after that long trek up and down the shrine...)

And there was a special birthday menu for Mari- of course, LLSS fans wouldn't miss it!!!

The special Mari birthday set~

^Don't really rmb the taste but they were great! And it comes with that Mari birthday paper~ The postcard was given if you can show a mari merch when you were buying your Awashima Marine Park ticket!

Specially for the bday girl~

The 3rd years~

Lastly, the one stop not to be missed(after coming all the way):

Awashima Hotel!!!- Mari's house~

And this!!!

The foundation where young Kanan first hugged Mari with Dia at one side~

^If you have the money, you can consider staying here for a night- Heard that there are quite a bit of benefits like a boat specially for hotel guests to board and tour Awashima.

And that was the end of my visit to Awashima~ I think this is a must visit for all LLSS fans(at least for first-timers), esp 3rd years' fans! 

Plus for 2nd season's stamp rally, Kanan's stamp is at Awashima Marine Park; another reason to come...?

Something to end the visit:

the voice actors' signatures~

When we were done with Awashima visit, there was still time so we decided to head to Mito Sea Paradise~

The entry fee isn't cheap but as a LLSS fan, it'll be good to go at least once!- It's the venue for 2nd single, Koi Ni Naritai Aquarium after all~

Once inside, you'll see this little photo memorial you can get for an amount- it's nice for LLSS fan(I mean the design is LLSS) but as a camera shy person, I didn't go for it^^;  

Outside the aquarium, you'll see displays of the Aqours' members(and the VA's signs~)

And also, further down outside:

^Yoshiko danced in the pv during her solo part! And if the weather is good, it is said you can see Mt. Fuji(but the day I went, it was raining so...)

Beside that, there are displays of animals like snow owl and otters:

^Kinda of a surprise since this is an aquarium; didn't expect see such animals being shown here...

Onto the aquarium inside... You'll see this:

If you did watch the Nico Nama of Cyaron last year where Rikyako drew this(which sort of look like yet also not...) as guilty kiss' question to Cyaron to guess.

^I think that is only one that caught my attention; the others are pretty much what I saw in both Deep Sea Aquarium and Awashima Marine Park~

And also, a part of the aquarium was under construction so not much to see. However, the show was worth the trip- we managed to catch the last show when we came in~

Moving on to the souveir shop(you need to pay the entrance ticket to go in...)

There r quite a bit of LLSS displays:

RIP Chika being  covered by the fish(and the only one...)

Mito Sea Paradise is also where you can get Uchicchi plushie- which I did:

Personally, I feel the bigger size will be better but the next size up will be the large size; there's no 'medium' size like the coelacanth I got from deep sea aquarium...

And well, not really a fan of Uchicchi but as a LLSS fan, having this plushie is a good souveir from this place so I only got this small plushie(plus that big plushie will blow up my budget...) 

And that was the end of my Numazu trip. It was quite an experience- both good and bad & many learning points taken note of.

It also helped me to get a better grasp of this very place that Aqours live in and understand how much LLSS came to help get this place much well-known as before!!!- I mean if not for LLSS, I doubt I will ever know this wonderful place near the sea at all!

I will end this post with a pic of Mt. Fuji- taken the pic from my hotel; was lucky to see it before the clouds covered it again-.-

There's one more part of my trip- I will be talking about the LLSSxSega collaboration cafe and some other stuff~

^Hopefully, I get it out before my break's over(tho this post alone took me a few days to do...)

Until then, this is Yaiji signing off~

Yaiji

[Update] Ramblings and LL July babies~

Been a while and my break's ending soon; my final year will be starting in like a week.

Not sure what to feel; at one side, I feel excited since just one more step(year) and I will have made it(graduate) yet making it also means it's time to work for 'life'(at least for about 40 years...)

And based on experience from my internship... It's interesting but also mundane and sometimes stressful... While it is managable in short term, I'm not sure if I can survive in the long term...

However, before I worry about all those, I need to secure a job first... With the bad economy and how competitive it is, it's gng be hard to get a decent job, with a good pay...Sigh...

That aside, I still have a year(to have fun) and top priority of concern is my FYP.

I spoke with my FYP prof, a few days ago and I dreaded for my FYP... While I chose the project, mostly cos it is a chance to learn machine learning, I'm worried I can't do much, given my pathetic skills in programming-.-

To be honest, I would avoid programming if I can since I don't have the talent in it but given the nature of the stuff I do, programming seems to be the thing and I can't run away from it...

^Since I can't run away, I might as well learn what I can and do what I can. But of course, all I could ever do is see and understand sample codes, modifiy them or use them in what I want to achieve...

It feel a lot like sketching; see a drawing and like the posture, you draw the characters you want in that posture... And while you're the one who drew the work, you can't help feel it's not right to claim it is yours, entirely... The same goes for programming when you used someone's sample code and just do the modifications to suit your needs...

^I would try to understand and even write out the sample code myself without referring if I got the time. And if I felt guilty just from using someone else's work to work on my own work, then I wouldn't be able to use program like microsoft word, android studio, etc.
I mean it would be awesome to understand how people created (for example) microsoft word for users to write documents, reports but rather than 'wasting time' on this, I could have written thousands of documents and reports for a company and earn an income out of it.

As such, I feel/think that while it doesn't feel nice to use other people's work but if it saved time and the creators allowed, based on logic thinking, you go for modifications than starting from fresh.- It really saved a lot of time for ppl to work on other aspects than areas(sample codes) that already have answers to them

Sorry for the ramblings.- Had been doing online tutorial on machine learning for the past few weeks and the talk with my FYP prof does not ease my heart of my final year... In a way, I can't help talk a bit of my thoughts on this matter; it helped me to sort out my feelings a little:)

I will end my ramblings here and get on with some share of my works~

LL July babies

For the two cancer(star sign) babies, first up:

Tsushima Yoshiko-13/7/17:

Deviantart

Happy belated birthday, Yos-Yohane!!!

Didn't have inspiration at first till I started to draw. Much like You's work; I drew various doodles of her~

Ranging from anime scenes to SIF card designs and her latest subunit outfit, I had alot of fun drawing her different expressionsXD

Oh and like Kanan's, I made a GIF out of the wips I did; it's just so happened that I uploaded quite a bit of wips to be able to make it^^;

 You can see it from Deviantart or Pixiv.

Next up:

Yazawa Nico-22/7/17

Deviantart

^This is an example that I really, Really have no inspiration to draw...I mean I did say I would draw all muse members in this set of outfits for each of their birthdays yet I can't think of a pose for her(except her usual Nico Nico Ni pose...)

And this draw was supposed to be accompanied with a short manga...

The work was to show how Nico didn't pursue her dream of becoming an idol and went to college, and passed by a standee of her where there were fans whom still remembered her as an (school)idol. And Nico just turned away, telling herself, 'this is all in the past; you're now in college, Nico!'- A remainder to herself that the idol path was a memory in the past. However...

Nico's phone sounded, indicating an notification and upon seeing the messages, Nico can't helped smile- Her school idol days may be the past but the friends she has right now, are defintely the present and also the future!

Nico's phone showed the birthday messages from the muse members~  

^That was what the manga supposed to show but didn't have the time- spent too much time thinking that I was left with like 2 days to finish this work, lol

Again, HAPPY (BELATED)BIRTHDAY, NICO CHAN!!!

PS: I know it's summer in Japan during Nico's bday; messed up with the outfit that Nico worn-.-
Pls take it as she went aboard studying or something^^;

And, I combined the 2 works into one on PIXIV.

New project: FatexLoveLive

It was on a whim that I started this 'mini-project'- It wasn't meant to be a project; heck it shouldn't even be expanded into a project. It was started with a doodle before my hands decided to be itchy and...You know how it goes...

As the title suggested, it's somewhat a 'crossover' between the Fate series and Love Live... Basically, a ServantxMaster work. And currently, I had done 5 pairs;

• ChikaRiko: Chika as Master & Riko as Servant [Saber]
• HonoUmi: Honoka as Master & Umi as Servant [Archer]
• KanaMari: Kanan as Master & Mari as Servant [Rider]
• NozoEli: Nozomi as Master & Eli as Servant [Lancer]
• YouShiko: You as Master & Yohane as Servant [Caster]

I have planned the others but I am not revealing till I do the designs. As it is, I am planning on NicoMaki as the next pair but my muse is not flowing:(

You can see the completed works of the first 4 pairs, HERE or from my twitter(my 5th pair is currently only uploaded on my twitter^^;)

PS: notice the position of the name and the pattern of the pair:) It should give a rough idea who's gng be the master and servant for NicoMaki pair~

Before I end off... Recently, I got a new pet~

New pet

It's* a red-eared slider(RES). 

*I do not know its gender yet- I feel it is a female but... Gng wait for it to grow more to see~

While it always stares at me(like in the above pic), it's quite shy(?) or scared of people at the start; it will just move away or shrunk its head. Currently, it is more opened but still has a bit of shyness.

And it's quite cute in its actions; like sleeping, eating, yawning~

^It's sleeping~

And I think it's kinda interesting(but can be irritating) how it will stare at you for food even tho I have given it quite a few pieces of food(dried shrimp...) and from the internet, RES does beg for food... And that's bad cos they do eat until they throw up; which means they don't know what is [full]...

There's one more thing I noticed; that is how it always shit when I put it back to its tank.- Normally, I will put it in a separate container to feed while I go wash its tank. 

Its cleaned tank was dirtied in a few minutes after I washed the tank... It's nice that it's eating and shitting but to shit right after I put it back... At least do it in the separate container so that the washed tank wouldn't be too smelly for the day(I normally wash the tank once everyday but think after school started, I think I can only afford once in 2 to 3 days or even a week...)

The amount of work is not little but it's worth it for this little guy/gal~

Oh and I initally named it, 'Yoshiko' cos I got him a day before Yoshiko's bday(12/7) but judging from its behaviour; it isn't really a good terrapin(child)... I just thought of the name 'Tohru' instead.

Then again, I doubt it will respond to the name unless I kept calling it that which is weird; I suppose it's weird to talk to terrapin?(esp with it staring at you for food...-.-)

Afterwords:

That's about it I think. I will try to get my other jap trip posts out soon; will defintely get it out before my school starts.

And a little ramblings:

FGOXPixiv art contest results were out and I'm not surprised that I didn't win anything but it still hurts... I thought maybe there would be some 'beginner artist' prize or notable mention... Then again, I am competing with top artists where I am just a nobody(haha...)

^Do take a look at the entries; the top entries are awesome works! And of course, those that will be in the fanbook are also great!

And good job to all artists who particpated!

This is Yaiji signing off!

Yaiji~