Flight of the Stormcrow

I have been meaning to write this post for quite some time now; more specifically, the pictures were taken on the 9th of May 2009, at a Starbucks near the Athens Metropolitan Church. A company of friends gathered to say goodbye and wish a safe journey to Raven Sweetwater, a.k.a. Nozomi Sugihara, who would be leaving on the following day for the U.S.

Reasonably, one might wonder why we would gather with such urgency,, with such a feel of necessity, given that she is supposed to be gone for 20 days - until the end of May. Well, for one, it's a Greek thing and in her case, those of us who know how and why she has suffered for the past months, needed to see her off safely, so to speak. It is almost ritualistic, as if our gathering for a (temporarily) last outing, like we used to, will be a good luck charm for her to bear on her journey (not to mention that she needed all the encouragement she could get - she is friggin' terrified of planes).

Among the people gathered
were, of course, Kyoshiro and Flexxy...

...who took it upon himself to film the whole outing
(as if photos were not enough!)...

...the mighty KrizD -sensei...

...Chiroto (else known as
Master Betty), who brought disaster
the moment he stepped in there,
spilling 330 ml of whatever it was
Ploutonas was drinking, on the
ground...

...Ayami-chan...

...Didi...

...and the aforementioned Ploutonas,
among others (are you flashing us or
is it my idea? Dude...).

For my part, however, there was a thought lodged in the back of my head - involuntarily, as it often is and refusing to budge one inch: "she might not be coming back". Really, for all the company and friendship, for all the good days she might have had, her time here gave her a lot of grief and too much to deal with, too fast, too coldly, in the one place supposed to be a safe haven: home. In fact, I am not very sure she even considered having a home here, after a while.

Then, I started getting news from her, what she is doing in the U.S., how she spends her time. Then she started blogging again, started posting pictures of people and places and not one of them has been about Sugizo, her seeming obsession with whom has become sort of a frequent, well-humored, inside joke. Those last two posts were about herself, her own life, her own thoughts and contrary to what had become the norm, she seemed alive, happy, vibrant, not struggling against depression and madness, with her life coming apart and crashing down all around her ears.

One of many funny moments: Didi - yes, Didi! -
is on a diet (fer chrissake), so...

...the moment Ploutonas went to talk to Kyoshiro...

...she started oggling Ayami-s cheesecake dangerously!

Given the choice, what would you do? What would I have done? I have no idea, but that thought at the back of my head asserts its existence: she might not be coming back and I cannot really say as I blame her...

"Group photo, group photo!".
[KrizD has left
and here you can also see Sokail (top left),
myself next to him and Xander (top right).]

Safe travels Stormcrow, wherever they may lead you...

Speedgrapher

Tomodachi no Video

I believe the blog has been painted bleak long enough: the mourning goes on and that is a personal issue but you, dear readers, are at no fault and I wish to sadden you no further. Hence, in sharp contrast to the last post, have a look at these two videos from the night out with our Japanese friends. Hopefully, things will resume their normal pace as of the beginning of this week.

Mata ne,

Speedgrapher

Eeee...? Sugoooi!

Hello again dear readers. Right now, my head is still vibrating to the sound of J-tunes (and, well, alcohol for that matter) but, given that I finally installed some extra fans inside the PC (frigging HOT already - what am I going to do in August? Probably run around buck-naked, wearing only my natural fur - well, alternatively I could remain REALLY still with a fan targeted on me), I decided to blog anyway. Now, looking back at the past few months' posts, I realized that 95% of them concern Ordre de Ciel! Loads of pictures, reports from parties, birthdays, cosplays and what-have you. Now that, in and of itself, is not bad at all (whose party do you think I was at, last night?) but it harbors the danger of becoming repetitive (not specifically, since each party is different sort of chaos but in terms of subject category).

Hence, I thought to myself, I should lay off a little, stop running around like a crazed lemming with a camera, enjoy the parties more, instead of recording them for a change (yes, that is why - all you people who asked me - saw me without my usual technological extension). I thought, "I will blog about some other things that have taken a back seat, such as continuing the trip log to Japan, writing a review about the playtesting of the 4th Edition of D&D" and so on and so forth. However, it seems that fun and interesting stuff just tends to happen to this company comprised of Ordre de Ciel (room302, Raven Sweetwater, KrizD, Larva), Kyoshiro, Bunnydragon, Kame-chan, Darkside_Blues, Sweet Lady With a Tiger tail (nyarrr), Yu-kun, Countess Bathory, Evil Lolita, Skuld Skauksson, some other friends who do not have internet nicks and of course, myself...

Just the other day, we were out for an early afternoon coffee and a bit of j-party-craziness-free discussion. room302 and Raven had even brought one of their twins along (the other being on a visit to his uncles and quite happy with a water hose in hand, as I hear), Harry, affectionately called "their mini j-rocker". Well, can you blame them? I do not know that many 3-year-olds (none, in fact) who can sing Luna Sea by heart, do fan-hand-gestures related to Sugizo and X-Japan, or recognize Miyavi. Anyhow, being a lot of people, some were discussing, some were spacing out and many were preoccupied with Harry-kun. At some point, Kyoshito and Raven just kind of... vanished for a while and a little while later, came back with 4 Japanese travelers in tow, two guys and two girls.

I have come to understand that Kyoshiro, who has traveled extensively, has friends and acquaintances in every corner of the friggin' globe, so I naturally assumed that these four fell into either category... Well, I was dead wrong! They were among the passengers of a cruise ship, who had simply come to spend the day in Athens; Kyoshiro saw them with Raven, coming out of the metro and in her own, natural way, simply invited them over for coffee with us! Imagine being thousands upon thousands of miles away from home and stumbling onto the most Japanese-friendly company of people, one of whom was wearing a Silent Hill t-shirt (room302) and the other, one with Gon from Hunter x Hunter (that would be me). Furthermore, more than a few of us talked a smattering of Japanese and, well, if you haqve been keeping up with our crazey J-weekends, you get the idea. The two Yosuke's, Haruna and Ono, were delighted (probably as much as we were) and suddenly our tables became a chatter of mixed English, Japanese, Greek and some sort of sign language to fill in the communication gaps. Harry, of course, was the center of attention, and promptly gained a new volunteer mom in the face of Haruna.

Time wore on and as it did, more fellow travelers of these four poured out on the square, which inflated our company to 23 people! Time flew, as it always does when you are having fun and soon, it was nightfall, so we took Haruna, Ono, Yosuke and Yosuke to a nearby noodle bar, where we stayed until such time as they had to return to Peiraeus. That, of course, is just the gist of it and the rest is more appropriately illustrated by - what else? - photos.

Yosuke, Kyoshiro & Bunnydragon.

Harry, Haruna & Yosuke.

Ono, Yosuke, Haruna & Harry.

Aww, Harry and Haruna-chan.
Kawaii deshou neee?

Sweet Lady With a Tiger Tail, Yu-kun, Ono
& Yosuke.

Bunnydragon, Kame-chan & Kostas.

Proud parents (room302 & Raven Sweetwater).

Harry-tan and his mums: Raven & Haruna.

Sophia, sketching as always.

Countess Bathory & Larva.

Our Japanese friends all together! Haruna, Ono,
Yosuke, Shinichi, Yosuke, Kaori, Yuki &
Miki and of course, the day's star, Harry!
When I saw Shinichi for the first time, I thought
I had seen him somewhere before but could not
really put my finger on it... Then he told us he works
at Shinagawa Prince Hotel and I realized,
we had seen him in Japan!
Miki, on the other hand, is a Hunter x Hunter fan
and we hit it of talking about favorite characters!

The drummer and the guitarist. room302
& Yosuke.

All together! Of course, I have reverted to my
ghost photographer status and I am not in any of
the pics, kukukuku!

Hen kao!

Evil Lolita & Countess Bathory.

Kaori and our miniature j-rocker!

X!

X!

Yosuke & Evil Lolita.

Sweet (very sweet) Lady With a Tiger Tail.

Later, at the Noodle Bar...

...and this is the reason for this post's title,
Haruna saying "Eeee! Sugoooi!"

Sadly, our new friends had to get back to their ship by midnight (kinda like a fairy tale), so we saw them off, with much emotion and quite some tears. There are times when you realize just how important it is to feel accepted somewhere and, arriving in this country, meeting us, it was as if all of us had been friends our whole lives. Haruna has invited us to go to Osaka and hopefully, we will manage to do so in the future. Until then, genki ni nare otomodachi-tachi!

Mata ao ne

Speedgrapher