My Fictional Geocaching Adventure

  We went out and found everything. The weather was like, 5 degrees Celsius. Also, I did not fall and hurt my butt.

My Geocaching Adventure

  Been playing too much Binding of Isaac, but now finals are just around the corner, it's time to stop.

Figure 7.1: Literally all I was playing for the whole of March.

  This post would be about my geocaching experience. I've never done geocaching, or even knew of it existence prior, but after trying it a few (2) times, its actually quite fun. Geocaching is like playing a never ending game of scavenger hunt, where you look for caches left by other people. I didn't take any photos while geocaching because the first time it was too dark, and the second time because it was too bright. Both times, I was too busy geocaching to bother taking photos, so I will replace them with pictures I drew! 


  It all started when The Friendly Giantess, and I were walking home from somewhere. She then asked me if she could go "geocaching" for awhile. I have no idea what geocaching was, so out of curiosity, I joined her. She told me that the cache was somewhere around Memorial's clock tower, and then proceeded to skulk around the vicinity.

Figure 7.2: Not my photo.

  She skulked around the area for quite some time, and I was beginning to feel more and more skeptic about this, "geocaching" business. "How does this cache look like?" "How do you know where the thing is supposed to be?" "The weather is really nice," I asked. "I don't know," "I don't know," and "yes," was the responses. She then told me roughly where the cache is, and then I joined in to search for this cache too. 

  After awhile, we found the damn thing, hidden behind some bars behind some more bars. The whole activity was pretty fun, so we went home, had tea, and went out again for a proper geocaching adventure. Geocaching at night is nigh impossible. Everything is so dark, the caches are always black or some really dark shade. There was this one cache, which had a 2/5 difficulty rating, took us 2 tries to find it. It was hidden amongst vines, as it was supposed to be an homage to the rock band, The Vines. The first time we tried to find it was at night, which was very dark (duh). We tried again during the day and the cache magically appeared right in front of us. We cached for a few hours, we stuck to more urban areas because going into some dark trails in the middle of the night wasn't a good idea. Creeping behind a children's hospital wasn't too but hey, we found the cache. We called it a night around 1 am, the wind was beginning to blow and the air was beginning to get colder anyway. 

Figure 7.3: Two people, staring at a tree for 30 minutes.

  2 weeks later, we had our second geocache adventure. We went back to all the places we didn't find success in in our first try, and the Long Pond trail. There's this one particular interesting geocache, which was called "The Climbing Tree". The reason why it was called the climbing tree was because you are required to climb a tree in order to grab the cache. Fortunately, our party (which consist of 2 members) had a giantess. All she did was tiptoe and voilà. 

Figure 7.4: The Giantess in action.

  Long pond was quiet that day. The trail was mostly walkable but the hilly parts were covered in ice. I ran down the ice-covered hill, proceeded to taunt the Friendly Giantess who was too afraid to go downhill, and then slipped on flat ground. She saw my fall, and decided to just sit down on the ground and scoot her way down the icy hill. I was butthurt for rest of the day. Some of the caches was really well hidden, I really those caches where you are required to stray from the trail, and enter into the trees and the hedges. Some squirrel was constantly stalking us, as though as it was plotting some hideous scheme to rid of us from his land.

Figure 7.5: Beware.

  
The weather starts to pick up as the day went by. We decided to call it a day, as we're losing motivation to look for more caches (we were in a losing streak). We blame it on the lousy weather and called it a day, went home and made pizza or something. 

The Chocolate Girl

  Quick update here. School's been tough (I actually just bought Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, and have been playing it), so here's an old story.

  I couldn't disclose much info due to the nature of the situation, but here you go.

I/\__/**\__/\I

The Chocolate Girl

  La Dame and I went to the hospital, not because we got sick or anything, but we were there to visit a person who was admitted. The person was the Chocolate Girl. 

  We met up with her mom at the hospital's lobby. She told us about her.

  The Chocolate Girl was admitted because she attempted suicide. She attempted a few months prior the visit, and she finally regained consciousness. Her legs aren't really working, and she hasn't regain full function on one of her hands. I didn't ask how she tried to kill herself, because that's not a very nice thing to ask. Anyway, when she regained consciousness, she thought she just got into the hospital (she actually has been in the hospital for months). She asked lots of question, like why am I here? How did I get here? How long was I here? The mom deflected all the question with answers like everything will be fine; get some rest.

  The Chocolate Girl request that once she is released, she wants to stay with grandma. Unfortunately, Grandma has passed away one year ago (She wasn't in a coma for a year, she just simply lost a huge portion of her memory). The mom tried told her that grandma is long gone, and told her that she attended her funeral. The Chocolate Girl then lost her composure, and started wailing and crying. She blamed herself that her grandma is dead, it was a very unpleasant story to listen to.

  Her birthday was today (the day when we visit her), and she told La Dame that she wanted Lasagna, so we brought her a huge lasagna and a chocolate cake. We brought candles and lighters too but the hospital staff told us not light it, unless we don't mind being soaking wet. When we first entered the Chocolate Girl's room, she couldn't recognize any of us (except her mom), even La Dame, who recently visited her. This was really bittersweet, because she couldn't remember the person who has been constantly visiting her, but the upside was that the arrival of the lasagna was a genuine surprise to her.

Figure 6.1: Yum!

  The hospital's chaplain and I ran around the floor looking for a damn working microwave. A nurse let us use the break room's microwave because all other public microwave was broken. We all shared some lasagna, and then La Dame broke out the cake.

Figure 6.2: "Do you like chocolate cake?" "I loveeee..... chocolate..." And thus her name was given.

  We shared the chocolate cake amongst the visitors and nurses. It was quite a huge cake, I love it a lot but I felt ashamed having a third, or fourth serving (I did had a second serving though). We stayed there for awhile, talking to her mom and the rest of the visitors and nurses. We barely talked to the Chocolate Girl because she looks really disorientated. She only talks to her sister and her mother, and not with the rest of us.

  At the end, her mother thanked us all, thanked the chaplain, thanked us for bringing gifts, cake, food, and ourselves, and we went our separate ways.

I/\__/**\__/\I

  That's it, back to Binding of Isaac, I guess.

Bonus pic! Cake + lasagna!

Undesignated

  What a fine, sturdy tree, I thought to myself. Fine tree isn't it? Said the voice behind me. I turned around, and there my friend was, in the flesh, and another person that I don't recognize. 

  Long time no see, I said to my friend. Yes, a long time indeed, he replied. A fine tree indeed, I said, you could hang a body on the branch and it wouldn't break. 
  Well, that's a bit grim isn't it? You hadn't changed much have you? We haven't seen each other for years and yet here you are, still fascinated by methods of displaying corpses. 

  I chuckled.

  No, that was just a phase. I've changed a lot since then. I was just trying to ease you in since we haven't seen each other for years. Well, I don't expect you to remain in that phase after all these years you know, I know you were doing it just because you were interested in that emo person. Oh, by the way, how rude of me, meet my new partner, we've been together for some two, three years now. Oh, you don't remember? I was just pulling your leg, we've been together for two years and five months now, are you satisfied?

  I reached my hand out, preparing to shake hands. The stranger followed suit.

  My name's Sam. Nice to meet you. My name's Jesse, nice to meet you too. So tell me, how did you and Alex met? Well, Alex and I were in the same cafe, I didn't know him at first, but I kept on noticing the huge hat, it stands out from the crowd. Ah, so you knew Alex during the hat phase. Hey! It wasn't a phase, I'm just not wearing it now because I lost my hat. I would be wearing it now if I have it. Yeah, well I approached Alex, and that's pretty much how we knew each other, a very weird approach on meeting new friends, but hey, it worked. Cool story. Yeah. How did you meet Alex? Well, I was the new kid in town, and Alex volunteered to give me a tour around the place, we became friends afterwards.  

  We were just touring my hometown, said Alex. Remember how we used to cut class and come up to this tree to smoke some spliff? Yeah, those were the times. I stopped doing it though, gotta keep my partner happy. Yeah, lots of memories surrounds this tree. Is it today? Is today the anniversary of Quinn's? I mean, yeah, it should be, that's why we're all here, Alex added. I have never met this person, but Alex keeps on talking about the things about what you all used to do. Car accident, what a way to go. For a moment you're alive and well, singing along to your favourite tunes in the car, and the next moment, if you're lucky, you're gone. Quinn went out fast, didn't felt any pain I believe, died on the spot. 

  I took out a box of cigarettes, and handed them a stick each. 

  To Quinn. To Quinn, we declared, as we raised our cigarettes, and placed them in the hole somewhere near the part where the trunk meets the earth. Alex, Quinn and I made that hole when we were young, that was where we hide our spliffs, now it's just a graveyard of cigarettes.

  Alex brought us all for dinner that day, and then we went our separate ways.
  

  

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Hatoful Boyfriend

  I've recently bought Hatoful Boyfriend for $1.49 and decided to finally try it out. This is my first impression of the game.

  You play as a female human in an avian world. You decided to attend one of the most prestigious avian high schools in the area, for reasons. Due to the Japanese nature of the game, I feminized and Japanized my name into the character I am playing as. 

I named myself Jeyoko Rin.

  This game is one of its kind. It is somewhat of a dating sim, with birds. Every character you meet in the game are birds. There are also many adorable bird puns in this game. 

Everybirdie is a bird, which makes my character stand out from the flock

  You get to talk to all these interesting characters in the game. However, just because you are in a dating sim-esque video game, doesn't mean you get to slack off. You would still need to study for exams and tests. You need to balance your social life, your grades, and your interest/goal in this game. 

  There are many interesting characters in this game, but one of them caught my attention. His name is Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane. He too just recently transferred to this high school, so we're both kinda the newbies. He came from an aristocratic family though, which explains his arrogant and better-than-thou personality.  

He is a fantail pigeon.

  He instantly got elected as the president of the student council, because he felt other positions are not worthy of his class and stature, and also no one else bothers about the student council. We new kids have to stick together, so I became his VP. He said he likes a girl who volunteers herself to be his right wing man, but I'm doing it just to progress the story.

xxxxx

   Sakuya and I spent a lot of time together. Being the only 2 members in the student council is a lot work you know! As the semester is about to end, we have to clean the student council office. Apparently, he had never cleaned before. He thought that just because he was the president, he didn't have to do any work, but I told him that a president leads and a VP follows, and I tossed him a mop. He didn't know how to use a mop, so I had to teach him how to. We spent lots of time cleaning the student council room together. Not because I like him or anything, its just we're the only 2 members.... baka...

  The next semester have started, and we're all preparing for our finals already. Avian curriculum goes by fast. I decided to spend most of my extra time in the library. As I was walking down the hall towards the library, I heard somebirdie was playing the piano beautifully. I went to check out who was it, and it was non other than Sakuya! He felt extremely hazukashii when I complimented him. He told me to not tell anyone about this, despite him playing the piano very well. He then asked me a very strange question.

I answered: "Udon"

xxxxx 

  2 months have passed, and it's Legumentines! If you don't know what day Leguementine is, you need to get out of your nest, but I'll still tell you what day it is.

Did you remember to buy beans for the boy you like?

  Sakuya immediately came to mind. I then went to the bean shop and got some expensive beans. Its really expensive but I don't think he'll appreciate his waifu giving him some cheapo beans. The next day, I looked for him, and he was studying in class. He told me he was studying and is interrupting him. I adore the fact despite coming from an extremely well-off family, he still prioritize his academics, and not just bunking off his family's fortune.

  

I gave him the beans

  He told me that he had never seen such a cheap and low quality beans before in his life (even though I bought the most expensive one in the supermarket uguu~), but he appreciates the gesture and thanked me for it. Although his words were mean, he seemed to be really happy that he received something today. I hope he'd appreciate it and would consider me to be his waifu and he to be my hazubando. Owl owlways be your ワイフ、 銀＝ル・ベル＝朔夜。永遠に、いつでも。=^。^=

Cape St Mary's

  Somewhere along the beginning of September 2015, I went to Cape St. Mary's with this "choir" group. A few of my friends whom I known outside of choir went too, primarily Senhora Sorridente and Kung Fu Gal. 

Figure 2.1: It's a pretty long journey to get there.

  

The whole point of going to this rural area was because we were going to perform in the Cape St Mary's Performance Series. We first checked into our motel rooms, then proceeded to go look for the host of the show. We were greeted by him at his door, "SHEEP SHIT. SHEEP SHIT" as he stopped us from entering his house. His house was surrounded by sheep,  and naturally there were many sheep bombs everywhere. 

  After the visit of the host's home, we then decided to have a tour around the Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve. It's selling point is that there is a rock, filled with birds. Seagulls. (Well, gannets to be exact, but they're both equally noisy and white, so we'll call them seagulls.) The place isn't fence, as to preserve it's ecological natural-ness or something like that. 

Figure 2.2: The titular Bird Rock.

 

 We took a few photos, talked to choir members and what not, when suddenly our choir head had this brilliant idea where pay an homage to the beauty of the place: by mimicking the noise of the gannets. We laughed at the idea at first, but then this choir isn't comprised of people with shame, so we did a test run on the spot, trying to mimic the sound of the gannets. Many of the tourist who came to watch the performance was there, watching us making bird noises. 

Figure 2.3: Falling not recommended.

 

 As the sun began to set, we went back to the host's home, as he made all the performers dinner. It was a huge pot of spaghetti. Its decent spaghetti, and it's free, so I'm not going to complain. We ate our spaghetti while chatting up with the other performers. The other talents were a string quartet and a local folk singer. Yes, there were only 3 performers. The place was 2 and a half hours away from the city, and the last 40 minutes are filled with potholes and the apparent lack of street lamps, its not exactly the kind of place people would go.

  So we did our performance, we watched the rest of show, ate some cake, and went back to the motel. My choir mates decided to congratulate themselves by having a drinking party in one of the rooms. I must say, watching these people drink, makes me realize that these people still have some youth in them, despite being 40 and above.

Figure 2.4: "Is it my imagination? Or have I finally found something worth living for?"

  

I had a few drinks, we then went out and look at the stars. The nice thing about being in a place without street lamps is that stars are extremely visible. We all pretended to be an astronomer for awhile, talking shit about the stars and alignments. We then all head back to our rooms to get some shut eye, and prepare for our departure back to the city.

  The next morning, we all went back to the host's house for breakfast. It was bagels with cheese, ham, tomatoes, strawberries, hard boiled eggs, olives and plums. I believe I ate more servings of breakfast than spaghetti from the night before. My God, was it delicious. We all said our goodbyes, while I went and bought myself a postcard as souvenir (which I ended up sending it to someone, such is the purpose of postcards), my choir mates were picking up sheep shit. They were really happy that they don't have to splurge to get some high quality, premium fertilizers. They have to pick up the sheep shit themselves though, so I guess that's the drawback.

Figure 2.5: Breakfast.

  

We then got into our own respective rides and drove back to the city. Overall, a pretty enjoyable journey, with some pretty nice mates to share it with. Also: there was no cell reception and wi-fi the entire time, so social interaction was required to stay sane. 

  Here are some bonus pics just for the hell of it.

Figure 2.6: Our place of residence for the night.

Figure 2.7: Sunset.

  

Figure 2.8: Thanks for the shit, sheep.

The Russian Sailor

  As my travel plans for the new years was cancelled, I decided to just enjoy my time in St. John's. I said yes to almost every invitation I received (which isn't plenty, considering most of the people I know were travelling). This was when I started hanging out with La Dame. 

  I first met La Dame's at Senhora Sorridente's farewell party. Senhora was an exchange student, just like most of the friends I made during my studies at St. John's, but I digress. La Dame invited me to celebrate Christmas with her, her church buddies, and some other international students. We'll keep that story for some other time.

  The Christmas party was pretty cool, I met lots of people whom I now regularly stay in contact with. 

Figure 1.1: Frohe Weihnachten!

  A few days have passed and its New Years Eve. Considering that I was suppose to travel during the break, I was sulking alone in my home, but then La Dame invited me, along with the rest of the students (now friends) who went to the Christmas party, to celebrate the new years with her. Instead of sulking in my home, I accepted her offer and almost got lost walking to her home.

  The dinner was fine, and the table decided to head to Quidi Vidi Lake to watch the fireworks at around 11:30pm. We finished dinner around 9:00pm so there was plenty of time to kill. We then relocated ourselves to the living room and share each of our individual stories. This blog post is reserved for La Dame's story.

I/\__/**\__/\I

L'histoire de la Dame

  It was the early 90's, she was a missionary for a local church here. One of her biggest dream was to visit the Russian Federation. Her church was attempting to undergo a missionary mission at that time, unfortunately the church was unable to collect enough funds to send the missionaries there. "God knows I always wanted to go to Russia, that's why Russia came to me," she said every time she begins telling this story. 

  

  Just to remind you, during the early 90's, Russia was in a state of turmoil as the Soviet Union was just very recently dissolved. There were lots of Russian sailors coming into St. John's, to refuel or something, I'm not really sure. One of the sailor fell really really ill and requires immediately attention. The local doctors were going to send him back to Russia to receive such medical treatment, however the sailor insists that Russia will not have the treatment he needed. La Dame caught wind of this and decided to help this Russian sailor. Unfortunately, La Dame speaks absolutely 0 Russian, but she does have a Russian speaking friend. What she did was she wrote down everything the sailor said, syllable by syllable, until she got it right. Then, she called up her Russian speaking friend, and ask her friend to translate what she said through the phone. After collecting enough information,  La Dame then argued with the doctors and finally convinced them to allow the sailor to stay. 

  Many months have passed since the incident, and not a word from the sailor. One fine day, a Russian man approached to her church and demanded to see La Dame. La Dame reluctantly went to meet with this man, and he introduced himself as a good friend of the Russian sailor she saved. The Russian man then invited her to tour their ship, as per request of the Russian sailor she saved. 

  Upon reaching the ship, the Russian sailor came out and thanked her with such gratitude. He then proceed to give La Dame a tour around and inside the ship. When she was in the ship, La Dame explained that she was feeling extremely afraid, as many shirtless Russian men, whom have not seen a female for the past few weeks or months, slowly surrounds her. The Russian sailor then shouted at his fellow sailor, she couldn't understand what he was saying but she understood "missionary". The rest immediately backed off her as soon as the Russian sailor finished. 

  The sailor then brought her into a small room, where there sat a Japanese man. The Japanese man speaks fluent English, and he explains that he is the ship's inspector. She then told us that the Japanese man said some pretty obscene things, she didn't really explain what he said, so it's up to our imagination, but the Japanese man did not do anything to her. The Japanese man then offered her some tea and some fresh sashimi. 

  As she was leaving the ship, the Russian sailor gave her an extremely huge halibut, as a farewell gift, and of gratitude, and she went on her way. 

  She told the story to her family, and her sister wants to visit the ship. So, La Dame arranged another tour in the ship. Her mother then sent her and her sister to the ship. They tried to convince their mother to join her but she doesn't want to go into a closed area where it's all men and stayed in the car for the rest of the tour. The funny thing was, when the Russian sailor was giving La Dame and her sister a tour around the ship, most of the sailor came out and surround her mother's car, trying to convince her to join her daughters. 

  As the sisters returned from the tour, she explained that her mom was terrified, and told her not to hang out with other "strange men" again.

I/\__/**\__/\I

  Ever since I started hanging out with La Dame, I've been more accepting of things.This story of hers inspired me to start taking leap of faiths. I now use my curiosity to drive me forward, instead of fearing of the unknown. I don't want to regret not doing certain things anymore just because I was afraid, or not willing to leave my comfort zone. 

Figure 1.2: Vielen Dank, und glückliches neues Jahr!