Beth Winter

With the overall rush, I completely forgot to post about my new toy.

Since mid-May (just before Paris, in fact) I've been the proud owner of an HTC Desire ♥ It may be last year's model, but it's plenty fast, durable (I managed to get it caught out in the rain and drop it on a stone floor thus far), and I'm loving both Android and HTC Sense. Yes, you have to charge it daily, and hack it to move all apps to SD because the internal memory is laughable, but it's a tiny computer that works like a phone. I'm finally living in the future ;)

( Requisite list of apps + plea for recommendations )
(Also, it's called Karenina, the wallpaper is Maki Ichiro as Anna Karenina, and the ringtone is Maki Ichiro singing Ich Bin Ein Echtes Wienerblut. In case you were wondering.)

The best thing about my new phone is that it means I don't have to drag a computer with me everywhere to stay completely connected (Echo Bazaar included). Thus I can take much lighter luggage to the lakeside cottage for the nine days I'll be spending there - leaving this afternoon, back on the 7th in the evening.

Not AFK in the least. Unless my signal's out.

I'm certainly not going to shut up about the Japan 2010 trip (so many pictures!), but I'm now checked into my flight, 95% packed (give or take pajamas and cosmetics) and safe in the lovely J-Hoppers Osaka hostel. In 12 hours I'll leave it and head to the airport.

For Whom The Bell Tolls is very good in a high-drama way. Tomochin is a scene stealer ♥ Tomu is really exceedingly pretty ♥ ♥ ♥ And the show has the best mini-revue I've ever seen at the end of a two-act show: Tomu gets the musumeyaku ballet, and the otokoyaku ballet is epic, Spanish and exceedingly long. (Also, Yuuhi. YUUHI. She and Tom are going head to head in my YOU GIT ranking.)

Final shopping is accomplished. Someone cleared out Taka-An of all Ichiro Maki photos and it wasn't me, but I did get an Anna Karenina clearfile.

Last time on the Hankyu train back from Mura. Last walk through the maze of Umeda stations.

I think it's safe to say I'll be back.

Apparently mid-November is the perfect moment for Koya-san tree-watching. I fear I took 444 photos of red and gold leaves. Oops?

It's also exceedingly cold. I think my toes are still encased in ice, and we've been back in Osaka for over an hour now.

Meme swiped from reynardine and rkold . I'm not doing the travel destinations part because it's very US-heavy and I've only ever been to Minneapolis/St Paul.

( Travel meme )

Edinburgh's as friendly as I remembered. I'm about to depart on a three-day tour to Skye, so until late Wednesday evening I cannot promise anything in the way of net contact, but it will be awesome :)

And um. This concert. Can you pick out the person who has been taking a maternity break for the last four years?

*squees quietly* If she is in anything by October, I may be embarrassing. Very much so.

(And DVD, please? Because with that lineup there's a chance for Maki-Mori Oscar-Andre, or Akanesasu Murasakino Hana...)

So, on Saturday I have Ryanair tickets that were supposed to take me to Edinburgh to see a certain bearded Welshman in a certain adaptation of a Victor Hugo novel. I also have a mini-coach trip booked to Skye while I'm there, and generally a week of entertainment all planned. (Oh, and picking up my Maki Ichiro Sayonara Book of Doom). Right now Monday flights are decidedly cancelled - and everything else is up in the air because the bloody volcano is still spewing out dust. I am very, very annoyed.

(On the other hand, according to his Twitter, said bearded Welshman is currently stuck in Egypt... lose/lose?)

I've been getting home at about 7-8PM each day, but I'm literally too tired to write. There is so much to see here that it occupies all of my brain. What little is left is taken up with the images of the cloaked cavaliers that should be striding about the place. I didn't think it was possible for there to be so much history in one place, not preserved this way, one upon another. I remain in love with Italian museums and their habit of just shoving interesting things in a room. "Is that-!!!" is a running theme, from Caravaggio to Leonardo to random Dali and Van Gogh and Tintoretto and Rafael O.o

Oh gods, Rafael. I remain in utter awe and admiration ♥ He's the only painter to reduce me to this state, where I can just sit and stare happily, melting into a puddle.

I am also taking way too many photos. Especially of angels. There are angels everywhere.

( This example in Santa Maria del Popolo is the current favourite )
Tomorrow, I hope to improve the count of people-in-my-icons-whom-I-have-seen-live by one *points up* Then Trastevere, then on Monday frantic running around filling in the sightseeing gaps, and by Tuesday evening I should be home.

In Oberhausen. Just saw the git (no, not that git. The other other git. I have a lot of them) play Krolock, finally.

Review upcoming. For now, let it suffice to say that my lifelong ambition to see a Krolock fall into the orchestra pit has finally been realised, at least for values of Krolock-leg, Krolock-cloak, and frantic clutching at the ledge ♥

Just a note to announce that we've survived the last day and the last show, and Chie-Nene-Teru are my new Golden Trio. Also, Yuu was in the audience. Thankfully she was on the first floor and we were on the balcony, or I would be really tempted to glare at her for being so amazing yesterday ;) Instead of demachi we got a talkshow onstage. Teru, apparently, is not stellar at dancing at the best of times, at least according to underclassmen ;)

Flight home is tomorrow morning, getting in to Warsaw about fourteen hours later. I wonder how long I'll be bowing to everyone and trying to queue up for the subway.

This trip was the best idea I've had in a long time.