{"id":6742,"date":"2022-03-28T04:39:40","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T09:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.zoha-islands.com\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2022-03-28T04:39:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T09:39:40","slug":"last-chance-to-visit-tempura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/last-chance-to-visit-tempura\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Chance to Visit Tempura"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beloved Second Life Sim Leaving the Virtual World at the End of This Month After 14 Years & Millions of Visits<\/h3>\n
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\"Tempura<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here this month to teleport into yet another Second Life landmark that’s going away<\/a>: The luminously beautiful island called Tempura, which since its inception 14 years ago, has attracted well over 2 millions visits.<\/p>\n

It is, however, leaving the virtual world grid at the end of this month. Owned and lead created<\/a> by Japanese SLer “Kikunosuke eel”, Tempura is a dreamscape of forests, gardens, and ancient buildings. But with his real life work taking up more of his time — and Tempura costing him well over $2000 a year in landlord server costs to Second Life owner Linden Lab — Mr. Eel decided it was finally time for Tempura to end.<\/p>\n

For all these years, he subsidized Tempura at a loss, partly subsidizing it through sales from MANDALA, his virtual jewelry brand<\/a>. Completely free to visitors, it’s been full to near capacity since launching, with thousands visiting and exploring every week.<\/p>\n

Mr. Eel subsidized their visits despite the expense as an expression of personal faith:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\"\"
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“Tempura brought me better things than profit,” as he explained in a translated note. “My philosophy is based on Buddhism, and it influences me a lot. I’d always like to share happiness with many other people, even if it’s a small happiness. I might not be able to do a great thing for them [in the real world], but I feel good if I could touch others’ hearts in any way.”<\/p>\n

It is fair to say that he has succeeded at that.<\/p>\n

Linden Lab, sad to say, has not: Extremely high sim tier costs, even years after the entire virtual world grid has moved to the Amazon cloud, continues to bleed the existing culture.<\/p>\n

Mr. Eel says he may eventually relaunch Tempura, but until then, after this month, its digital existence will be confined to social media posts like this.<\/p>\n

\"Tempura<\/a>As to a question that’s somewhat perplexed me for these last 14 years: Why name this lovely island after tasty deep fried vegetables and sea food coated in panko crumbs?<\/p>\n

“I do not know if I could explain this well to foreigners,” says Mr. Eel via another translated message, “but I will try. The word was associated with a slang buzzword in Japan which describes a feeling of cheerfulness, excitement, or energy. And tempura is also a well-known Japanese food. So I came up with the name, TEMPURA, which people from all over the world could easily remember.”<\/p>\n

Now I finally understand. And I’m also hungry.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Tempura manager Polly Reina<\/a> for help with this story!<\/em><\/p>\n

Have a Great Week From All Of Us At Zoha Islands\/Fruit Islands<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beloved Second Life Sim Leaving the Virtual World at the End of This Month After 14 Years & Millions of Visits Click here this month to teleport into yet another Second Life landmark that’s going away: The luminously beautiful island called Tempura, which since its inception 14 years ago, has attracted well over 2 millions … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,3,4,5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoha-islands.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}