Beijing/Tokyo/Hakone trip 2019

Aaand we're back!  I was out all last week for a trip to Asia with my best friend and am finally posting about it now.  Since I've been back it's been a quite strange mix of fast and slow, with the days both rushing by quickly yet also seeming to drag on at times.  The flow of time has been really strange for me this week as I'm dealing with some jetlag and some of the strangest sleeping hours I've had in recent history (sleeping from 3-10....PM).  I've had some times when I crashed in the afternoon and set an alarm for one or a couple hours later, only to end up snoozing it a billion times.

I've got Friday off work this week, which is nice, though it also contributes to feeling that the flow of time is weird -- did a week really pass?  I've had what feels like some "extra days", especially after sleeping from 3-10PM and waking up and having so much extra time at night, yet somehow the week still passed by relatively quickly.  Thankfully, I've been able to start catching up on various things, such as putting away all of the things that I bought on the trip and even running some errands including a trip to the DMV (yay..........).  Physically I am still definitely recovering though -- I don't have the strongest constitution and the trip definitely got me a bit sick.

Anyways, enough about all that -- I know you're all here for the photos anyways!  This was a ~10-day trip to Asia, first stopping by Beijing where my friend was visiting family, and then to Tokyo where we met up and stayed with another friend (with a side trip to the Hakone area for hot springs).

I'll admit I'm not usually a huge photo-taker (anymore?) but I tried to be good about snapping some every so often.  Even if I don't actually end up looking at them later, I've found that they're at least good for showing to other people, and for recounting some various things that happened (e.g. for this post itself).  I took more photos than just the ones below, of course, but somehow I'm feeling like it's better to just post the more relevant ones rather than dump a whole bunch at you guys.  Well, let's get to it...

Beijing was like an weird mix of SF and Tokyo, though the smaller and more old-fashioned streets were a bit unique in their own.  Whenever I travel I'm always a little struck by how nice the trees and foliage are, I think it's because the areas I frequent here in California don't really have that much of that.

We saw some stray meowmies, and even got to pet and play with a meowmie at the tea house we went to, which was really nice :3

Sitting and having tea at the teahouse was a pretty cool experience, not really because the tea was amazing (though it was quite nice), but because of the atmosphere.  Time seemed to flow differently, I'm not so sure it was the place itself but more just the circumstances...It's almost never that I just sit around letting time pass by so freely without really a care as to what I need to do next.  Thinking about that was a bit elucidating for me, I think.

Speaking of tea, I used to be super into white tea but currently am pretty into grain-based flavors, like genmaicha and barley or buckwheat tea.

The air quality was actually not too bad, or at least not bad enough to bother me noticeably, though of course I ended up getting a bit sick at some point over the course of the trip (not surprising really, but it wasn't terrible thankfully).  Around the airport area it was quite bad though, enough to bother me -- couldn't tell whether it was just that area or maybe just the construction they were doing in the airport itself.

The food we had was quite tasty!  The mapo tofu and other sichuan-style dishes were really yummy, and the pork belly + mustard greens were really great too, and of course the Peking duck.  It wasn't wholly different from Chinese food back here in CA though, so it's sort of nice knowing that I'm not really missing out on all too much when I'm at home either.

I'm not a huge fan of la zi ji (sichuan style spicy chicken -- which basically just looks like a plate of dried chili peppers), but gotta have it while I'm here right?  Definitely had a lot of sichuan peppercorn numbing flavor...

We spent a day walking around the Summer Palace, which is an imperial garden with a bunch of trees and lakes and really old buildings.  Some parts were nice, others were more crowded with tourists.

The weather was nice for the most part on our trip, but we got hit by one or two unexpected rainy days, which I definitely had not packed for.  Fortunately it worked out OK in terms of the timing and the weather at the Summer Palace was quite nice.

Lots of red and gold and green everywhere -- and all the ceilings had fancy designs like these.

Lots of water rock formations everywhere...

Some pretty flowers.

Some of them looked quite nice!

Lots of these long corridor-like walkways, too.

More flowers...

Gold-colored roofs...

Got to try some candied Bingtanghulu (candied hawthorn).

Lots of extra high bridges over the water too.

Suzhou street, a shopping street with river running through it.

Having some homemade zha jiang mian, a common beijing dish made of noodles topped with ground meat and fermented soybean paste, along with various veggies.

Cow followed us on the trip!  Was borrowing him from a friend to use as a pillow pet.

Of course Hello Kitty shows up in Asia all over the place.  Here she is as some sort of robot in the Beijing airport...

Sometimes the simple food is the best.  This bowl of porridge we got at the airport really hit the spot...

Finally off from Beijing and taking the air to fly to Tokyo!  I noticed that there were all these green-colored areas that we could see from the air, wondered what they were.  Maybe tarps to cover the dirt?

Cow~

It was cold and raining when we landed in Tokyo...luckily our friend was so gracious to meet us at the station with some umbrellas, and they also had a kotatsu at their place :O  We were really in their debt for much of the latter half of our trip...

Tsukemen dipping noodles!  We have them here in the states as well but I don't think I've ever gotten them before.

Putting Little Twin Stars on your product is a surefire way to get me to buy it.  These cookies were yummy~

We were in time to catch the tail end of the Sakuras blooming, though we had missed peak viewing time.  Still, it was nice to finally get to see these famous ephemeral flowers that is such a big deal in Japan's culture.

Potato corn dog!  It's like eating a corn dog and some french fries at the same time...definitely much better than your average corn dog.

While in Tokyo we mainly went around the Harajuku/Shibuya area, filled with a lot of shops and fashion establishments, both upscale malls and more hole-in-the wall places alike.  There were also a bunch of just...very interesting places, including this place with a whole bunch of bath bombs arranged in a mesmerizing display.  It really felt more like an art installation than anything else.  Lots of tourists and foreigners around these areas too, which is unsurprising.

One of the more fun things we got to do was go to Harry hedgehog cafe in Harajuku -- where you get to pet live hedgehogs!!!

They are apparently nocturnal, so a lot of them were kind of just sleeping or dozing around.  They just look like fat hairy blobs!

We had a more active one that we played with a lot.  Here it is drinking some water...they give you some little mealworms to feed to the hedgehogs too :3  So cute...

The other one was sort of just sleeping there for the most part...

You wear gloves to pick them up and play with them!  They were really fun <3

Some more of them just sleeping together in the corner.

Such good product marketing...we of course bought one of these little plushies to take home with us.

Here we are in the top floor of Kiddy Land -- a place I've been to all 3 times I've been to Japan now!  They've got the Sanrio/San-X goods on the top floor of Kiddy Land, as well as other various things on the other floors (Ghibli/Disney/Marvel/Peanuts)

We also got to check out the "Kawaii Monster Cafe", which definitely feels like something you wouldn't see anywhere other than Japan.  It was pretty interesting seeing this end of the broad "kawaii" spectrum.

Sort of a creepy + cute vibe all around.

The food was super interesting, especially this dish, which looks disgusting but actually tasted not too bad.  It was like a sort of beef curry with rice, and the pink frosting-looking thing is some cheese-based sauce.  The mysterious red candy balls are actually quail eggs!!!  Was so impressed by that...

I also got to try some monjayaki for the first time!  It's kind of like okonomiyaki, except with more of a watery broth, so it's more runny.  You spread the raw ingredients around on the grill and then pour in the broth, which sort of thickens as it heats up from the heat.  It ends up looking.......like barf, really.  Not the most appetizing thing, but tastes quite alright despite that, lol.

Some more close up photos of the sakura.

Now just imagine that all of them were still pink lol.

Apparently Sanrio was doing a collaboration with It's Demo, a sort of fashion/convenience store.  This is a beautiful Pochacco design!  The best I've ever seen out of this pup.  Real props to whoever did the designs for this.  It's super refreshing to see that this sort of aesthetic is still going strong over there in Japan, even though it has basically disappeared from the US -- you can only really find these things online now or maybe at Kinokuniya / Maido-type stores, and even then, you don't see such great stuff.

Ah, really, that is one of the greatest things about being over there in Tokyo -- such great aesthetics.  So many pretty people and cute things, great designs and good fashion.  Definitely something I miss every time when I have to leave.

While we were in Hakone we took a side trip to the Petit Prince museum!

Some more sakura at the Little Prince museum.

They had lots of little quaint pretend building setups like this one.

Along with figures of the titular character.

Some japanese explanations of some things from the story.

The fox that the prince befriends by "taming".

A pretty cute place!  It was fun to go through, though also definitely made me a bit sad.

Last time we stayed at a ryokan we had traditional new year's food (Osechi ryori) which was....sort of weird.  This time we had more of a standard kaiseki dinner which was much more tasty!  Had so many different foods (more than what is in this photo, this is just the first set), including some really fatty steak, sushi, pickles and rice, sake, fish, miso soup with clams, soba noodles, tofu, and more.

Window leading out to the balcony of our room.

Private bath out on the balcony of our room, which had a view overlooking the river.  Of course, I couldn't really take a photo of the public baths for.....obvious reasons.

Same window, in daylight this time.

More awesome food, this time for breakfast.  Don't know if I've ever had such a fully-featured breakfast lol, goodness.  Had everything from soba, grilled fish, miso dengaku egglant, tamagoyaki, fruits, more rice and pickles, sushi, ...

Nice aesthetic in the other room...

We decided to write something sort of silly in the guestbook lol.

The rest of the Hakone area was very pretty, lots of river scenery with many trees growing all over the hillsides.

We even got to see a glimpse of Mt. Fuji in the distance while we were taking the train back to Tokyo (didn't notice until the group of westerners on the car all stood up and started snapping a whole bunch of photos omg)

Closer look at the Sanrio x It's Demo collaboration -- ended up going there and buying a keychain :)

Finally made it to Takeshita Dori, the sort of "main" fashion street in Harajuku!  It was WAY more crowded this time, dunno if it's just gotten more crowded over the years or maybe we had gone during a weekday last time (it was a Saturday this time).  It was packed with people but not actually too bad.  Many of the shops were super cramped (in terms of the amount of space there) though, nothing like the La Foret mall we had gone through which was more in the Shibuya direction.

Of course no visit to Harajuku is complete without some yummy crepes from one of the famous crepe places!  Mine had banana, nutella, and of course an exorbant amount of cream...

Made it to Sanrio Vivitix in Harajuku, which had quite a great amount of stuff that I ended up buying, including a bunch of Sanrio shirts/tops (!) and a whole bunch of really nice Cinnamoroll merchandise.  Yay Cinnamon!~

Put in all my votes for the Little Twin Stars!  Pom pom purin was actually the most popular character at this store -- kind of interesting to see him making such a comeback, as he was also featured in Sanrio Danshi (which I still have not finished watching lol).  Though it may also be because the Pom pom purin cafe is on the upper floor of the same building...

Here's the Pom pom purin cafe!  Didn't actually eat anything here unfortunately -- had other things I wanted to get to, and not the hugest fan of Pom pom purin, but he is definitely cute!

Looks really nice :)

Went back to Kiddy Land to see if there was any more stuff we wanted to get, haha.

Just look at these Cinnamoroll designs!!!  Gah!  Miyuki Okumura is the designer and character illustrator for Cinnamoroll and she really does a great job.  She is the designer for Wish Me Mell too!

More collaboration stuff -- this time Little Twin Stars x Gintama.

Eating some yummy sushi after another day of shopping!  Last time in Japan we had some amazing sushi at one of the big name places in Tsukiji fish market, but this time just had some at a place in Harajuku.  Like with Beijing, it's sort of nice knowing that the sushi over here in CA isn't super far off from what is in Tokyo.  Which is not to say that it wasn't good, of course :)

Yay shopping~

Had some very yummy fluffy pancakes as well before getting ready to leave :)

Some food from the grocery market too :)

The haul of all the stuff I got :D  Lots of clothes, including some interesting (and expensive!) stuff that I didn't expect to bring back, but am very glad I found -- I'm always craving more good Asian styles for my fashion, so I'm super happy to have brought back some nice clothing in my haul, since it's so hard (basically impossible) to find over here in the states.  Also a metric ton of stationery, a bunch of assorted cute things, a nice water bottle, and some other random odds and ends.  Success!



Assorted thoughts on the trip overall...

- Being in Tokyo was super nice.  I could never live in Asia I don't think, because of a lot of things, but there are things about Japan and Tokyo that I definitely appreciate a lot.  I already mentioned the aesthetic and good design sense, and of course public transit is awesome, but also just the efficiency of everything is great.  If I was there for too long I would probably just feel like a cog in a machine, but for a short bit it was certainly nice.
- I did alright overall with nausea and airsickness...my flight over there was relatively fine, but I didn't end up catching any sleep on the way back, so I was pretty tired and fatigued, ugh.
- Having an epipen on me definitely made me feel a lot safer about eating things.  I luckily didn't end up having to use it for anything -- caught quite a few things with disciplined awareness and care -- but it's something I definitely will always have for any future overseas trip. (not such a big deal for here in the states)
- The experience involved quite a bit of ups and downs, but was smooth overall.  I got stressed out a few times though.  Nothing new really, just the same old types of things.  I don't think there is any way to really improve at it except by trying again and again, and perhaps sucking a bit less every time.
- Came back from the trip overall with some assorted thoughts on people and life.  Nothing revolutionary, nothing mindblowing, just some refreshed perspective.
- I actually got some nice chunks of work done on Rhythm Quest done during the flights and some of the downtime lol.  I guess I really do decompress by.....doing more work.....sigh.
- Traveling with a wifi hotspot was infinitely easier than the past two trips where we traveled completely offline lol, especially when it came to trying to meet up with people who were also traveling, yeesh.  Traveling offline is definitely more than possible, but maybe there's not really a good reason to do it anymore.
- Having a friend hosting us also made things infinitely easier, gosh...




Since coming home I've been up to a variety of different things, including work, putting away all the stuff that I bought, reorganizing my wardrobe, running some various errands, One Hour Compo, playing Risk of Rain 2 (has been fun so far!), etc.  I also reorganized and revamped my soundfont collection and converted quite a bit of them into .wav files (much easier to work with) so it should be much easier to make SNES-styled music in the future -- I'd like to try to make an album like "SNESQUE" at some point.  Cooking at home again has been lovely, as well as simply just being home in general.  It was a good trip but I definitely was excited to be back.  This Saturday I'm hosting a little celebration for 30 -- side note, I went over to disable timeline posting only to find that it was already disabled since last year lol.  Should be fun!

Until next time...

Timmie's Tetris Tips: Height Differentials and I/L/J plans

In celebration of this year's "Carnival of Death" (celebrating "Death Mode" in Tetris the Grand Master) I thought I'd offer some general Tetris stacking tips that might be useful to think about for newer players.  I'll try to make these agnostic of rotation system, so they should apply across both ARS and SRS games!

A key component of good Tetris stacking is to place pieces in a way such that your stack is receptive to as large a variety of future piece placements as possible.  Generally this means you want to try to make your stack "flat, but not extremely flat".



Here's an example of a very stable and receptive stack:

Notice how there are multiple placement options for each of the 7 tetromino shapes (L, J, O, I, T, S, Z).



Now here's an example of the opposite:

In this situation our stack is extremely jagged and we have no immediately good placements in the main stack for Z, S, and T pieces, and instead would be forced to drop them in the hole on the right side, hoping for L, J and I pieces to fix the rest of our stack.



One of the keys to maintaining a stable stack is to look at the height differentials you create with each placement, and particularly the exact height of the "wells" you create.

For example, in this situation, your attention should immediately jump to the well created in column 2.  This well is 3 rows deep, which means it can only be filled with an I piece (unless you make a hole).  We also lose access to column 1 while waiting for this I piece since nothing can be placed there without also affecting column 2.

Well that are 3 or more rows deep are BAD because they can only be filled with 1 out of the 7 possible pieces.  This means two things:
- Try to avoid creating wells of 3 or more rows.  The J piece here could have been placed elsewhere, like in columns 8+9 pointing upwards.

And perhaps even more importantly:
- If you DO create a well of height 3 or more, try to fill it with your next I piece ASAP.

This is very important.  In general, if you have a situation where you absolutely need a given piece, make sure you don't waste your next instance of that piece on something else!  This is a problem I see all the time with inexperienced players -- don't let it happen to you!  When you have a well 3 rows deep, you should form a PLAN for the next I piece -- an "I plan".  Keep remembering this so that the next time you receive an I block, you immediately place it in the needed place.



Just like we have "I plans", another very useful concept to think about are "L plans" and "J plans".  I, L, and J are often the most common pieces for which you will have a specific need for. (closely followed by T)

In this situation, we have a well that is 2 rows deep on the very left in column 1.  This well can only be filled by two pieces: a J or an I.  But since the I piece is so powerful (a bit less so in ARS, but still powerful), and can be used to make Tetrises, it's generally much preferred to use a J to fill this well.  This is also because using an I maintains a height difference of 2 (more on this later).  So whenever we see this formation on the left side of the screen, we should form a "J plan".

Again, this is a common mistake.  Often beginners might place a J in columns 6-8 instead.  Do not do this!  Fill the slot on the left side with your J instead!



Let's look at one more example to close things out:

Imagine that we place the O piece here (as shown in the shadow).  What should spring to your mind?
That's right!  We've created a slot that can only be filled by L or I.  And of the two, it's much preferred to fill it with L!

Notice that if we fill this slot in column 5 with I, the height differential between columns 4 and 5 is still 2 rows.  This is another reason why using L and J to fill 2-deep slots is usually preferred -- because L and J will end up with a height differential of 0 instead of 2, which often results in a smoother stack.

So we should aim to fill this hole with an L if at all possible -- we should form an "L plan".  If we end up getting an I before an L, that's ok too (use your judgment), but L is preferred.



But wait...was there a better way to handle this situation?

Placing the O piece here instead is much better.  Why?  Because it keeps the ability of both L and J to fill the well, not just L.  In fact, the very next piece is a J here!  In this situation, I still have an "I/J/L plan" vaguely in mind because again, these are the only 3 pieces that can solve this well.  If I get a T or Z or S, i may not intuitively know exactly what to do with it.  But if I get a L or J in the next few pieces I should know exactly where to place it as long as this structure exists.

This O placement demonstrates that thinking about flexibility for these sorts of wells is important.  A lot of this comes down to experience with specific structures and situations.  In the next installment of these tips I'd like to go over some common ones that are good to know about.

End of Unemployment, Dance stuff

Well, things got a little interesting!

My unemployment ended a bit earlier than anticipated -- I'm now doing contract work for WB!  Got a gig for the next handful of months, mostly working remotely from home helping out with Unity stuff.  Just started only last Thursday, but so far so good!

It's definitely a nice opportunity and I'm really glad it worked out, but at the same time I definitely felt a bit of pressure knowing that my unemployment days were over, at least for now.  The usual flurry of thoughts ran through my mind -- "Did I do enough?"  "I'm not going to have enough time to do these things now." "Did I really make the most of my time?" At the same time, I've always wanted to try my hand at contract work anyhow and this was definitely the perfect opportunity to do that.

Right before that, I got hit by some sort of death plague that has been sweeping across everybody, which was not fun, though it certainly was a great chance for me to just stop doing everything and just focus on relaxing.  Fortunately it only really lasted for a week, and the worst of it was really only three days, but I haven't really felt that bad in a while.  Brings back some unpleasant memories of some other times that I have been really sick =(  On the plus side, I had absolutely no trouble falling asleep for a while because of that.  On the other hand, waking up in the morning was like the absolute worst thing ever...

I missed out on a bunch of dance stuff while I was busy being super sick, so I decided to stop by South Bay Fusion and Gentoo Swing this past week to make up for it.  I won't really pretend that I really broadened my dance horizons, but it was certainly cool having the opportunity to push outside what I normally do and see some other scenes (I have not been to South Bay Fusion in many years).  I guess I did end up reaching a couple of conclusions, not necessarily directly related to those days but inspired by them.  One is that I don't play follow nearly enough for how much more fun it can be than leading and I wonder despite all I've said and done, if that is because I'm closer friends with more follows, or if it's just because I'm falling into the same gendered social norms as everybody else.  Don't get me wrong, leading is great, especially for some dances, but I think there is something more there and I wonder if it is preventing me from having as great of a time.  I won't pretend I don't have my personal preferences and I still daydream romantically about the day when a girl will lead me in a dance and sweep me off my feet, but...  

The other thing that occurred to me is just how well I understand waltz compared to everything else and the feeling of confidence and ease that brings with it.  I mean, that is of course only expected given how much time I have put into the dance as well as the amount of enjoyment I have gained from it.  It's not like I never dance other forms of course, though we all know I love to stay in my comfort zone (not just in dance), but I think it was elucidating to have it illustrated to clearly to me how much more of an understanding I have and how much more "fluent" I am in that language compared with others.  It actually reminds me of when I first started to have one or two very close and very real friendships and how other relationships started to feel a bit hollow and less rewarding in comparison, because that deeper understanding just wasn't there.  I'm sure others have had that experience as well, maybe not in the same way but in some manner.

Like I said, I'm always for staying in my comfort zone, but I also place a heavy emphasis on staying true to what came before.  If I had to name something that bothers me most in other people I think it would definitely be that I find people to be passionate and interested about things one minute and lose interest the next.  I don't think that is a bad thing inherently, it's just something that I personally am really not about.  It makes me feel like nobody is actually serious about things, that they are fickle and can't be relied on.  And of course it's the same for dance too.  The interesting thing about dance is that for me I think to "stay true to what came before" does not necessarily mean always doing the same things over and over again.  Because for many people, myself included, dance involved a lot of discovery and experimentation when we first became involved in it.  And I think to be intensely passionate about learning more, and then do a 180 and feel jaded about anything new, is its own form of moving on from something perhaps without good reason to do so.  I'm not trying to call that behavior out or anything, just saying that that's what I feel ought to be a personal virtue for me.

Anyways, I thought that was kind of interesting since I feel like complacency is not something I am usually afraid of, but maybe in this case I ought to be.  I think there are many people who become complacent in dance, some of whom I think it totally makes sense and I approve of, and others whom maybe it doesn't.  But I'm sure there are many many people who learn one dance role, become comfortable with it, and then just don't feel like starting from ground zero again to learn the other one.  Because that would involve going through all of those same things again.  And I think things like that sort just feels like a shame for people who were so excited about learning them in the first place.  But who am I to judge, really?

Putting all that aside, I've actually had some really great days recently.  I have not been getting a lot done, which I'm sure will start coming to stress me out soon (sigh........), but I have been having a lot of fun and enjoying myself and some great company too.

I know my "unemployment break" is over, but that doesn't mean that I'm not still thinking about self improvement.  And when I say "self improvement" I mean "self regression" because to me "regression = improvement"...anyways, like I've probably said before, I'm still searching for a greater feeling of peace and "quietesse" (not a real word), one that I used to have and one that Sayuri knew quite a lot about.  I almost wonder if I ought to see what she has to say about it someday.

Let's all keep doing our best to hold onto what is important...

Tried glowsticking in my dream this morning.  It did =not= go well lol...sticks shone SUPER BRIGHT for a few seconds but died out really fast for some reason??  And the sky turned brighter, maybe that was causing it.  I failed like pretty much all of my tosses...it was pretty unsatisfying lol

13th Journey, feat Gilorien

Happy 7th anniversary to our most beloved game, Journey!  This was my 13th journey -- apparently I had not done one last year for the 6th anniversary, so the last time I took to the sands was all the way back in 2017 when I met raisin.

On a whim I decided to take part in the 7th anniversary event, which started at 2:30PM my time.  I barely managed to get the requisite system updates and such taken care of in time, but made it to the Broken Bridge with a little bit of time to spare, this time donning my fully-embroidered white cloak.  Soon after I dropped to the sands below, I encountered a fellow chirpy white cloak and proceeded to do the normal excited meeting rituals, complete with faceplants and all.  The faceplanting actually is quite an easy litmus test for the experience level of the traveler, along with their general flying technique and where they choose to lead us.  Old-timers will generally always easily reciprocate a faceplant with one of their own, with no trouble at all -- sometimes even going so far as to do a leaping faceplant (!).  The real test, though, is where the traveler decides to go after collecting the 3 glyphs in the level -- if they go through the "headbonk" glitch entrance, or start charging a chargeboost near the sand falls, I'll know I'm definitely dealing with somebody who knows their way around.

This was certainly the case, as I would later learn that my white cloaked companion was none other than Gilorien!  I somehow remembered their name way back from the TGC boards, though I can't say I remembered many details of their exploits or exactly who they were.  Truth be told, Gilorien messaged me later and told me that they remembered my ID as well, which honestly quite surprised me as I was never a very active poster in that community.

We proceeded to have a wondrous journey, where Gilorien showed me all manner of things I had not seen before (and some that I had), taking me backstage in the Broken Bridge, Sunken City, and the Underground.  Gilorien was a wonderful guide and companion through all of it -- very easy to follow, very comforting in the way that they made sure I was with them every step of the way.  I did more tandem coasting (where you glide through the air together with no flapping at all) than ever before as well; it felt quite nice to be able to manage it so many times despite my relative lack of experience compared with a lot of the veterans of the game.  We even had a nice beamdown or two, though embarrassingly it took me quite a while to get the signal for it -- for a while I thought we were just floating about out of bounds and wondered where we were supposed to go next!

In the Broken Bridge, my initial trepidation for trying to do advanced flying techniques like charge boosting (a glitch of sorts where you can accumulate flying "power" and use it to soar upwards into the sky) was quickly met with relief when I was able to chargeboost from the glyph CB spot up to the level end statue on my first try with no problems at all.  I wasn't sure that was the correct destination though, and sure enough Gilorien ended up further upward, toward the sand/wind wall marking the proper level boundary.  Understanding that they meant to try to go OOB (though I wasn't sure what the proper entry was at all), I went down for another CB.  Charge boosting is a tricky thing to do with a partner because it involves tilting the camera at a specific angle, so it's actually really difficult to see where your companion is going if they take off before you do.  Fortunately Gilorien was quite clear on the timing of the CB release and I didn't have too much trouble after another try or two.  We made it out of bounds and saw some of the weird skybox stuff back there before heading to the Pink Sands.

The Pink Sands was where I feel like I really got a sense of what kind of traveling companion Gilorien was.  It's hard to describe these things, of course, but we traveled to all the usual landmarks, doing quite a bit of coasting along the way (to my delight), as well as wandering and meandering about, playing with each others' scarves and such.  I took a backseat for most of the Journey as I honestly don't remember where everything is anymore in a lot of the levels and definitely don't know where anything is backstage, but at some points I'm not quite sure if either of us was really leading the way at all, or whether we were just sort of moving forward by default, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

In the Sunken City rest stop area we chargeboosted up to the invisible platform and went out of bounds yet again, seeing some interesting things here and there before finally landing past the level exit in the UG spot of light that I particularly like.  Unfortunately I can't quite remember a lot of the specifics (there was some swirly sand textures, some interesting background color changes, etc), but I told myself that I wouldn't worry about taking notes or photos or anything and would focus more on just enjoying the Journey and my companion for what they were was this time.

In the Underground I was getting a bit worried that our session would run a bit too long if we kept on going at its current pace, meandering about out of bounds every which way to see everything, and I knew that the UG didn't have too much exciting going on in the beginning of the level, so I decided to take the lead there for once.  There was a cute moment where Gilorien peek-a-boo'd me from the other side of the cage from the glyph where the bunch of kelp/seaweed/things were, hehe.

In the next room (with the jellies) after collecting the glyph I knew we could either continue forward along the main path, or try to go OOB.  From what I had remembered, going OOB was relatively easy, but I've gotten lost out there before and wasn't quite sure I was up for it.  Gilorien motioned back towards the OOB route though, and I obliged, feeling that I was safe in their company.

And safe I was indeed!  Throughout our entire time together I felt that Gilorien was quite a great leader in the unknown (to me, anyways) depths of the backstage areas and I never once felt that I lost them or was confused.  Perhaps they did not take me anywhere particularly dangerous, or perhaps just knew how to avoid all of the danger areas, but all the same it felt quite comforting.

My best friend related Journey to social dance once, and I'm really inclined to agree.  There is so much nonverbal communication, and so many different types of interactions, whether it be between two dancers/companions who are already experienced, or perhaps someone new paired with someone who already knows the ropes.  I'm happy that I had enough experience with CBs and other tricks to understand pretty quickly what Gilorien was going for in multiple occasions, and I think that really made things easy.

As is often the case with guides who take me OOB in the underground, we somehow managed to mess up some of the War Machines, making them inactive and playing with them for a while.  We were in the room with the first WM encounter when alas -- Gilorien dusted on me, I assumed due to a disconnect.  I quickly checked Discord and the fan forums to see if they had posted anything, and then decided to hastily run through the rest of the level in hopes of meeting them at the beginning of the tower.

It worked!  I saw the white cloak, recognized the familiar chirp cadence, and the playful faceplant, and I knew I had found my companion once again!  We started proceeding up the tower -- I unlocked the first water level, but I think Gilorien wanted to play around without doing the further unlocks (or perhaps they had wanted to do a dry climb in the first place?), so we helped each other up a bit, until .... Gilorien dropped from the sky and....dusted once more. =(  Apparently they were having issues with their router, with quite unfortunate timing for the event.

So I completed the rest of the tower without doing much special, though I think I did manage a nice CB of some sort at one point which sort of impressed myself.  I had hoped to meet up with Gilorien again in the snow, but alas, I paired with a reddie, and accompanied them the rest of the way to paradise and beyond in a relatively uneventful end (aside from us getting chomped by a WM in the snow, oops!!  I need to start just leading reddies over to the left side of that area...).

Gilorien and I messaged each other after our "companions meet along the way" screen and thanked each other for the wonderful company, but Gilorien also asked if we could perhaps resume our Journey from the Snow level until the end.  I was happy to oblige, and we proceeded to right away go for the backstage entrance at the beginning of the snow level.  Lucky for me, I'm actually familiar with this OOB entrance, and the "trick" of returning to the beginning entrance to "re-warm" your scarf, so I wasn't super confused by that part and managed to get up there just fine after a try or two.  I'm actually also familiar with the other (easy) OOB entrance near the wall painting as well, which was nice.

Gilorien showed me a great many fun things in the snow level backstage, including a very interesting steep and tall "wedge" of snow in the middle of nowhere that looked quite beautiful, as well as a flying WM to play around with.  When we got back into the stage proper, I took the lead and rushed over to the lantern room excitedly, my favorite place in the entire game.  I don't think I really need to ask Gilorien, I'm sure my love for this room came through clearly through my actions, as this was one of the few times I took the lead, and I chirped more excitedly than ever, followed by a lingering meditation session, and than a final large shout after leaving and turning back to the room.

I write this pretty much every time I go out of bounds with a traveler, but seeing the mountain in the snow level from out of bounds is always quite something.  I always get the feeling of "I wonder if I can really MAKE it this time".  Every time we are out of bounds it feels like we are approaching the mountain from a different vantage (though I'm sure maybe it is just the same way and I just forgot), and it really does seem really close, almost within reach sometimes.  But alas, the death march must still happen one way or another, and we dropped down into it as soon as we flew close enough.

Paradise was a really unique experience this time around.  I don't think I have ever felt so =free= and happy to be in Paradise.  That is because while I think Paradise is a beautiful level with amazing music and great colors and everything, it's also the level where you can travel the fastest and farthest, and therefore the easiest level in which to quickly lose track of your companion.

But for this time, I had Gilorien with me, and I trusted them to be my watchful "chaperone" of sorts through paradise -- I knew that even if I flew quickly, they had more than enough skill to keep up with me and keep track of me, as well as the patience to follow me even if I went meandering off into random places or acted like I didn't know what I was doing.  And I think that let me really feel a unique sort of joy and "freedom" in the way that I played in Paradise.  Here too I felt a bit less reserved to take the lead if I felt like I wanted to fly somewhere, or see something, or play with the whales, or whatever.  Of course, Gilorien also showed me a number of really neat things, including a very very very epic sit-and-slide meditation drop.  Wow!!!  I have done a meditation slide before in Paradise, maybe it was this one too, but I certainly don't remember it being so epic.  That was a lot of fun!  We went OOB here too, to see some various things, meandered about and frolicked, and finally went up to the final walk to the light.

I felt that drawing a heart here would be too cliche, and felt a bit "cheap" because Gilorien was more of a special companion for me.  Besides, they mentioned they had already drawn a heart for me when they were alone in paradise (<3).  So we zigzagged our way across the chalky sand, and I spontaneously made up a small "red light, green light" game before we approached the final walk into the light -- where Gilorien showed me you could wiggle your way into the light backwards!  Haha, a fun Journey right until the very end...

What a wonderful time!  I consider myself so lucky to have met you on the sands Gilorien.  Thanks for a great Journey-versary :)

A very happy 7th anniversary to Journey!  I just realized the anniversary event takes place in just half an hour from now...I don't know if I will participate though, might just sit this year out as I'm not quite feeling it.  Hope many a nice Journey is had though.

Edit: Ah what the heck!  I'm going to try and still make it.  Hopefully the system updates don't take too long...

Yuri on Ice

I'm sick with a cold which means a great opportunity to rest in bed...and by that I mean have my sleep schedule royally screwed over.  Sigh...well, can't win em all.

In the meantime I finished (basically marathoning) Yuri on Ice!  As is often the case I'm not really sure what to say about it, but here I am anyways.  I quite enjoyed it, despite some of the "surprise" factor not being there since I already knew bits and pieces of what was going to happen.  I enjoyed watching the main characters' relationship develop and thought that was a nice arc to see, how the power dynamics of the relationship developed from being completely unequal, flipping a bit, but ultimately in a place where both realize they need and grow from each other.

On the ending: I like that it wasn't a "fairytale ending", and of course I appreciate that Yuri wasn't just that "shonen hero who tries really hard and despite failing all episode, wins in the ultimate way in the last battle" but at the same time I feel like the ending failed to carry me home emotionally and really make a statement.  I know endings are hard and of course YMMV, but this is the feeling that I have.  If I had to say what the show is "about" in terms of a main narrative I guess I would have to say (?) it's about the main relationship between these two characters and how it grows, as well as a sort of coming of age story about the protagonist, right?  Where he is this anxious wreck of a failure at the beginning and at the end he really has this newfound strength that he discovered through his relationship over these past 8 months.

Yuri on Ice ends with the grand prix final competition ending and the standings being announced, and both of the main couple affirming that they'll return to competitive figure skating in the next year.  Then we get a very nice credits sequence with (at first) just Yuri doing an exhibition routine, but he's joined later on by Victor.  I thought that part was actually really great, I think it really spoke to the future of their relationship, and I think having that as the final emotional "reward" at the end of the series (spoiler) worked much better than a gold medal.  We then fade to a final shot of Yuri running across a bridge toward Victor (and fellow rival Yurio) and a slight teaser for a 2nd season.

I think my issue with the ending is that although we had a nice emotional note with the exhibition performance, I wish that these final scenes would have been more of a takeaway moment to recapitulate what I am supposed to take away from the whole series.  So I think what I personally was looking for was maybe something more reflective, looking back on the past and seeing how far Yuri has come from the beginning of the show, and using that as a way to see just how far the relationship has come and how they have both grown.

I think what highlighted this issue for me was two things.  Firstly, the fact that Yuri didn't win the gold medal.  I think this is a great choice, actually, because to me it speaks to how even though this gold medal was the goal for Yuri and Victor throughout the entire anime, both you and the characters could realize that over the course of striving for that gold, they gained something much more important (aka their relationship with each other).  So that is great.  However I feel like this message is a bit diluted when the ending says "ah....too bad.....BUT WAIT!  Actually, let's try again next year!!!  Yeah!  Let's hope Yuri gets the gold next time!  It'll be alright!"  That's not to say that I thought it would have been better if they all retired, but I feel like that was one of the last takeaway moments in the episode so it sort of sets up that mindset.

The second issue is that I think Yuri's free skate performance is such a big emotional payoff at the end, that everything in the entire show is leading up to, and it's a great moment to see, BUT afterwards instead of moving on to closing the show up, we move on to see three other free skate routines by the other characters.  That in itself is not so much a problem, but it takes us away from this main narrative.  Yes, there is some flashbacks to Yuri's beginnings during Yurio's performance, but the focus here is still on Yurio, not Yuri.  So it's only after being distracted by three separate narratives ("Oh crap I'm jealous...but I recovered??", "Live life to your fullest???", and "Look at how awesome I am YEH") that we return back to Yuri and there is just not enough time left in the episode to re-center us on what the whole point of the whole narrative was, so instead we are left with this feeling of "oh, that was cool!.....I guess.....and now they're just gonna keep competing....hooray!"

So I feel like for me, the episode would maybe have been a stronger ending if it had looked like this instead:

- Yuri's final free skate performance ends

- A quiet=moment of emotional catharsis, (NOT a loud cheer).  Or it could be loud applause which fades to the background.

- Yuri and Victor share a moment of understanding amidst the celebration

- Cut out the rest of the entire competition (I know it's a bit jarring to have Yurio win without seeing his performance though)

- I don't think there is any way to show any of the rest of the competition or even the awards ceremony without being awkward, so probably cut to an "epilogue, aftermath" scene?  The point of this scene is to fill in what happened at the competition, (but remember, the actual result of the competition is an afterthought now, because Yuri performed so amazingly, it really doesn't even matter)

- I guess the scene might be something like: Yuri and Victor are back in Japan, Yuri does something (hang up?) his silver medal, he says something about how it's too bad he couldn't win that gold after all, but he was really amazed by Yurio's performance.  Even though he's disappointed that he didn't win, you can sense he has a new air about him, he is truly happy.

- I think it would also be nice to include some scenes of Yuri interacting with other people besides Victor, like people from his hometown, Yurio, or the other characters.  I think that is a chance to both close up their plotlines (though quite honestly some of them were not very developed in the first place) as well as show how Yuri's personality has grown in terms of his social interaction.

- Victor thinks to himself about how much Yuri has grown.  But also himself, too.  blahblahblah  (Maybe they say something about how he will just have to win the gold next year then)

- Maybe some "awww" moment where Victor notes that they did take home gold after all and points to the rings they have on (but maybe that's a bit too heavy-handed)

- (If it's getting a bit too melodramatic for the atmosphere of the show maybe some silly moment involving katsudon)

- Fade to the exhibition performance with first just Yuri, then Yuri + Victor skating together.  End song and close.

I know that was a ton of stuff about just the ending but I really felt like that was one of the main gripe I had with the show.  Honestly a lot of stories in general feels like they have endings that are too "cheap" or send a confusing message.  It's quite rare to find an example where it has been done really well.  Anyways, in general I felt like the show was a little bit unfocused in some parts and a bit predictable in others but it didn't bother me a ton.  On the other hand if you want me to speak positively, I will say the song "Yuri on Ice" still really gets to me.  I have an interesting history with that song because the very very first time I heard it was actually when aivisura performed a cover it of live at a concert (Fanime 2017 I believe).  I still remember being in the audience, I didn't know what the song was or where it was from at all, but I knew it was clearly not something mainstream that they pulled from their Steven Universe, nor was it something from The Black Box, but rather something completely different.  And I was completely enthralled by both Aivi's playing as well as the warm gentle pads coming in courtesy of Surasshu...it was really something magical, it sent chills down my spine and I felt so much emotion coming out of that performance.  It is something that really spoke to me and I will try not to forget it.

So anyways every time that song comes up it's like GAHH so good, but not nearly as good as =that= time, hahaha...

Anyways, here's to attempting to sleep again...

Adaptability

Is being adaptable, learning on the fly, and dealing with unexpected obstacles something that can be trained?  If so, how?

This is a skill that I find comes into play most often in social dance where partners frequently compensate or adjust for each other, but there are quite a number of other places where it happens too.  When you hop on an arcade cabinet and find that some of the controls are malfunctioning, for example.  Or perhaps when a rhythm game is miscalibrated.  It seems like in these cases it's a matter of learning the new set of rules of the system -- what works, what doesn't work.  Is that something that can be trained?

Things have been going really well, actually :)

I don't actually have anything specific to talk about, but thought I should post an update anyways.

Let's see, been playing some Tetris 99 lately, which has been pretty fun!  My win rate is about every one in three or so which is pretty decent.  I'm still really trying to get a handle on multiplayer stacking strategies, like trying to manage center well stacking while making t-spin doubles and such, as well as just getting better at general things like good downstacking and things like that.  I'm starting to look at a few other situational t-spin setups, like Imperial Cross and DT cannon (I love that these all have names) which all seem really fun, but quite hard to get a handle on how to really implement them mid-game.  T-spin stacking is a bit tricky to manage too, I can see the setups just fine, that's the easy part, but actually managing the rest of the stack well while trying to set things up and wait for the necessary pieces can be a bit tricky.  I think I also need to pay more attention to how the pros "abort" a t-spin setup where the bag randomizer doesn't really seem to be cooperating (though I guess maybe the pros just know enough other situational t-spin setups to just deal with it in any number of creative ways).  Things like "donating" and shifting your well around (often without even breaking btb bonus) look really cool and this is definitely the most fun I've ever had with an SRS/guideline-based game.

I've been grinding a few things in Melee, pretty simple stuff but all good things to work on.  For Falco, just general shine/waveshine combos involving platforms (something that really takes a while to get used to), for Fox working on upair followups after uthrow onto a platform -- the instant upair to cover missed tech and/or tech in place, vs delayed upair to cover rolls.  For Marth, various uthrow followups and different percentage ranges, like getting a nice utilt->regrab around 30-40%, and tippers at 50-60%, as well as uthrow->usmash closer to 100%.  At some point I need to put some time into Sheik foxtrotting, and also Peach float aerials, but eh...

I guess this is just becoming a gaming-centric post, but I have been playing a bunch lately, which is a good sign as it means I'm letting myself actually relax for once.  System Shock 2: Ponterbee Station is continuing, and I'm also making progress through Dead Cells -- now on 2 Boss Cells mode (newgame++).

Still continuing the regular grind with making music and album artwork.  I have enough OHC entries to come out with a volume 4 of All in a Day's Work, so need to draw up some new artwork for that as well.  Work work work work.  I still get a bit worried when I think about how April is only a month away already.  I guess I need to work more on Rhythm Quest, that would (????) maybe me feel better.

Oh, I guess I should mention (I didn't already?) that JaSmix happened, and went pretty well!  We (and by "we" I mean "I") tried some new things this time and got some useful feedback which will help inform future events.  Will have to decide whether to put another one on before the end of the school year or just wait until our regular summer event.

Finished watching the second season of Sangatsu no Lion!  It was such a good show, one of the top ones for me for sure.  It felt incredibly real in its themes, maybe because it really resonated with the things that have changed in my life over the past years.  I tried watching a few episodes of Boku no Hero Academia but it didn't really stick for me so I'm (finally) watching Yuri on Ice now instead, ha ha ha.

As I said, things are going pretty well...I'm not sure whether I am closer or not to finding an "answer" to my constant obsession and worries about getting things done, but maybe that is not something to be "answered" after all.