Excitement! ...and some fun, too!

Those two always go together, don't they. :o

As exciting as campaign battle can be, fighting waves after waves after waves of enemies kind of looses it's edge after a while, especially if it's a crowded, mindless battle with not much else in view than the backs of the allies... or behinds of summons, like in this case. I guess I should be grateful it's not Titan, at least. >_>

A much more welcome sight is a dancing taru. (Well, for Pasifika, that is... your mileage may vary. ;P) No need for a dancer taru - nothing wrong with those, though - but all is needed that it's a cute taru that dances. Nothing like a dancing taru to lift weary spirits and boost morale! :D

To step up a notch in the excitement department, Pasifika joined her friends in Norg to help a galka save his friend... but the friend didn't need saving, after all, instead a hume was in trouble. By the time Pasifika found the foul monster and the heroic hume guy, it was too late. (Except for avenging, that is.. never too late for that...) So the adventurers killed the monster but were unable to save the hero. If only we had arrived sooner! D: Such a sad story, and the galkas were appropriately moved, although they tried to keep their cool. At least they got the keepsake weapon back.

Partying with close friends goes into the "fun" category more than "excitement", and ideally it can be the time for relaxing and having a good time. I'd still say someone is a bit too relaxed here. x)
But hey, here come's Pasifika's ninja! The great unstoppable whm/nin will be out ther in, err, another eternity or so. ^^;

Summer in full bloom

One day Pasifika was visited by the princess of mandragoras, and inspired by her visit, she's recieving tutoring in the fine art of blooming, from none other than the Tiny Lycopidiums.
...what else could this be about? ;P
Song is "Little Flower" sung by Mariko Fukui.

I love it when they do that <3

The great adventure in the land far, far east

You know, Japan is pretty much like Vana'diel. Well... it's possible the resemblance isn't quite as obvious to others as it is to a FFXI nerd like me, but you can judge by yourself while you take a look at selected highlights from my journey:

A beautiful garden (belonging to the Higashi Honganji temple) in Kyoto brought to mind dear old Windurst: beautiful greenery ond some houses and buildings scettered aroud the area, with winding paths leading trough the garden. They even have some of the huge, beautiful flowers that also grow behind the Rhinostery in Windurst Waters.

We didn't get a chance to check if they glow in the dark, because the garden is only open during daytime, but I kind of suspect they don't... only tarutarus create such interesting experiments... I hope. I guess I would've been a bit worried if these started glowing... although I wouldn't have missed the opportunity to snap some pictures!

Kimonos are something you're supposed to see in Japan, and we watched a kimono fashion show at the Textile Center in Kyoto. The outfits were really beautiful and demonstrated kimonos suitable for the summer. Hmm... what should Pasifika wear for this year's Sunbreeze Festival.. How about this one..? Oh, we could really use some more variation here! :O

In every moat, pond and stream in Japan there are carps, it seems. o_o They quickly gather around as
you step close to the water. It couldn't be that some tourists feed them, could it..? ;) They were actually quite creepy, because they're pretty big and they like to come up to the surface with their mouth wide open... o_o; How can they be so huge, aren't they supposed to be cute little decorative fishies? Maybe the moat carps eat intruders...
We just watched, but I bet it would've given a great boost to Fishing Skill to pull up all those moat carps, gold carps, goldfish and whatever they had. x)

In Kyoto, we celebrated the real-life Celestial Nights, aka tanabata. Well, we didn't actually do that much, but we visited a shrine that had the bamboo grass decorations and we saw the natives flock there to celebrate the event. I think the Vana'diel versions of the decorations are prettier, though, because none of the ones we saw in Kyoto sparkled. :o

Like we've all come to know and expect, some areas are under maintenance just at the most inconvenient times, and so we had to skip the visit to the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Maybe some other time, when they've fixed all the bugs...
The same day we also found out - the hard way - that the Nijo Castle is closed a couple of days per month. Luckily we had the chance to see it the following day, but they didn't allow taking screenshots, I mean photos, inside the castle. Meanies~!

In Tokyo we stayd at a NIN hostel. :o The theme idea was interesting and fun, but the place wasn't quite ready yet, and the worst part was that their kitchen is in the stinky (literally -_-;) basement. Lousy NIN... >_> We managed anyway, and used the hostel as a base for exploration . We had really good time in Tokyo, naturally.

The main goal in Tokyo was, of course, this... XDWe'd been adventuring all day before going there, so it was pretty dark when we finally reached the Tokyo Teleport Station. That didn't prevent me from attempting to take photos of everything, including the strange constrtuction that apparently is the local telepoint. Yes, of course I touched it, but... for some reason it's really hard to get a (Teleport-Tokyo) around here. :o
Oh well, someday in the unforeseeable future I'll take the airship there again...

Oh, oh, and we took the manaclipper, erm, the water bus to the island where the Teleport Station is located, and we came back to the mainland - if you can call the main island of Japan "mainland" - with a kind of roller coaster, which doesn't have a driver at all. And earlier on, we

Anniversary ring

Ha! Because of the title, you thought this would have something to do with experience point, didn't you! ;D

This has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with other kind of experiences, the really precious and memorable ones. It's time for THE anniversary. :D (Although the wedding day for Pasifika and Phucrabiont fell on 6.7. for most, in our time the ceremony started at midnight on 7.7.07, so that's the date for our wedding anniversary, btw.)

You know the drill... The following contains screenshots and a bit of video of a certain dreamy elvaan, along with Pasifika, arranged to sweet music. The song is titled "Yubiwa" (=ring).