Lately I’ve become more and more of an outdoors guy. I guess you change when you fall in love with someone and decide to spend more of your free time with that special someone. Hence, I decided that this weekend, I would bring Kagami out on another trip to one of the numerous parks in Christchurch.

This is the Halswell Quarry. It used to be a stone quarry, and after people noticed that it the miners were so creative that they carved out a really beautiful landscape out of all the stones that they were mining, they decided to turn it into a park.

We proceeded to walk the biggest hike trail we could find on the park. The first checkpoint was that lookout up there.

We found a little tree gifted to the park.

It was a cool tree.

Not much longer up the trail, I noticed something moving in my backpack. It turned out to be our resident stowaway.

Kagami gave Konata a lecture on why sneaking on to trips uninvited is dangerous and outright rude.

We saw a little plaque that bore the name of a city in England. Its funny how there are two Christchurch’s on either side of the world.

Yep, looks like we should follow the red trail.

We climbed up to the point where we could see the huge fields below.

Then at the observation point, Group picture!

Sisters in arms.

The scenery was very surreal with all these huge barren diving slopes, reminding me of Korthos in Dungeons and Dragons Online.

We even got to read about how the stones here came about.

Of course, there were dangers associated with the awesome cliffs.

Basically we were walking on these magnormous stones that had a bit of soil on their surface that grew grass, and most of the cliff edges were barricaded with barbed wire and handrails.

And we noticed that we were on the right track. (well we didn’t really know since there were so many crossroads but we hoped anyway)

There was even an arrow pointing where the trams used to go all the way from the city.

And there were so many of these branches that look like they were just burnt, but are surrounded by perfectly unburnt plants. Really weird.

There were times when it felt like an RPG.

An RPG like Myst…

We could see a lot of the southern part of the city from up here, like we could from the Port Hills.

And there were more paths through dark tree cover.

We found nice watering holes along the way too. How thoughtful of them to put them here.

More of those burnt things.

We even came to a junction that led to a pathway labelled this. Now we know where sheep get lambed (yum).

We came to another part where we could choose if we wanted to take the bright sunny way or the dark narrow winding path under more trees. We decided the dark narrow path was more interesting.

It had signs that litterbugs were far from extinct.

… and weird things probably happen around the area…

After several minutes of walking we finally found our way out.

Over our little walk out of the trail we noticed more interesting little things.

Christchurch is also a sister city of Kurashiki.

They built this awesome Japanese style bridge near it too.

And Kurashiki’s mayor apparently gave Christchurch this.

Details follow…

The Japanese garden was really different with all its bamboo and stuff growing around

And lots of meditation space.

We even found an awesome piece of marble to sit on.

Tsukasa found this funny looking statue of statues gifted by the Koreans.

There were also these awesome statues with words written on them. I could only make out the left one saying “To Christchurch”. I think.

There was an awesome artefact sitting there too.

And a really nice wall.

Though, this sign caught my eye. Kagami couldn’t stop teasing Konata after seeing it.

… and Konata didn’t seem too happy about it in the car.

I still find it hard to fathom how this girl becomes a soldier. When people tell us not to judge books by their cover, they’re saying irresponsible things because its pretty damn hard not to.

What I find illogical is that she keeps long hair and a red ribbon in the hair. Think about all the dangers that would pop up with those. Her hair might get stuck somewhere or cover her face at a bad time, or even while she’s aiming with the rifle. And the ribbons would be a huge flag telling enemies where she is. It’s nonsense!

And just look at her! No way I’ll let someone like her go into the army. She’s precisely the kind of people you want to protect, and not be protected by!

That said, this show presses all my buttons. Though the story seems to be going a bit too quick. I feel like I’ve suddenly been dragged along this quasi-storyless plotline where things happen suddenly and I’m supposed to feel surprised.

Then I could talk in secret with my close friends by just looking at them instead of having to wait till no one’s around to talk.

Wow. Just wow. Ok this studio wins at moe. Kanata wins in the moe department. This is perfection! This is excellence! THIS IS SORA WOTO

I think a lot of doujin is going to come out of this scene…

And this one…

And this one too. Kanata is teh awesome.

23 ****ary ****day 20*0

“Okay, so Tsuchida-sensei is like, dense and all, but I don’t see why no matter how often I hint him, he never makes his move. Are boys these days liek, allergic to girls or something?”

“We sat on a train for like so many hours I thought my butt was starting to become part of the chair. Great thing I was wearing a skirt, or I would’ve gotten some god awful rashes… Man, how does Sakura get away with wearing jeans all the time anyway?!

We were so bored Sakura made some jokes about everyone being Tsuchida’s bride and all, so I thought I’d tip him off again. But noo, he just goes all vomity and stuff. Am I really THAT ugly? I mean, I’m not the cutest girl around but… seriously! Hey boy, we’re both liek 30 years old now, NO ONE is chasing me and I’m in a hurry to marry.

… and I REALLY need to find a better brand of tampons. ”

“But even though he seemed like he was so unwilling to be with me he was still being so nice. Whats up with that anyway!? Actually I kinda hoped that he did offer to carry my suitcase anyway. Lucky I didn’t have to carry all that stuff up that mountain I didn’t know about. What are they, hermits living on a mountain?”

“His mother though, was faaaar more charming, and that’s great. I was pretty worried that if I hadn’t gone on this trip I wouldn’t know what she’d be like. THANK YOU SAKURA. Gosh this is great. If we work together I can keep a nice close eye on him, and his mother is teh pwn! I really gotta make this work now. I just had to do like I do it in the mirror always and say hi so nicely I get these flowers growing behind me and SCORE!”

“Okay so I tried this awesome thing I read in ‘How To Trap Boys’ in this awesome book by this lady called Lim Feng Shui, and tried to act as if we wanted to tell his mom something important. But Tsuchida is crap. His mother misunderstood but he cleared it up immediately. I mean, WTH!? I was already like, smiling and nodding away and stuff, whats up with you?! We couldv’e been like tied up there and THEN! I really gotta go get some image advice. I must ACTUALLY look so bad even a loser like him is running”

“I really get the feeling that his brocon sister’s got something to do with it. Oh man, I hope she doesn’t give me too much trouble… Like, she’s one huge attention whore. Need to get her off his back so I can snap him up.”

“Okay so the idiot finally tried to make his move, but that god annoying Anzu is as crazy as her mom, jumping on someone’s hand in midair. There goes my chance again. Seriously, trying to get a boy to pull you in is freakin hard work.”

“Whoa its so hot tonight. I think I pulled the sash too tight, I’m getting slightly dizzy and all now. Maybe its time for bed. Gosh I wonder if he’ll sneak in tonight and jump on me so I can tie him down on a wedlock…? … Pfff fat chance.”

Last autumn me and Kagami went to the New Brighton beach for a nice relaxing day trip. This summer however, we went again, this time a Konata tagged along to accompany Kagami.

Kagami lookin’ pretty at the beach. This time, we started on the north part of the beach, and gradually headed south where the pier was.

We found a funny fish thingy on the sidewalk.

There were some old run down buildings titled “OZONE”

We even found a funny statue sitting just near the carpark.

So we decided to sit on its face and take photos

To give you an idea of what they were really sitting on…

More fish stickers on the walkway curbs

Konata tried to press the water fountain, so Kagami challenged her to actually put water in her mouth.

She wasn’t very successful though…

While I chilled out on the rocks at the beach, Kagami and Konata wandered around looking down strange holes. Lucky they didn’t fall into any of them. It would’ve been troublesome.

Enjoying the view from the stairs of the sports center.

At the top of the sports center, Konata continues to irritate Kagami by getting too hyped up.

We also spotted some saltwater flowers by the beach. They grow out of the sand!

And there were some really suspicious looking pieces of wood lying around in the sand.

Chilling out on the broken sign before continuing our little walk to the pier beach.

We had some more walking to do before reaching the pier, which can be seen in the distance.

I found a stick and made a signature in the sand. Tell me if you actually saw it in real life! You would have seen what I looked like if you did.

Of course, Kagami was here too.

Here people just strip their clothes and run off into the sea naked. That’s right. The water was only about 10 degrees celcius at the time I took this photo.

We even found a little sand castle (mound?) and decided to conquer it!

After that we finally arrived at the oh so familiar pier beach area.

Then we took a nice memorable picture with the Lolwhale.

There’s the pier! Lets go! The guy in black walking towards us actually drew something in the sand. Check it out:

Pretty cool huh?

Alas, it was soon time for dinner, so we decided to make a move.

Had a little sit around to look at the beach one last time before leaving.

Was really hungry, so we had some nice oily food after that. Of course, topped off with nice healthy green tea.

Last night after dinner, me and the Hiiragi sisters went up to the port hills again, this time at night to enjoy the view. We went up just shy of sunset to set up our picnic.

… and then we enjoyed the view. (click the picture to enlarge)

Dark is falling an the moon is getting brighter and lower

Eventually it just became black where we were…

We walked down to the edge of a cliff and found the city in full view.

Back to our picnic spot…

When you gaze up, you also see the milky way

Can you see Orion?

Alas, it was getting late and time to go, so we took a final picture and then left.

Lately anime production companies have been employing high dynamic range colouring to comply with the self censorship laws in Japan. Whether or not this is to avoid breaking the law or to encourage DVD sales is however, left to question.

Perhaps the large amount of bright light is to illustrate heavenliness of the experience…

Perhaps there are also reasons why angels glow a blinding white: to enable them to stay modest whilst avoiding having to actually wear clothes.

Though what place modesty has in this show is quite disputable…

Then again, the extreme brightness seems to make sense in an environment where the sun is shining brightly. Perhaps they know that kids are watching TV late nowadays too, and the brightness is here so as not to taint them.

But what are we to do when the subject being covered is a child herself…

So I’ve always only been talking about characters other than the railgun herself, and after watching this episode, I decided that she, as the title character be at least given some blogtime. After all, she does shine in ways very few people do.

One of those things that makes her really interesting is her obsession for cute things. Especially cute frog Gekota-kun, like any other person would fanboy/fangirl over something. But this is something she holds back from everyone, though she isn’t so successful at it.

She is extremely humble. Most people at a certain level have an air of arrogance when in their area of profession. She however, applies no effort to publicize her abilities, or gain any political advantage using it. This is one of the main qualities that I see in her. People like her are so few in this world, I could count them with my fingers. And most of all, I dare not say I am one.

She is also really kind. Few people have the saintly patience required to provide attention to children with all their heart. Most kindergarten teachers and even mothers fail miserably at this. Some may argue that seeing children for short periods of time makes it easy to do, but even for short periods of time most people are interested in things other than talking to children even when they stand before a child under their care.

She also thinks very little of herself. This is perhaps the only quality by which one can truly advance to greatness. There is no better driver for improvement than a constant pressure on yourself to become better. This pressure however, will only build up from dissatisfaction with yourself.

She is skilled in the fine arts, which shows the determination and dedication she possesses in herself. Arts are an extreme description of a person’s personality, and only a dedication to excellence and detail can create a good performance in the eyes of so many.

And last, but not least, she is tsundere. If you do read my blog, you probably already know what this means in embarrassing detail.