Updates + Summer Plans

It seems that it's been about a month since I last posted. Well, anyway, here's what I've been up to.

Updates

First off, I'm still creating art for the Higgins Armory Virtual Joust project along with Alfreda Smith. In March I refined and created some UI elements for the game. This included altering the existing art for the "heraldry creator" as well as creating heraldic emblems. I also created a prototype logo for the game which will be polished in the near future.

This past month I worked on creating 2D audience members to populate the stands with Freda. I did this by digitally painting sketches of cartoony people I drew and scanned into Photoshop. The people were then arranged together and placed on planes with transparency. When these planes are stuck in the environment, they'll give the game more depth and detail. Moving forward we'll be working on polishing existing aspects of the game.

Another project that I've been working on this term is a small Flash game for the WPI Game Development Club's Development Team. I didn't participate in C-term for various reasons but I made a point to help make something in D-term. The GDC Dev Teams don't have the best track record for putting out games or keeping projects alive (something I experienced last year), so I tried to keep it going this time. Luckily, the team picked one of my game ideas allowing me to work as a designer instead of just an artist.

Our game is called Building Bashers. It's a beat-em-up game where you control transformed robotic buildings and fight other robotic buildings, causing much chaos and destruction. Other than providing the idea I created a design doc at the start of the term, created some art assets, and even did some coding towards the end (menus and particles). We used flixel and various art tools to create the game; Andy Wolff was our programmer, Joey Chipman made player/boss and robot enemies, Dillon Lankenau made menu screens and some enemies, Graham Leto was our project manager and also made sounds, and I created a player and enemy robot, some GUI stuff, and particles. As with most small game projects, we didn't get to implement everything we wanted to but we have a playable game we can show off. You can try it out here!

Summer Plans

So, school is officially over and I'm going to be graduating in less than a week. That means I need to get an actual job now! I feel that I have most of the skills needed to get a job but I don't have enough to show off my skills. That said, my plans for the summer are to make some nice pieces of art and games to showcase in my portfolio and then start applying for jobs. This includes fixing up my resume, tweaking my website, and looking for places to apply. My goal is to start applying by July, which gives me about 2 months to get my act together. I also plan to update my blog more frequently with art, games, and whatever else I work on so stay tuned!

A Little Slice of Tokyo (8/23/10 - 8/27/10)

Soon after the lab trip we travelled to Tokyo for the IVRC Finals at Miraikan. Our side project that we've been working on since before we arrived in Japan made it to the finals, so we were able to present it at the conference in Tokyo. The conference itself was three days, Monday to Wednesday, but we stayed for the rest of the week to look around and to climb Mt. Fuji. We stayed in a fairly nice hotel on Tokyo Bay with a beautiful view of the city, including Tokyo Tower close by. The hotel was also a five minute walk from the Pokémon Center, which was a nice perk.

August 23rd-25th, 2010: The three days that we spent at Miraikan for the IVRC were fairly regular. Monday was set-up and Tuesday and Wednesday were presentation to the public. Our project was パランガ (Paranga), the Virtual Flipbook. As the name implies, it was a device that simulated page flipping and animation that you get with a flipbook. We had some issues with our device throughout the event, and only one worked for half of it, but we were able to show it off without any major issues. There were some official judges going around and taking notes who decided which awards would go to which project. There were also boards where visitors could place stickers for their favorite project. At the end of the second day the main awards were announced, and at the end of the third (last) day the winners of the "audience choice" awards were announced. We ended up winning the Maywa Denki President's Award (presented to us by Maywa Denki himself), which I feel like was more of an "honorable mention" than a real award. There wasn't a monetary prize, just a certificate and an odd musical instrument called an Otamatone. It was still better than what I was expecting, which was nothing! It was cool to see the different types of projects that other people brought to the conference, especially since we were pretty much thrust into this project without any background of the contest. I think we did pretty well, given the circumstances.

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August 25th, 2010: After the IVRC was over, we decided to walk around for the rest of the night to visit some local places. Obviously, the first place I wanted to go was the Pokémon Center, and we walked there first since it was close to the hotel. The store itself seemed smaller than the one in Osaka but had much of the same merchandise. The one thing that stuck out was the table for playable demos of the new games, Pokémon Black and White. There weren't many people/kids in the store or at the demos because the store was closing in less than an hour, so I was able to hop on one of the DS systems quickly and play without the pressure of other people in line. I really enjoyed what I saw and played, and I definitely will be purchasing a Japanese copy when it comes out on September 18th.

After eating ramen at a small restaurant for dinner, we debated whether we should go back to the hotel to plan our Mt. Fuji trip or take the monorail to the large mall and SEGA Joypolis that we discovered the night before. Although, in retrospect, it would have been better to plan out our Fuji trip I have no regrets about our choice to check out Joypolis. At first, I assumed that it was merely an arcade with a few rides like the one in the HEP Five building in Umeda, but I was only partly correct. Joypolis is a 3-floor amusement park with about 20 rides, many arcade games, and some gambling games. Unlike the one in Umeda, this Joypolis has some large rides, including a fake snowboard halfpipe and a small roller coaster. There are also some "virtual reality" games, like racing and shooting games. We were totally surprised when the giant entrance doors opened and we walked inside because we were not expecting it in the slightest. At first, the ¥1,900 discount ticket still seemed expensive, but I think it was worth every yen.

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August 26th & 27th, 2010: On Thursday we started our day fairly early to travel to Shinjuku where we would catch a bus to the Mt. Fuji area. Instead of resting up for our hike we made the mistake of walking around Shinjuku looking for arcades. We found several of them and played some games which was nice, but all that walking left us tired and not fully prepared for our Fuji encounter. The games I played were the usual Rhythm Heaven game, DrumMania (which was much harder for me than Rock Band drums), GuitarFreaks, and Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (I actually printed my "license" card this time for ¥200 extra).

After visiting the ¥100 Shop, waiting a little while for our bus, and riding the bus for about 2 hours, we arrived at the 5th station on Mt. Fuji. This station is one out of the 9 that are located along the trail to the summit, and most climbers start here and continue to the top. I started the hike in my usual clothes (shorts and t-shirt) because I enjoyed the cool weather that we experienced due to already being about 2,000m up the mountain. As we got closer to the top, I resorted to putting on my sweatshirt but I kept on my short for the entirety of the hike. I don't remember much of the hike up because it was really repetitive and dark, plus I was already tired and mainly focused on climbing rather than thinking about anything else. We took frequent breaks along the way, and we took the time to look back down the mountain at the clouds and other hikers, up at the distance we still had to travel, and up at the stars we wouldn't have been able to see from the city. As we got closer to the top it got harder and harder because of the lack of sleep, lack of energy, and lack of oxygen. Somehow, we managed to make it to the top (and at that point I didn't actually know it was the top) and were able to rest for a bit before sunrise, despite the biting cold and supreme exhaustion.

The sun rose at about 4:30AM and we had the best seats in the house (3,776m about sea level). Instead of seeing it rise above the ocean or normal horizon, it seemed to rise out from the clouds, illuminating everything as it found its place in the sky. Once it was up we could truly see all of the clouds and smaller mountains surrounding Mt. Fuji and the actual number of people that were on the summit. We took some time to take pictures around the crater but didn't stroll around the top to look around because we weren't really in the mood to do anything other than go back home. We had been climbing for about 7 hours and were not looking forward to another 5 hours of walking back down. The descent sounds like it should be easier than climbing up, but it was probably just as difficult because of the steep slope and tiny rocks that afford slipping. I witnessed a few people falling and slipped many times myself. It was not an enjoyable experience in the slightest, but the view of the clouds and mountains below us helped make it better. At one point near the end of the descent, the clouds were actually sweeping up the mountain and onto the trail, giving us a refreshingly cool breeze that I would have loved to bottle up and take with me. By the time we reached the 5th station again, my knees and feet were killing me and I was covered in a thin layer of dirt from the downward trail. We took another bus back to Shinjuku, travelled back to the hotel to get the luggage we stored there, and waited several hours for our overnight bus back to Osaka (all without sleep...). I was able to pass out on the overnight bus back home, but it took some time for me to get back into my regular sleep schedule. It was a good thing we ended our hike on a weekend!

(Check out all the photos from our Tokyo trip here and here!)

"A Quiet Mountain Retreat" (8/18/10 - 8/19/10)

Although we staying in last weekend, we were able to join almost everyone in the Takemura Lab on a two-day lab trip out to various places in the Chūbu region of Japan, such as the Gifu and Ishikawa Prefectures.

August 18th, 2010: On the first day of our trip, we woke up early and boarded the bus outside the Cybermedia Center at around 7:30AM. After picking up some more people at the Suita campus, we embarked on a 4 hour ride to Shirakawa-gō. This village is a historic World Heritage site with many thatched-roof houses surrounded by many mountains. It was very hot and sunny while we walked around the village and there were several souvenir shops that sold cold drinks and shaved ice. One of the places we stopped at was a small museum in one of the houses. There were some ceramics and other items on the first floor and many old tools and machines on the upper floors for farming and other tasks. Upon leaving the museum, some of us headed for the mountain viewpoint up an inclined path at one end of the village. From the top, we could see all of the houses and the adjacent mountain in a beautiful panoramic view. We descended from the viewpoint back to the entrance of the village and spent some time at a rocky area by a small river, and then got back on the bus to head to our hotel.

The ride to the hotel took about an hour or two, and it seemed as though our group had reserved half (or more) of the floors of the hotel for our group. The hotel itself was fairly small, but I'm pretty sure we took up most of it. The WPI and UCSD students occupied the 5th floor of the hotel, which was three rooms for 4-5 people each. Shortly after dropping our stuff off in our rooms, we attempted to try out the onsen before dinner but didn't have enough time. Also, since we were awkward American foreigners, we were a little uncomfortable with the Japanese customs surrounding the onsen and decided to try after eating. The dinner was very fancy and obviously pretty expensive. Unfortunately, most of it consisted of seafood so the hotel staff had to make an impromptu non-seafood dinner for me. I felt bad that they weren't informed beforehand, but they were very kind about preparing a separate meal for me. I think my favorite part of it was the tempura vegetables with sea salt. I definitely would like to try some more (non-shrimp) tempura in the future.

After eating, the UCSD students gave brief statements about their stay since it was their last week in Japan and we all headed to the onsen. There were a few different baths with different temperature water in each, ranging from normal swimming pool temperature to scalding hot. We stayed until the hotel started closing the baths, and then went back to our rooms and got ready for bed. The hotel rooms were very traditional, with tatami floors and futons for beds. The futons were extremely comfortable and the blankets were fluffy and heavenly. If there was one thing I wanted to take from the hotel, it was one of those blankets.

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August 19th, 2010: We were told the night before that breakfast would be at 8:00AM, but we stayed up until 3:00AM for no reason and were woken up at 8:05AM by the organizer of the trip. Half-asleep, I picked at my breakfast and afterwards packed up my backpack and got ready for another bus ride to Yunokuni no Mori, a village whose main attraction is the handicrafts that are created there. The first thing we did was paint our own ceramic cups. The cups were supposedly baked to complete them, but at this time we haven't gotten our cups and I'm not sure if we will. We hung out in this village for a bit, walking around and checking out the other shops that were in the area. There was a souvenir shop with other hand-made crafts and a "gold leaf" store with a lot of gold items. We met at the entrance when we were finished walking around and we took the bus up the hill to a very seafood-y restaurant. Luckily, the staff was informed that there were two vegetarian meals that were to be prepared (one for me and one for a UCSD student) so I was fitted with a non-fish meal again.

Following lunch, we took a large group photo with all the trip attendees and boarded the bus to our final destination: the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. Prior to the trip, we were asked if we wanted to go to a large temple or the dinosaur museum, and I obviously picked the latter. As interesting and visually intriguing as temples are, we've seen a fair amount of them but haven't seen anything relating to dinosaurs. The museum consisted of 4 floors of fossils and information about Japanese archeological digs and findings. The building was filled with full skeletons of several types of dinosaurs, some smaller fossils of other creatures, and even some moving animatronic dinosaurs. The museum was spectacular and I enjoyed all of it. I thought about purchasing something in the gift shop, but couldn't decide on what would make a good souvenir for myself. Also, I already have some fossils that my amazing girlfriend got me in Morocco. We only spent about an hour in the museum, but that was enough time to see everything that was on display. We boarded the bus after that and headed back to Osaka, which took another 4-5 hours. I'd say the whole trip was definitely worth the ~$270 we paid since we got to visit and see places that we wouldn't have on our own.

(Check out all of the photos from the trip here, here, and here!)

Our next scheduled trip is to Toyko for the IVRC Finals, which we will conclude with a hike up Mt. Fuji! I'll try to take notes during the week (8/23 - 8/27) and compile them into a blog post next weekend (hopefully). I may split the week-long trip into smaller posts, especially since the IVRC Finals and Mt. Fuji hike are fairly separate topics. Anyway, that'll be coming in about a week!

Osaka Fireworks and Historic Nara (8/7/10 & 8/8/10)

Last weekend we watched some really impressive fireworks in Umeda and took a trip to the historic prefecture of Nara (which had an area that was full of wild deer). It was a lot of walking around (about 20,000 steps each day, according to my Pokéwalker) but I thoroughly enjoyed both days.


August 7th, 2010: Our original plan to watch the fireworks was to see if we could stay at the Umeda Sky Building and watch from the upper floors (and possibly the observation deck). When we got up to the floor with the ticket counter, however, we learned that the Sky Building closed at 6:30PM (fireworks started at 7:50PM) and that they did sell special tickets for watching fireworks from the top. Unfortunately, these special tickets were sold out weeks ago, so we had no chance to follow through with our plan.

For Plan B, we walked to the river where the fireworks were to be launched from and looked for an adequate seat. They were selling tickets for a reserved seating area that was close to the river and had folding chairs but it was ¥5000 per person! Instead, we found a cement slope at the base of a raised area and behind a stretch of grass that had enough room for us to hang out. We sat there for a while playing our portable gaming devices until it got dark, and there were many others playing their DS systems.

The fireworks themselves were superb. There were many different types and colors, and even some shapes like smiley faces and fish. One thing that I had never seen before were fireworks that went off close to the ground. These explosions were coupled with the ones in the sky but appeared only as semicircles on the ground. Lots of people around us would call out the names of the shaped fireworks and also applauded heavily after grand cascades of explosions. After the show, we walked back to the convenience store we passed on the way to the Sky Building and got jumbo franks on sticks for dinner.

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August 8th, 2010: One of the Japanese students that Sarah and Liz are working with lives in Nara and offered to take us all (in two groups) on a tour of the city. Since that group I was with was in Umeda on Saturday we went to Nara on Sunday. Shunsuke, our student guide, picked us up at the Toyonaka campus and drove us to Nara early in the morning (the whole drive took about an hour and a half), with a breakfast break at a rest stop halfway there. The rest stop has a few food places inside, but we all ate at a danish shop called the Little Mermaid. I got a hot dog with onions, a cheesecake-filled ball (pretty much just a big Munchkin), and a chocolate-covered, custard-filled twist. After eating, we traveled the rest of the way to Nara.

Our first stop in Nara was the Isuien Garden, a tranquil area with two ponds, some traditional Japanese houses, and lots of trees and other plant life. There were a lot of pond skaters on the surface of the water, and even a couple koi (or carp) in the ponds. The paths and bridges over the ponds and streams were all made out of stone, which made the entire area seem very natural and peaceful. We also visited the small museum next to the garden which housed mostly historic decorated mirrors and ceramics. From the garden we walked back to the main street, through an underground passage (to prevent pedestrians from crossing the busy street), and to a sidewalk next to a large park. This area was home to a bunch of wild deer that were accustomed to people giving them attention. There were several vendors selling disposable cameras and crackers for deer food. The deer were pretty aggressive when they sensed someone with food, and signs were posted warning visitors of potential harm that deers may cause. We continued out trip by walking for a bit down the street to an area with some temples and pagodas, with deer all along the way.

The main temple in this area is called Kōfuku-ji, and there are many, smaller buildings in the area. Although we didn't go inside the main temple, we pays to view the small national treasure museum nearby and walked around to see the other pieces of architecture. We stopped to get some shaved ice soon after we arrived, and we saw many places that we've become used to from visiting the temples in Kyoto, such as hand-washing stations, hanging wish/fortune tags, and small shrines for praying. Our guide lead us around this area for a bit and then down a few streets with deer and various vendors.

Our next stop was to the famous Tōdai-ji, which houses a huge Buddha statue as well as some smaller statues. Being a popular tourist sight, the temple attracts many visitors and it was no exception when we were there. Some people stopped to burn incense at the beginning of the path leading to the temple and others took photos in front of the building. One interesting fact that we learned from Shunsuke was that the path leading up to the temple was constructed with five different types of stone, representing Buddha's journey to Japan.

From Tōdai-ji we sought a place to eat lunch and then drove to our final destination, Heijō Palace. The entire palace area is massive and includes a gate, a large courtyard, and some small museum rooms that depict the excavation and restoration of the palace. It didn't take as long as I thought to walk from the entrance to the palace, but it looked like it would take forever (especially in the blazing sun). The palace itself houses some informational panels about excavation and restoration, and also has a small throne area in the middle.

Altogether it was a very full weekend and I'm glad that we were able to see one of the several summer fireworks shows while we are here and that we had the opportunity to visit Nara, since we might not have been able to given its distance from where we live. The other places we have in mind for weekend trips are Kobe, which is in the opposite direction of Nara from us, and obviously Tokyo. I'm not sure if we have any upcoming plans to go to these places, but there will be blog posts when we do go!

(Check out all the photos from this weekend here, here, and here!)

Reach for the Sky Building (8/1/10)

Oops, I haven't updated my blog in a while. I've been keeping busy with lab trips, presentations, and other stuff for the two projects I've been working on for my MQP. Anyway, here's a summary of last week's events.


August 1st, 2010: For the first day of a new month, some of us took a trip to the Umeda Sky Building and some other places near the train station. It was a trip we had been planning on taking for a while, and we finally had a free weekend to visit.

Getting to the Sky Building was easier than we thought. We took the train to the station between Juso and Umeda, and we could see the Sky Building as we got off the train. From the station, we just walked towards the Sky Building until we got to it (which took about 15 minutes or less). At the base of the building there was a large event going on; tents and chairs were set-up, along with a small stage and some penguins (for real). There was a small pool with a penguin swimming around in it and another penguin standing on a small table surrounded by blocks of ice. The penguin on the table wasn't very happy to be there, judging by how it pecked anyone who pet it (its beak was taped so that it wouldn't bite anyone). We pet the penguin and continued on,wondering what the heck this event was. We soon learned that it was some sort of Michael Jackson event, which didn't help us understand why there were penguins, but they seemed to fit in for some reason.

To get to the top two floors and roof observation deck, we had to take escalators up to the 3rd floor, an elevator up to the 36th floor, and then a big escalator to the 39th floor. Access to the top floors costs ¥700 but it's totally worth it. The 39th and 40th floors have out-facing windows with a great view, and there's an even better view from the observation deck. There are pictures on the inner walls of other "sky" buildings, such as the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings in New York (classified as "Sky Musical"). On the roof there are signs for the cardinal directions and large fences for preventing falling customers. One segment of the roof is the Lumi Deck, were lovers can sit at night and be illuminated by the city lights. The surrounding fence is covered in heart locks that represent the promise of a loving couple. I'll definitely be going back someday, but not by myself. When we were done at the Sky Building, we took an underground path that led back to the Umeda train station. We passed the first First Kitchen we ate at and the Yodobashi department store on our way towards the station, which let us know that we weren't lost.

Our next two stops of the day were the Pokémon Center - Osaka in the Umeda Center Building plaza and the HEP Five department store. Of course, I was super excited to be going to a Pokémon store in Japan and we finally made it! Unfortunately, one of the stickers on the window said no cameras so I wasn't able to take any pictures of the cool stuff inside. Out front there was the "Pokéwalker Corner", where you connect your Pokéwalker with a staff member, scratch a scratch ticket, and get a small item for free. I got a small plastic folder with the Generation II Pokémon on it. There was also an automatic gifting machine inside that sent an item to your Pokéwalker when you connected with it. I'm not sure what the criteria for obtaining items is, but I got TM 34 (Shockwave). We looked around for a bit at all the cool stuff they had; there were t-shirts, plushies, cookware, game-related items, toys, and lots of other Pokémon goods. When we were finishing up looking at stuff, a timid Japanese teen who came up to me and connected her two Pokéwalkers with mine, and her Nidoking and Nidoqueen met up and play-battled with my Furret. I will definitely be returning to the store to purchase souvenirs for people (and myself) at some point before October.

Our last stop of the day was the HEP Five department store that we kept seeing and hearing about. It's hard to miss, what with having a large red ferris wheel on top. The building itself has 9 floors, with the first 6 being mostly clothing stores (and as a result, being filled with lots of young women). The 7th floor has some food stores and access to the ferris wheel, and the 8th and 9th floors are devoted to Joypolis, a SEGA-owned arcade and amusement area. Of course, we headed straight to the top to see the arcade which didn't disappoint. Not surprisingly, the likenesses of Sonic and his friends are posted everywhere, from change machines to height-requirement signs. There are several "rides" inside the amusement area which we didn't explore (they were ¥600 each for admission) but one was a hanging cab that moved into a room with a large movie screen to simulate an adventurous flight similar to those virtual roller coaster machines. Another ride involved riding in a car and shooting things around you, but I don't know if it was simulated via screens or was an actual ride like those in Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida. I got to play two games in the arcade: the arcade version of Rhythm Heaven and Mario Kart Arcade GP. Each game was ¥100 which isn't too bad; Rhythm Heaven allowed three games to be played and Mario Kart allowed one race.

After I played Mario Kart, we went down to the 7th floor and bought tickets for the ferris wheel. It costs ¥500 per person and each ride is about 15 minutes each. When we were there the ride was pretty empty, as were the lines to get to the ferris wheel. We were able to purchase tickets and instantly hop in a car. One of the cool things about the ferris wheel cars is that there is an iPod dock behind the seats on one side. Luckily, I had my iPod Touch on me and was able to put on some Sonic music from the Genesis era. There were also stickers on the windows on four sides to tell what sights could be seen from the ride. From where I was seated, I could see the Sky Building and the Namco arcade that we saw a few weeks ago but didn't end up visiting. We had actually planned to visit the Namco arcade while we were in the area, but after the ferris wheel ride everyone was ready to head back home. And once the ferris wheel ride was over, we did just that. Overall, the trip was a success and we learned that there are some cool places worth revisiting that are not too far from where we live.

(Check out all the photos from our trip to Umeda here!)

(Next time: Fireworks and a trip to the historic city of Nara! Coming soon!)

Going, Going, Gion! (7/16/10 & 7/17/10)

The Gion Matsuri is a month-long festival that takes place in Kyoto each year, and we were able to get a glimpse of it on Friday the 16th and Saturday the 17th. There were a lot of vendors selling a variety of foods and a lot of impressive floats in Saturday's parade. Of course, there were also a ton of people walking around, so it was very crowded.

July 16th, 2010: In order to spend a decent amount of time at the festival, we left the lab at the university much earlier than usual. When we got to Kyoto it was starting to rain, but luckily we all brought our umbrellas (the big 525 Yen one I bought at the university store really came in handy). Near the exit of the train station we could see a lot of people and one of the lantern-covered floats. We walked around a bit and came across a street that was lined with many types of vendors. They were selling things like candy apples, children's masks, and shaved ice and some of them were (obviously rigged) lotteries to win video games and systems. After taking a short break to decide what to do, we continued down the decorated streets towards another one of the floats. What we didn't know what that people were crowding the street to line up to look inside the float, and we were stuck in a mass of people for quite a while. It was quite uncomfortable and not the best start to the trip, and it made New York City during Christmas time seem like an empty parking lot.

We escaped the packed street and took a turn down one a street that was part of the Teramachi-dori shopping plaza. There were also crowds of people here, but they kept moving for the most part. This street consisted of many storefronts, most of which were selling fresh fish and other related foods. There were some general convenience stores and souvenir shops, too. This street stretched on for a bit, and intersected another wider one with different shops. There was a lot more variety on this street; there was a coffee shop, t-shirt store, clothing store, and even an arcade (that we didn't find until the next day). Some of us went to check out the crane-game arcades, but they didn't have any regular arcade games. The second floor of one of them had a few music games, but they were in a tiny, dimly-lit room.

At the end of our walk through the shopping area, we came out near a busy street and wanted to look for a place to have dinner. There were several places along the street and we ended up stopping in a place called Yayoiken. In this restaurant, you order your food from a vending machine: you put in your money, select a menu item, and the machine gives you a ticket. When you are seated, you give the ticket to the waitress/waiter and they bring out your food when it's ready. Everyone else got the steak meal that was advertised out front, and I ordered a plate with two hamburger patties, two small hot dogs, and a piece of fried chicken over onions and bean sprouts with a tasty sauce. All of the meals came with soup, a cabbage salad, and rice and everything was delicious.

After dinner we made our way back to the streets we traversed before and found a long, wide street with lots of vendors on it. All of the stands were lit up, and there were many duplicate stands (in case you missed the first one you saw). This street was pretty crowded, but not as bad as the ones earlier in the day. Some of us stopped to get snacks, and I got cotton candy and melon shaved ice on our walk down the street. The lantern floats that we saw before were now lit up, too. Since it was getting late, we made our way back to the train station and went home.

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July 17, 2010: We got up nice and early to catch the parade, and we managed to see some of the floats up close. There were lots of people crowded at the edge of the side walk but we managed to get close enough to take some nice pictures. Two types of floats were displayed at the parade: small ones with famous people on top and a bunch of dressed-up marchers around them, and huge floats with giant wheels and tall tops being pulled by many people. The people in the large floats rang bells and chanted, while the men on the front waved fans around and shouted when the float moved forward. It was an interesting sight and was pretty impressive to see the big floats being turned at street intersections (flattened bamboo is put under the big wheels and the many people tugging work together to make the float move).

The parade lasted for quite a while, but after taking a bunch of pictures we ended up back on the same street in the Teramachi shopping area that we visited the day before. It seemed a little more crowded than before, but the lines of people kept moving. We passed some places we didn't see before, like a KFC, and we had lunch at the First Kitchen. I got a cheese, bacon, egg burger again with cheese fries and melon soda this time. Initially it was only four of us who made the second trip to Kyoto, but we met up with another after some walking around in the same direction and not meeting each other. We ended up walking out of the shopping area and back in, passing the arcade that we were going to be looking for later.

When we were all met up, we found our way back to the arcade that we thought was just a pachinko parlor. There were actually two floors of arcade games above the pachinko area, mostly filled with fighting games like Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6. There was even a small cafe area that was obviously geared towards the anime-girl-loving Japanese gamer types. I didn't play any games, but Paul played against a Japanese player in the game BlazBlue and was completely demolished. Judging by what I've seen in Japanese players, I can agree that they are much better at video games than we in the US are.

We proceeded down a road that we visited on our first trip to Kyoto to a shrine were there was supposed to be an event at 4:00PM. There were not that many people initially so we were able to get a spot on the curb, but more and more people eventually started filling in. Once again, we encountered the UCSD students, who walked by and said hi. After a while we met up with Khoa and Ken, another WPI student who lives in Japan. Soon afterwards, there was an announcement from the nearby police saying that the event was delayed until 6:00PM. It was already almost 5:00PM at that time, so we decided to head back home. There were two processions of people that went up to the shrine while we were there, but we didn't get to see the main event. Fortunately, we did get to see the parade and had a good time overall.

(Check out all the pictures from the Gion Festival here!)

Aqua Ring of Life (7/11/10)

July 11th, 2010: On a rainy Sunday there's nothing better than going someplace that's indoor. Especially if that place is the Kaiyukan Aquarium in Osaka City. The aquarium hosts many creatures from around the Ring of Fire (or more accurately, the Ring of Life), from Japan, Antarctica, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Pacific Ocean in general. Although many types of fish and other aquatic life make up the majority of the exhibits at the aquarium, there are a few mammals that live there. Overall, there was a lot to see on the 6 floors of exhibits and I really enjoyed it (I stayed behind to take pictures and ended the day with close to 300 of them).

We took the train from Sakurai station as usual and got to the aquarium area around 2:30PM. The area around the aquarium has a food court, a sketchy arcade, and one of the world's largest ferris wheels. We had a late lunch at the food court before entering the aquarium, and I got a double bacon, egg, and cheese burger from First Kitchen (it tasted just as good as the one we went to a few weeks ago). When we finished eating, we walked over to the aquarium and bought our 2,000 Yen admission tickets at the ticket vending machine.

The intended path for visiting the aquarium starts on the 3rd floor. There is a "tunnel tank" with a few types of fish that arches over the path, and then there is an escalator that takes visitors up to the 8th floor of the building. From there, the path is almost a spiral ramp down the building and around the main center tank in the middle of the aquarium. Rather than write about walking around the aquarium, I'll post a couple photos and some captions of what we saw organized into the floors they were on.

3F:
The tunnel tank with creatures swimming around.
Some type of ray.
A large starfish with very long limbs.
A hammerhead shark perhaps?

8F:
Animals from Japanese forests, I assume.
Little sea otters. They were moving around too fast to get good pictures of them. It seemed like they were doing something specific, because they were running back and forth, from the cave to into the water.
There were a couple in a little group on some rocks.
Some type of fish in the forest area.

7F:
A fairly large bird. There were some ducks in the same area, but there was only one of these.
Another type of otter washing his face. He's green because of the lighting (I didn't find the light correction option on my camera until afterwards).
Huge arapaima. There were several of them in the tank, and they were literally twice the size of that little girl.
A capybara! There were two in this area, but both were just sort of hanging out.
This penguin was washing his back or something, but he was really close to the glass. There were a bunch more on the other side of the tank. There were also two newly hatched penguins across the way from this tank.
There were a lot of dolphins swimming around, including a baby with its parent. The workers there came out to feed them as I was walking by and the dolphins were doing tricks (see the two videos here and here).

6F:
This lobster was extremely creepy. I believe that thing in his mouth is another fish from the tank!
Lots of different kinds of fish. All their eyes are glowing because the flash went off for this picture.
The main attraction of the aquarium, the whale shark. There were a couple in the tank, and it seemed like a lot of fish liked to follow them around. The shark acts as the mascot for the aquarium, and the gift shop has a lot of different sized plush toys of it.
One of the rays swimming around. It is pretty big, and it has a passenger on it's back.

5F:
A curious sea lion. This one stopped to look at some of the visitors, and later it stopped when one of the aquarium workers got its attention. It proceeded to follow her around when she walked back and forth.
A Napoleonfish resting on the tank floor. It doesn't look to happy.
A school of small fish.
A large sea turtle. It seemed like it was looking at the visitors.
One ugly fish. I was just floating there, looking extremely unhappy.
An ocean sunfish. It's a pretty neat looking fish.
Giant spider crabs. Pretty creepy; I wouldn't want to run into one of these in a back alley.

4F (and on):
A bunch of tiny jellyfish. This is one of the photos that actually came out well.
A pretty sweet jellyfish. I think this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.
Another, different type of jellyfish.
It's hard to see, but this is a clione, or sea butterfly. They are really tiny but really pretty, like little ocean angels.
More jellyfish. I don't know if that's my silhouette in the back or someone else's behind me.
This jellyfish was stuck to the side of the glass, along with the others in the tank.
A group of jellyfish.
I'm not sure what this is, but it's possibly a type of crawfish.
Lots of clownfish swimming around.

And, no trip in Japan would be complete without a little bit of Engrish and delicious snacks:
I don't even know what it's trying to tell me.
Ice cream wrapped in kid's cone-type food with chocolate!

(Check out all of the aquarium pictures here and here!)

(Next time, we take our second trip to Kyoto for the Gion Festival: "Going, Going, Gion!")