The Making of Kirito's Coat

I never expected that for our design class, we would be doing cosplays. Sure, some groups picked Kylo Ren and Rey and Cinderella, but I never expected more picked guys like Kaneki and Sora and Erza Scarlet. And finally, I never expected nobody picked Kirito. So me and Mr. Arno, my partner for this one, did.

Our school uniform consist of a labcoat that we must wear in the lab. we found that these coats would be an easy start for Kirito's Blackwrym Coat.

Some teacher's policies: if you forget your labcoat, buy another. Amusing that some could have 5 or 6 labcoats at a time. So we bought from a friend at two for the price of one.

Dismantling continues. It seemed that I needed to remove every joint of one piece and sew it to the other labcoat to make the sleeves and underside longer, matching Kirito's specs.

At this point, Arno already said that I shall wear it during the show at the end. Dang. But that'll be cool. Probably.

The Blackwrym's sleeve extensions were tough. I finally found a piece big enough that I could cut parts from. Then, the rest I could cut out parts for the belt.

No one said that we need to sew ourselves. It would take years.

So, after 45 minutes hanging around telling the tailor what to do, Kirito's coat is constructed. I know, the stitches will show, but we're running on low budget here. All of that and what will come cost below Rp 150000 (around US$ 11.50). Good enough.

And thus, the Blackwrym was dyed as it should be. Actually the proper procedure was to heat it up as it was submerged, but my house didn't have a used pot.

So I dyed it twice.

Result? Very grey. It was not the color I was hoping for, where the real Blackwrym was pitch black, but good enough for an amateur.

It turned out that the white rims could't be sewn on due to the size and funky places, so I was forced to glue on each part to make the deadline.

Meanwhile, my partner made the 'metal' bits, including Elucidator, from cardboard. I left him to that.

Then, he spray painted them. Shame the Elucidator was a bit wobbly when I held it, but meh. Details.

 Flashy.

Perth Edutrip, Day Ten: Back to Perth and Back to Home

I am still uncertain about posting pictures of the class here, so for now we'll just skip straight to my last day at Australia. There weren't any overly interesting events that happened, anyway.

So, in the morning, where we usually stay in bed until seven in the morning, I set up my alarm for 4:45 AM at the Thursday, as we must depart for Perth at six, sharp. The chill was... damned chilly, and I shivered like never before. That's the best I could describe it.

I bid my homestay parents farewell in the dark of the morning. The bus was already waiting in front of the Margaret River Senior High, and all of us boarded for our final excursion: to Perth! Goodbye, Margaret River.

We had a potty break half an hour into the journey. We parked in front of a lake, and the view was dominated by maneuvering birds.

Everyone else were playing in the playground. Perhaps childishness. Perhaps simple boredom.

After the three-hour long drive--one where I spent on watching Youtube and a game of Banished--we arrived at Elizabeth Quay, which was just opened earlier this year. We quickly looked around, and got wowed by the high-tech public toilets there.

Anyway, this here is Bell Tower, a strange-looking structure at the center of the place.

While it was just opened, it seems many already visited and immortalized their love (I shall never understand this) here with the locks in the front of Bell Tower.

After about half an hour of mucking around, we went to Hay Street, and were given free reign of what to do.

Me, I'll just do some street photography while searching for the third book of Artemis Fowl, which I've been looking for since two years ago.

Me and my buddy decided to buy a Subway.

No, the edible kind.

At the food court below Hay Street (apparently they need not have any fear at all for floods), we ordered (served by a waitress who put in salt and pepper inside our subway after asking my buddy "Would you want salt and pepper with that?", to which he answered "No, thanks.")  and sat and munched away. 

In front of us, an old man fed his father. Well... I'm sorry to both of you, for taking this without permission; if you ever come here and do not want this picture to be shown, please do tell.

Hay Street was indeed very busy, and many people did things other than shopping, such as this man, harking tales of salvation. A rare sight in Australia, where there are 30 people in a Sunday mass at Margaret River, compared to the more than a thousand per mass, for seven scheduled masses weekly. Crazy.

Alas, as rich as Australia is, there are also homeless people there. This man played the accordion quite beautifully, and after we gave him some coins, I asked to take his picture.

Some also work for charity, for example this guy, that dragged a large piano through Hay Street. Fascinating little instrument, there. From what I could tell, Perth is a pretty generous city, after all (with so many coins you don't want to be bothered counting).

Then, we have the medieval-themed buildings in a nice little alley. Interesting contrast with the tall skyscrapers behind.

There are also some older buildings in Perth as well. In the bustling William Street opposite to Hay Street, there was this old tower. The clouds were also something there.

Then, it was twelve o'clock. We rushed back to our bus (After finally finding Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code!) and stopped by at KFC for lunch.

And then, the airport. The dreaded tearful farewell.

Ascent (My favorite pic there, do check it out in my DeviantArt.)

And farewell to Perth.

Hello, overly-populated, quite-filthy, blazing-hot hometown. I've missed Jakarta.

And so the tale from one week ago closes.

Perth Edutrip: Day Seven: School Excursion

In the Monday, all ten of us, plus our buddies and the teachers, went out of the school for an excursion around Margaret River. Being the tourist town it is, there were many other attractions in the place that were constructed by man, and not nature, which I have visited through the weekends.

All photos taken with my Canon EOS 600D, and sadly, I still have no time to go over all my handpicked photos (still a thousand remaining of two) and edit them.

The first place we went to was Amaze'n Maze, a place where there are mazes and puzzles all around. First we went to the big hedge maze, where we must find the center, plus several garden benches dotted around.

Shame I have no pictures good and proper enough to share here. There were only green mazes and embarrassing pictures of our group. That being said, we still had some interesting time in getting lost and retracing our steps--and failing, where finally we exited through an emergency exit. 

We also played some of the more puzzling games, including one which even our math teacher could not solve, before coming to the cafe for a snack of more scones. Funny, some of our Aussie friends do not know the traditional way of eating scones: split in half, a dollop of jam, then smear cream.

The second place, one that I liked best for its... let's say, alluring beauty, was Lake Cave.

Lake Cave is the deepest cave system in Western Australia. By judging the age of fallen trees around the mouth of the cave where the ground had crumbled down, it’s over seven hundred years old.

Now, at this point I just realized that I forgot to charge up my battery the previous night, and it had two bars left--I should only be able to take some more pictures, say a hundred or two.

Along that time, rainwater seeped in slowly, depositing dissolved calcium carbonate as stalactites, which hang tight to the roof, and stalagmites, which might reach the ceiling, and countless little hollow stalactites known as straws.

Where the stalagmites and stalactites meet they form columns, this one already broken of age. In the light of the flashlight, we could see the white calcium, which we aren't allowed to touch of fear of being discolored.

This formation is called Dragon’s Head, for an apparent reason: it does look like a dragon drinking from the puddle beneath. From where we stood, looking at the dragon, our guide switched the lights off, producing a total darkness. It’s not often you could experience nature’s handicrafts such as this cave, which made the cave so interesting for me.

After a lunch of soggy chicken and chips (with flies buzzing around in the park, instead of birds), we headed to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory. We were only given twenty minutes to pick our chocolate.

The free samples were immediately attacked by us and other visitors. Some of them barbaric.

Until now, I really hoped I bought more chocolate. They were freshly made from pure chocolate there, but as I said before, food there is expensive.

Finally, there was the Sunflower Animal Farm. I have no idea why they only gave us 25 minutes there to run around and see all sorts of animals. We rushed to grab a bucket of animal food--veggies and grain and bread--then immediately looked at each pen. The one immediately next to the entrance was some little goats.

There were also all sorts of avian creatures: ducks, turkey, some geese too, I believe, and more Aussie birds I didn't have the honor of identifying. 

Now, this was the moment where my camera battery died. Thankfully, I could still squeeze around two dozen shots by ejecting and re-inserting the battery.

More goats, which I fed. Think I took too long here, so that I rushed several of the last pens.

Aww.

And surely, I need to spend time with the kangaroos. There were some in my homestay, but they were quite far away, and photographing with binoculars is out of question.

Yet another must-see animal: the emu. This one was quite hard to take a picture, always moving around, seemingly always about to break into a run, such the flightless bird it is.

These two similar animals, the camelids, llamas, and alpacas. I put down my bucket of food to take a picture of the emu, who was in the same pen as the llama, and it just emptied that bucket while I wasn't looking. Dang.

The alpaca could be differentiated by that tuft of hair. I got lucky to get a good shot of Alf as my battery became really critical.

And, while entering the bunny pen, my battery died for good. People were all there, hugging several bunnies and some guinea pigs, who were munching at veggies. I had none remaining.

Meanwhile, some went to the pigsties. The pigs were massive. Even the little ones--a dozen of them--were the size of big household dogs. And stinky, and eats everything that smells, including their own digestive remnants, and your hand if you're not careful. No pictures of them, sadly, for the camera must rest.

We went ten minutes overtime, when we must return or be left behind (though it is not that long of a walk to the school). That was an immensely fascinating trip, though, seeing more places of interest in Margaret River. Shame our time was crunched and my battery was dying or dead.

Perth Edutrip, Day Six: Lunch with Birds, Plus a Rocky Beach

It was Sunday, during the sixth day on my edutrip to Margaret River. There was also really nothing to do back then, thus once more we traveled around the town.

My buddy and his mom brought me to The Berry Farm near Margaret River, the town where we were staying, to eat lunch. We ate scones, with cream and jam freshly made there. They serve the scones, these semi-sweet bread, plain, and the traditional way to eat it is to slice it in half, then give it a big dollop of jam, and an equally big dollop of cream.

It would have been lunch as usual, but then this little bird, this cheeky black-white-and-yellow honey eater, flew straight to our table, and perched on top of my glass of milkshake. It helped itself to the milkshake, then flew down to the plate, and used this long tongue of his to lick some leftover pie.

 

The honeyeater was not the only bird that came. There was also this beautiful blue wren, these birds with a blue plumage. Shame it wasn’t their mating season, where their tail turns an even more brilliant blue. Anyway, after this one came, two more came, begging to be fed. Well, less food for us, but to see these birds up close is truly a one-of-a-kind lunch. Shame I couldn't get a good picture of the third blue wren.

There was one more place we visited: Redgate Beach, just north of Contose Beach. The wind was picking up, and the waves did roll. No wonder this is a surfer's tourist town.  

Shame I came in autumn. The winds were quick, but not quick enough to make them smash spectacularly into a big rock at the middle of the bay. Well, it was spectacular enough a spectacle.

Shame it was still hot. If not, we may have been able to stay a bit longer, when the winds pick up. Oh well, I am already safely back home in Indonesia now.

Perth Edutrip: Day Five, Part Two: Circus!

Some people are afraid of clowns. Me, I've never been to any circuses. When we went to the oval field at Margaret Riveron the same Saturday as in the last post, it was my first time stepping inside a big top tent, of this circus called Loritz. It was an interesting show.

The clowns opened it up. Got to say, they made really nice use of them between each act to distract us from the mechanics getting the trapeezes and the catapults ready.

The first act was something, for the first time I've went to a circus. Three sisters danced atop a star suspended on the ceiling.

If the first act was something then the second was a treat for the eyes. This Mexican-style guy juggled pins, balls, and hoops like a true master.

Third act: people bouncing and doing tricks on two skipping ropes. They did tricks like jumping on all fours, leaping and somersaulting, and the like. Just imagine the hand-eye coordination.

This one act was quit lame, according to some people. However, it was amusing seeing a pony behave like a stubborn, oversized dog, sitting at a couch and laying down there to sleep.

This, too, wasn't too memorable. Just a dancer swinging on a trapeeze, I guess, doing flips and swings while upside-down. This interesting low-light photography was the product of sheer luck.

Next came the Wheel of Death. It must be good if it has the word 'death' in it.

This crazy guy did flips inside and jumped outside the wheel, where he used a skipping rope and covered his eyes with cloth. Mad. This became my favorite attraction for the moment, I guess.

After the twenty-minute break, scaffolding were raised at the center of the stage, and a group of six Ukrainians sprang out, jumping on trampolines, with such coordination and skill, bouncing themselves right up, halfway to the ceiling, then back down to the scaffolds.  

After that, a fine lady came around, and climbed this sheet of fabric that has been hung from the top of the tent, and she wrapped herself securely before dancing as gracefully as a ballerina, in three dimensions.

Actually, I would say that this was the best photo I took during the circus, when the bubbles came floating down.

Thus, we were nearing the end of the show. Dancers appeared in the dark, bringing torches. Time for the finale.

And this was what we've been waiting for. As advertised, a huge metal cage, a hollow sphere, was brought to the arena. Then, this Brazilian came with a motorbike and spun around like crazy, upside down in the sphere.

Then, where there is one biker, there's got to be another. Another came, and did really amazing coordinated revolutions in the sphere.

And that's the end of the circus. Got a lot of events back then, so I typed just little. Also, apparently today is my last night at Margaret River, the ninth night. Got to sleep quick for the bus to Perth tomorrow.