#anyway yeah this stuff's been sitting in assorted posts on my blog since last season

[lyraeon]

Alright yeah we doin this

An incomplete list of current headcanons for Homestuck Classpects of Hermits (a work in progress)

(Updated on Feb 9 after the war's end made me realize a few things)

Joe has been throwing around big Rogue energy the last few weeks. Living in other people’s bases/borrowed spaces around the server, weaponizing stuff that’s frankly not weaponry, casually trying to bend the rules to pass over the moat, sneaking fans onto the server, creating a diss track in a matter of hours and “including” his teammates into it... all from a pacifist standpoint, mind you. I’m currently saying Rogue of Space. Edit: No no no I'm a goddamn fool. Wow. Joe is a Heart player. So I'm going with Rogue of Heart, though this revelation also has me reevaluating the Rogue part a little.

Doc has long obviously been a Doom player - the rules are his plaything. I’m going with Thief of Doom specifically. He has duplicated countless items over the seasons, he will manipulate the truth for his own purposes, and honestly just? Oh we’re gonna casually make a precision creeper cannon, oh and btw we’re gonna shoot ourselves in on llamas while we’re at it.

Grian I haven’t been watching for anywhere near as long so I’m having a hard time pinning down his class (my instincts say Heir, but he’s so ready to cause chaos I can see Bard or Prince), but his aspect for me comes down to Breath or Hope. He got almost the entire rest of the server to play along on three of his games by now simply by saying okay these are happening everyone :D c’mon let’s goooo! For being the diving force behind most the season right now, I dub him an Heir of Hope.

Tango is a Light player - his luck is too extraordinary (how many times has he said “I could use __” and gotten it?), he knows too much, he is happy to use that information for crazy shit. Plus last season he put a giant nether base into the overworld and this season he’s holding up a lake with a force field. I’d previously written him down as Prince of Light, but he’s softened out so other arguments could be made.

Xisuma is a Mage, keeping things organized and level. I had him down as a Space player when I made my original list last season, but part of that was a joke about his volcano. Having multiple “hims” all logged in on the LPMT server to AFK for different things and keep things in line felt more Time player though, and he isn’t someone I’d consider myself an “expert” on, so I’ll write him as “Mage of Time” with a large-ish question mark beside it.

I’ve always enjoyed the joke of Life player Cleo - after all, she’s a zombie! But this season she’s brought in the armor stands, which have a life of their own... Plus she was very, very, very determined to win that Phantom hunt. Between those, and a bit of bias via her long-running Sims series, as of right now I have her as a Witch of Life.

Cub as Lord of Void and Scar as Muse of Breath. I know, I know, pulling out Lord and Muse are fighting words, but explain to me how the heck else they get as much done as they do. Was particularly motivated by last season - Cub creating the Cub Hub, Scar managing 18,000 miles flown, and the sheer scale of their projects. Cub basically magics things into existence (or out of existence - the absurd win on the Phantom Hunt, getting bored and just finishing digging the nether hub), while Scar is the root of all inspiration on that server and so beloved his cat’s now in the game. Doubles as fun because Void and Breath fit Vex Magic both thematically and color-wise.

Rendog is a Page. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules, he just is, you know it in your souls, and you know he would be proud of the dang outfit. I unfortunately don’t quite know what kind of Page though - currently my notes say Page of Heart.

Zedaph is a Bard of Life. I thought Page for him initially, too Wormman jokes but the man has to find the most difficult way to do everything and thrives on bases that blend into their surroundings. Also at one point he killed himself repeatedly to opera music just to troll people, so...

Stress’s is already suggested by her name - she’s a Maid of Rage. It makes more sense when you remember Rage is about emotions in general, rather than just actual rage, and see that her content, more than anyone else’s, feels ruled by her emotions in both release schedule and actual content. All of her singing, all of her typing out her accent, all of her actually expressing her frustrations but treating them as just part of life, all fit with that.

From here we start getting into people I’m only clear enough on to have one or the other written down for:

False is a Knight. She has a strong sense of duty and of preserving her self-image. She also can fight like nobody’s business.

Mumbo is a Time player. I thought Space at first as a joke about all his storage systems, but I’ve started to see those as a tool to balance how organized (and scant) his time is. More than any other hermit, he is a creature of habit/routine.

Impulse, as the other ideas guy, feels to me like a Mind player.

I think of Iskall as a Seer, but that may just be because of the imagery of his diamond eye.

Bdubs isn’t really around anymore, but while he was I had him down as a Blood player for his role within the NHO.

Everyone else I either can’t get a good enough read on despite watching them, or don’t watch enough of their content, to really pin anything down. Is Wels actually a Knight? I just don’t know, but I feel like no. Is anyone on this server a Sylph? Who the hell is the Space player so we can finally get a successful session? I just don't know!

But of course all of these are just my thoughts/headcanons, based on my observations and brief talk with a couple friends about it, so they are completely open to debate/interpretation/argument/expansion.

(Please debate me. I am that kind of person. I want to think more about these!)

[kaitlinmcandrews]

If you were to ask anyone when the best time to visit Japan, I bet you anything that many people will say spring. Spring is probably the best know for the cherry blossoms.

I’m kind of torn on what I think about spring. As you probably know, I love love love cherry blossoms. Each year, I take way too many photos of these flowers. I also love the festivals that happen around this time. I also loooove festivals. I love food tents, I love eating outside, I love looking at all the different foods that are offered, and I love that I can just walk around with a beer and it’s no big deal…. hmmm I only named things to do with food didn’t I? Festivals are more than just food! … Or are they….?

Okay, as I said, I’m a bit torn. The biggest reason I think spring is a bit overrated is just because of the weather.

Now, this is totally perspective.

I like being warm. Spring is just not warm enough for me. For a normal Canadian, yeah, it’s warm. I think it was in the teens or low twenties. The biggest issue for me was the huge drop in temperature at night. If you know me and Pat at all, you’d know that we are night owls. I love festivals and would 100% prefer to go to them in the evening. Problem is, not only does the temperature drop as soon as the sun goes down, but the sun goes down so freaking early! I don’t know if a mistake was made when deciding what time zone Japan belongs to, but the sun goes down way too early (and comes up way too early in the morning).

Goodness, that was a heck of a tangent. Let’s just get on with it.  I’ll try to separate this like I did with the other blogs in this ‘series’.

Tokyo

Koishikawa Botanical Garden (小石川植物園 //  こいしかわ　しょくぶつえん)

On one of our days off, we headed up to Tokyo since I heard that the cherry blossoms were starting to bloom. Well, I guess the key word was “starting” haha. Oh well, the botanical garden was still quite beautiful. It was a bit out of the way, but it wasn’t too bad.We walked from Hakusan station on the meguro line.

It cost about 400 yen I believe so it was actually quite cheap. I’m not sure if the prices change in different seasons. We were kind of in an off season. I think that going while the blossoms are out would be absolutely stunning. Even going in the summer would be nice when all the trees and grass would be green. When we went, it was a bit grey haha.

Not too much to really say about our day. I really tried to take artsy photos of flowers haha. Enjoy~

un-bloomed sakura trees

I was a bit dissapointed, but I swear that I heard the cherry blossoms were blooming in Tokyo. Since we were already in Tokyo, we decided to walk to Ueno from the garden. Ueno is known for its cherry blossoms. It’s a pretty long walk already, but we made it even longer. On the way, we noticed quite a few tourists heading in the same direction. we decided to check out whatever they were headed to. It was a pretty neat cemetery called Yanaka Cemetery.

Yanaka Cemetery （谷中霊園 // やなかれいえん)

It was actually pretty cool. I’m glad that we took this detour, even if it added another 20 min to our already long walk. It probably took us over an hour to get from the gardens to Ueno. Pat seems to love walking….

Ueno Park (上野公園 // うえのこえん）

Anyways, we had been to Ueno once before, but only at night. It was really cool to see it in the daylight. I’d looooove to see it during the full bloom of the cherry blossoms. Anyways, again, not too much to say.

Just IMAGINE this in full bloom!

It was a nice little day trip. So, if your in Tokyo in the spring, especially during the cherry blossom season, I think these 3 places would be absolutely breathtaking. My only issue with Ueno is how crowded it is. I can’t even imagine how it would be during peak season.

  ~Cherry Blossoms (sakura // 桜 // さくら)~

So, like I mentioned earlier, I really really like the cherry blossoms. Unlike last year at the private school, we actually had time off to go places. We were actually in the middle of our spring break. We had basically all of March off. I was so upset last year because of our awful time off schedule. We were in a place known for cherry blossoms and could barely see any of it! This time, we had a lot more time to look around. Although I wouldn’t say Kawasaki and Yokohama are necessarily famous for cherry blossoms, I knew I would be able to find some hidden gems. Tokyo, on the other hand, does have some pretty well-known places.

Unfortunately, this year was a bit weird. The cherry blossoms almost did things in 2 parts. They seemed to blossom about halfway and then we got some bad weather. The wind and cold weather seemed to halt the blossoms. After a couple of days they rest of the blossoms started, but the other half was dying or had fallen off from the wind. Ultimately, the trees never seemed to be 100% in bloom at any time. They were still really great, just not their best I suppose. Also because of the weird timing, we weren’t able to see much during our spring break, but we had to see a lot of them during our weekends off. Oh well, still better than last year!

If you want to see the posts I’ve made in the past, check them out: 2016 Kansai, 2015 Korea festival, 2015 Korea random

Koganecho Sakura Festival

Pat and I don’t live in Yokohama, but that’s where all the great stuff happens. To be fair, Yokohama is like the 2nd largest city in Japan or something crazy. Kawasaki, where we live, is not too high up on that list. Where was I going with this?

During cherry blossom season, there are sooooo many cherry blossom festivals. Of course. They are scattered in every season at varying times. I highly recommend attending at least one if you are in Japan at the right time. We decided to go to this one in particular was just because our friends lived in that area. Luckily, this area has a large river running through it, so it is so beautiful during the spring. There are cherry blossoms along this almost the entire river and is absolutely stunning. From Hinodecho to Gumyoji is a fantastic walk if you happened to be in the area.

The festival itself was close to hindecho and koganecho station. (I know this means nothing to most of you…. it’s mostly just in case people are on my blog for potential cherry blossom spots).

As I mentioned before, the cherry blossoms this year were a bit strange.

As you can see, they aren’t too impressive. Like, at all….We did find ONE fully bloomed tree, though! (so, I took 234039843 photos of that single tree….)

The first thing I personally like to do at a festival is seek out festival food. I have a soft spot for food tents, eating and drinking outside, and just eating interesting things. It is definitely a thing I will immensely miss when we go back home to Canada. Here is some food we got!

yakiika (grilled squid)

yakiika (grilled squid) // left is the body, right is the legs

dango (rice cakes with red bean paste)

sakura umeshu and sake

We got other types of food as well, but it was too hard is to photograph and eat at the same thing. I’d say the most common types of food at any Japanese festivals are takoyaki (deep fried octopus balls), okonomiyaki (cabbage pancake with different sauces), yakisoba (grilled soba noodles), and assorted meat on sticks. They are all so good. None of them are healthy. I highly recommend.

It was pretty hard to get around, so I really didn’t get many photos. It was pretty busy:

This area was an interesting location for a festival. There were tents along the river so there wasn’t anywhere to sit. The roads on either side of the river were closed for traffic, and absolutely packed with people. On the other side of the road were a whole bunch of small izakayas (Japanese pub). Our fiends happen to go to a few of those izakayas on a regular basis, so we have met some of the shop owners. It is a pretty neat experience to be able to drink with the locals and support their businesses. If we didn’t know them, we may have not gone to any of the izakayas. We probably would have not even noticed that they were open.

As you can see, these izakayas are really tiny. It is a pretty neat experience.

Looking through my photos, it is just us drinking haha. Well, here are the few cherry blossom photos that I managed to take.

  Mitsuike Park (三ッ池公園 // みついけこうえん)

Not too long after this festival, the cherry blossoms were really starting to bloom. I have always wanted to have a hanami (flower viewing) since I heard about it. I mentioned in my last year’s spring blog how I wanted to go, but Pat didn’t know what I wanted and we didn’t really get to have one. Even if we did, since we didn’t have friends in Kyoto, it might not have been that fun.

Well, this year, we have friends!!

Can you believe it?!

Haha, okay, that is a bit dramatic. Well, anyways, we were lucky enough to have a hanami. We went to a park that is kind of in the middle of Kawasaki and Yokohama. We are the only ones that live in Kawasaki, so usually we have to travel to Yokohama if we want to do anything with them. When I was looking for the best place to have a hanami, the results I got were mostly in Tokyo. Tokyo has too many tourists so I try to avoid going there if possible haha.

I really couldn’t find a good place. The best place for a hanami is usually a park. So, I looked at parks in the area that had a lot of cherry blossoms. I decided to check out this park that is near my workplace. I was doing research like 2 weeks before cherry blossom season. Luckily, this was the first place I checked out and instantly thought that it would be perfect.

Here is where the park is on Google Maps:

It obviously much closer to Kawasaki, but it’s technically part of Yokohama…. so….. I was able to convince some people to come ^-^.

I packed a bag with beer, umeshu and chips and we set off to our hanami. If you want to go to this park, unfortunately it is only accesible by bus. It isn’t near any train stations. You could walk, but it’s an uphill walk. We took a bus at Tsurumi station (near the JR side, not the keikyu side). The park wasn’t too busy

There are actually quite a few busses that go there. They are all on the same side of the bus depot. Google maps is pretty useful in Japan, so you can just google the bus routes and numbers. (Google was useless in Korea so I always want to give the bus numbers haha).

We were able to find a spot fairly easily. We set up our picnic as soon as we arrived and took turns going out for photos and such.

The weather was …okay… I personally prefer to be warm so a nice spring day is still too cold for me haha. Luckily for us, it wasn’t too crowded. Unluckily for us, we were still a few days too early. I think if we had gone 2 days later, it would have been perfect. I’d say the trees were at 75% bloomed. I think they only had the potential to bloom to 90% because of the strange weather this year.

There isn’t really much to talk about. We just hung out, talked, drank and enjoyed our day. It’s so nice to be able to drink outside. Another thing I will miss when we go back to Canada haha.

There were quite a few different types of sakura at this park. I could only tell the difference between the dark ones and light ones haha.

Okay, photo time. As always, there are a lot.

Hello~

The nice thing about this park is the nice lake in the middle. It really add to the cherry blossom photos, in my opinion. There were also a whole bunch of ducks there!

Maybe I just like water, haha, I don’t know…

It started to get really windy, which was a pain. It kept blowing our food and empty drink cans all over the place. Our picnic mat also had to be held down. The wind was frustrating and also made the weather a lot colder than it already was (it wasn’t cold… I’m just a wuss).

It was a really nice day and I’m glad that I can check hanami off of my Japan bucket list.

  Meguro River, Tokyo (目黒川, 東京 // めぐろがわ, とうきょう)

So, because I obviously have an unhealthy obsession, I needed to venture out on my own so I could take 2034983 photos and not annoy everyone. Once the sakura were basically a full bloom, I ventured out to Tokyo once again. I know, I just said that I hate it because of all the tourists….. but….. I really wanted to see this place.

Meguro river essentially runs from shimbamba station to naka-meguro station, but the cherry blossoms are the most heavily concentrated between meguro shinbashi and nakameguro.

I got off at gotanda station and walked along the river and was pretty dissapointed until I got to meguro shinbashi. As soon as I saw the sakura, I started a trail save thing on google maps on my phone.

So, if you are planning on visiting this famous river, just be aware that the entire river is not as fabulous as it is between the two points shown above.

It’s not a bad walk by any means. From above, you can see that there weren’t many people so I was able to get some nice shots without people in them.

Hmmm… how do I wanna do this…? Do I wanna just spam you with 2304983098 photos? Do I want to seperate them a bit? Ugh, the decisions I have to make for this blog.

I’ll seperate them a bit.

As soon as I got to Meguro-shinbashi, I knew that I was where I wanted to be. I have seen so many photos from this exact spot. I wiiiish that I could photograph them as well, but I’m not so skilled haha. Sorry. I took four of the same photo with different camera settings, but they all kind of look the same haha.

Surprisingly, there aren’t too many bridges along this river so there aren’t too many chances to get photos from this angle. For the majority of the walk (which was stunning by the way), I was walking along the river on a road or sidewalk.

Recently, I bought a small tripod and a remote timer for my camera so I was happy to test them out~

I definitely got some funny looks while taking those photos. I had to put my camera across the street and zoom in, so I don’t think people even saw my camera. Just me standing by myself haha.

Since I suck at waking up, I had actually gone to Tokyo around 4pm or so. I wish I went earlier so that I could see the sun shining on all the sakura. oh well. I think I missed the rush a bit and I was able to get some nice close-up photos of the blossoms.

Companies definitely take advantage of touristy spots though. I mean, the lanterns do look really cool, but each lantern has a different advertiser on it.

camera setting made it way to light…

As soon as I arrived at the next bridge, I did the same thing as last time: take 012349238 photos of the same thing with different settings.

As I mentioned earlier, I had left pretty late. The one advantage was that I was able to get some day and night shots. The lanterns looked really cool in the darkness, but it was pretty hard to capture it. I swear, I played with my camera’s settings like crazy. I suck.

On that note, does anyone else notice that cameras tend to make it look a lot lighter than it actually is? I mean, those were taken at dusk I’m fairly sure and it looks like the afternoon….

Oh, hey! Did I ever talk about my second obsession: tree caves? I’m100% positive I have. I love them sooooo much. I wish so badly that I could photograph them and show the depth. They are so freaking cool. Here are my attempts:

My best attempt?

It went on for quite awhile. Around this time, it started getting really busy. I quickly found out why. My guess is that people come either in midday or at night. Both times are beautiful and have their own charm.

Once I got to the last bridge (basically), I was stunned. It was actually sooooo beautiful. I stayed there for about 45 minutes waiting for the sun to completely set. Here is, again, 24-30943 photos of the same thing!

side 1

side 2

side 1

side 2

Both sides of the bride had a great view. I really enjoyed it. I took some photos here and there on my way back.

I left feeling satisfied about my day trip. If you are a sakura fanatic like I am, I highly recommend this river. Even if you just go to the first and last bridge on the route I shared.

Nikaryo Yosui Canal, Kawasaki ( 二ヶ領用水と大石橋, 川崎  // にかりょうようすい, かわさき)

This is a bit of a weird one… It is in the middle of a residential area of Kawasaki. It isn’t close to where I live, at all. How did I learn of this place, you ask? Well, I take Japanese lessons in that area and they gave me a guide book of things to do/see in Kawasaki. When I saw the photo of the sakura hanging over the water, I knew I had to go. They listed some other spots that looked amazing as well, but I just didn’t have the time.

I went to this place AFTER the prime bloom time. I was hoping that it wouldn’t have been too late, but it was. Most of the blossoms are wilted. But, at least I know that if I went in prime season, it would be absolutely beautiful.

oooh, the hanging type

wow, so pink!

The blossoms were pretty unique. They were the type that hang down, and they were also very pink! It was really pretty. If I am still in Japan during next sakura season, I would definitely go again.

Phew, finally done with the cherry blossoms.

Almost done, guys, almost done. One last activity that we did in spring.

  Ashikaga Flower Park (あしかがフラワーパーク)

I hope this one doesn’t get too long. This could probably have its own blog post, but I figured it would fit in this series….

Every once in a while, I look up what festivals and events are happening around me. I figure that since I’ll probably only be in Asia once, I should do/see as much as I can. So, while I was looking around, I found a pretty cool ‘event’. It isn’t a festival or event really, but a flower park that is famous for a flower called wysteria (the Japanese name is fuji // 藤 // ふじ). Wysteria have a bit of a longer blooming period than cherry blossoms. They basically start to bloom as the cherry blossoms start to wilt. I have never heard of this flower until I found this post. As far as I know, they aren’t native to Canada.

I really want to improve my photography skills, and for some reason, I’m really into flower photography. You may think I only like cherry blossoms, but I swear I like other flowers as well.

Now, as soon as I knew about these cool flowers, I naturally looked at where is the best place to see them. They bloom in various places in Tokyo, but I found a flower park that is kinda infamous for them. It is a place called Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi prefecture (NNW of Tokyo). Here is the website if your interested: https://www.ashikaga.co.jp/english/index.html .

As soon as you leave the main metropolis areas, the trains become infinitly more difficult to use. You may have noticed from all my navigation problems we seem to have haha. So, it’s my fault for always wanting to explore outside of Tokyo, but Japan has a LOT to see that is outside Tokyo. I wish more people talked about them. That’s why I do these blogs ^^.

Okay, so lets start with how to get there.

I’ve mentioned before that the best way to find directions in Japan is to go to the website and find a tab that says “access”. They don’t always provide times and such, but it is a good place to start. For example, this website gives this information:

The access pages aren’t necessarily in English, but this one was, luckily. I mostly used Google Maps to get us there, but it was nice to have this as a reference. I especially like to use these pages when Google maps suggests taking the shinkansen. It took us probably 9months of being in Japan to realize that there is usually a way to get somewhere without the shinkansen (which is way too expensive…). Here is what Google map suggests:

Unfortunately, I don’t remember what route we actually took, but we definitely didn’t take the shinkansen. We had a weird situation at, I assume, kitasenju station (I really don’t remember where we were, but that must have been it….). There were actually signs for what train to take to get to this flower park, but the train was full! It must be that nikko-kinugawa line. It seemed that you couldn’t use your rail pass (the card that you beep in and out with) and had to buy tickets for this particular train separately. I was a bit confused as to what we were supposed to do, so I asked, in Japanese, “Does this train go to Tochigi?” and he dismissed me by saying in broken English “ticket first” over and over. Like, fuck, what the hell dude? So does it or not? like, you want me to buy a ticket for a train that may not even go where I want to go??

Annoyed, I went to the ticketing area and asked a different train attendant the same question and he luckily answered (nicely) that it was full. Again, fuck you first guy. So, the new attendant showed us which train we could take instead and said that it is cheaper, but next one comes in 40 min. So, we waited. The next train was pretty full, but we got a seat. It took a bit longer than the sold out train, and added that 40 min of waiting time onto our trip. That meant that the already long (almost 3hrs) ride up there was extended by an hour.

Ugh.

Oh well, we got there. It was just a long journey. The local train from Tochigi to the park was crazy packed. Everyone was going to the flower park! It was so packed that I got off before Pat and had to wait like 5 min until he came out as well. We were not standing together and people just push and shove their way off the trains (whoever says that Japanese people are oh so polite have never had to navigate the trains during rush hour or an event….). I tried to take a photo of how many people there were, but it was kinda hard…

As that website mentions, there is a bit of a walk from the station to the park. It was easy to find just by how many people were walking in that direction. We basically just followed the crowds.

This was another place that changed their price depending on what is in season and how fully bloomed the flowers are. We went at prime time for their most famous flower so it was the most expensive price that it could’ve been. It was like 1300 yen (~$15) each or something like that.

Despite how busy it was, this park is actually really big so it was easy to walk around and take photos without it feeling to crowded. Well, once you got out of the entrance way that is…

Surprisingly, this park had more than just wysteria. It was a really diverse flower park!

Another thing that I didn’t expect was there is more than one type of wysteria. Not only are there essentially 2 distinct colours, but different type of trees. Some hang it bunches, some are seperated. They did some interesting things with them for sure. Here are the white ones in tree form:

They had some in hanging-above form:

They also had some sparsely on a wall:

I have a feeling the wall one is fairly new, since the ones in the pink/purple variety were much fuller:

Of course, these ones came in regular tree form:

And lastly, the star attraction, the hanging above form:

Do you see the tree?

It’s hiding in there

Sorry, I couldn’t capture how cool the ones that hang from above look…. We noticed later, that those ones that are hanging down all come from one tree! Isn’t that crazy? So, there is one tree in the middle (if you look closely, you might be able to see it) and the bamboo structure supports the branches above you so it can continue to grow. There were actually 2 overhead ones in the purple variety.

I’ll be honest guys, I actually think the white ones are so much prettier.

Anyways, this was a really great place to go if you love flowers. The whole park smelled amaaazing. They sold flower flavoured ice-cream that we didn’t try. One random thing I noticed, this place was very mobility-impaired friendly. I saw a few people in wheelchairs that were able to enjoy the flowers. I think that as a mobile person, I often forget how difficult it would be to go to some of these places.

Okay, with that, I think I’m done talking about spring.

This is definitely the longest post in this series. Part of it is because I have an obsession with flowers, and part of it is that we had a lot of time off during spring and were able to do more things.

  The 4 Seasons of Japan – Spring If you were to ask anyone when the best time to visit Japan, I bet you anything that many people will say spring.