A lot of the time I’ll poke fun at Japanese builds for their sheeer strangeness. Giant pens, saliva skins… it’s sometimes all too easy to find something that to our western eyes is at once awful and amusing.
So imagine my surprise when I landed on the Naturum island resort. I decided to travel there because I thought the name was interesting, not even knowing it was Japanese.
It’s a lovely build. Sure, most of the signs are in Japanese, but all that means is that you have to walk around to discover what’s there. And I encourage you to walk, not fly. It’s a great way to while away some time with your main squeeze. Starting out, you’ll pass by a clubhouse where you can pick up some fishing gear. (Once again, the instructions are in Japanese, but with some patience you’ll figur it out).
Make your way through the shopping village and you’ll find yourself on well-groomed hiking paths. Climb to the top of the mountain for a hang glider and great views of the island. Someone paid real attention to detail here. As you get closer to the top the trees transition to those appropriate for higher altitudes, such as pine. Nice.
The shoreline is especially enaging. There you can try out your fishing gear or take one of the many watercraft that dot the shore for a spin. I found a canoe, a windsurf, a surfboard, and a jetski. They seem to just pop up at random. The region borders the MetaBirds Sea regions, so there is plenty of open water to use and other islands to which you can travel.
The beauty of Naturum is that there are a lot of different things to do. While the prevalence of Japanese speaking people there means that you won’t be able to interact much with the populace, it is still a very pleasant escape.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Naturum%20Island/69/215/33/
[...] looking for the strange and surreal, mainly because I’m likely to find it there. With notable exceptions, however, the build quality hasn’t blown my socks [...]