Sacred stones, gardens, and magiX (what I did last weekend)
Once again, I actually left the house to do stuff this weekend, but I think I did enough lounging at home Friday and Saturday, so it wasn’t a total waste :)
Friday and Saturday consisted of video game playing and television watching. I haven’t had a chance to talk about the shows I’m watching, but in summary, everything was kinda meh this week. The rest of my free time was spent playing Fire Emblem, both GBA versions. I beat Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, and then I decided to attempt finishing the original Fire Emblem (but got nowhere, so I’m still stuck on the same freaking stage). I’m still partial to the first Fire Emblem GBA game; but I still need to try out the after-beating-the-game play mode. However, Sacred Stones has spiders, which automatically makes it a worse game to the original Fire Emblem. I’m looking forward to trying the GameCube Fire Emblem and (eventually) its Wii sequel.
Sunday morning, Kelvin and I met up with my mother to check out my first wedding venue option: Hakone Gardens. It’s a privately maintained, but open to the public, Japanese garden in Saratoga. Reading the Yelp reviews, it seems like it used to cost $5 a car. Now it costs $5 a head! That seems way too much for a small park area; I don’t think it’s large or gorgeous enough to justify that cost. Luckily, I had arranged to check out the facility through appointment, which means I didn’t have to pay for admission. (Unfortunately for the engaged couple that walked in at the same time I did, they still had to pay since they didn’t make an appointment.) We were given pamphlets and a Here Comes the Guide guide, shown photos of weddings held there, and given a short tour of the facilities by Jeremy, the event coordinator substitute to Eric (the guy I was originally supposed to meet).
Walking around, it’s a nice and pretty garden, tho I think it looks better in pictures than in person. The pond was also looking extra muddy and algae-y. Of course, I’m not easily impressed by nature, so go figure. We did spend a good hour or so walking around; there’s a buncha small paths on the hillside next to the main garden to explore. Overall, I liked the place, and after seeing the prices other venues are asking in Here Comes the Guide, it doesn’t seem that expensive anymore. I need to go look at other places, but I do like Hakone for its Asian look. And since it’s the only place I’ve looked, it’s still my first choice. We’ll see. My mom seems to like this whole visiting-venues thing; she took 100+ pictures while we were at Hakone. (If I’m ever feeling not lazy, I might upload them in my gallery. Until then, you can check out the measly 15 pictures I took.)
After Hakone, we went to some Chinese food court thing in Saratoga where I got beef noodles (and later indigestion) before Kelvin and I headed to Mike’s place to draft Lorwyn. 10 people showed up, but only 8 drafted. I wasn’t too fond with Lorwyn previously, but after drafting and playing, it’s grown on me. The “tribes” in Lorwyn are like the “guilds” in Ravnica, but funnier with more goblins exploding, giants throwing, and goats being kidnapped… I certainly don’t remember the Boros guild being this entertaining. I drafted a black-green elf deck that had decent synergy, so now I want to do an elf deck. I lost one, won on against Clarence, and Ted and I lost a 2HG against him and Kelvin (which of course was long and exhausting). Best move of the 2HG game could be described with this picture:
(Edited 10/17 to add:)
Explanation: show
Ted had a counterspell for non-Faerie spells, but of course Peppersmoke is a Faerie spell. Stupid Faeries.
New thing I learned today: The next two-set block after Lorwyn (Lorwyn’s second set is called Morningtide) is called Shadowmoor.
