It would be even more awesome if it was a SteamPUNK Fair

I talked on the phone with Jei for quite a while last night. Didn't start out too good, a pretty emotionally fraught conversation, but by the end of it we were both cheered up and laughing, so I think overall it went okay. I don't enjoy putting Jei through this :\ It's never nice for her, and with all the stress of coming to England to study in just a few short weeks, it's a stressful enough time for her anyway. Both of us, I think, are kind of having an "ARGH WHAT THE HECK ARE WE DOING IT'S SCARY MAKE IT GO AWAY" moment about going to University XD But we're cool. We can dig it (like a shovel, oh yeah).

There's a few people who've commented on all the posts I've made, with loads of great advice and support, and buh... I just really wanna do something in return, you know? If ANY of you need anything, ever, PLEASE hit me up. I'll do whatever I can. You're the best, seriously, and I would like the chance to be an equally good friend in return some day if you need it.

So now... today. I got a doujin in the post that I'd been waiting for. 'Sunny Honey Sunshine'. What the heck that's supposed to mean, I have no idea. Oh well. It's cute, but as I can only read about 0.5% of the Japanese, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me D: (Also, a side effect of Engrishy doujin titles is that in trying to think of good titles ourselves for a douijin we thought up, Jei and I could only come up with Engrish ._. "Happy Shine World!", "Mystery Love Game", "Heart Heart Fight!" ... XD;)

Anyway, I'm off into town to catch Carters Steam Fair on the seafront. Basically, it's a world-famous funfair comprised of "antique & classic rides, games, arcades & sideshows... all of which are beautifully restored to excellent condition. The attention to detail is astounding, with original fairground-art adorning the panels of the rides & stalls, all towed by a fleet of vintage fairground haulage." It should be nostalgic and highly interesting as well as fun. Dibs on the swing-ride!

Hee, okay, catch ya later, LJ! :) Ciao!

In which Jai raves about Carters Steam Fair, wartime planes, and tiger plushies:-

Back from the steam fair. It was pretty darn awesome. If you're like me and have a real fascination with early modern machinery, something like this is just a must-see. It's a BRILLIANT example of exactly how fun-fairs would have been 50 - or even 100 - years ago. In fact, the engine that runs the horse carousel is over 100 years old, and has been running annually every year since it was first put to use. The merry-go-round horses themselves are from 1910, and are therefore almost 100 years old themselves. And the arcade is filled with penny slot arcade machines that only accept ye olde pennies, so be prepared to change up some money! :P

Here Jai will outline the highlights of his personal experience at Carters Steam Fair. Starting with...

The karmic tiger! I won him in a game of 21s, where you get to draw 7 tickets and if you can make a sum total of 21 from the numbers drawn, you win a prize. Naturally, there is a major deficit in the number of odd numbers in the mix. I only played once, but somehow I managed to draw 6, 6, 9 somewhere in my mix, which earned me any top-tier prize of my choice. I settled on a massive and luxuriously soft-looking tiger plush. When I say massive, I mean he really was about the size of a five-year-old child, if not bigger. Quite probably bigger. He was also really well made, and I was happy with him, despite the odd looks one gets walking around town with a giant tiger plushie under one's arm.

Tiger didn't stay with me for long. As I was eating lunch at a picnic table on the beach, a little old lady approached me from a group of OAPs and said she was admiring the tiger. She wanted to know where I had got it from and how much it had cost. She had her heart set on getting one for her toddler-aged grandson, who, she was certain, would adore it. She was willing to go to the steam fair herself and play until she won.

Well, I wasn't having any of that :\ What use is another plushie to me, no matter how soft and squishable? Naturally, I gave it to her for her grandson. To me, this was the smallest of gestures to make. It was just a stuffed animal and I had only spent a pound sterling on winning it. But the lady's jaw dropped. I have never seen someone look quite so flabbergasted by a simple gesture. At first she wanted to pay me £5 for it. Finally, I got her to accept it for free, and she just couldn't stop thanking me. She took my hand then touched my cheek, gave me a hug, blessed me, then said that she'd had no idea that such nice people still existed ^^; That's a little sad, really. There are many 'nice people' in the world, and in every corner of it. Anyhow, after she had showed off her prize and pointed me out to pretty much every other person in the picnic area, she finally wandered off with her group and my tiger in tow :)

The reason this story is important to me isn't because I feel that I did a really nice thing (I emphasise that to me it was really no big deal at all; no major loss XD), but rather that small seemingly triffling acts of kindness can sometimes have an unprecedented effect on someone's day or even their perception. If that lady now feels that generous young people are not a myth after all, then that's worth FAR more than the quid I spent on winning Stripey there.

Next up... The Bomber! The Bomber is the only ride I went on. I didn't want to spend too much money, but how could I refuse to go on a ride this awesome? Basically, you have two pods, one each end of a long metal arm that spins like a baton-twirler's stick. The pods twist as you go over, so you're never truly upside down, but you do plunge towards the ground face first at speed before strafing away back up. Rather like... a bomber plane! And so, the pods are painted to look like a torpedo of the body of a plane. Better yet... my photos! Let me show you them! I'm sure you've all seen this kind of ride before, but it really was all kinds of awesome.



So that was the ride I went on.
The fair also won many Awesome Points by having a swing ride! You know the ride where you sit in a swing-seat with a bar across your lap, and all the seats are hanging from chains, and they all fly outwards as the carousel turns? Yeah. One of them. But no... the awesome doesn't stop there. The awesome will EAT YOU ALIVE.



Aaand a close up.



Dude, bi-planes ;_; Wartime BI-PLANES. I wanted to strip that panel off the side of the ride and run away with it.

So yeah, all in all, steam fair was lots of fun and a really nifty little attraction that everyone should see if you live in England and happen to be able to get to any of the locations the fair is touring. And as a small point of trivia? The fairground used in the movie 28 Weeks Later is, in fact, this very one. It's been used in a few films in fact. And why not? It is AWESOME.

Okay, I'm done ranting and raving :)