Chasing After Rainbows

So, I wrote about 13 posts about preparing to go to Hokkaido starting all the way back in September 2014, up to December 2014. Taking about this and that and then? This blog went quiet. Did something happen? Well, unless you have been following me on Twitter (@takhsiru), which I was quite active at, it appeared that my blog has not been updated. Before you ask, I had gone to Hokkaido for the Snow Festival, starting with shortly after the Comic Market in Tokyo as I went around Kansai and Hiroshima before arriving in Sapporo. (In case you were wondering, I never went to any other city in Hokkaido except Otaru, which is not that far away.) Writing a journal like what I did back in around June 2013 as I head off to Europe had me realize that backlog gets accumulated so quickly from the days when I just don't feel like writing, or feeling so unproductive having nothing but an Android phone to get online with. I probably might not remember the minor details by now. I would worry t...

(Author's note 5 July 2015: This was a former Story 7 special that is now a new story on its own. The old title would remain unchanged until I could decide on a new name.) A quick glance of our world would tell you that the humans in our world are made up of nothing but schoolgirls and women holding white-collar jobs that are otherwise not any different from humans of your world. If you were to take a harder look, you would notice that something is wrong with our demographics: there are no men, no children, no infants, no elderly people, and no one ever gets angry at all. On closer look, you would notice that the only disabled people or people admitted to hospital had injuries that happened after the final stage of the evolution with nobody from before that. You may say that the men from your world would find us to be the most beautiful women, but to us, this beauty is a hindrance we can't do anything about from keeping us sane in this world without men. In fact, thinking t...

As the actual day comes closer, and with electronics ready, how would it be like under actual use? In this case, it would also mean how convent (or troublesome) it would be to bring all the cables and chargers with me. Looking through the things I have, which were either bought for earlier trips or not originally planned for it at time of purchase, I could make multiple use of some to save up on additional chargers and cables. The only new thing bought for this trip was a 32GB microSD card with full-sized SD adaptor for my camera (and the unrelated iPhone 6 Plus). If my camera and the laptop I plan to bring uses a full sized SD card, why did I buy the microSD version instead, you may ask? Simple: using it on a camera phone. I know I mentioned iPhone earlier, but it is for my Android phone that serves as a (second) backup camera. It served me well during my Bangkok and the Paris section of Europe trip. Even if I did not end up bringing that phone around, at least I could...

(I should rename this series since I'm not just heading to Hokkaido only.) I have mentioned earlier in this series that I have dropped the Hakone section due to accommodation and cost issues, but there are other places that I have considered that did not make it to the planning stage that Hakdate did. While I do want to visit other countries, nothing seems to come to mind. As for within Japan, I did thought of (from west to east) Himeji, Nagoya, Nara, Niigata, Fukushima, Sendai, and Aomori. However, I found this to be too much to plan around, or I just couldn't see any place of interest in there. In any case, it's kind of too late to change my current plans without incurring cancellation charges. Flights are the most costly ones to cancel or change as those are paid in full instead of as a deposit.

A laptop. Deciding to bring it is tricky because it adds weight to my travelling bag and being one additional valuable item to worry about, but yet there are things that I can't do with alternative choices. Here are my choices: Smartphone – Use it for all my internet needs, including using Wi-Fi. This is what I had done on my travels so far, and even used it to book a flight from Venice to London Gatwick. Screen is too small for things that are not optimised. Mobile data roaming overseas is expensive, and getting mobile data of that country is troublesome. Tablet PC – I don't have one and, depending on the operating system it runs on (Windows RT vs iOS / Android) and the hardware features it has, it's could as well just be a smartphone with a larger screen. It does likely to have something called USB On-The-Go (OTG), but I don't want to carry an extra cable or adaptor. Also, I can't do any quick and productive writing with on-screen keyboards. Hostel PCs – This...

As part of any planning, there would be changes to plans. Additions to it, and of course, removal of some. I mentioned on twitter and part 2 of this series that I would be adding places to visit between Tokyo and Hakodate. These are Osaka and Hiroshima, with side trips from these two cities. I know that I have visited Osaka before, but since I was based in Kyoto, an hour to get between Kyoto and Osaka, and with many places in Kyoto planned, it's difficult to add places in Osaka to visit that, in retrospect, there were more places in Osaka (and a viewing area in Kobe) that I did not visit, so being based in Osaka this time, and staying there longer, would give me more room. (The real reason for duration being to fill up most of the gap.) There may be a chance that I would visit Kyoto again, but only for the Fushimi Inari shrine and Ginkakuji. Both of which I had visited before on previous visit, but I did not "exit" properly for one because I found myself lost from go...

No one became aware of this as it happened until there was a large deviation when data was being gathered for the population census of the year after it happened, or people noticing the absence of the elderly, or an unusually high number of schoolgirls that replaced them. Indirectly, the number of deaths from age-related illnesses has dropped too. Of course, a lot of time may have passed for this to be noticeable. These transformed people had also been genetically modified to seem as if they actually the daughter of any random couple, as well as the memories of the people who knows either the new or old selves. This is technically still going on today, but the difference being everyone remembering who they were. The earliest knowns report of it happening was from my aunt, whom she claims that a man she saw on the train transforming in front of her , or suddenly having a sister she never had before living with her. It is difficult for me to use her words as an official eyewitness acco...