Gentian's Photographic Misadventures

[Gentian]

This is not the entry I had expected to make next, but I'm not upset about that in the slightest. I mentioned in another thread that I ordered a custom MLP T-shirt. It was supposed to arrive on the 20th of this month, but upon returning home last night, there was a message waiting for me that said it had come in early, and to please return to the store as soon as was convenient to get it.

When the mall opened this morning, I biked on down there and did just that. I'm very happy to say that the C-Shirt (C is for Cute!) is indeed of acceptable quality, and the perfect size. Time alone will tell how the printing holds up, but at the moment, I'm pleased as punch, and intend to order a couple more, once we see how laundering affects it.

Twilight reports that she can use the shirt as a vessel, at least over the short term, but far prefers her plushie.

There's a daily limit of how many positive ratings that I can give out

You made me choke on my leftover spagoots.

Fret not about little green numbers, Mr. Gray, just accept my thanks for enjoying the pic.

[Gentian]

This is the entry I had expected to make, albeit I thought we would go yesterday. That didn't work out, so today ended up being the day. There are 24 pics in this entry, we hope you have as much fun looking at them as we do sharing them with you!

You may recall a journal entry in which I discovered that my beautiful, brilliant marefriend likes bugs. Some of them, anyway. Cicadas, definitely. That being the case, I did a little digging around, and found a museum dedicated to those little critters. At first, I was kind of hoping to keep it a surprise, but she knew I was up to something, so we talked about it. She said it sounded great, and that she really wanted to go, so we did.

Here she is at the entrance to the Itami City Museum of Insects, apparently opened in 1990, in a corner of a park which has been around for 1250 years. Neat!

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Immediately through the door, is the gift shop. It's not the entrance and exit, by the way, just the entrance. It seemed a little bit of an odd place for the gift shop, but whatever. Beyond it, was a large diorama of the world from a bug's perspective. Giant plastic vines, leaves, grass, trees, and insects sprouted from the floor and hung from the ceiling.

If you look in the background of the first picture you can see "Big Bee." She's not part of this display, but serves as the hub of the museum. To her right is a display room, to her left is a passage to an atrium, and behind her is the stairs to the observation area on the roof, and the corridor to the museum's exit. We'll get a better look at her shortly.

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We made our way through the diorama, and arrived at Big Bee. We both wanted to get a picture of her, but at that time she was swarmed by children, so we went in to the display room instead. It was too full to take a shot of the entire room, so we went right in and started looking about.

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In the left corner of the display room, there was an area dedicated to food insects. Unfortunately, there was nowhere for Twi to pose, so we thought we would have to continue on sans photo. Well, as it turns out the people who were sitting at the only table in the room got up and left, so with Twi's permission, I snagged a chair, carried it to the edible insects display, and we got our photo on.

Looking at this wall, I couldn't help but remember this humorous exchange:

Deb of Night: "You know they voluntarily eat insects in some countries."
Man: "Well, those countries probably need Jesus."

Twi says ponies don't generally eat insects. I'm glad to hear that, actually.

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More pretty butterflies.

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An exhibit of giant beetles, and where to find them. Notice the tarantula at the top left. The smaller insect next to it is a tarantula hawk. Go ahead and google that, you'll love the pics. It's my first time seeing one, I must say, I expected it to be bigger, still it is sufficiently intimidating for the insect with one of the world's most painful stings. I'm glad I'm not a tarantula.

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More butterflies, this time an amazing blue.

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And even more butterflies! If you look through the back of this display, you can see the other vertical case containing the butterflies from the first pic taken in this room.

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As you can see, this isn't a very big room, nevertheless it held a lot to look at. This was taken as we were leaving; by then it had emptied out enough to permit it. If you haven't noticed yet, I'd like to point out the bug-girls in the decorative work at the top of the walls. They're just so quintessentially Japanese.

We're going to return to this room, but for now, it's time to move on.

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Emerging from the display room, we found, much to our delight, that Big Bee was all alone. Twilight and I walked around it looking for a good place to snap a pic, eventually deciding on this one.

Now, Big Bee isn't a static exhibit, oh no. Big Bee moves! Big Bee is also a camera, intended to provide a bug's perspective. Big Bee has been enlarged to 2.4 meters in length, and fitted with a camera, which you can barely make out betwixt her antennas. The monitor to Twi's right shows the camera's feed, along with another one behind Big Bee. That one also has simple left and right arrow buttons to make Big bee turn. We wanted to get a pic of that too, but Big Bee got swarmed with a new wave of children before we could.

Twilight and I decided to leave BB for now, and go to the piece de resistance: the butterfly atrium!

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The first thing we noticed, opening the door to the atrium was the heat. It was 37.1C and 73% humidity, according to the LCD display set up nearby. Presumably great for butterflies, and the plants they feed on, but after the cool of the air-conditioned museum, quite a shock to both human and pony.

The next thing we noticed were the butterflies. They were everywhere! Some of them were small, and some were absolutely enormous, bigger than my open hand. They came in all different colors and shapes, flitting about the flowers and plants, swooping among one another high above, and also alighting on the people walking through.

You can see the entrance on this map; it's the door at the bottom right, the exit is at the top right, and the little red dot shows where we were.

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Continuing on from the sign, we found a little log laid over the waterway. We were hoping a butterfly would land on her, but unfortunately none did. They landed on me, though.

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This is probably my favorite pic from this trip, and if you look at the bottom right corner, you'll see why. We finally got one! True, it's not resting on Twilight's vessel like we'd hoped, but one of them - and there were a LOT, seriously, they were everywhere - finally decided to flutter-by.

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The path through the atrium takes you to the 2nd floor. Once through the door, and the heavenly chilled air, I noticed a bathroom to the left. Right next to the hall, we found this exhibit: bug poo! In little toilets. I suppose there's no better place.

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Beyond the poo display - Ha! - we found a small library. It had a few potted plants, and little tanks containing various bugs, and a trio of turtles among the shelves, but this was my favorite. It seems the museum keeps bees. Twi and I sat for a while watching them come and go, but some kind of game for the children was about to start, and the room was filling up fast, so we regretfully bid the honeybees farewell.

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From the library, we went up some stairs. The 3rd floor was off limits to all but museum staff, but the 4th floor opened on to this observation area. From top to bottom, we're looking NNW, WSW, and SSE. The other way was blocked by the building itself. On the left edge of the middle pic, and the right edge of the bottom pic, the structure of the butterfly atrium is visible.

You can't tell from the photos, but it was really, really windy. There were massive thunderheads to the north with no less than 3 anvil-topped cumulonimbus. The south was a line of cumulus congestus, and they were blowing in fast. It looks as though the entire Kansai region is getting pounded, because as I upload these pics thunder, lightning and heavy rain are pouring outside. We made it home none too soon!

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After leaving the roof, we went back down the stairs to the 2nd floor. Beyond the library we found this hall. The floor was an aerial-photograph map of the city, the right wall was a curtained off area where you'd pick up a flashlight, go through the curtains and look at nocturnal insects doing their thing in the dark. Obviously, we couldn't take pictures there.

The left wall was a row of cages of beetles like these. There were a number of other live exhibits in the museum too, but none of them had places for Twi to pose. At the end of the hall was a little area with insect cosplay for the kids, but none of the items were Twi-vessel sized.

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After reaching the end of the hall, we doubled back, and descended the stairs to the 1st floor. The exit was to our right, but now that we'd seen the museum, we wanted to get another look at the gift shop. On the way, we stopped back in the display room from earlier. For some reason, I didn't photograph this in our initial visit, so, let me present the Cicada Bar.

Those white things are speakers you hold to your ear, and it plays the call of a particular kind of cicada. There is a placard, and small plastic box next to each one. The box contains a specimen of that speaker's particular cicada, while the placard talks about it.

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Now, like I mentioned before, Big Bee is the hub of the museum. When we left the display room, she was open again, so we climbed up the stairs and took this. You can see the second monitor I mentioned, and the way she overlooks the diorama.

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On the way back to the gift shop, we passed on the right side of the diorama. previously, we went right through the middle of it, so we discovered that the diorama actually showed the subterranean world as well. Behold: ants! We had to snag another chair to get this shot too, and the quarters were so close the flash looks awful. Oh well.

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There were quite a few interesting things in the gift shop: shirts, handkerchiefs, pencils, buttons, brooches, notebooks, postcards, you get the idea. All of them with an insect theme. Despite all the offerings - and they weren't poor quality by any means - we weren't going to buy anything at first, but then this caught Twilight's beautiful eye; honey, harvested from the bees we saw earlier. I'd been meaning to buy some honey, actually, so we went with a jar of this.

Here we are, safely back home. That's it for now.

[Gentian]

So, I finally got tired of looking at the velcro taking up space on my shelf. Also, these lil' patches ask me every day to take them out. Now, I can do just that!

[Ziggy and Angelbaby]

I just perused your trip to the "bug" museum; seems like a cool / fun place. The large bee is pretty impressive; fitting that you ended up with a jar o' honey afterwards.

[Gentian]

I just perused your trip to the "bug" museum; seems like a cool / fun place. The large bee is pretty impressive; fitting that you ended up with a jar o' honey afterwards.

It was kind of a neat place. Twilight enjoyed herself, and that's the important thing. We noticed bees in the flowers around the museum, but didn't even think they could be the museum's bees. Their honey is a pretty unique souvenir, and the sign said only a certain number of jars are produced each year, so once they're gone, that's it. As there's only one hive, and the bees need to eat too, that makes perfect sense, so it's a good thing we got there when we did. The woman behind the counter actually seemed surprised when we brought up the jar, for some reason.

[Gentian]

Last night, my light bulb burned out, and I discovered, much to my chagrin, that the spare which I thought was in a drawer, was in fact, not. So today Twilight and I took a trip to the mall. After getting what we went for, we wandered about for a bit. As luck would have it, we ran into a box full of these little be-lettered, stainless steel cylinders, and knew just what to do with them: increase the Twilification of my notebook!

Adding charms and beads to the elastic of a Midori is one of the most common mods among the user-base. Until today, though I couldn't find anything suitable. A month or two ago, I found some appropriately sized letters in a jewelry store, made of sterling silver, but they didn't have enough to spell out her name, so I passed them by. Finding these today was quite a happy accident.

The picture is a bit hard to read, but it says "TWILIGHTSPARKLE" one word, all in caps.

Pic 1/1

[Gentian]

Initiate buzzing protocol. One-way speech established. Our wisdom flows so sweet, taste, and see.

It's finished, sweetling: the Crux Equestriatus Purity Seal. Paper, and glue to your senses; it seems the Fae glamours don't translate well.

No, we know a better way.

Through the hedge, to the mind of a talking monkey: The Implanted Forms made real. In paper. 300 yen per 300 sheets! Buy them now! Rainbow hues from a rainbowed people.

Close your eyes, sweetling, close them tight. Look into the mass of whirling shapes, and dancing colors. Your sight wants to run. Let it. Over the Hedge, through its hungry snarls, and vicious tangles. Only your blood will slake it. Sip the drops of glittering magic, like dew from the tips of its ravenous thorns.

The explosion in your mind is real. Your perception is clear.

It's not paper at all.

A cross of solid gold, set in to a base of carven jade. Silver inlays to accent the cutie marks of the 4 princesses. Precious metals, precious stones, at least as you think of them. Even more precious magics, as even you would see them, if you could. These give the symbols form, and more importantly, meaning. Emblazoning the quartet's royal essences so brightly not even your kind needs their dull simian-eyes to recognize them.

Access historical memories. Open meat-brain interface. Initiate transfer.

A quartet of royal ponies. No, not really. A goddess, and 3 demigoddesses. That's as close as your mind can come to the truth. But these, they're not the 4 you know. One of them is different.

Princess Luna: first to ascend, the adopted sister of the Goddess. Born an earth pony, and closest to true apotheosis. Check. Princess Twilight Sparkle: Element of Magic, and the love, and lover of the simian whose fingers we make dance. Tap Tap tap. Check. Princess Cadance...

Cadance.

Cadance.

404: divintiy not found. Reality alteration protocol engaged.

But not by us, Sweetling.

Princess Sunset Shimmer. Returned from the frozen wastes of the Crystal Empire, the place where the mirror really leads. One of them, anyway. Silly "writers" can't even get the facts of "their story" straight. The talking monkeys have never been perceptive.

All sealed in red, cinnamon, and sandalwood-scented wax, with ribbons of silk, like inverted speech bubbles. Fibers of shining silver, and purest moonlight bound within their weave. Bearing inks of liquid darkness, and midnight-given-form, themselves giving form to invocation of the God-Empress. She dislikes being called that, though that's exactly what she is.

Hold it sweetling. Hold it in your mind. Carry it to a ring of mushrooms, or a pristine staircase in the deep woods, and invoke her 3 times. Maybe she'll come to you. Maybe something else will.

Would the chance to meet her be worth it anyway?

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Another view, showing the back sheet, and a metric ruler for scale.

[EquestrianPenguin]

Why must you be so mighty, why do you bless us with your presence Gentian?

[Kadae]

You did an absolutely awesome job on those.

I missed your posts.

[Gentian]

You did an absolutely awesome job on those.

I missed your posts.

Daawwww, thanks. I missed yours too. Welcome back, buddy!