So my avatar's name is Matsuri Kohime (袴媛抹狸, which means "the princess who wore hakama" "a touch of evil genius". She's a sweet little thing who loves to play dress up. On occasion she has been known to pole dance, like two nights ago when she won the October Country Anime Costume Contest (the prize was a 1000 ld). Here's a picture from that crazy event -
Yes the bowl of ramen was a avatar costume. And yes, he won for the males.
Here's a pic of my winning costume -
Basically I dressed as Shimazu Yoshino from Maria-sama ga Miteru, holding a bokken. I couldn't find a shinai, but a bokken will do in a pinch. You might wonder why I'm hanging upside? Well, that's because October Country is known for its vampires.
I liked this spot so I thought I'd take a few more pics. Here I am in my vampire garb -
A snapshot I took of myself in the same general vicinity (this one became my newest profile image) -
Aww, I just love kimono. I tried to do an upside hanging kimono shot but I had rather poor results because my yuna was flying all over the place.
As luck would have it, Sweetaholic shop recently made a pair of hakama available (consisting of a chihaya and a hakui) and thanks to my recently won 1000 ld, I jumped for it. I just love miko, and afterall, my name has the words "hakama" in it. Here's a pic of the chihaya worn without any hakui coverings -
Thank you Flanagan's pub for providing me this ultra-cute cherry blossom tree to stand in front of. Now I wasn't 100% sure if the himo can only be worn with the chihaya or the hakui or both... oh well.
It occured to me that I could make for a very ghost-like appearence with this getup, so I journeyed back to October Country and snapped a shot off on the wharf of Innsmouth -
But I wasn't quite ready to thrust myself into the murky abyss just yet. Afterwards I felt icky all over and decided I needed to purify myself of the spirits I had been walking amongst at a shrine. But there are so many shrines in Second Life, I couldn't easily choose. Also, it's tradition to visit a shrine after New Years and since I haven't been to any in RL I thought this might be neat. This is my pilgrimage. Here I am doing water purification at Niseko Jinja in Hokkaido -
This was such a cute shrine, I snapped off a few more shots -
Well this was only an itty-bitty shrine, and I didn't really feel like I'd had the whole experience yet (plus doesn't it just look awfully too cold be traipsing about in hakama here?) so I continued on my journey. Suddenly it occured to me that there was another shrine in Little Kyoto so I hopped on over -
Unfortunately, this one wasn't nearly as exciting. Kind of a weird commerical place. BUT! They did have a four-story pagoda and I just couldn't resist doing what I had wanted to do that last time I was in Japan -
If you can't see it, I'm floating on the upper-most roof. It's quite a drop from the top floor, let me assure you. Let's see... where did I go next? Oh yes, I visited the Amaterasu Grand Shrine and Shinto School. Such a gorgeous place. Here I am doing omairi (you can sort of see my fingertips touching the floor) -
They had a very serene wetland here, so I thought I would stop and bask in my youthful miko beauty -
Oh my goddess, you'll never believe what else I found here. What shinto or temple is complete without an omikuji box? And furthermore, what omikuji box is complete without cute miko?
IRRASSHAIMASEE~ I thought it might be cuter and more appropriate if I wore hakui for this shot. Since this was a miko school there was another smaller shrine adjescent to the main building -
This is a different form of omiari you do standing up. See my dilligent gasshou? In the backgroud you can see another Sakura, well... i'm a sucker for Sakura and I just had to hop the fence and steal a shot. Whoa... how cute it turned out -
Kawaii~ I might have to make this my next profile shot. Oh yeah, and when I was taking this photo I noticed something very peculiar in the next lot over. On closer inspection, it was exactly what I thought it must have been from afar...
A stargate... (or cha'pa iee if you perfer) complete with dialing device. Curioser and curisor... I of course tried to dial out but i forgot the first rule of SG-1: you can never dial a random address and expect to hit a functioning gate.I really wanted to visit the Neko Jinja again, but I understand it's been recently taken down due to funding issues. It might be back up soon. I do have a couple pics from there though. It's a shrine devoted to channeling cat kami. Here is my friend Vera and I currled up in a wicker basket -
Well that's all for today. I leave you with a pic of the now defunct Lillian campus (sorry you can't see Mariazou in this shot, I'll have to throw one up from the Christmas Mass) and one from inside the Bara no Yakata. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's quite all right. Ta Ta.
