At the end of last year one of the best animated series to ever grace the television screen came to an end. I am writing, of course, of the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. This animated series created by Pendleton Ward tells the adventures of two brothers, Jake the shape-shifting dog and Finn the human in the magical land of Ooo.

Ooo is an eclectic collection of environments from the minds of its designers. The opening sequence gives us a glimpse of a few of these. It consists of a kingdom of beings made entirely out of candy, a kingdom made of ice, a fiery kingdom run by demons, a cosmic realm that is home to the world’s strange gods including Party God (a dog head with a backwards baseball cap) and the cosmic owl (who invades the characters’ dreams from time to time) and many others (the strangest of which may be the kingdom occupied entirely by cats in boxes).

The world design alone tells a story around the main plot lines. The world has a dark side to which the viewer is gradually exposed in little snippets throughout the series.

What we aren’t told at the beginning is that Ooo is, in fact, a version of our world way in the future. We are given a glimpse of our planet, viewed from outer space, with a whole chunk blown out of it. Backgrounds are littered with debris from our present. Is the strange, fantastical landscape of Ooo the result of some kind of nuclear disaster? Is it the figment of the imagination of someone from a post apocalyptic world with elements of a devastated landscape inching into the fairytale?

What made the series so good for both kids and adults was its incredible world building. The landscape manages to be both  whimsical and devastated, post apocalyptic as well as fairytale. The landscape itself embodies a sort of nostalgia as we see elements of our present embedded into the landscape of our childhood imaginations.

Mohammed kept trying to run me over with his tricycle.  He was only four, but was already the tyrant of his little kingdom of the couches in the main room of the house and the small television that only seemed to play Spanish soap operas dubbed in French.  When anyone tried to invade his kingdom, he blew fart sounds into his or her face.

He defended his territory in such a manner when his older sister entered the room, but immediately stopped when his father followed in after her.  She laid a cloth on the floor and beckoned me to squeeze soap onto my hands and rinse them in the bucket. We all sat upon the cloth surrounding the silver platter on the floor and waited for the father to begin eating.  They used their hands and I used a spoon and they kept passing the best bits of the fish or the crispiest rice to my side of the platter. Every time I put down my spoon, the family would ask why I was not eating, was the food good, and other entreaties that made me pick up the spoon once more until my bursting stomach begged me to stop and say “sourna,” a Wolof word indicating the end of a meal.  They insisted I sit on the best couch, deemed so because it was closest to the fan, and so I rested until Mohammed woke me up with his farting sounds.

The next day, I bid farewell and let Mohammed reign in peace.  I took a quatorze-places back to Dakar. Literally translated, quatorze-places means ‘14 places’ in French, but the term was a bit misleading because though there were 14 people squished into the van, there were not 14 places. As I sat in the back row of the vehicle with four other people and a bird, I thought about Mohammed and his family and the town where they lived on an island made of clamshells. I remembered drifting in and out of the streets near their home and sitting on a bench near the sea. The water scattered on and off the shore and when I looked up, I could see the cemetery where Muslims and Christians are buried together, outlined by bright blue lights. In a nearby house, a man played reggae on the guitar.

Three years later, I can still remember this music, the town, and Mohammed. Though this was a space I intersected less than 24 hours, I remember Joal-Fadiouth as a vibrant place for its serenity and tolerance. Because I spent such a short period of time there and had no purpose there other than to observe, it felt more like a dream than reality that my memory has surely overromanticized, prompting the question: does the transience of an experience shape our perception of it? In our reading, Immersion, Janet Murray describes immersion as being a “movement out of our familiar world, the feeling of alertness that comes from being in this new place” (Murray 1). This sense of immersion is what gave this space meaning, a specific emotional context, and made it a place that I will remember.

I am a big fan of Tokyo Disney Sea. But, that doesn’t necessary mean that I’m a Disney fan. I like theme parks, especially Tokyo Disney Sea. The first time I visited Tokyo Disney Sea was when I was in 2^nd grade. I still remember the excitement I felt when going there. I had heard about it but had never been there before.

Tokyo Disney Sea is separated into different sections with different themes. There is the section that is based off of the United States, the “Arabian” section, the mysterious section, and so on. My all-time favorite has been the “Arabian” section, because I like the atmosphere of that area. I wouldn’t call it authentic because there is an Indian curry restaurant in that area, and, more importantly, it is difficult to define what “Arabian” is. But, there is something special about that area which has the Aladdin attraction as its main venue. It takes me so far from the reality in Japan that it makes me feel as if I teleported to a different country.

The main reason why I like Tokyo Disney Sea is because it takes me away from the current reality, and provides an escape from my daily life. In a sense, I get to feel like a different person because I am removed from the tall skyscrapers and crowded trains. Also, I go to Tokyo Disney Sea to enjoy, and thus, when I have already completed work or don’t have urgent work to complete. Therefore, it is not only the space itself that I like, but also the mentality I go with to that space.

Because Tokyo Disney Sea is in Tokyo and I live in Osaka, I cannot go to Tokyo Disney Sea as frequently as I want to. I think that that makes it even more special. From Tokyo to Osaka, it takes about an hour via airplane, two hours and a half via Shinkansen (bullet train), or overnight via bus. Therefore, it is close, in a sense that it is in the same country, but far in terms of time and economic barriers. This close-yet-far location also adds on to making Tokyo Disney Sea my favorite environment/space/place/location.

“Arabian” Section at Night

In my opinion what usually makes an environment remembered is the audio playing in the back. From cafes and the noise they make of coffee machines and people’s conversations to concerts and the music the artist plays and the crowd singing along, to each environment it’s noises. An environment that I particularly enjoy comes from Tame Impala’s song New Person, Same Old Mistakes from their album Currents. The environment it creates is one of blissfulness and serenity, the beat playing in the background is an extremely good one as well. This song and album takes me back to several instances in my life of enjoyment with friends throughout the years and it never fails to bring back good memories. Taking a step backwards to what this song means to me to how it was described to be by the artist itself, Tame Impala’s frontman Kevin Parker explained the song to be about  “someone finding themselves in this world of chaos”.

“At different times in life I’ve felt like it’s time to say goodbye from some form of myself that’s been hanging around for a while, you just feel this urge to move on, like a herd of antelope. They’re just standing there in a field eating grass for however long, and then all of a sudden they start moving. You feel like that as a person sometimes. Where it’s just time to move on.” Parker said to British Music journalism website NME. Even Rihanna has covered this song in her 2016 ANTI album, giving this song a growing continuous impact on different people. And she herself noticed the strength this song carried. “Hearing the Rihanna version, it made me realize that the song finally got the treatment it deserved from the beginning,” Parker added. “It went full circle.”

I’m going off track a bit from the assignment we were given… when I tried thinking of an environment I enjoyed, at first I thought of physical places just as anybody would. But this song does in fact take me to several physical places though, for example places like my dorm, my room back home, my friends living room and that to me proves that a song can hold greater meaning than one physical place. It can give an empty space an environment and transform it to a place even. This song no matter what’s happening in my life, I tend to go back to it and it still has the same meaning as it always does. A sense of looking back and being nostalgic, just as a physical place would do to a person.

In a linguistic perspective, space and place are synonyms but having an environment be considered a place rather than just simply a space is due to the fact the environment carries with it meaning and a heavier significance to the person interpreting the area. Space on the other hand is very abstract and empty but it can also signify the freedom to express one’s experiences; like a blank canvas. “As a person lives life, one’s narrative begins to etch meanings on a particular space, causing it to become a place” Eric O. Jacobsen. And this song at first didn’t simulate an environment but as I carried this song with me, through one can argue different selves I’ve had since first hearing it in 2015, it started creating memories. And what is a place if not something that holds a multitude of memories just as this song is to me.

A memory that is quite valuable to me is when this song accompanied a group of my friends and me on a road trip to UAE’s highest peak, Jabal Jais. It was a trip that we planned for months before hand, a trip that would be at the end of the semester to enjoy our last days of the term. It was quite a long trip, 4 hours, of continuous driving and we arrived at the peak at around 1am. Exhausted, we struggled to set up the tent and fire for our dinner. But it was all worth it for in the morning when the sun was rising, the clouds were close to the ground causing only the peaks of the mountain range to be visible. And this song specifically set the right vibe with the view and the beat it carries.

During winter break, I visited a less well-known bookstore back home in Seoul and it quickly became one of my favorite spots in the city.

I liked the place because it was very different from other bookstores – it looked almost like an old but polished hotel in Europe. The staircases were decorated with wave-like ornaments, the ceilings were lit with chandeliers, and the whole building was pretty quiet with some slow and quiet instrumental music playing in the background.

This bookstore was divided into three parts. the first floor was dedicated to providing a quiet spot for people who wanted to borrow books and read on their own. Various types of comfy chairs were spread out throughout the floor, with book shelves dividing the space between them so you could read in peace privately. You could also choose from a number of tea options to sip on while doing some leisure reading.

The second floor was a regular book store where you could purchase books and get food or drinks from the cafe section. The third floor featured a rooftop with outdoor seatings as well as a magnificent view of the city. It was too cold to read outside this winter but I could imagine this place being a perfect getaway for people wanting to find an exciting new place to read.

I really liked the bookstore because the whole environment serves its purpose well: stocking the place with books, providing ample space with different types of comfortable chairs/tables, offering drinks/snacks and creating a relaxing atmosphere to make a relaxing experience for readers. It’s functional, its aesthetics are on point, and it fulfills (perhaps even surpasses) my expectations of what a bookstore should be like. I also like how it grants me a private and safe space while still being connected to the world – through books, view of the city on the rooftop, as well as with the other readers in the space.

Social interaction has often been associated with being critical to mental and physical health. Consequently, one of my favorite place would be somewhere with a concentrated number of people, where you can be in and out of a conversation anytime you want. An environment I wouldn’t ever mind being in would be in a café, where it’s quiet, yet lively, where everyone’s minding their own business, yet also having some sort of discussions through some device. Cafés are also where people grab coffee together to catch up with each other.

The Pie Hole is a meeting place in the American television series Pushing Daisies. Specifically, it is a café owned by Ned, a pie-maker with a magic finger which brings a dead person back to life, but if he touches that same person again, they die forever. If Ned brings the dead back to life for longer than 1 minute, a random person within vicinity will have to die in exchange for his/her life.

The Pie Hole is where Ned and his detective friend meet to solve murder mysteries with the help of Ned’s finger. This restaurant is more of a place, rather than a space. A place holds a special meaning in someone’s heart, while a space is abstract and doesn’t mean much to them. The Pie Hole itself acts as a safe haven, where every meeting and secret is meant to be kept inside the Pie Hole and can not be discussed outside. Every person Ned has bought back to life (where he sacrificed another’s life) has been hidden away for the most part within the Pie Hole. For a lot of his customers, the Pie Hole reminds them of home, with bright colorful decorations and it always smells of homemade pies. As the show puts it, “Pie is home. People always come home.”

A place becomes more than just a space when it allows the person within it to feel a specific and unique sense of purpose. Eliza the therapist computer program, for example, creates a place because an environment is created in which the user feels as if they are there to have their thoughts heard and “discussed.” Everything about the environment is tailored to fit this purpose: Eliza is programmed to respond in a therapist-like manner, and the user’s computer is, to the user, a private and intimate setting they feel comfortable in.

One environment I like is the quiet section of NYU Shanghai’s library. In particular, one of the desks on the middle right side of the library, against the wall of windows, early in the morning before most of the students stroll in. What makes this a place rather than just a space is how all of the features come together to promote what I use the space for and the feeling the space gives me: feeling productive and getting work done. The tall windows providing plenty of natural light, the lack of other students in the early morning hours, the quiet hum of the air conditioning just turning on, the surrounding shelves of books, and the soothing wood-and-purple color scheme all serve the purpose of creating a place for productive studying.

For a space to become a place, I think other users must also have similar reactions or purposes for using the space. In this sense, the quiet section of NYUSH’s library is successfully a place because of the fact that most of the other students who use it are there for the same purpose: to focus and get their work done. Similarly, Eliza successfully creates a place rather than a space because of its alleged ability to make its users feel as if they are talking to a real therapist and having their thoughts heard.

An ideal digital _­environment is one that can be easily accessed and provide the user with a varied range of emotions. These emotions can either be of an excitatory group, imposing thrill onto the user, or from a milder group, imposing comfort onto the user, or a combination of the two. One of my preferred places is the town of Stardew Valley from the adventure-farming video game with the same name. You are placed into this town, which contains many mysteries and a grand population of interesting characters, after an initial backstory of your ow character. You start from scratch on a farm that is overrun by pests, with the initial goal of growing crops, obtaining funds, and discover the backstories of the area and the characters. As in any adventure game there is a lot of grinding that takes place and ability levels that need to be upgraded.

With so much initial information given and the promise for more, this town is much more than a simple digital space. It is a digital place because it has been given a history, placed the user in the present, and offered the user the freedom of choice for its future. It is up to the user to discover the area and choose how to build their farm and upgrade their own levels. Each moment played gives the town more meaning and importance because of the inputted effort to grow the game. The characters, their histories, and their varied responsive behaviors (they can give the user gifts if they like them or say different things depending on what they see the user do) make the game unique in the sense of it not feeling pre-programmed. Even after discovering everything (which hasn’t been done yet according to the developer) the game still has a replay value due to the possibility of redoing everything and being more efficient or playing with a different style.

The place that offered through the town has been given a basis though its characters, surrounds, and goals but it has also kept the possibility for freedom of choice and imagination. The distinctive difference between this location and a space is that the player has the possibility to live in it instead of just visit it. Growing the farm and exploring the surroundings gives the user a sense of pride and happiness in their achievements, which translates into the addictive urge of wanting to continue playing. It is a wonderfully designed digital place that I highly suggest tying out yourself.

Format for posting the first blog.

Blog about a particular environment that you like and why (from physical world, from a movie, a theater set, in a book, in a game…). Think about what makes it a place – something more than a space. Be ready to talk about it in class.