Still in the seasonal mood! Today I used the Tarot Malefic Time.
No comment on the backs because it looks more based around the Thoth Tarot. My one comment, however, is the usual one about no illustrations for the minor arcana.
Beyond that, while not my aesthetic, I know some people who would LOVE this one just on style alone.
Today’s reading speaks of anxieties with both financial stability and emotional fulfillment (or the lack thereof). While this might not necessarily be in relation to anything in the trip it does line up with things I was thinking about in the shower.
It crossed my mind as a “quick project” to take what I have of Forsaken Gaia so far and compile it into a volume to sell. If I did so, I’d want to add illustrations to it. My original intent has been to make those myself as a motivator to get back into drawing, so therein lies the first contradiction.
But beyond that it reminded me of how… unsupported I’ve felt in that front. I’ve wanted to expand into novel writing as a means to have an output of stuff while the bigger projects get worked on, but precisely because of that secondary nature I don’t feel like I get the support on it that I’d like (not to mention that my concerns of “nobody will care about this” get echoed back at me rather than helping me fight them back), so I’ve resigned myself to turn it into almost like a hobby. Kinda like if I’m not gonna be encouraged by others I’m gonna push ahead on my own.
It’s fulfilling on its own way, but I can’t help but feel resentful towards videogames and such for cornering me into that expectation of “this is your thing, anything else you’re on your own”. Or like anything I write that’s not in a videogame is just a doodle rather than a work worth its own merits. So I don’t get the smaller work without feeling guilty which adds to the existing resentment to the bigger thing and… yeah.
It ALSO doesn’t help with the overarching resignation I’ve felt in terms of “cannot count on others, it’s all on you”. Of course I’m aware that if someone read this and tried to “help” me with this all of a sudden I’d be really resentful because “the one time I actually asked for help I got none so fuck that”.
This isn’t new, I have a heavily redacted rant about it in this very blog but… yeah. Some days it just hits me harder than others.
Funnily enough it was all BEFORE the reading.
Emo episode aside, I woke up from the food coma with… It wasn’t a nightmare, it was just a really intense dream. I think it involved an old classmate I couldn’t stand that was stalking me (in the dream I mean) and despite punching him in the face it was something else that did him in.
When I went to get breakfast, I was idly remembering last year when I was in Ise on another hotel with balcony bath. At one point I was going out and the couple in the room next to mine was fucking and moaning SO HARD.
I might or might not have made a slightly loud noise with the room keys that made the moans suddenly choke out.
…wait, didn’t I have a similar general moodiness during TGS? Is this the fabled Man Period kicking in again?
HM…
Today’s carrots on the breakfast menu weren’t as good as yesterday but they were still great.
I went back to my room to wait for the rain to stop and started taking pics with Nadeshiko. Whatever holdup I had with self expression when I started this blog seems so distant. Once you let go of something you were holding really tight to, going back to holding it so tight feels exhausting.
This in relation, for example, to me writing posts in BlueSky where I describe Nadeshiko as “The mature young lady” and so on and so forth.
Like how I posted these with a caption that was like “Bathing, sunbathing, windbathing. Cherish these moments”.
It’s not like I didn’t have it in me beforehand, I just had ever so slightly more qualms about it.
The weather was still overcast and misty but good enough to go out. I was actually planning on finding lunch outside but since my dinner reservation today was at 8 I decided to try the hotel’s lunch menu.
I got the “Veggie Burger” and man it’s been a while since I’ve had avocado. Back in Venezuela I had an uncle (may he RIP) that had a bunch of avocado plants and because he lived alone he would just go to our house and be like “here you go”.
Never been the biggest fan of avocado, but I’m also not the biggest fan of mango and yet here I am drinking mango smoothies in this country.
Anyway, the burger was good, despite looking so unassuming.
I didn’t have a plan aside from roaming around so I went the opposite direction from yesterday. I didn’t know what a Gora was, but there was a shortcut so hey why not.
…I mean it wasn’t a lie, but dear God was that a steep road.
Apparently in that small trek you go from being in Kanazawa to Shinjuku which is wild.
Oh hey, it’s the street in the wallpaper of my room, cool.
There were a bunch of souvenir shops which meant I was able to find a sticker for my excessively stickered laptop. They also had… a mimikaki spoon thingy stylized like a big titty woman where the scooping bit is her foot.
Almost bought it, but beyond the novelty I wouldn’t use it.
There was also a cablecar that I just had to try and… apparently you can get to Shinjuku from here????
Makes sense, Odawara is one station away from Shin Yokohama, but the mental image of this place and Shinjuku is so opposite to each other that I have a hard time processing it all.
Anyway, I took the car and this is as good a time as any to mention that there’s a shoocking amount of Europeans around. Plenty of them fluent enough in Japanese that it makes me think they’re probably people staying in Tokyo.
I’ve also realized I keep saying this is Kanazawa. This is actually Kanagawa.
Or is it the other way around? Eh…
After going up in the cablecar there was a ropeway and you know what? Fuck it I was in an adventuring mood anyways.
When I was chatting with my family, my mom mentioned a place full of sulfur and whatnot and wouldn’t you know it, it was basically where I was going.
It was indeed stinky, and not only stinky but sometimes the wind blows and your eyes sting too. It was super cool. Apparently one of the sulfur things erupted as early as 2015.
The stop after Stinky Land (if you want to keep going you have to get out in it and make a transfer) had nothing but I was curious so I stopped there anyways.
…okay, I stopped there because I saw nobody getting off there so I went “I’m gonna be a contrarian and get down here anyways”.
Also I lied twice, the area has a bunch of hotels.
The last stop is the reason why you’d take the ropeway usually. It’s a lake and it has ships for the super nice tours you can do in the area.
There’s also so much Evangelion merch. It’s like Yuru Camp in Izu.
There was not much else to do in the area though, so Nadeshiko marked the moment.
When I got back, I noticed that there was a bunch of bamboo with lights and the names in it are actually the names of hotels in the area.
Now I’m imagining Survivor but the losing hotel gets its light there snuffed out.
Since on the way up In was filming myself with the vlog camera, I instead took a couple of pics of the 16 flights of stairs shortcut on the way down.
Should’ve been the other way around so that I wasn’t panting and wheezing on video but… no yeah doing things that way is more on brand for me, actually.
I killed time actually using the balcony bath before getting dinner. I splurged ordering the same as yesterday because fuck it, no clue when I’m doing this again and… it’s still good yeah.
Now to rest, tomorrow we go back to reality.