Travel License Unlocked

[rynling]

This May I have to go to Paris for a work thing. On the last day of the year I booked my flight and Airbnb, and yesterday I made a reservation for a car so that I can drive down to the city of Saint-Émilion, whose stone walls, medieval streets, and labyrinthine wine cellars served as the inspiration for Leá Monde, the setting of Vagrant Story.

In June I have to supervise a project in Akita prefecture in the north of Japan. I haven't yet made those travel arrangements, but I'm thinking about taking the opportunity to spend five or six days in Tokyo. I'll probably stay in Ikebukuro, which is in many ways the inspiration for the city of Rabanastre.

I work hard, and I deserve a nice vacation in Ivalice.

Comments

[lassarina]

Ooh, Ivalice vacations! those sound like fun :D

[rynling]

What I really want, though, is a Spira vacation.

I should write... a grant... or something. To "research" Okinawa for... reasons.

No but seriously, I'm playing the PS4 version of FFX-2 HD remaster right now, and Besaid Island is one of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen on my tv screen.

I feel such an intimate connection with these fictional places, and it's a little bizarre to think that they exist in real life. Like, there actually is this tropical archipelago scattered with the rusted ruins of foreign military bases and dotted by awesome temples and weird little caves with disturbing histories, and I can actually go there if I want. It's kind of awesome?

[lassarina]

...I didn't realize it was modeled on Okinawa, but that makes total sense, and now I want to go too. *adds to list of Places to Go*

[flonnebonne]

Ikebukuro is the inspiration for Dalmasca??? Whuuuuuttt??? How so? is that Rabanastre specifically?

[rynling]

Sorry, that was a stupid early morning hungover typo. Thank you so much for catching it! I meant to write "the city of Rabanastre and the political situation in Dalmasca," but then I deleted the wrong bit of text.

I'm planning on writing about this later this year as I translate some of the dev interviews in the Ultimania guide(? or whatever you call those books), but the division of Rabanastre into quarters is based on Ikebukuro, and Lowtown was inspired by Ikebukuro Station.

In terms of the political situation of Dalmasca, Ikebukuro was the focal point of several waves of political contention from about 1930 to 1970, but that would take a lot of time to get into, and I want to do a bunch of fact checking before I start writing. I'm probably going to begin this project in May, so... until then, I guess?

[flonnebonne]

I very much look forward to reading that! Thank you for the preview :)

Man, I gotta get my hands on these ultimania guides ones of these days....