Taiwan - 7 Days of fun!

the landscape of Taiwan!~

Day 1:

After much planning and research, our 7 day free and easy holiday in Taiwan had finally came true! Really appreciated how cooling, or cold to be exact, the weather at Taiwan was since it was post-winter, in the Spring season just before Summer. It is that awesome feeling where you get to wear a jacket everywhere you go, even in the sun and yet not sweat at all. Compared to Singapore, the weather there over the full 7 days were just amazing. Touched down in the afternoon and checked in into our inn, which turns out better than we had expected since we had 4 people altogether and they decided to give us one small cosy room to ourselves (a lucky start!)

the view from our inn

in the night!

Evening soon dawned on us, for oversea trips, it is no doubt that the first and the last day will be cut short due to arrival time and stuff like that so we didn't plan much to explore on the first day, just chilling out over at the 台北地下街 and prepare ourselves for the exciting days over the week. The whole underground shopping street was so long that it stretched over 3 MRT stations, covering almost all the goods that you might want to find, including books, food, apparels, bags etc and even games and anime stuff could be found in the stretch of shops. Each of them were carefully categorised depending on which part of the shopping street you are at, and each group focuses on a general certain range of products. It is a convenient and rather accessible shopping street so spending a few hours there is definitely worth it.

streets of Taipei

台北地下街

Day 2:

After a good night's rest, it was time to head to our main location of the day, 北投, the home of hotsprings.

even their MRT station is special!

There was a fixed timing for a bathing slot in the hotsprings, possibly due to post maintenance or mild cleaning of the bathes. We planned to get ourselves in near the mid afternoon so we spent the rest of the morning over at the various museums around, such as the cultural museum and the hot spring museum.

We later headed over to this spot called the 地热谷, which was the source of the hot springs in the area. It was pretty amazing to see how much steam was actually generated by the heat of the hot spring water, even the drains in the area were giving out steam as they flow down the roads.

fuming drains along the streets

beautiful interior design of the museum

that steam O__O

On the first thought upon stepping into the hot spring waters (which was also my first time going into a hot spring), was that the water was EXTREMELY HOT. It just feels like you are bathing at home and you turn your home heater all the way to the other side, and that was practically what I felt when I entered the waters. It wasn't a good idea to just use your feet to test the water which some other guy did and got told off by the staff there, so we just headed to the lowest temperature of the 3 "pool" which was roughly 35-40 degrees and just went straight in, to the center, sit down, and let our own bodies get acclimatised to the heat. It wasn't that difficult and soon, as long as you don't keep moving your body around, the heat becomes bearable up to a point where you actually start to feel relaxed in the waters. We later started to alternate between the hot and cold baths before finally heading into the medium level hot spring which was already hot enough to deter us from testing out the final highest level hot spring. 

Headed to 新市街 and then to 士林夜市 to fill our stomach with all those famous foodstuffs such as 臭豆腐 and 炸鸡排. I would say that even though the smelly beancurd definitely holds a strong pungent smell, it does however taste rather nice together with its crispy outer skin mixed with a special sauce that makes it such a smelly yet tasty delicacy. There wasn't much of a difference of the crispy chicken over at Taiwan as compared to Singapore's (well except the price that is) but one thing that was really good was their fried mushrooms which although were a little too salty but nonetheless tasty to eat. 

smelly tofu!

Day 3:

Woke up extremely early for the 3rd day as we have a long way to travel by bus to 九分 (Jiufen), which was the location that was taken as a study material for the famous animated film "Spirited Away". Even the teahouse there was the one that Chihiro had worked at throughout the film. After walking along the old streets and hidden staircases that lead to even more areas, Jiufen is a place that spending half a day (like us) wasn't quite enough. We managed to find the teahouse rather quickly too and popped ourselves in, took a table with an outside view and chilled out while drinking the tea that was served there.

beautiful teahouse!~

the view from our seats

and of course, the tea itself :3

Other foodstuff over at Jiufen includes the yam balls and the peanut ice cream wrap:

The rest of the day was then dedicated to 五分铺 and 饶河夜市, which turns out to be an apparel shopping district (which we got most of our clothing supplies from) and another amazing night market with their wide variety of food. The Raohe night market was easily the best night market to me, with not just its easy-to-walk lanes but the feel and the food there just makes it more classic as compared to Shilin's where everything has been so modernized that it doesn't feel quite right to call it exactly a night market but a shopping district instead. 

one of the best deals for apparel shopping!

best night market woo~

very interesting desert, worth a try!

And of course, not forgetting the iconic Taipei 101. Was a little disappointed at how the building was lighted up, there might be a more "shinier" lighting early in the night so perhaps we were a little too late on arriving at the tower so it just looks like a normal office tower from the outside. It was still a majestic sight to see after all these time I've only seen this tower in the news on new year day shooting out fireworks from the sides :D

Taipei 101!

Day 4:

Yet another long bus ride all the way to Ruifang Train Station and the highlight of the day was the "One-Day Pingxi Line Tour". It is a stretch of old train stations where each station have their own things to see and things to do, moreover for these stations, the streets are just right beside the train tracks so walking across the tracks is a common thing to do. Pretty new experience and of course, there are some "must-see" or "must-do" stuff over at this stretch of train stations.

a special train that operates just within the Pingxi line

If I'm not wrong there is a total of 9 stations along the whole Pingxi line, and the 4 more prominent ones are Shifen, Pingxi, Qingtong and Houtong. For both Shifen and Pingxi, these 2 stations have shops that allow you to release Sky Lanterns of your own. You could choose between a normal 1 colour type sky lantern, or a multi-colour one, where each colour actually represents a certain meaning like wealth or education etc. Basically you just have to write down wishes on every side of the lantern (whether or not you decide to follow the meaning of the colours is up to one's own discretion), and then you get to stand in the middle of the tracks and watch as your sky lantern soar into the sky, carrying your wishes with it. With us having released ours in Shifen, I would personally prefer to do it there rather than at Pingxi since the longer stretch of streets beside the tracks in Shifen makes it a much better sight to see rather than in Pingxi.

up, up and away!

Honestly, this stretch of streets really did remind my of Jiufen and having only half a day to explore the line wasn't quite enough too. The ticket that you would get entitles you to a limitless ride along the line itself but the train arrival time is roughly fixed and the interval was about 1 hour. Which would mean that if you had miss a train just slightly, you would have to wait up to an hour before catching the next one. This would also mean that if you wish to visit multiple stations within a short time, basically you can only spend up to 45 minutes per station to make it in time for the next train. As a result, we didn't quite explore much at Pingxi station, only managed to grab some bites there before heading to the next station. Pingxi's old street was very similar to that of Jiufen and the foodstuff there are great too, just find those with queues and you'll find yourselves eating some amazing food that you've never seen elsewhere (well, it was true for us)

meat + veg + flour fried stick. pretty awesome

Our 3rd station that we headed to was Qingtong, had a stretch of foodstalls as well but this time we had a goal in mind and headed straight there, which was to hang up these bamboo wish notes along the train station itself. I mean why not double up after the sky lantern and do this as well? After all it was something new and definitely something that we can't do back in Singapore. So there we went, sat down, fumbled our heads for the wishes in mind, wrote them down and up on the fence they go! With that, we get ready to head to our last station: Houtong.

we're done!

Our last station, Houtong, is called the Cat Village, because apparently, the train station's vicinity are flooded with cats. It wasn't exactly flooded when we got there, but more specifically, there are indeed quite a number of cats over at that area. The view from the station was beautiful too, coupled with their high bridge that gives you a view from above. 

nyaaaaan~~

view from the top of a bridge!

What's a night in Taiwan without a night market?! And for that night, it wasn't just one, but two night markets that we were heading to, just that it turns out that one was less interesting than we had expected. Both the Gongguan yeshi and the Shida yeshi were quite close to each other, of walkable distance in fact, just that the Shida night market was a little too hidden for us, since we decided to take a shortcut instead of walking along the main road. Gongguan night market was a little disappointing in terms of its size, it was only 2 small stretch of roadside stalls, but it was mainly a food focused night market. Got to eat some awesome crepe too which was filling enough despite it's small serving size. Shida night market on the other hand was more apparel focused and boy, getting there wasn't as easy. We decided to take a shortcut into the night market but we soon find ourselves in the middle of dark streets and after figuring out our exact location, we decided to turn into a even dimmer lit street and after some time, we finally saw the lights coming from Shida. The night market was more specifically targeting the girls since most shops were selling girls clothing, (for most night markets this was the case, but for Shida it is exceptionally so). Didn't spend much time there and went back earlier, for once, and had a good long rest after those 2 hectic days. Into day 5 we go!

spicy chicken + veg filled crepe :3

Day 5:

This day was kind of considered as a recovery day for us, after waking up very early in the morning the past two days just to catch our bus to Jiufen and Pingxi. It was about time too, that we visited the Taiwan National Museum which was just opposite the inn that we were staying. A pity too that its exterior structure was under renovation but nonetheless the inside was beautiful. The interior building style did seem like our Singapore National Museum too, perhaps all national museums do have the similar interior design?

:O

Spent the rest of the morning at the museum before moving on to the famous shopping district: Ximending. 

The first thought that came into my mind when we reached Ximending was "eh? Bugis Junction?" It was THAT similar in terms of its shop placements. Most of the shops there were selling branded goods and stuff, for the main street that is, and after some hunting, we finally found the dessert shop that we wanted to go to.

easily the best snow ice I've eaten there!

It is called the 幸春三兄妹豆花, definitely a must-try if you are in that area! 

Headed out to the side streets of Ximending and that's where I found one of the few Animate shops in Taiwan. Turns out to be a whopping 2 storey shop too. It houses mangas, novels, CDs, singles, doujins and even merchandises of many variety. I would honestly say the shop itself has even more things to see compared to 2 AFA booths combined (inclusive of MUSE too). This was the place where I practically spent a bomb at (cmon, they were real cheap man :X) and with that bit of shopping done, we head on to the Longshan temple and Huaxijie night market.

Amazing building design both in terms of its exterior and interior. Even the walls and the ceiling were amazingly sculpted (I don't have photos on the inside of the temple so sorry about that :X). It was a pretty big temple too so we did spend a longer time here as compared to the other temples that we've went by.

night market once again!

Apparently there was another night market just beside Huaxijie, which was called the Monga Night Market and there, was where we spent the majority of our time, eating, drinking and playing those roadside stall games because apparently Huaxijie was just "empty". It just didn't feel much of a night market at all, but rather just a bland mix of stalls lining up beside each other in a 1st-floor-style Chinatown building that you'd see in Singapore. Nothing much to do there and we just walked through it once and off we go. Day 6 was arriving and boy am I excited :D

Day 6:

high speed rail!

Say hello to the Taiwan High Speed Rail! We had planned to go somewhere far, away from Taipei for one day and having decided to go to Tainan, taking the high speed rail would be the fastest way to travel and save on the journey time too. It was a 1hr 40+min train ride on the high speed rail, it wasn't a bullet train in particular but it did went to rather high speeds and seeing the landscape of Taiwan flash by, it was a neat experience overall. The seats in the train were a little too hard though, thankfully the ride wasn't that long since it wasn't exactly comfortable sitting in those seats. 

the max was 238km/h!

Tainan was mainly a place for tourist to visit historical sites, old buildings and even famous statues that we coincidentally spotted. We were most unfamiliar with the buses around at Tainan, google map did help of course, but the timing from point A to B were a little off (since I think google map did factor in the waiting time of the bus which was like 40mins) and coupled with our lack of sleep over the past night, we ended up sleeping through the entire bus ride around Tainan and wounded ourself back at the station. Thankfully the whole ride was less than an hour, so on we go again on the same bus and finally we reached out first destination, The Eternal Golden Castle. 

cannoooooooooons

Do note that all the historical sites / attractions in Tainan have similar looking admission ticket and fees so its cool to collect them all haha. The Eternal Golden Castle is an old fort back in the olden days being used to defend against invaders. Looks somewhat similar to Fort Canning too. The cannon replicas there are really huge though :P

this was hugeeee! O___O

En route to our next location, we chanced upon this huge statue of 林默娘. The view from the garden too was amazing. It is quite hard to miss out on this statue once you're heading towards Anping so do take a look if you're there. 

Our next destination was 天后宫, honestly all their temple designs in Taiwan are all so detailed. Especially the interiors as well, but same as the Longshan temple, I do not have photos of its interior.

the view from the top is awesome!

Next was the Anping Old Fort. Similar use as the Eternal Golden Castle where instead the previous had a moat around it as compared to the Anping Old Fort. Definitely a must-go-up to the viewing tower where even though it doesn't look that high, you can practically get a beautiful 360 degree view from up there! 

even the windows are all labelled!

Oh, you could spot part of the 林默娘 statue from up there too, that's just how huge the statue is!

luckily we went here when it's still bright :X

The Anping Tree House was last on our list for the historical sites. It wasn't exactly a kind of tree house that you see being perched on top of a tree but rather a house being swarmed over by trees and branches and with the top platforms making it more like a classic tree house that we have always thought it looks like. Pretty lot of low branches hanging around with signs cautioning about the danger of hitting your head too. Some areas are not as well lit as the rest and they do look a little spooky too, so it could be a daring experience if you decide to come here at night (not sure if they still open at that time, nor how well lit it is gonna be)

And finallyyyyyyyy we head to our final highlight of the whole trip itself:

sunset viewing platform!!!

Had been looking forward to this spot for very long and unfortunately, it was cloudy that evening, up to the point where we can't actually see the sunset at all. Well at least the horizon into the sea was epic enough, just that it was really a pity that I couldn't catch a proper sunset at all :/

into the seaaaa

Beautiful way to end the day with as we took our last high speed rail back to Taipei. Managed to get a cup of one of the best bubble tea I've drank in Taiwan so far too. It's near to the Tainan train station (not the high speed rail station)

you can already smell the aroma by just walking past!

Day 7:

On the last day, we quickly checked out of our inn after a loooong rest from returning from Tainan, went back to the Taipei underground shopping street to do some last minute shopping (it really is a good place to buy souvenirs / foodstuff etc, since the bus interchange to Taoyuan airport is just above). Spent the rest of the time waiting for the bus on the various arcades there. And I would have to say that Taiwan have a few amazing music arcade machines that we've not seen locally yet. Furthermore they are all loaded with vocaloid songs too! Their Taiko machine even had Senbonzakura in it @_@ 

~~~

And before we know it, we're already on the bus, on the plane, and then back to Singapore once again. Really appreciate you guys for tagging along with me on this trip and assisted in the planning one way or another, making those 7 days really memorable and fun at the same time. So Taiwan's completed, what's next? :P

Oh and here's some interesting things to note in Taiwan:

1. There are very very little dustbins in the streets of Taiwan, even so in the night markets. It was easier for us to find a 7-11 store than a dustbin. Well their 7-11 have dustbins too so yea, it'll be faster if you decide to head to a 7-11 instead.

2. Their 7-11 is just amazing. Lots of food stuff to get at a cheap price. If you spend more than a certain amount there, you can get a couple of stickers and redeem them for certain prizes!

3. Play their claw machine games. Compared to Singapore's, their claw machines are really damn easy in comparison. I did won a couple of soft toys over there so definitely worth a try!

~~~

till our next trip! :D

Back from Taiwan!

have just been back from a 7 days trip to Taiwan, lots of housekeeping to do coupled with roughly 6gb of photo data to go through... will be following up on the new season once everything has been put into place so yea, will start updating again as soon as possible :)

Noragami - The 5 Yen God

A series with beautiful animations, would be something I would use to describe this series. It had its shine in some episodes but nearer to the end, everything became so rushed, many characters being added in before being properly developed and turns out to be a rather disastrous end for the short 12 episode series that had once been one of the more highly anticipated series this season.

I wouldn't exactly say that the series was horrible, it was just that they had too much content to try and squeeze into a 12 episode series which in the end felt so rushed that before you could actually make sense of what some of the characters are thinking or what their motives were, the series had already ended before you know it. It honestly had a good start, bringing both Yato and Hiyori in an accidental meeting which leads her to develop her half ayakashi form which serves as the plot starter for the whole series itself. The downside to that was Yato didn't actually begin to tackle her problem soon after that, making Hiyori a kind of an "extra" character rather than a female protagonist. One of the reasons for delaying Hiyori's development was perhaps due to them wanting to slot it for the final few episodes which they eventually did, but having tackle her problem only in the last 2 episodes?! And also introducing a whole new character at that time too?! Now that's just rushed. It could've worked out better if the series was stretched longer, like say a 24/25/26 episode series so that we can have more insights on like Bishamon, Kofuku or even Rabou, the flaw of the series really lies on their huge character pool but yet very little developments on each of them.

Lets take Kofuku for example. She sure was an impactful character from when she appeared as Yato's supposedly girlfriend back in episode 4. And as we said, there weren't much development of these side characters, but at least for Kofuku, she did showed her face here and there in the later few episodes and did play a large role in the purification of Yukine in episode 9. As a god of poverty, it was sure hilarious seeing how she did spread her omen on people around her, which was possibly why we do see Yato being so poor as he is right now. But boy did she get serious when she threatened Bishamon on details of Yato so with that, she's quite a significant side character in some sense but cmon, I do want to know her past with Yato :X

And next with we have Bishamon and her 8 shinki-s. As a war god, she is introduced as someone who is after Yato's life, who apparently had cut down one of her shinki in the past or that was what was being suggested. But suggested as it were, the exact details were never revealed and Bishamon slowly faded out into just someone who clears the Ayakashi in the town with not much of an important plot driver to the whole story itself. It feels more like a filler character to bring out the "past" of Yato being an "evil" god, but other than that, nothing much else was developed for her and was forgotten and tossed aside.

And of course, we have our 3 main protagonist. Let's talk about Yukine first. Sure enough I looked as him as a kid, deprived of what normal kid has, which in his case, was friends and families but to me, it was more like he was deprived of this thing called "living". He has passed away when he was a child before being spotted by Yato and made him into his shinki and never gave him up even after all the stings that he had caused Yato to suffer. For all shinki, apparently when they think about something bad or take actions that are considered to be bad by society such as stealing or what not, it stings the owner of the shinki, or a kind of "impurity" is spread over the owner's body like a virus or some sort. For Yukine, as a child, he sure did prioritise curiosity over his morals after seeing how he stole a skateboard because he could do it and not be seen and also a kind of "lust" over Hiyori when she invited him to sleep on the same bed with her. I didn't actually like Yukine's character from the start, seeing how obnoxious he was but I started to sympathise his situation after the school episode, where it was there that Yukine finally broke down, for the better I would say. It was the turning point for him, when he got all his feelings out and finally learn to accept himself after the purification was done. It was that moment, that Yukine realised how empty he was, as someone who was dead, without friends or families but what he had not seen, was Yukine and Yato who were always with him but he somehow missed these 2 "friends" in his world. I would say that the Yukine arc was one of the best in the whole series, even though the "realisation" part for him was a little cliché but the build up and conclusion was just nice for that arc.

What I feel was lacking for Yato as a main protagonist, was more character development for him. All we know is that in the past, he is a scary god of calamity, he performs odd jobs for 5 yen and with his shinki, he slays Ayakashis. Ok... so what special moves does he have? Nothing in particular, just basic katana-wielding skills and a repeated "final" attack scene that just keep getting repeated and repeated over and over again, with the same lines, same bgm, same animation. I mean come on, this isn't a Gundam Seed era... Leaving that aside, what I do want to know, is more on Yato's past. The series did show many flashbacks on his past (and repeated ones too...) but never did once talk about them. What exactly is he doing in the past? Why did he start slaying people and shinkis? Did he actually kill off one of Bishamon's shinki? What was his past with Kofuku like? What was his experience with Nora? Till the end of the series, none of these were answered. Yeah. Just tossing questions here and there but not answering any one of them even until the very end. I did admire however, his realisation of how important Hiyori was to him, with him grabbing Hiyori's hands when she turns to leave after she loses her memories of him was just bittersweet. It wasn't actually romance but she did mean a lot to him after all her help all these while, even when he collapsed during Yukine's incident. And all these leads up to our jersey 5 yen god who in the end, still has his past in mystery. Oh and I do admit that seeing a serious Yato in the last episode was pretty darn cool. Even Yukine could feel the difference :D

Hiyori on the other hand, felt the least as a main protagonist, at least in the first few episodes, until the end, where she became the plot driver after losing her memories of Yato and the rest. Sure it did interest me quite a bit after she developed her half-ayakashi form with her encounter with Yato, and in the 9th episode where it was suggested to Yato that he should cut her ties with her, I somehow already had the feeling that "hey, Yato's definitely not going to do that, and even if he did, she wouldn't allow it". Which was what exactly happened in the last episode. What I find to be disappointing was yet another "deus ex machina" that was run in the series that was somewhat similar to Kyoukai no Kanata. Hiyori basically had her memories destroyed, turning her into an empty vessel just like the pilots in Valvrave become when they lose all their runes, and I was thinking that that was it, Hiyori's gone but as a mc, she's not gonna die. Rather than dying, she awakes and regains all her memories just because she sub-consciously recognised Yato's smell which she has taken interest in. No explanations given, just a sniff and she returns to normal and breaks Nora's spell too. Wow? So much for a half-ayakashi who in the end, still retains that form (which was expected), and the trio continues their life without any specific closure.

That was kinda expected since the series is still ongoing in terms of its manga, but if the ending was going to be so rushed, I would love it if they could extend the last Hiyori arc to more episodes, because just 2 episodes on that is simply too short! Same goes for the existence of Rabou. We only know that he is a former ally of Yato and he just appears, couples up with Nora and aims to kill Yato? To me, that's how a typical shounen series works and I dislike them, a lot. The series had a very very predictable end too, which was easy enough for anyone to guess it. The moment you see Hiyori at the final battlefield and with Rabou wanting to see a "true" Yato. It is definitely going to be something to do with Hiyori to bring the "true" Yato out but in the end he will still retain his own sense due to Hiyori again. Which was EXACTLY what had happened in the last episode. In there, Hiyori feels like she was "placed" there as a stimulus for Yato to awaken, rather than an accidental leap by her to end up with Yato and Yukine when they duo left.

What I do find not series breaking even as how rushed it was, was the absence of romance factor in the series. Which is definitely, a 100% good thing. This series should never, never have romance mixed into it, considering already how many genres it has taken up and including that in will just ruin the show completely. Sure they did hint a little and almost broke the line when Hiyori reawakened with Yato beneath the rock, but boy am I glad that there wasn't actually a kiss or anything (it almost seemed to have one) and the trio still remain as best friends, rather than any two becoming a couple. It is still alright if there are hints here and there if there were romantic feelings but thank goodness none of that came true...

  
Overall, the series wasn't as bad as it turns out to be, the first few episodes were great, absolutely loved the Yukine arc and its closure, and was just disappointing in how the end had become. The final closure scene where Hiyori declines to have her ties cut was just nice, and of course, seeing how Yato is chirpy once again after receiving that 5 yen from Hiyori once again just makes it a happy ending. The series really had its potential to develop into a longer series (have not touched the manga yet so I'm not too sure how the plot had went) and being 12 episodes was really too short. I guess the only disappointments was how rushed the ending was, their lack of proper character developments and of course the irritable repeated usage of animation scenes. =.= Other than that, the plot is pretty decent, not so much to hope for a second season, but I definitely am looking forward to their OVAs. :)

Those "what if" memories

Seeing Shichimiya's feelings slowly overwhelming her was just painful to watch, even from the sidelines. And I do think that after all these while, the "love triangle" has finally been formed but however in a different way since by the pace of the series progress, there will almost be no chance for a "let's have a fair fight" or anything similar to that since the 2nd season was already set up for Yuuta and Rikka to be together as a couple.

Back when Shichimiya was introduced, it was kinda surprising to see how her character interacted with the rest of the group. It wasn't like she came back filled with feelings for Yuuta but instead, she was trying her very best to remain just a friend to Yuuta and not interrupt the relationship between Rikka and Yuuta. I was almost quite certain this new character addition would trigger some sort of romantic conflict between the 3 but I guess I was only half correct and for the latter, we didn't quite actually see a conflict but a depressing realisation of her own feelings right as the series is coming to a close. ( Only 2 episodes to go! :( )

Honestly, it was both painful and depressing to watch as Shichimiya came to regret her own actions of not confessing to Yuuta back when she actually had feelings for him, until one day she decided to shut it out and follow her Chuunibyou ways. It was that action, however, that made her regret her decision after seeing how Rikka and Yuuta can still become a couple even with the chuunibyou syndrome still remaining for the both of them (well, perhaps not for Yuuta). To Shichimiya, she believes that it would be difficult for both her and Yuuta to become a couple with the duo still having their chuunibyou in the past but now when she sees that it was possible, all her past feelings of regret started to overwhelm her, and that, knowing all along that she will defintiely be on a losing end and yet she just had to have those feelings coming back to her at this moment when Yuuta's only got eyes for Rikka now.

Everything was pretty normal, slowly seeing Rikka and Yuuta developing their relationship, until the 4th last episode where they decided to drop a "depression" bomb, showing all the regrets of Shichimiya where she imagined a different outcome if she had taken Yuuta's hand in the past. So far for all the series that I've seen, childhood friends seem to have a role to play in the romance stage of these male protagonist, just that things just wasn't planned to work well for Shichimiya, it was just a pity that she'd missed her own chance and seeing how her "supposed happiness" was taken away from her and there wasn't anything much she could do about it (furthermore with Yuuta amplifying all that "damage" on Shichimiya), it just shows how one person can regret so much in the future, after looking back and thinking that "hey, perhaps the outcome would've been different if I had chose a different course of action". For normal situations, it would have been just bad, but for her which is a romance case, it turns out to be twice as bad. 2 more episodes to go, and we'll just have to see how things work out in the end...

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Depressing as how Chuunibyou has been, things haven exactly went well in Noragami as well, especially after all those trouble of finally saving Yukine and having both Yato and him patched up at the end. Sure it was suggested that Yato should sever his ties with Hiyori if he was attempting to help her and stop letting her transform into a half ayakashi. But in Yato's eyes, Hiyori was more than just a friend, I don't actually see the "romance" theme developing between Yato and Hiyori but seeing how desperate Hiyori was in trying to save him and Yukine and all those things that she has tried to help even though she was a human and they were not, Yato regards her just much more than a friend and can't bear to sever her ties with him.

And turns out that the "ties" was indeed severed, just not by Yato's own hands but by Nora instead. We did see a desperate attempt for Yato to try and bring back her memories of him, but later when he realises it was for the greater good, for Hiyori since it would mean that she would most likely not transform into a half-ayakashi any longer and would have her own problems solved. But Yukine wasn't about to give up, until Nora removed another piece of memory from Hiyori, making the point of "saving her" come into play and the duo head to face Nora and the god of calamity.

What just confuses me is what exactly is Nora's goals? What we do know is that she was a shinki that Yato had previously used before and she was one who has multiple owners, making her existence rather "unwanted", so now as Yato has Yukine, what does she actually want from Yato? Does she want his death for abandoning her and choosing Yukine who she thinks is much more inferior compared to her? It was rather straightforward for her to target Hiyori since she was so important to both Yato and Yukine but I just can't exactly pinpoint her purpose. Not many episodes are left for Noragami, and it just feels like the characters just weren't developed enough. Sure Hiyori had turned into a half ayakashi due to her attempt to save Yato, but that focus was quickly shifted away to Yukine after that, and it took them rather long before returning to the main issue, where by the time the plot caught up with her, more characters are introduced and even their backgrounds are totally revealed. Like Bishamon and Yato's past. Sure enough this series was pretty good, but it does lack a little on their plot development. The characters just didn't have much of that impact and the plot too is varying too much in their humour and serious counterparts.

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And here we have another song under Project Diva again which was featured too in Magical Mirai 2013:

While we wait for the new season...

really apologise for not updating this as frequently as it should be, mainly due to 2 reasons: where 1: having dropped almost 90% of the series this season, there isn't quite much to talk about until the new season arrives, and 2: I have been busy planning out an overseas trip so yea, didn't actually found time to sit down and slowly type out an entry.

leaving those aside, here are some of the event updates that will be happening in Singapore this year and for some, fairly soon:

Spring Doujima 2014 - 27 April 2014

Basically a doujin market will be held at *SCAPE, facebook page can be accessed here

It is not a cosplay event, but as they say on their page, it is however cosplay-friendly. Am still unsure if I'm heading for this one, but for now, I guess I am, considering that both C.D.S. and Daiyaku are there, so yeah... 

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Cosfest XIII Trilogy

Apparently, this time round, Cosfest is not going to have another 2 parts event but rather 3 for this year:

Cosfest XIII Trilogy I
Cosfest Comics Black Market
Date: 15 June 2014
Venue: The Resorts World Convention Centre

Cosfest XIII Trilogy II
Cosfest XIII - The Final Fantasy
Date: 5 & 6 July 2014
Venue: Downtown East Cosfest XIII

Trilogy III Cosfest Christmas
Date: To be announced
Venue: To be announced

Not so sure about the one at RW Convention Centre... but am definitely going for the one at Downtown East, I mean hey, that's an annual event... Will be starting school this year too, so I am crossing my fingers that the dates don't clash with any important school events :X

Will most likely pass on the christmas one which I guess am similar to last year's at Funan, where its mainly just activities planned for cosplayers. Didn't actually went there last year, but the feel there just by looking at the photos, didn't quite feel as "good" as it was at Downtown East.

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Went down to Marina Bay area for the "Light Festival" last weekend, and here's the event details:

i Light Marina Bay 2014 - 7th to 30th March
Time: 7.30pm - 11pm
Location: Marina Bay Waterfront

There are a total of 28 light installations, didn't manage to catch all of them as it was already quite late and there were so many people there, making it quite difficult for me to get a perfect shot. Did however capture long exposure shots of the area as well as some of the installations, so here they go:

some of them did have the weird white spots around the lightings, am viewing them fine on my pc, so i am guessing that is picasa's compression of the images :(

other than the installations, it was actually pretty neat using the same settings for the skyline and boy they looked great:

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and another rather awesome and dark song that I heard from Magical Mirai 2013

Tokyo Teddy Bear

Shocking progress

After the latest episode of Tokyo Ravens, I am surprised, shocked, and sad to see one of the main characters biting the dust.

Well for some series there is always the possibility of a deus ex machina occurring when a main protagonist dies and for some which don't, namely Shin Sekai Yori and Valvrave, the story becomes more "real" in the aspect and of course, the audience will start to feel similar feelings as in the series itself, after all we have been looking at this character for like 20 episodes since it began to air.

And the person in question was Tsuchimikado Natsume. I didn't actually catch the death flags of her right at the start of the episode... There were flashbacks but the thought of her dying in the series totally did not occur to me at all. In the first place, the series was moving at a pace where it didn't quite seem possible for any of the main protagonist to die, furthermore with their light-hearted atmosphere, until now. After all those moments where Natsume wanted to reveal the truth about Hokuto and Harutora deciding to stop chasing the matter after his monologue midway in the series, the final chance was given for the revelation, but not only did she fail to tell him the truth but also loses her life to protect Harutora. Well at least she did manage to confess her love for Harutora right at the end, but seeing how she was "acquainted" with Hokuto once again with Harutora screaming out to her in the background, it was really painful to see how she had shared the same fate as Hokuto and wasn't able to hear Harutora's answer for her confession. 

There is always a possibility of the series having an anime original ending, because if they did follow the novel plot (which I spoiled myself after watching this episode), then this series will definitely leave a long lasting memory of one that had such a plot twist. 4/5 more episodes to go so we'll see how it goes, and while in the meantime... those feels T__T

shall see how the novel actually describes this portion of the plot... so it's time to head down to kino again soon! :X

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Saw this trailer of Hitsugi no Chaika,

seems interesting, didn't include that in the previous entry so I guess I'm gonna follow this too. From BONES as well, which of course gave the deja vu on darker than black. THAT sniper rifle @_@

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And.... finally got my first gaming mouse from the recent IT show :D budget type so I shall see how long this will last. since it's gonna be used for dota so I'm guessing it won't be long haha