Notices by Retro Goth Bunny (rgbunny@urusai.social)

@mima In some ways, they are the same :bakabaka:

How did I not notice this before :btr_nijika_what:

@ami_angelwings @waitworry "I can't draw cute waifus unless I became one!"

@waitworry @ami_angelwings Sounds like they need to go on E so they can grow their own reference material /s

@AzulCrescent All fonts should be required to have the horizontal bars for capital i.

@a1ba What do you mean? The spell card battles are peak yuri.

@AzulCrescent If they can't love you in your most gremlin moments, they don't deserve you in your most elegante moments :bunhduwu:

@izaya @yassie_j If I was unlucky enough to be a US citizen, I would also feel like little Tim here is sweeping me off my feet

That was quite an unexpected find, though I didn't find any other STG soundtracks I would've liked. Well, not like I have a CD player at the moment, but that can always be remedied.

As I was leaving though, it turns out there's some kind of idol event on the first floor, so all but one of the exits were closed to control the crowd. This also made leaving quite challenging :btr_bocchi_pain:

Afterwards, I met up with my friend and we headed over to Shimokitazawa, which was our last destination for the day. However, it didn't take long for the rain to pick back up, and it was much heavier this time!

We ended up taking shelter in a McDonalds, so I ordered something to eat there as I didn't eat much the whole day. (We didn't eat much on the trip in general, which is a bit of a waste...)

The most important thing is knowing where I fit on Japan's sizing scale, and now I know that Japan's M is actually Singapore's S size. And unfortunately, some places don't stock anything more than M size (e.g. To Alice). At least, not in the physical store.

Speaking of, we moved the clothes shopping earlier so that I could make use of online shopping for cheaper prices, but after seeing my friend struggle with getting the hoodie on the previous day, I ended up buying the clothes physically.

Anyway, the night is still young, so I changed into my usual boymode clothes and headed back to HEY for more arcade gaming!

This time, I noticed the Macross II cabinet, which was something I didn't really expect! (Then again, there was already a Macross cabinet...)

The heavy rain continued and it was getting dark, so we decided to call it quits and head back to the hotel.

Back in Akihabara, it was already night, and the rain was still going, which made it quite cold. Worse, the wind was blowing pretty much the entire time, and my clothes weren't that thick. With the wind chill, it was really, really cold.

While I am glad that I finally took the step to present femininely for the first time, as well as buying the jirai-kei clothes, this day was just so wet and miserable...

My friend went to meet someone, so I took the chance to try out the jirai-kei clothes. And they fit like a glove! Thankfully so, because at Mo Mon, I couldn't try on the top, so it was purely up to the store owner's judgement.

After spending a few credits to warm up and adapt to the controls, I managed to clear the Expert course! It only took me 3 credits in all. Didn't bother with the other courses though, since they aren't as interesting.

Also played some Mr Driller G and Strikers 1945, but didn't get much progress in them.

I happened to see the end of a Ketsui Ura 2-ALL, and little did I know, it was just the first of three I would see during my trip! I would've thought an Ura 2-ALL would be hard to see, due to the no miss, no bomb requirements to enter the Ura loop.

On the other hand, I saw people play Mushihimesama Futari Black Label on God mode quite a few times, but I unfortunately never got to see anyone make it to stage 5. Would've been so hype to see a God mode 1cc!

Touch down in Kansai Airport, since Kyoto is the first leg of our trip. After scanning our passport and immigration QR code a bunch of times, we finally got our luggage and could leave the airport.

And of course, the first order of business is getting confused by the public transport system :neocat_laugh_sweat:

We needed to take the JR Haruka line, but we were pretty confused with how it works. Thankfully, there were English-speaking staff who helped to explain the process, and we got our tickets successfully.

Alright, now that I've settled down after my trip (and got sidetracked binging The Quintessential Quintuplets), it's time to recount it! :ChikaYay:

Day 1, we have an early flight but I managed to sleep a little earlier and wake up on time. Smooth trip through the automated customs for once (it has never worked properly for me all my life).

It started to rain, so we were a bit concerned about delays, but the flight went ahead as scheduled. There was a LOT of turbulence in the beginning though. We later found out in Japan that the rain got so heavy that there were flash floods later in the morning :neocat_googly_shocked:

We roamed around Porta and Kyoto Avanti a bit, eventually ending up in a Don Quixote store in Avanti. These stores are way bigger than the ones we have in Singapore, and they are even more confusing to navigate :neocat_dizzy:

I found a suitcase belt with the Eeveelutions on it, which was pretty cute, but I ended up not buying it. I also found a small adult section in it, but it was just sex toys.

And that concludes day 1.

After staring at a bunch of residential buildings and a stadium right next to some gas processing plant, we arrived at Kyoto Station. And holy cow, there were SO many people.

The hotel we were staying at was on the other side of Kyoto Station from where we exited, and we got a little confused figuring out how to cut across. But we eventually made it and dropped off our luggage.

It was evening already, so we headed back to Kyoto Station for food. And we ended up on pasta of all things :frierendisappointed1: It was because the queue wasn't too long, and it was actually pretty nice.

(Image CW: food)

(Now, I finally understand where the keystones used by Tenshi comes from!)

Did I also mention it was a hot day? The sun was relentless. At least the humidity in Japan is lower, so it's more manageable.

With Kiyomizu-dera covered, we descended through the crowd again and took the bus towards Ginkaku-ji (銀閣寺). Apparently, it's official name is Jisho-ji (慈照寺), but for the most part, it's still referred to as Ginkaku-ji, including the surrounding area.

Ginkaku-ji isn't the most popular landmark, but there were still quite a number of people there. What I found the most interesting was the sand structures seen right as you stepped inside.

Afterwards, we ventured around the temple grounds a bit, and we found a sign leading to another temple called Seikan-ji (清閑寺), claiming it has a good viewpoint. As such, we decided to take a detour to get away from the tourists.

Seikan-ji is much more quiet, being visited by only a few people. It was quite a distance away, and we almost turned back right before we found it :Sweat:

And indeed, Seikan-ji has a very nice viewpoint of Kyoto, being framed between two mountains. As the sign there mentioned, it is as though the city of Kyoto is spread out like a fan in front of you.

This is also where the Kaname-ishi (要石), or keystone, is found!

Day 2 is when the trip starts for real. Our goal for this day is to visit a bunch of landmarks, and since it was my first time going to Kyoto, I unfortunately picked a bunch of tourist-y spots.

We started by squeezing onto a bus to get to Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺). Interestingly, in Kyoto, passengers are supposed to board from the back door and alight from the front door.

After a somewhat long trek up a slope, filled with cars and tourists, we made it to the temple grounds proper. We paid for a ticket to get to the main building, but it wasn't until we left that I realised the main building was the elevated one that you always see in photos lol

As its name suggests, Hachi-jinja honours eight Shinto deities. Up the stairs, there are a few shrines placed next to one another. It's a pretty small space and without much knowledge about Shintoism, we couldn't appreciate it fully. But it has a really cosy and serene atmosphere.

If I were to revisit Kyoto, I think it would be good to avoid the famous landmarks and to visit this sort of "neighbourhood" shrines or temples instead.

With that done, we visited some of the stalls near Ginkaku-ji, getting us some daifuku and drinks from the vending machine.