Pokemon Go and Exploring Town in the Summer

Diana and I have been playing a lot of Pokemon Go lately. I've always been a huge fan of Pokemon but I had never played the mobile game until maybe three or four weeks ago -- some friends here on campus had been playing so I went ahead and took the plunge. Funnily enough, Diana had actually started playing way back when the game first came out (I didn't because of my 2GB data allotment from Verizon). Living in Lexington at the time, I was amazed at how many people were playing -- huge groups of people were going back and forth across town and UK's campus. We noticed quite a few people playing in Muroran too, but my cheapo SIM card had similar data restrictions so I've always watched from the sidelines until now.

Speaking of Japan, Diana and I have a nice inside joke relating to the game. At our Japanese wedding reception, the principals of our schools gave short speeches and my kocho-sensei (who had just started at Shimizugaoka the month before) said his first memory of me was when he surprised me while I was playing Pokemon Go at work. I definitely did my share of slacking off at work (the couch in the English office was a perfect spot for a quick nap) but I was low key offended because I didn't even play Pokemon Go! In all actuality, he probably saw me playing Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links (because I was playing that a LOT at the time). Now that I think about it, I did have the go board (the board game with stones) set up in the office, so maybe he was talking about that? I wonder...

Us and the Hokkaido BOE crew

Anyways, it seems as if Pokemon Go has had a little resurgence in Wise lately. Or maybe it never died down at all? I'm not really sure but I remember someone might have told me that there were new PokeStops and Gyms in the area -- either way, we've actually connected with quite a few people since we've started playing. Other staff on campus, current students, and even some friends from back in high school have all crossed our path in the game!

I'm definitely interested in the actual gameplay aspect of Go but I think the social element has really gotten me thinking. I spent literally hundreds upon hundreds of hours in the older Pokemon games, especially the Gameboy Advance generation, breeding and trying to build a strong team with EV training -- only to rarely have the opportunity to play with anyone in person! I still remember walking through West Town Mall in Knoxville with my GBA Wireless Adapter hooked up, hoping that someone there would be trying to play but I never had any luck. I'm very thankful for high school friends like April who did play with me back then, but most of those Pokemon ended up unused until the newer games came out (fun fact: those EV trained Advanced Generation Pokemon are currently chilling on my Ultra Sun 3DS cart -- oh, the wonders of technology!). Pokemon Go, in a sense, has helped me relive the social experience of Pokemon that I haven't really had since Red/Blue were in their heyday. All in all, it's been a great opportunity for me and Diana to go out walking. Whether it's in town or on campus, we've had a lot of fun exploring Wise on some awesome summer nights.

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"I think we'll have good memories of summer in Wise"

A post shared by Collin Skeen (@zeskeenmachine) on Jul 7, 2019 at 7:46pm PDT