wyred dot nu

My spectacles slid and fell off the table, I felt I had enough time to break the fall but somehow my feet didn’t move. The result was a crack in the left lens. It cracks easily because I had chosen glass lens for cleaner vision compared to plastic ones.

So I brought it back to the shop where I got it made and it costs SG$80 (57USD) to replace it.

Then next thing that happened, I was playing “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” on my NDS on the way home from work. Then suddenly the touchscreen just stopped working. It could detect that the screen was being tapped on but it couldn’t detect the exact position of the tapping.

I don’t mind buying the new NDS lite (which currently costs SGD$230) but I hate the idea of having a spare NDS lying around being a paperweight. I’ve checked with a game shop in my area. It would cost less than SGD$90 to fix it but it will take as long as 1 month. Time isn’t a problem as I can just play on my PSP. Or even better, if I manage to sell it away, I’ll get an NDS lite right away.

Oh well… I’ve put up an ad on one of the local gaming forums. Let’s see how it goes…

By the way, “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” is fun, challenging puzzles and nice BGM.

Now I’m crazy over this singer, especially this song. If I’m not wrong, Rurutia wrote and composed the music for this song by herself. Which is something I like about music artists.

Selenite

Lyrics

Romaji

Aa, yurameku tomoshibi, gareki no machi ni
Narihibiku toumei na shirabe wa negai wo tatae

Ima, yake ochita sora wa mizu no soko e to shizunde yuku
Michite yuku tsuki akari

Aoku moeru yoru ga kimi wo someru, hakanai hodo
Hosoi kata wo kitsuku daite itemo
Kimi wa kiete shimaisou de

Aa, musuu no hoshitsubu, uchuu no hate de
Mitsuketa yo, hajimete no deai wa memai sae oboe

Ima, furisosogu kin to gin no hikari no nami ni nomare
Futari seinaru kawa e

Amaku oshiyosete wa boku no mune wo furuwaseru yo
Zutto kono mama zutto daite itai
Kimi ga kiete shimawanai you ni

Ima, furisosogu kin to gin no hikari no nami ni nomare
Futari seinaru kawa e

Aoku moeru yoru ga kimi wo someru, hakanai hodo
Hosoi kata wo kitsuku daite itemo
Kimi wa kiete shimaisou de

Amaku oshiyosete wa boku no mune wo furuwaseru yo
Zutto kono mama zutto daite itai
Kimi ga kiete shimawanai you ni

English

Ah, a light flickers in the ruined city
And an invisible tune, full of wishes, echoes around

Now, the burned-down sky sinks to the bottom of the water
And is filled with moonlight

Dyed in the blue burning night
Your shoulders are so slender they’re almost not there
I hang on tight to them but still you fade away

Ah, at the end of the universe I found countless little stars
When we met, I learned what dizziness felt like

Now, swallowed up in endless waves of gold and silver
We move towards the sacred river

My heart begins to tremble as you pull me close so sweetly
Forever, always and forever, I want to hold you
So that you won’t disappear

Now, swallowed up in endless waves of gold and silver
We move towards the sacred river

Dyed in the blue burning night
Your shoulders are so slender they’re almost not there
I hang on tight to them but still you fade away

My heart begins to tremble as you pull me close so sweetly
Forever, always and forever, I want to hold you
So that you won’t disappear

Source of lyrics

After playing PLD for a while, I’ve decided to move on and try other things. I’ve finally tried a bit of shadow tanking on Suzaku and Seiryu and I guess it went well.

Of course it went well. Because most of the time, the hate went to the other 2 tanks, lol. I was too anxious I didn’t hit my equip switch macros. My attention was totally focused on timing my utsusemi casting and curing myself. >_<

Then to make kiting easier, I’ve also decided to go for the crimson cuisses that give +12% movement speed. After like 4 or 5 kirins, it finally dropped for me.

Ignore the Osode, I was just temporarily holding onto it.

At first, I passed on these so others could make better use of it. It doesn’t
matter if I get it or not because no matter who gets it, the LS grows stronger.

And just for trivia, this cursed cuisses -1 was entirely funded from about a month or two of selling Fish Mithkabobs! Haha!

Z took a day off from work to join me today, so I planned to visit Nikko(日光) which is closer to Z’s hometown compared to places in Tokyo.

Using my JR Rail pass, I rode on the shinkansen again but this time, towards north to Utsunomiya(宇都宮). We’ve agreed to meet there, at the Nikko line’s platform. Sharing the train cabin with us, were a group of Singaporeans, all of them women in their early 40s. I could tell from their Singaporean accent and them speaking in a mix of English and Hokkein.

I can’t remember but it took about an hour’s ride to Nikko. After getting off, we walked towards the Nikko National park, stopping halfway at a family restaurant for lunch, then continued again to our first destination, the Shinkyo bridge (神橋).

Again, it wasn’t what I expected, haha. Damn travel guides make places look so good but when you get there, it’s totally different.

I expected a quiet place, but it turned out to be busy with tourists.

To “walk” on the bridge, you have to pay. I found this rather stupid so I didn’t pay to enter. Just looking at it from another bridge next to it is satisfying enough.

From here, we took a bus uphill. The road up was featured in Initial D I think. It was called “Japan Romantic Road”. A lot of turns and very steep. I could feel the “cotton” building up in my eardrums as we ascended.

We went to see Kegon Taki (華厳滝), Kegon waterfall. I think this is the first time in my entire life to see and hear and actual waterfall. We walked around some of the shops here. I wanted to try out some Dango but was a little too late. They just sold out. :/

I grabbed this medallion from one machine and had it engraved on another machine just next to it.

Then we took the bus back to the Nikko station where Z and I parted ways. It is the last time we could see each other.

I made my way back to Tokyo, and since I had time, I went to Akihabara again for the third time. Shopped for anime goods again and had dinner at a French restaurant.

Then I decided to try accessing the 3G network here on my phone and managed to chat with a friend for a while. I checked my emails to find a mail sent to me from another Japanese friend whom I’ve also known through FFXI. It was good timing because she gave me some advice travelling in Kyoto, which I was going to visit the very next day.

We also made plans to meet for dinner on the following Friday.

#1 Karas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVH83taZ4s0

#2 Evangelion 1.0 – You are (not) alone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btkl5lQSRyU

The other night after I finished watching Karas, I couldn’t sleep because it’s too awesome.

ヽ(´ー｀)ノ

Breakfast at McDonald’s! Haha

I had planned to visit Fuji Mountain today. But because my colleague, who had just went to Japan about half a year before me for his honeymoon, told me that I must visit Hakone if I like quiet and serene places, and that Hakone was just south-east of Fuji mountain. Thus, I went there instead.

Using my JR pass, I had access to some of the shinkansen lines and I took one down to Odawara, which if I remember correctly, is a 50 minute journey from Tokyo.

From there, I took another train up north to Gora. Here, I bought a ticket that brings me around some of the places in Hakone.

I didn’t expect a lot of tourists to visit Hakone. How wrong I was. :(

First part of the journey is taking a cable car. It was a long wait. Then the ropeway, which is just another cable car ride through the hills. I enjoyed this part the most because I got to sit down. My feet was still aching from previous days.

大文字(Daimonji)

As my cable car passed through this area, there was a brief weird smell which I assume, is the smell of sulfur.

Fuji Mountain!

The cable car ride ends at Togendai. Here, I bought a hot chocolate drink and some “mochi” for my friends and myself. There were good. Very good. (*´д｀*)

The final part of the sightseeing in Hakone involves taking this fancy ferry across Lake Ashi.

Pirate ship!

When the ride ended Hakone-machi, it was almost time for sunset again. While waiting, I had some nice hot takopachi.

Fuji Mountain… again!

After that, I took a bus ride down back to Gora while having a short nap. From there, the way back is the same as the way I came here.

Back in Asakusa, I went to this small conveyor-belt sushi restaurant for dinner. Had like 10 plates of sushi. I remember the bill was around 1500yen.

Finally reached 60 on WHM, just to wear the AF. I’ve liked the red/white color scheme and it’s patterns ever since I first saw it during my 8bit FF days. Going to take SCH to 40 or maybe 60 before I decide if I want to take WHM to 75. Might get SMN to 37/40 too, just for SJ.

Next day, after helping a BLU friend learn spells, he asked if I wanted to go on a merit PT to which I agreed. Setup: DRG/WHM x2, DRG/SAM, COR/RNG, BRD/NIN, DRK/WAR. I had the unfortunate task of tanking D:

But thanks to my capped parrying skill, I noticed quite a lot of parried attacks, around 1 out of 2 monsters.

Since my dynamis LS broke, my lolAegis plan progresses at a very slow pace. I haven’t been browsing bazaars at Battalia to find good deals. I’ve only been buying from friends who were willing to sell me at low prices. So all I can do now is to earn gil for future purchases.

Just for the record, my current status is:

LV 3 – Dynamis Shield

T.Whiteshell: 41 / 2,000
O.Bronzepiece: 255 / 12,000
B.Bill: 301 / 2,000
Total: 597 / 16,000 (3.73%)

On the other hand, my smithing mule has reached the 90s. I’m slowly skilling up on synths that result in a small loss of gil and then making up for it with low level synths that are profitable when HQed. Although I have lump sum of gil, perhaps enough to power level smithing to 100, thanks to my HQed Haubergeons, I still refuse to waste gil rushing my smithing up. It’s not fun skilling up this way anyway.

I’m also working on Alchemy on my friend’s account which I took over because he retired. And I’m also levelling it up the same way I did for smithing. Slow and break-even. And I might try taking woodworking up to the 60s on another one of my mules just to dive into the bolt market.

Synthesis is fun :D

Here’s a weird glitch which I think a few others have seen before. :o

And no FFXI post is complete without an ePeen screenshot!

Stoneskin + Drain2 + Last Resort + Souleater