Otaku House Cosplay competition!!

PLEASE vote for me in this world wide cosplay idol competition!!

Liuwina (aka. Katsuko) as C.C from Code Geass
www.otakuhouse.com/cosplay-idol

Thank you so much!!

How to vote:

Go to facebook, search for “OTAKU HOUSE” and LIKE their page!
Then open the photos and look for the folder named “EUROPE (C)” and find my picture there!!
I really hope people will help me get votes!!

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!

Love

P.S: This is my picture that I entered in the competition!

C.C from the artwork "Witch and Warlock" from Code Geass -CLAMP-

The Golden days… part 2

Coolest train eva!

On the 3rd day we went to Universal Studios in Osaka.
It’s my first time ever going to an Universal Studios theme park, so I was very excited! The first surprise was when our train to the Universal studios station arrived. It was completely covered in drawings from Marvel etc.
It was SO COOL!

Arriving at the park entrance, we saw that a lot of people had already gathered to stand in line, though it wasn’t as extreme as Tokyo Disney World…I am guessing, even though it was a holiday, people had chosen to go to other places that day, because there really weren’t that many people.

Rollercoaster!!!

After standing in line for around 30-40 minutes, we finally got to the ticket counter, and then came another surprise..the entrance price! 6200 yen ZOMG! That hurt!
Well, after swallowing the pain of having to pay 6200 yen for the entrance (That’s the same price as the bus from Tokyo to Osaka >_<; *cough*) we finally made it inside!

Sandy and I

After walking for a bit, curiously looking here and there, we finally decided to try the “Back to the future” ride! There was 30 minutes waiting time, which was rather fair considering the day. The ride was pretty funny. You get this prestory of how Biff break an entry to Doc. Brown’s lab, and steals the DeLorian. In order to catch Biff, we -the audience- are sent out in another timemachine that Doc made, which he can remote control, he himself was locked up by Biff and thus cannot follow suit.
8 people at a time is then sent into the car, where you then see the adventure unfold, while Doc is controlling the machine, you are merely a spectator.
You follow Biff as he jumps through time first into the future, and then you start going back in time, and even come by giant dinosaurs that try to eat you.
A very lively 4D movie, and the “car” that you sit in, really moves according to the video. It’s nicely done!
I recommend!

It's the DeLorian!!

Next up was “Jurassic Park”. We had to wait in line for almost an hour (which still is nothing compared to the often 2-3 hours wait at Disney World..) but it was sure worth the wait. During line up, I saw a lot of people wearing raincoats…and that…turned out to be a good idea, which we ought to have followed…
Jurassic Park is a waterslide ride, you sit in a boat that takes you through the marvel of Jurassic Park, but suddenly something goes wrong, a Dinosaur bumps the boat you’re in, and it’s turned off course, and straight into an area, where audience normally isn’t allowed.  Then you see that the raptors’ cage has been compromised, and that the raptors have escaped.
It really gives you a true eerie feeling, and the half unseen raptors a really scary!! Of course you know it’s not real, but if you have a little bit of an over active imagination, you’re going to be sucked into the story completely and that’s really cool!
The best part is when you come up a long slope, and then you see him, the T-Rex, standing all mighty and dangerous, as you draw nearer you do not notice that a huge drop is about to happen, and just as he launch at you the huge steep drop opens up and you’re splashing into the water below, coming out completely drenched if you’re sitting to one of the sides, I got quite wet on my sleves and thighs, also my hair too. But not as much as my friend, who sat to the side, he was completely drenched!
They also take  a photo just as the boat drops, so be sure to give your best smile or coolest pose..because I looked like an idiot honestly!  I didn’t know about the picture, so I was screaming my heart out! That drop really took me by surprise!
My advice to this ride is: wear a raincoat! you’ll be happy you did!

Welcome! To Jurassic Park

Raptors on the loose!

Here we go!

Of course at each ride, there was a souvenir shop, where you are able to buy a variety of goods, for example this wonderful headband…

Get it off me!!

After this thrilling ride, we went to the biggest coaster in the park, it is called “Hollywood Dream – The ride”.
Basically it is a huge ass coaster, where you are seated and a bar is closed tightly over your legs, then, you can choose which background music you want for your ride, on the panel in front of you. I chose “Eminem- Loose yourself”, as I didn’t really know any of the other songs.
As the ride shoots off, you are blasted with your selected music, and it’s just so cool, yet kind of disturbing that the only thing holding you down, is the thing over your legs! I felt kind of uneasy about that the first 3 seconds, but soon forgot about it, and just enjoyed the several high drops and sharp turns!
It was FUN!

Tip: Go to the lockers before queuing up! since you cannot bring your bag with you on this ride!

Hello Kitty!

It was also possible to purchase accessories like Hello Kitty ears Clip ons, and I had to get me a pair of those! They are just too cute

((To be continued… ))

The Golden Days of Freedom

is over…!
“Golden week” came and went, but the memories are still there.

I had so much fun, it was great to get out and about in Japan again, I really have missed travelling!
Osaka had more to offer than I first thought, for example, they have a place called “ROUND 1″, it’s a game paradise! You pay for x hours and play as much as you want without paying extra. You can play games like arcade games, dance dance revolution, guitar hero etc. or you can play darts, have a game of bowling, or sing karaoke. This one even had massage chairs and even better, an onsen (hot spring). Though I never got to try the hot spring, because I sat down in a massage chair, and kind of just didn’t move for an hour! haha!

A cute dolphin

We also went to the Kaiyukan Aquarium, they have  the worlds largest fish on display, the whale shark. Though my favourite was the dolphins, I just simply love them. How they frolic around playfully. They are absolutely beautiful!
For those interested to know more about the Kaiyukan, here’s a link to their homepage http://www.kaiyukan.com/language/eng/
The day we went there, was absolutely crowded, but who could have expected otherwise on a national holiday?
We had to fight our way through the crowd just to get a glimpse of the animals behind the glass.
If you ever go to Osaka, and want to visit this place, you should make sure that it isn’t a national holiday, OR a weekend day, because the place will be swamped.

Tempozan

Right next to the Kaiyukan, is one of the largest Ferris Wheels in the world, Tempozan, with a total height of 112,5 meters and a diameter of 100 meters.  The ride takes about 17 minutes and you can see a nice view of Osaka bay and surrounding areas.
It offers a spectacular view around sunset, though I did not get the chance to see the sunset, since it was cloudy that day.
Under Tempozan, there is a huge mall, with a lot of different shops and stores. There is even a  petting zoo, where you can go pet a cat(?) or maybe a woolen llama.  You can also get a hand peeling done by some small eager fish…no they’re not piranhas..

Pettingzoo cat

The place also offered an animal show, where they had trained their dogs, cats, llama etc. to do tricks. and they involved the little children.
The “house of cats” was a place where people could go in, and pet a REAL CAT….*ahem*
I felt sorry for the cats there, they wanted attention from the people who worked there, but not from the people who came visiting the place. Some of the actually tried escaping the hands of the strangers, by climbing up as much as they could. They didn’t look very interested or happy about being petted by total strangers, who obviously knew nothing about cats or how to treat them. Most people just kind of sat there, staring at the cats or trying to take pictures of them.

Unko-chan...yes, it's a golden turd!

The Japanese have a strange fondness for Kin no Unko.. aka the golden poop.  They are sold as lucky charms at souvenir shops around Japan.
I find this a little bit disturbing, yet also very funny. You can now gift your friends and family with this “holy shit”.  Who wouldn’t see the fun in that?
Actually there is a story behind this little fella. The name “Kin no Unko”  plays on the fact that the Japanese word for poop (unko) starts with the same “un” sound as a completely unrelated word that means “luck” (Un), and also the ending “ko” is usually used in girls names, and means “little one” or “child”.
Japanese enjoy this kind of pun, traditional storytelling is full of them,  which may help explain why more than 2.5 million of the lucky little poops have sold in the last seven years. I even got myself one!

Golden Week

It’s a national holiday week in Japan, and the Japanese are doing their favorite sport “queuing” !
In Japan, there are very few vacations for the people working at companies, the so called “white collar workers” BUT there are a LOT of National Holidays instead! On these days, everyone who has a day off (it’s mostly all companies, except for almost any kind of store, restaurant and amusement parks) has their mind set on only one thing “going somewhere”.

This results in a massive chaos throughout the countries highways and freeways; even though they have a really great train system, where you can go almost anywhere in the country by train, like shinkansen or local train lines like J.R, everyone seems to want to be going by car, at the same friggin time.
And if you feel like going somewhere during these holidays, I have one advice for you, don’t go anywhere, that would be fun..because it will be crowded AS HELL!

I made that mistake not only once, but twice during the time I’ve spent here in Japan.
I once went on a trip to Kawaguchiko near Fuji, it is in the Fuji-Five lake area in Kanagawa. We took the earliest bus from Shinjuku at 7 am, and was supposed to arrive a little before 9! The bus drove about 10 km an hour on the free/highway, because of the long queues. We arrived some 4 hours later, pretty tired and pretty pissed that we missed our tour of Fuji area!
Next mistake was going to Osaka by bus, on a night before a national holiday.
I thought that leaving by nightbus, would be a great idea, since I supposed that people would have all gone to bed around midnight, and definitely not be driving around in their cars on the freeway. But oh, was I wrong…
First off, when we left Shinjuku and out on the freeway, it was so crowded there, that the bus didn’t really move for the first 2-3 hours, then we finally got out on open road, but only to find queues at every major junction.
The bus was supposed to arrive around 8 am at Osaka, but at 8 am we had only just passed Nagoya.
At 12 pm we arrived at Kyoto, and decided to get the hell off that bus, and go by local train to Osaka, it would only take like 30 minutes, instead of the dreaded 2-3 hours that the driver had estimated it would take on the bus, because the streets was really crowded.

Other than that, I have enjoyed the sight of the marvelous  Osaka castle, and also enjoyed the company of the worlds most clingy homeless cat I’ve ever met.
She was absolutely adorable, and yet there she was, a cast away little thing in a park. Desperately looking for love from a human being.
When I saw her, I had to try and pet her, and she just sniffed my hand and then let me pet her head, after a couple of minutes, she crawled up onto my friends lap who was squatting by her side. He then put her down after a little while and then she practically jumped into my lap, and just crawled halfway up my chest and put her paws firmly around my neck as if to say “don’t leave me” and she just put her claws a little bit into my shirt to hold on to me, after a while, when I just held her and petted her, she relaxed and fell asleep in my arms.
I’ve never seen a cat yearning for human contact that much before! She just didn’t want to let go, every time I put her down, she hurried back up onto my lap so that I wouldn’t move!
I so wish that I could have helped her! She was absolutely beautiful! The fur still looked so clean, and her claws had been cut too. It seemed like she was a house cat, that had been left by the owner, at the Osaka Castle park.
This poor thing was looking like she was so hungry, and like she was begging me to bring her with me. I wish I could have.

I stayed with her for a long time, then I tried to leave, and she tried to follow for a bit, but then stopped, and I went down to a nearby stall to see if I could get a bit of food for her! I figured it was the least I could do.
She was still there, where I had left her, and I gave her the food, which she happily accepted and started to eat immediately.

How anyone can leave an animal to such a cruel fate, is beyond me.
Why are human beings so extremely heartless and thoughtless when it comes to animals? Domesticated animals are never to be released into the wild like that. They’d have so much trouble surviving.
She seemed so starved, when she was walking, she bent her back up a little, and walked as if every step hurt her. The poor one, she was probably not much more than 1 year old. As if the owner just decided to get rid of her, because she wasn’t a kitten anymore.
The cruelty! It is unbearable!
I wish I could help her! I still feel like going back there and bringing her with me.

She just fell asleep in my arms like this

She really wanted to be held, and taken care of, you could tell by her desperate behavior, when I tried to put her down. I felt so cruel to just leave her.
I wish I could have done something, more than just giving her an extra meal.
She needed to see a vet, to get medical care, and proper nutrition, and then she needed a loving home, to give her all the love and warmth and security that she could ever need! If I could, I would have brought her home with me, but pets are not allowed in the dormitory at all, and I have no idea it if is allowed to import pets to Denmark from Japan.
I would have done it though! Without a doubt! If only I could!
I wish a nice and cat-loving person will come along and find her, and take her home.

Wild cats in Japan needs help!!
I wish I could find a way to help them!
And to improve the rules about pets in Japan, to make better animal welfare!
I wish I could do that all over the world…

I love cats, and I love animals. I wish I could help them!