I trapped myself for a couple hours. You see, the path from Mt. Moon to Cerulean is one-way and (initially) the only exit paths are blocked. The southern route is blocked by a CUT tree (don't have CUT yet.) The east path requires the cops to step aside from blocking the house that Team Rocket robbed. Stepping on the northern path triggers a fight with Liquid. Then there's Cerulean's Gym Leader, Misty, blocking the town's major plot point: the Cascade Badge.

So I had effectively cornered myself with a weak team, surrounded by blocked paths and difficult fights. Luckily, there is one patch of tall grass just outside city limits, so I burned some time out there training up my party. Also picked up a Mankey, a silly beast who I remember fondly from his primal screaming back in Pokemon Snap.

Trained up to my satisfaction, I took down Misty and Liquid in short order, then travelled north up the Nugget Bridge gauntlet to visit Bill's House. Turned down an offer to join Team Rocket... which would be a cool idea for an alternate-angle future game: joining Team Rocket. Saved Bill from his teleportation accident (where did the Clefable go?); I guess that was the scripted event that allowed the police to move away from the Rocket-ransacked house.

Now I could take the long walk to Vermilion City, passing the awkwardly-placed Day Care Center along the way. I left my NidoranF with the owner there... hey, shouldn't we able to breed pokemon at this Center? Weak.

Now begins the item parade: received the Old Rod, the Bike Voucher and the Vs. Seeker from various generous folks in Vermilion. Caught a Magikarp with the Old Rod. Ran back to the Cerulean Bike Shop for the free bike (they're $1,000,000 otherwise.) The Vs. Seeker is an different take on Sapphire's Trainer Eyes. Activate it and it shows you what trainers in the area are willing to battle you. Since you have to be standing near people for the Vs. Seeker to ID them, the Trainer Eyes (which listed every willing fighter and their locale across the continent) strikes me as quite a bit more useful.

Caught a Meowth near the Day Care Center... if I remember correctly, you couldn't catch Meowths in Yellow since that game followed the cartoon's storyline a little more than the other games, and Meowth is pretty much a Team Rocket thing (except that episode with all the city Meowths and the explanation of how the TR Meowth taught himself to talk.) The first Meowth I caught was holding a Nugget, which you can sell for $5000. That is awesome. I went back for some more, but no such luck. However, it's fun to start your battles with a Meowth, because the little bastard will usually steal something from whoever he's facing... so far, he's lifted a couple of berries for me. Which I gather is a cool thing, since LeafGreen doesn't have the whole Berry Planting deal that Sapphire had.

Time: 7:07
Badges: 2
Pokedex: 21
Party: Rattata lv16, Wartortle lv22, Meowth lv14, Pidgeotto lv20, Mankey lv20, Ch'Ding (Farfetch'd) lv8