Zyx's Road Trip: Day Four

How the heck does a pixy work an iPhone? According to the e-mail I received, Zyx Flux's road trip report for today was "sent from my iPhone." Those things are huge compared to her. And I'm jealous. I want one. *sigh*

Started in Maeshil (SLurl) and headed up a hill into another urban area in the Saengseon region past billboards (I thought that 'land cutting' was banned, but I guess if it is for billboards, its okay) and shops. It wasn't all developed land, though, as the Dutch pride filled Theresia Park (SLurl) shows. Some of it looked planned out, but here are a lot of sheep grazing there and chickens strutting about. Some of the structures? A tasteful memorial, a church, and a synagogue. Visitors can take advantage of the couples dancing and even special animations for walking hand-in-hand with your sweetie.

The park is at the intersection of Route 9 and Route 10, a spot (SLurl) you can rez your own vehicle if you don't want to wait for one to pass by — I saw a Sherman tank and a wheel-burning Cadillac. Just past that intersection are some buildings that will look familiar if you spent any time in "Occupied Squares" (see yesterday's report) and the same rune stones I saw earlier.

After Saengseaon, Shelly my pack snail and I passed through the generally well-developed regions of Yeot, Bun Shik, and Yangbaechu. Lots of shops and homes and totally empty structures, but nothing remarkable until I came across some parkland in Yangbaechu (SLurl), courtesy of a near by vehicle dealer. While I visited the swans, I couldn't help but meditate on the variety of construction techniques I've seen on my journey and how this park reflected the diversity. Good quality sculpted rocks were set into an artificial pond which had comparatively amateurish construction: slapped together docks, badly set textures, and the like. Adjacent to all this and in contrast are some  fairly high-quality pre-fabs with nice textures. Unlike most private estates, mainland readily shows this varied mixture of land decorating skills, yet some how it is exciting to see items that appear to have been around since the Dawn of Second Life Time — and set in place since the, too — near the latest products available to land owners. With the jumble of parcels abutting each other holding the various tastes and styles creates an environment unlike anything you'll see in Real Life. Mainland is almost an art form unto itself.

Leaving my musings behind, I loaded Shelly onto the back of a Go-Kart I found in Eunhaeng (SLurl) and headed out again. We got about 15 meters away, crashed, and decided to proceed under our own steam, vowing to avoid human transportation from then on. More shops and homes along the roadside as we moved through other regions and we came across another of the ubiquitous crystals I've written about in Sanddaigi. I suppose we'll see those everywhere we go. In fact, a crystal was near a stonehenge-like construct at the intersection of Route 9 and Route 9a in Mogwa (SLurl). It was part of the Winthrope Industries land, a shop with a really attractive building but that I failed to enter. Across the street is a really large shopping complex with a huge swimming pool! Shelly wanted to move on, though, as it was a salt water pool and snails don't care for them. After a brief lunch under an enormous tree, we set out again and a fair pace.

It wasn't too long before we entered the Hae An region and found The Snake Pit (SLurl), a place that seemed to be part residence, part snake shrine, and part night club, but as the landowner had set "free rez" on the land, it was also an ersatz sandbox littered with various prims. Curious about how often the land owner checks his/her parcel, I razzed a fresh one named and named it "A prim I left at the Snake Pit 3/3/12" so I could track when it is returned. Then I looked around a bit at all the snake decorations and pretty Bird of Paradise plants and rode a couple of the turtles for a while. Leaving there we travelled through the Choi region which seemed to be filled with private homes, billboards, and lots of "meh."

In Haman, I poked around inside another Outy's scripting shop (SLurl) before moving on again to the next Outy's location a few hundred meters away in Asan (SLurl). There must be good money in scripts and particles to be able to afford what seems to be thousands of small shops all across the mainland. On the whole, today's journey has been fast and un-remarkable, though I did enjoy finding two classic noobie buildings in Hwaryeo.

Shelly and I made good time as we passed a number of attractive homes, many with nice gardens, and quite a few rental properties. We were headed to Solbim and the Petting Zoo (SLurl) we had read about in some guide book that was laying discarded at a roadside rest. It sits on some abandoned land and turns out to be just a group of animal-shaped sculptures. But they were cute and Shelly felt right at home. I petted her for a while like she was one of the critters then settled down to write this report before setting up a bed for my pack snail and myself in a Volkswagen Beetle "replicar" parked next to the zoo.