And here is the full update on the outing we had yesterday to La Tendo and Kallang Leisure Park. First of all, allow me to express my gratitude to all those who came, either from the gaming or blogging sides. I hope you all got to know one another better and had some fun chatting and good times with all. If not, then I just did not manage to do a good enough job as the organizer and the next one should be done by someone more qualified than me. Yes quite an excuse to run away from organizing another lol.

Unfortunately I did not take many pictures, in fact I think we all forgot about it or something, most of us were busy chatting in La Tendo and looking around the figures, and some of us also purchased stuff. I also received Kanu Uncho (from Ikkitousen) LTD DX Ver. yesterday, and I am not expressively interested in going into details about her just yet, so I will save the pictures of her for another time.

First up is this group photo we took, along with the boss, Reedy, of La Tendo. Many thanks to him for taking the time off his very late lunch just to take this picture with us. Weijie helped us take this picture using Raven’s camera, many thanks to him.
 

Larger image is available when you click on it. Here are the peeps’ names, from left to right. If they have blogs or links, I will put them in.

Squatting: Fariz Asuka, Raven, Wcloudxkumo
Bent: CK (orange shirt), Zero (grey shirt with sling bag)
Standing: Sabar, Hirito, misakichii, wongtcsg, Squee, Reedy, Gordon, Panther, Akabane
 

I also took my own photos of the bloggers who were there, close-up ones. Unfortunately wongtcsg and his friend Cecil decided not to have their photos taken, so regrettably there are none of them (and me as well, I live up to my photoshy name) other than the one group photo taken above. Cecil in fact, is also not in the group photo above. Wee Min, a friend inside my circle, came, but had to leave early to prepare for a friend’s birthday party and was thus not in this photo. Neither was ALJH, who decided that it would probably be better to stay out of the photo as he was not technically one of either group (gaming side more, but hardly has time thanks to school).
 

Squee and Hirito respectively. As Squee mentioned, he lives up to the visual kei image. Not that I mind.
 

Fariz and the friendly Gordon. Was expecting Gordon to be older but I guess I should also realize I am getting on in years. Argh. I think Gordon was one of the friendliest there, and Fariz was probably shy because he could hardly get on with the topics surrounding NS and stuff. Well your time will come soon man, and do open up more haha.
 

Misakichii (better known to us as BK) and Wcloudxkumo (better known to us as Jonathan, I think I misspelt his name). BK said he was introverted but I feel he was a bit silent when we chatted in a group, think he got along well with Gordon. Surprised me later at the arcade when he said he also plays Guilty Gear. Jonathan played a few fighting games as well, ones the gaming community (FG-side anyway) would well know about, such as Soul Calibur 3 and Tekken. Yep, he challenged one of us in SC3. Not that good an idea but I hope you did have fun playing with whoever it was.
 

That was about all the pics that I took. Stayed out of the limelight where photos were concerned, and I was pretty sure no one else took pictures of the bloggers other than Raven and BK (he took only one candid shot). You can read his view here. Hirito also has one up here.

Edit: Gordon has a totally awesome post up of the outing. Woo, great work dude!

The following is a description of the day’s events as viewed by me. Obviously we all would have different descriptions based on our own experiences. However I was all the way out till 11, so yes, I was out the longest along with whoever was with me at the end of the day.
 

Game Start!

CK came over for lunch with me around noon, after lunch he came back to my place so he could have a look at Lode Runner: The Legend Returns and how I played it so he could get a better idea of what this classic game is about. After viewing a few stages we switched to The Incredible Machine for some good ol’ puzzle thinking, which he really likes. Solved a few together, but we were stymied by this stupid tennis ball puzzle. For those who know the game, puzzle 44 is the one we got stuck at for quite some time. The ball refuses to go over the damned net.

If you like action puzzle, Lode Runner is a good classic game to pick up, still good after 14 years since its initial release, and for classic puzzles, TIM is really a good game to start on. I ca
nnot tell you how to find it though. It is a secret.
 

Anyways we headed out around 2:30 PM, and met Wee Min (who lives next block from me) downstairs. We were running a little late by that time, and Squee SMS’ed me telling me he was already at City Hall. I was like, wow, still at Braddell MRT dude. He had a DS with him though, so he told me not to worry.

I messed up Gordon’s number somehow, even after reading through it twice, and finally I got Akabane to email Gordon. Luckily Gordon checked his mail before he left, and SMS’ed me. Surprisingly he was rather close, and was at Braddell MRT. We waited a little for him, and thus Gordon was the first person I met up with in the blogging community.

Train ride to City Hall was uneventful, though haha Gordon, my father might not know who “Panther” is thanks to him not knowing my nick. You know what I mean.
 

Upon arrival I went to look for the group who were already there, because while I was waiting at Braddell, Fariz, Hirito and Jonathan had all arrived ahead of time. I got Hirito to meet them up first, and then we met up again. The rest of us arrived not too far apart in timings, so it was quite a large group gathered in a circle, like we were ready to consecrate something on a huge bonfire, that waited for any latecomers to show up. It was more like we were ready to throw the latecomer into the middle and throw a blanket over the poor guy and rain blows…in what is known as a “blanket party”.

With the large group of us we then proceeded to the bus stop and somehow all managed to squeeze upon the bus when it arrived. Introductions were short before this, but I guess we all broke the ice with one another somehow along the way.
 

Arriving at La Tendo, we proceeded to go a house raid. Actually what we did was walk around, look at figures, talk about them, the series, and Gordon and Jonathan also bought one figure. BK also bought his own, though I have no idea what they bought exactly. Much were the chats in the shop, and I even spotted a Caramelldansen pose figure. Haha joy. The chipmunk from the Portrait of Pirates figure series was also spotted…though the absolute size of it was rather impossible. Akabane went so far as to say “I deny that thing is there”.

Wee Min left around this time.
 

Took my Kanu before we left, spent quite some time in the shop. While we were at its entrance Gordon was saying that we should have the boss come out and take a photo with us. After some pleading (in which I interrupted Reedy’s very late lunch, it was 4:30 PM at the time), Reedy came out and took a photo with us and Weijie did the honors of snapping the shots.

After I also took photos of the blogger peeps, wongtcsg and Cecil said they would go for a meal. The rest of us went up to the arcade to have some fun and games, and everyone especially wanted to see Zero’s manly reloading in Ghost Squad. I played one token in SC3 and one token in KOF: MIRA, and Zero actually managed to resist the manly reloading temptation and completed the game on very little HP in his lifebar. It appears he can only do his best when he has very little HP left, as will be seen later on.
 

Wongtcsg SMS’ed me before we left the arcade that he and his friend were leaving. BK totally missed them somehow, perhaps another time dude. Those still playing in the arcade were left behind while the rest of us went down to the foodcourt to have our dinner. Much were the funny conversations that ensued about NS life, work, studies, anime (but of course), figures and the like. We spent quite some time there chatting indeed. I do believe Fariz, Jonathan, Gordon, CK, BK and Sabar left around 6:30 PM or so, some of them having something on, others having to head back home for food.

The remainder sat to listen to Zero’s tales of his BMT buddy, and his adventures in NS and SISPEC (School of Infantry Specialists, where you go to become a sergeant in the army) to date. I also took a good look at the PSP version of Bleach (no idea what the game name is, Akabane has it) and Yoruichi’s alternate outfit in there. My god, I want that Yoruichi if she comes out in such an outfit.
 

After that we all headed to Bugis for some fun and games. Needless to say, after staying away from the arcades for so long, my skills in any game sucked, and I lost quite a bit. Hirito and Squee were sadly mostly left out by the fighting games, though Hirito had a good time laughing at some of the victories and defeats in-game. Later I went on to play World Combat, alone. Stupid first gun had a problem (that they never bothered to fix after all this time, I found out about it when I was playing more than a month ago) and they gave me a free credit on the third gun. Messed up my playing obviously, but as usual I got through it solo. Good to practice holding a damned gun and shooting. One credit = 23 minutes of play at least, normally 30 minutes if you extend your gaming time. Hirito was watching beside me and he said he never saw anyone get that far before. Lamest last boss ever, though. Weijie left at this time.

Sometime during my World Combat stint, Raven said he found a new game he wanted to play. I found them later by some new machines, and the game is called Otomedius, an anime girl shooter game. Much was the fun we had in finding out the graphics were really not bad though they showed penguins at the beach, cute ones, and had some really lmao enemies. The bosses were especially the pwnage. Expensive at Bugis though, 6 bucks for a card to record all your data and level up each time you play, and one token each time to play. Still it looks like a light-hearted and fun game, though I still cannot accept the fact that all the damned female pilots are lolis.
 

Image thanks to Arcade Heroes.

Some sites on Otomedius to browse through. Wiki’s article redirects to the original game Parodius. Otomedius’ official website in Japanese, and Kotaku’s first note on the game. Good description. Trailer and other vids can be found at Youtube. Famitsu has info on figures for the game.
 

I might even start playing this if not for World of Kung Fu which I am currently downloading. Would probably play it lightheartedly since academics are picking up. Still, it looks fun.

To continue, Zero was getting owned after Raven passed him the controls, though there was this pyramid stage where he survived on no shield (one hit means you are gone) for the longest period of time. In reference to the same thing he did above in Ghost Squad, it seems he can only do things at clutch moments. Unfortunately the boss eliminated his little loli.
 

After Bugis we went over to the prata stall opposite to have some good chats and food. Ownage stories repeated of the Team Alpha pwnage and self-G madness kept our time really occupied with laughter. At this time we were missing ALJH, whom I forgot about and actually thought he went home, and only Hirito, Akabane, Squee, me, Zero and Raven were left.

Akabane got on a separate train from us headed in a different direction, while the rest of us were all headed north. Hirito lives near Zero and Raven in Bishan along with ALJH, and Squee lives in YCK, a short bicycle ride from Hirito according to the latter. Singapore is indeed a small place…and that has both good and bad sides to it.
 

So there you have it. I arrived at home with aching feet, my injury was acting up by the time I got home. I could hardly stay up late online and so decided not to update on the outing till today.

Thanks to all those who came, I do hope you did have fun. And of course, not forgetting those who were unable to come – Alafista, Kaori Lolita, Aoi Sora9x, Kit Fox and pp, sorry that you peeps were not able to come. Hopefully we do have another one next month and you will be able to make it for the next. :)

A rather long post I am afraid, so here is a picture of Kotona Elegance from Zoids Genesis to ease your eyes for staying with me for so long.
 

Cheers.
 

Otomedius & Kung Fu,
Panther

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3. Console + Outing = May
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