James Mason's Blog -or- The Journal of Contemporary Lunacy

I thought that 2017 had been a big year but 2018 has surpassed it in almost every way. Visiting the USA twice, spending time in England, Wales, Germany, and the Netherlands along with visiting Hong Kong, Vietnam and Thailand. This is what it looked like on a map: I managed to tick a few things off my wish list on the way. First time flying Business on: Singapore, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, and Emirates First flights on the shiny new A350-900 Visiting Snowdonia NP, Wales and walking the Llanberis path (in the snow) Returning to Zion NP, Utah and ticking off Angels Landing and Observation Point - amazing hikes, both Visiting Bryce Canyon, Utah for the first time - and experiencing it covered in snow Trying out Virgin Australia's Premium Economy SYD-LAX Ticking off all the art galleries and museums I'd most wanted to visit on the US East Coast Visiting some parts of Australia I'd missed out on over the years - most notably the wonderful state of Tasmania ...

Without wishing to make too much of what is very much a first world problem, it was a bit of a miserable experience growing up as a fan of JPRGs in Australia (end elsewhere in PAL territories). Limited local releases It wasn’t that we missed out on obscure or fringe titles either - the “big hitters” of the genre, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were completely absent from shelves. The very first Final Fantasy to see a PAL release was VII on the PlayStation. Dragon Quest took even longer - the PlayStation2’s Dragon Quest VIII was the initial appearance for the series (the number was even dropped from the title, something that also occurred with the EU/AU/NZ Nintendo DS releases of Dragon Quest IV, V and VI. Presumably this was done to prevent any confusion but I like to imagine marketers saying “what other Dragon Quest games?” while whistling innocently. Interestingly, some titles did still slip through the cracks. Lufia II [SNES] appeared as simply “Lufia” (the first game, wh...

For a bit of a change, I'll be writing up a (hopefully) proper trip report of my recent trip to the US. This involved lots of hiking in Joshua Tree, Zion, and Bryce Canyon. I figured this time of year would be a good time to visit in terms of lower temperatures and lower visitor numbers at Zion and Bryce. Getting There Unlike my last two trips to the US, which involved more round-about routings, this time I simply booked a simple cheap economy (sad face) return from SYD-LAX. For reference, here are the flight maps for my previous trips: From the beginning of 2018, a multi-carrier trip heading westwards And from 2017, heading eastwards via Auckland, NZ This trip I did end up upgrading the SYD-LAX leg to Premium due to a discounted UpgradeMe offer but missed out on a Business class upgrade on the way back - my low ball bid was obviously just too, well, low. Next time, in Part 1: Impressions of VA's Premium Economy cabin, venturing into LA'...