fairly defunct - Initial D photolinks.

Well, when you get OVER HERE I'll drive you over Shoestring to get ice cream at Rice Hill, and that should take care of a lot of urges to go over mountains. And by that I mean 'when even my stepfather is going 30 miles an hour...'

T^T So the redhead in SLAM DUNK, Yasmin says he keeps randomly braining people with his forehead?

I watched like five minutes of the first episode in growing horrified fascination and then I wandered off and haven't restarted yet. (The subs are copies of Chinese subs so they're kind of er low quality but that's ok because I can still make out what they're saying and the English translation isn't that bad -- it's just sort of distracting to see the Chinese subs and try to read the characters before I remember I don't read Chinese.) But -- BRAINING PEOPLE. WITH HIS FOREHEAD. ♥

I mean, BRAINING PEOPLE. ♥♥♥ And randomly wangsting earnestly about how he can't get a girl friend.

You'll NEED the ice cream by the time we get over Shoestring; it's THAT BAD. XD

Wow. Just. Wow. What die-hard fans. -marvels-

*stares at the pictures* Now that's fangirl dedication and research. And I thought I was geeky just trying to piece together the Tenipuri or Naruto timelines. And I want to drive on them, tooooo.

... You do realize that this is not new research, yes? I did the IniD genba searches back in 2003. Now I'm mainly just going back through old entries and digging out links from old entries. (Though half of them are dead now. *sobs*) This is a legacy of having a really, really sucky job where I ended up with at least one month a year where I had absolutely nothing to do. Anyway, my research skills aren't that great 'cause I don't know where the tofu shop is located. Though I do think I know where the gas station is. I just haven't had a chance to go out there and confirm it yet. *argh*


I can't say how the MoB novels compare on Iroha (I will when I get to that point, rest assured), but the anime is... creative. Though the waterfall that Naoe and Kousaka were chatting at is fairly accurate. *shrug* I guess the animators had some pics of Nikkou and vicinity, just not of the Irohazaka road itself. It's too bad they weren't accurate enough to animate in the letter sign on the hairpins, or I could point out on a map where everything happened. Iroha is handy, it has all the corners indexed.



though after IniD #29 one could also plausibly go EEE GHEI if one finds that guest lodge, but moving riiight along.

*tries to remember if I've seen pictures of the guest lodge* I think I did, but that was right when RL made me fall out of touch. Of the two sites that would have it, one of them is down *sobs* and the other one I usually found through the first one.


PAGE NUMBERS INCLUDED. I...just. HATS OFF, NOW.

It's too bad that my favorite site is down and I can't find my backup site. They both, uh, have a lot more pictures. With page numbers. And the later courses.

I wonder if I can still find sites that had pictures of people at various genba with little masks of the characters... I think I have at least one of those sites in my LJ rather than being in the link-shuu that got nuked on my computers.


Speaking of links:

Ikaho Onsen Ishi-kaidan live camera. This one is really nifty because it lets you take control and move the camera around. Unfortunately it doesn't show the exact stairs that Takumi and Itsuki ate the onsen manju at. That's higher up the hillside, and around a jog in the road. But you can see where Natsuki was waiting for Takumi before their first date. (Unless they repointed the camera? I remember it looking down the stairway, not up...)

Mt. Akagi today. Not a great shot, but I don't think I'd seen this live camera before. I have another Akagi live camera link, but I'm having trouble getting it to load. (It does that sometimes.)

Mt. Haruna livecam


I really want one of them for my desktop.

Which one? I might have a decent higher-res copy. Though if you are willing to change mountains, my ones of Iroha were done on the better camera, as were Myougi and Usui. (The latter two might have bits of the car in the shots, since my friend didn't really know how to operate my camera and I was busy driving.)


Or I could also use someone to drive me.

Yo! I managed okay with a Japanese impaired codriver, but it would be nice to have someone who could read the signs and understand what the Navi says. Or, heck, someone else who can program the Navi while I'm driving. Oh, and having someone who would correctly interpret my going "EEEEEEeeeeeeeee!!!!" upon seeing a yellow FD as "quick, take a picture!!!" (Friend is not an IniD fan, for all that it's her tapes that I have. She thinks its ugly and refuses to watch, since she's figured out that she will probably get hooked if she does since she can tell there's a good story and interesting characters there.)

I do still intend to do the IniD genba off sometime. It's just all the people I was going to go with (m'self included) don't have the finanaces for it any more. Though if you are going to be living in Japan for a while you might very well end up doing it first.

(It is so awesome having someone other than myself who thinks that checking out the genba is cool!!)

Whyever should I mind if it's not new research?

Ah, just wanted to you know that I'm not insane enough to dig all these up overnight... Insane, yes. *That* insane... only sometimes. And never on weekends that are dedicated other kinds of insanity.

The gas station is mainly a matter of confirming that my research is right, since I'm pretty sure I do have the right location for that. I just keep running out of time any time I'm near Takasaki. (I thought having a freaking car would provide me the chance to get out there. But noooo, we had to rush off and catch a train.) The tofu shop... I begin to lose hope. So few clues exist for it. All I know is that 1) it is in Gunma, and 2) it is not in Shibukawa or Ikaho. *sigh* Not a lot to go on.

Just started on MoB #6 last night. #9...? Ma, saki wa nagai... Though I thought all the stuff in Nikkou wrapped up by #8? Not that I mind sticking around an area that I know well. (Gives me a chance to catch up on the research for areas that I don't know well, and maybe go somewhere I haven't been to before in the region.)

I don't have hardly any of my pics up on the web. (I think all the pics I have up currently are from Mexico, and aren't of particular interest to anyone who isn't a rally fan.) I look at everything I have to sort through and get daunted. Once I get some stuff off my hard drive I'll load up the Akina pics and see what I've got and upload it.

Going to an IniD genba with someone who is a fan (rather than just being tolerent of my eccentricities and is going along to enjoy the scenery) would be highly nifty. Among other things, it would mean that I could stop the car and take pictures, rather than just shooting from a moving car (or bus! Eeek!) Part of why I like the links to those corner-by-corner Usui and Akina is that they list where all you can park.

Your inner bimbo has yet to annoy me. I have no problem with yaoi. I have a problem with stoopid, out of character yaoi. (Would it surprise you if I said I went to Yaoicon three years in a row?)

Say, you *are* living in Japan now, yes? Where are you located?

Sadly, no. I'm in San Francisco, actually. (Well, slightly outside of SF now.) I just go to Japan a lot. Living in Japan would mean that I would not have to wait over a month for new MoB novels to arrive. (That's why I think so much about how fast am I reading -- I have to balance finances versus when do I need to get my order in so that I don't run out and get stuck on a cliffhanger.)

omg. the fandom scares the heck out of me oO