January 4th, 2015

Year in review: 2014

Time for another annual year in review! Here’s how 2014 was for me 🙂

2014_recap

Life in general

Like last year, my life has been very stable and doesn’t change much. Same job, same husband, same house, etc etc. Not much to report here 😉 At work, I’m still a team lead and in a senior position. My team has grown though, so I have more people to manage.

Hobbies

In 2014, I continued my photography focus on cosplay photoshoots. I’m now able to fill all of my spots early on, with most of them taken by repeat clients. I did photoshoots at 2 conventions and also a private one in town. I’m happy with where this has gone 🙂

I’ve also been asked to help out the photography team at work more. I worked on the photography team for our biggest event (our user conference) and filled in here and there throughout the year.

When it comes to cosplay, I remade one of my costumes and made 4 new ones. Though, of the 4 new ones… only one of them was for me XD;; My two major cosplays were our Spirited Away group which we wore at A-kon (I made all 3 costumes) and my Rhyme cosplay which I wore in Japan.

As for gaming, well, I dedicated a whole entry to it already 🙂

Read the rest of this entry »

12 · Posted in Life, Year in Review
January 1st, 2015

Gaming year in review: 2014

Happy new year everyone! I hope 2015 will be a great year for everyone 😀 I’m still working on my personal year in review entry, but first, here’s my gaming year in review!

I started this a few years ago to look back and give a brief review of every game I played in the past year. I only count games that I hadn’t played before, are remakes, or have new content. (In other words, I don’t count any replays that didn’t have anything new to them.)

Here are my favorites for 2014! (These are out of the games I played in 2014. It doesn’t mean that they were released in 2014.)

Favorite single player: Just Cause 2
This is a game that should not be taken seriously. Its main objective is to cause “chaos” which basically means: blow up as much stuff as you can. Just Cause 2 is just plain fun and one of the better open world games I’ve played. It’s kind of repetitive, the map is ridiculously huge, and there is a loose story in there somewhere, but it’s sooooo fun to mess around and do stupid things.

Just Cause 2

“What I do best – cause chaos”

Favorite multiplayer: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
I played D3 back when it first released, and I thought it was just alright. I got back into it for the expansion, and wow, that large patch that released around the same time really improved the game. It was easier to get relevant loot and to raise the difficulty levels. The new content from the expansion also made it more interesting. The game became much more enjoyable, and I had fun starting a new character with my husband.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

This is my new monk that I created for the expansion!

Favorite indie/download: Guacamelee
Guacamelee is like a fighting game and platformer combined. You learn fighting moves to defeat enemies, but then you have to use them to go through platforming levels. I thought it was a creative spin on platformers, especially with the dimension switching, and the humor and art style are nice touches too. I also loved all of the meme and video game references in it.

Guacamelee

“to use the power of the Dashing… Derpderp… I ran out of names.”

Read the rest of this entry »

10 · Posted in Gaming, Year in Review
December 19th, 2014

Japan trip, part 6: Tokyo

This is the finale! Since we were flying in and out of Tokyo, we split our time in Tokyo in half. On 11/06, we took a bullet train (about half an hour) from Hakone back to Tokyo, where we first started our 12 day Japan trip. Now we were ending here too.

The first thing we did was check into our hotel, the Park Hotel in Shiodome. It’s part of the Shiodome Media Tower, and the hotel doesn’t start until the 25th floor. This means every room has a great view! We paid a little extra to face the Tokyo Tower, and the view was definitely worth it.

japan_1106_12

Since we arrived in the morning, our luggage hadn’t arrived yet (which we sent off from Kyoto the day before). We decided to pass time in Odaiba, which is on a man-made island connected to Tokyo by Rainbow Bridge. It’s become a popular shopping and entertainment area with large malls like DiverCity, Aquacity, and Decks. We found a katsudon place for lunch, were able to do a bit of shopping, and also saw the life-sized Gundam in front of DiverCity!

After returning from Odaiba, our luggage arrived, so we settled in and rested up in the hotel. At night, we wanted to get a view of Tokyo and headed to Tokyo Skytree. We had dinner first at a nearby hitsumabushi (eel with rice) restaurant. There are a few ways you can eat it: as is, with leeks and wasabi, or with seasonings and a hot broth. I tried all 3, and the leeks and wasabi way was my favorite 🙂

japan_25

Read the rest of this entry »

10 · Posted in Japan, Vacation
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »