Chasing After Rainbows

What trip would be complete without a camera to have a record of what you have seen? Especially more so if it is of somewhere where it isn't easy for you to get to enough to have the next time of being there being hard or impossible? Well, you don't need those expensive cameras, as well as expensive lenses and equipment to go with it, to get a good picture. A normal point an shoot camera will do. I don't recommend ones built into a mobile phone: it lacks a lot of features (though smartphones like iPhones has things like point focus and exposure), memory is shared with everything on your phone (less space for your photos and messy to organise), reduced battery life due to non-camerea related use (not good if you want to take pictures all day), analog zoom, the awkwardness of holding it. More importantly, how long does it take between activating the camera and being able to take a picture? And for phones with touch screen, are you able to take a picture without looking out ...

Since the previous post, I have more or less decided to enter Hokkaido by plane to New Chitose Airport. Shinkansen (Aomori is the furthest north it goes currently) would still be an option should there be an aviation or timing related issues. Initially, I was thinking of making a day trip to Hakodatte from Sapporo, but the travel time of 3 to 4 hours made me reconsider to maybe staying there for some days instead. Double that to make my way back. What can I see if most of the day was spent on travelling alone? Adding to that, it is winter, and quite far north (though London is the furthest north latitude-wise I've been), which means less sunlight. Timing-wise, I'm not sure of the exact dates yet as this is largely determined by flight and accommodation availability (and prices). I want to visit the Winter Festival in Odori park in Sapporo, but that is in February. Not sure when this trip would be, but it won't be any earlier than December. This also largely depends if...

It has been more than a year since my last trip to Europe, which made up of the Paris, Venice, and London. (Read my entries that I had written on this blog as I was travelling then, though I neglected to write the London portion of it there) While planning for that, there were considerations to visit Iceland, Berlin, Rome, Vatican City, and Zurich, but time and financial constrains limited this. Total trip was about a month. How is this related to this next trip I'm planning? Preparation, packing, and an unfamiliar environment that pictures and words can't make you fully prepared for it. My packing was so efficient, having experience from earlier travels (Hong Kong and Bangkok), the accommodation host was surprised that I only had two regular-sized backpacks instead of those large luggage bags with wheels commonly associated with a travelling tourists. My plan at the moment is to visit Hokkaido, with nothing booked yet, but where exactly should I go? At the moment, I'm...

The electrical appliances seem a bit more recent than the others: the TV displays were still of those bulky square-ish screens that were common until the past 10 years. Only a small number of them used the more recent widescreen flat screen TVs, which I assume were replacements of broken screens. The computers were provided by the prefectural government, so those are the only recent ones as they are standard issue across all schools in the prefecture. The location of vending machines may seem odd, but since the school is known for vandalism and violence by the male students, they are strategically placed at locations where there is a recording security camera nearby like the main entrance of the building, or where several staff working nearby could see and hear people using it, like at the cafeteria and outside the teacher's room. The school board has warned on removing most of vending machines when there are any damages to them that would render it inoperable or theft to the con...

After what seemed like an eternity for an oddly short walk from the park, we arrived at Yosaka Middle and High School. I was not expecting both the middle and high school education levels together, which is quite rare in this country. Well, those large academies in this region do have those two in the same campus, but those two are treated separate and are not counted. Immediately as soon as I could see the front courtyard of the school, I could already see how much I appreciate that I am not sent to this school. The state of the school building and the greenery alone has seen better days with those looking no different from an abandoned place with noticeable damages to some facilities. Well, I am not saying the school is really in that bad state, but certainly not as maintained as the schools I have been to. There were students still in the school. Some of them stared in our direction, not because of me, but how glaringly obvious Saeko's Mizuho uniform sticks out. A uniform of...

I knew Kotomi had been to this Kaisei Middle School I'm at now, I realised what I knew about it is no different from any other random school I have been to, apart from the layout of each school always being different. Unfortunate for me, I had spent too much time waiting outside the teacher's room when I realized that the transfer students are now briefed in a totally different room. In this new world where transfer students are frequent, schools have created a room dedicated just for them. It is unclear to me if there could be more than one transfer student in a day at any school. I don't know where this room is, but a teacher and a student did walk past me when everyone else have disappeared from the corridors. I guess I have to follow them if I want to have a chance at finding someone today. These two made their way to a first year classroom. I would have left here if I knew the name of the transfer student and how she looked like, but I don't. They don't see...

Now that I have Ako Matsumi from Yuribashi Middle School to join me for the experiment, I need another person to better understand the effects that may happen is unique or to everyone. This would have been a lot easier if I could use people that I know well, but that was messed up the last time I was there years ago when something that happened to them there that didn't happen here. They added that they recommended people born post-evolution as they do not have a known pre-evolution gender, and to see how they would react in a world of dual genders. Now, who should I pick next? It's hard for me to pick a random person without knowing about their character, and that distracting beauty everyone has on top of that. Where should I begin? Well, first of all, How do we know if someone had just been born? No one saw them being given birth, but the population is still steadily increasing despite scientists having no idea how we give birth with our evolved bodies, the person in ques...