Con Report: Anime Expo 2013

After my business trip, my summer break (only 3 weeks!) was spent working on my costumes for AX. I bought Animal Crossing about half-way through, so it was probably the most relaxing break ever hahaha. There were a lot of hiccups with my taobao group order (it was delivered to me the day before I left for California, but I was sleeping, so my friend had to pick it up at the post office the day of my flight… thank you so much Chong!!!) 2/4 of my costumes were purchased to match my groups, so I only had to work on making one from scratch! Such a change of pace hahaha. SERIOUSLY THOUGH THE WHOLE SITUATION WAS AN ANIME, setback after setback was thrown at us and we just had to really really hope that our stuff made it in time and it came on the LAST DAY and ugh…. I was so happy it all worked out but omg. Definitely cried about it a little. Just a little…..

Night before con!! We rewarded ourselves with chocolate-covered strawberries (though our chocolate’s consistency was kinda………. LOL) and bananas. Stayed up for awhile sewing and working on props.

My Houzukigami mask in progress. 🙂 Before the horns! You can see some of the chiffon fraying, but it was only in a few places, thankfully.

Julia’s calligraphy skills, man… how she do it. It was my first time trying to make a functional prop (just a simple book……) but in the end I didn’t bind it right ahhhh. BUT!! Mixing colors — I’m good at! 2D – 3D proportions — I think I’m pretty good at! hahaha. Everything else prop-wise, not so much…

Got picked up by Albert and Vicky, then headed to our hotel!! Traffic was craaaaaaaazy, so we didn’t get there until pretty late @___@…. I tried to go pick up my package from my friend by walking to her hotel while Al and Vicky went to get their badges, but I ended up walking in the wrong direction for like 10 blocks……… into the ghetto……. got catcalled 3 times, turned right back around and ran the whole way back to the con center LOL. I was so scared, and I was wearing wedge heels too… I felt so stupid because I’m used to Seattle streets and ugh, dumb dumb dumb dumb never again…. ran into my cousin again (he staffs at AX), so I waited for his shift to be over, sat through a few meetings, met a ton of really nice people! Finally got to pick up my stuff, then went back to my hotel. All my hotelmates were really super nice, jeez. ;~; I felt really shy, but I was able to talk with all of them for a few lengths at a time, so I felt a lot better about that. 

buuuuut not before we ran into Ren!!! hehehehe. I wish they’d gotten into the photo with us, but next time ;__; photo by Ren ♥

on the steps dying and stuff. MITTY *^*

Albert and Vickyyyy ♥ 

Uh so ended up going back to our room….. right after getting our badges LOL CAUSE HOLY CRAP WE WERE ALL REALLY EXHAUSTED AFTER THAT. Ripped off some of our layers and sat in front of the AC for a good while, ate food. Albert wasn’t feeling good, too ahhhh 🙁 poor bb.

Vicky’s cake pops! Yo, why so cute….

Hehehehe, one of Vicky and Albert’s flower crowns they made for their couple dress-up! So cute *^*

Headed back to the con center with Hanssss, then split up to go chill with some other friends we planned to meet up with.

Met up with Minh and roamed around the con center for a bit! What he’s wearing, I can’t even begin to describe……………….

Later I met back up with Julia and Victoria, who had just arrived from bussing from Julia’s house!! We sat in the AC’d hallway and talked for awhile, watching cosplayers go by hehehe. THEN WENT TO GO GET FOOD *3*

Victoriaaaa!!!

Hit up the food trucks *3* !! Trailer Park Burgers so dang good.

Went back to the hotel and hung out with hotelmates again. Natsu had me watch the first ep of Free! oh my gosh… hahaha. too much homo for me, man. I’ll probably catch up soon, though. LOL

I can’t remember if it was night 1 or night 2 but Julia, Victoria, and I had an ACNL party in their hotelroom~~ we played with Haku and did a bunch of tours on her island. It was super fun ;_____; hehehe. Went back to my hotel around 10 or so?? super tired, but had to finish my costume for tmr hahaha.

Worked on cosplay for awhile with other people staying up late too hahaha. I’m glad I bring my full supplies to con, cause my hotelmate Josh needed stuff to finish his costume ;o; hakuryuuu~~~

Uh so this morning I woke up late… and the room was full of strangers OTL. It was hot the night before so I hid under the sleeping bag for awhile because I wasn’t wearing a lot of clothes on omg. Everyone was getting ready for their Magi group @___@

The morning was spent trying to find Koku’s booth because I’m dumb and can’t navigate the AA to save my life LOL She was stuck at her booth though, weh 🙁 so I roamed around until accidentally stumbling on the Inazuma photoshoot!

Cutieeeees

Everyone was really nice and adorable and sweet and just aughh sakka, man ;o; I hope I kept everyone’s contact info, I need to find it all and message them.. oops… so bad at it LOL

We took a bunch of photos and just had a really good time hehehe. It was a small gathering, but imo those are the best kinds

After the gathering we hit up the AA to find some of the Inazuma cosplayers we knew of, and then dispersed huehuehue. Mayo and I were hungry so we met up with Julia and Victoria to go eat at the food trucks (again). This time we ate at the filipino food truck White Rabbit WHICH WAS AMAZING AND AUGHHH. Prices were really great for the amount of food they gave!! I got pork sisig with sinangag and a side of eggs. Breakfast of champions hngggg. 

Met up with Kris, my beautiful kouhai wahhhhhh. ;o; went back to my hotel to change out and give her the things she ordered with me through taobao. We changed into Tsuritama, but she ended up having to leave to go home, so I walked with her to find her friends she was staying with. 

Walked around by myself for awhile! Tried to take pictures of people’s cosplay but my hands were full because of my fishbowl ahhhhh.

RAN INTO THE CUTEST HARU COSPLAYER EVER WAHHHH. We saw each other across the hall and I waddled over to where she was sitting and asdhflkjsdhlkjhjf it made me so so so so happy to see another Tsuritama cosplayer Q___Q ! 

Afterwards I met up with Jason, and we walked around, ate more food (seriously this makes me sound like a fatty-chan but I eat small portions often and save my food for later… LOL) but we both ordered pretty subpar gyro plates…. blehh. Talked about rubiks cubes and school until the hall closed, so we parted waaaaays! o: 

The biggest day of the connnnn! Or at least I always feel like the Saturday of any con is…. Wore Houzukigami today — this morning was really hectic! Everyone was up running about getting their costumes ready and putting their faces on~~

Ruri, another hotelmate! She’s so cute weh ;~; her Labrys was so welldone!! I wish I’d gotten a better pic with my dslr or somefinnnn.

Obligatory makeup selfie heeeeeeeeeee! I’m so so so so so proud of my costume guh ;~; So much TLC! The costume was ridiculously easy to put on, so I got done in no time hehe. Really hard to walk in though, cause the kimono is super tight….. so I shuffled around….

hn hn hn hn went to the con by myself since everyone was still getting ready, so I shuffled around taking photos. I didn’t take a lot before my sleeve unglued itself ahh! (I heat-n-bonded part of the sleeve closed so I could use it as my pocket, but I should’ve safety-pinned instead oops).

LoL cosplayers!

Kaguraaa!!

AHHHH KURANOSUKE! SO HAPPY TO SEE KURAGEHIME COSPLAY ;O;

Ran into Al and Vicky again, so we headed to the arcade area to take a mini-photoshoot of my costume and Vicky’s! I’m always so awkward getting into character when it’s just myself uuuuu. But they were really patient with me so I was super thankful. *^* heh

Kris and I headed over to line up at Inoue’s panel!!! Nyanko-senseiiii~~~~

We waited for an hour or so I think?? BUT DANG IT WAS SO WORTH IT LIKE MY HEART IS OFFICIALLY INOUE-SAN’S I SWEAR. The panel was everything I wanted it to be, and I’m SO MAD THAT I MISSED OUT GETTING HIS AUTOGRAPH AND PHOTO SMFH LOL. He kept talking in Nyanko-sensei’s voice as he answered questions, talking in english and saying “I love you” and “aishiteru” in his super manly character’s voices and ughhhhhHHhHHhh INOUE YOU PERFECT HUMAN BEING. Kris and I were constantly swooning.

Next was SUPER KAWAII PHOTOSHOOT WITH JULIA AND VICTORIAAA. Victoria was Guan Yinping from Dynasty Warriors and Julia was Sakura-hime from TRC<333333.

huehuehuehue cheesin.

Poor Julia’s camera was MIA because no card ;~; and I only had SD cards since mine’s a rebel xsi. We ended up using my DSLR with her lenses and dude………………….. so HQ omg. I think my next investment will be her portrait lens *___*

We were taking photos right at Golden Hour hnggg. Photos by Julia. <3

One thing about being cosplayer photographers is that we always switch roles between each other. Victoria, Jeanine, Julia, Chong, Casey… it’s really fun being able to all get in front of AND behind the lens hehe. 

Though I’m in no way on Julia’s level of photog wizardry, I did my best! hehe. These photos taken by me. c:

kyas

We took photos all the way until after the sun went down, then went back to the hotel to rip off our costumes and have an icecube party! Back in 2010, a bunch of us went out to get ice from the ice machine on our floor, but we ended up just sitting in the hallway eating the ice cubes and talking about life and school and girl stuff. All of a sudden, a bunch of guys (clearly drunk) came over and started talking to us and sat down with us. They asked what we were doing and we told them it was an ice cube party LOL. The rule was that you had to take an ice cream and say something about yourself. We all talked for a while, and it was really fun hahaha.

SO. We decided to run around with our ice cube container exploring around the hotel and fun stuff like that haha.

tryina be vogue

HEHEHE. I had to run over to my hotel to take off my costume, so we invaded my room for a bit before grabbing our DSes and heading back over to the JW. 

We ran around the 3rd (?) or 4th floor of the JW before getting escorted out of that area ahhh LOL. It used to never be closed off but like as soon as we turned around there were suddenly 3 security guards omg. It was kinda scary ahahaha. Ended up sitting at the lobby playing our DSes when my battery was suddenly dying @__@ Tried to find an outlet, ran into Julia’s friend WHO HAD A GENERATOR IN HIS BACKPACK??? He was a photographer, but I’m pretty sure that’s his coverup to hide the fact that he’s a cyborg…. but I’ll keep his secret safe for now, I guess. Lots of people came by and went, saw mama-san and took a photo~~~

ahhh really dark but still kawaii heh

uh uh uh “Dad” was also there too and I swear I’ve never seen him sober… I don’t know his real name because everyone just calls him Dad. LOL but the first time I met him was at ALA in January and it was a really really traumatizing experience.

Ran into Christian/Gackto and hung out for the rest of the night with him, his friend Brandon, and some of his other friends! We all ended up talking with each other until 3AM in the morning, oh man hahaha. It was definitely my favorite night of the con. :DDD

He was just lying there… for a long time…. hahaha

THIS PIC IS RLY CUTE BUT MY CONTACT SLID OUT SO IT LOOKS SO CREEPY ahhhh!!! man having astigmatism and circle lenses is hard… the struggle….. always sliding around.

Kris, Julia, Victoria and I sat around chilling with each other cause we were all really tired LOL. AX heat and craze is really exhausting. Played ACNL, collected streetpasses and talked about school and junk hueeeeee.

It was then time to part ways with Kris, as she was meeting up with her friends and we were off to have our last dinner ;~; !!!

The three of us hit up Fleming’s for their $30 3-course meal Prime rib Sunday! HNGGGG. It was divine.

Caesar salad! Unfortunately it had a lot of anchovies so I started getting an allergic reaction. But that’s what benadryl is for righhhhhht hahaha. I always keep an emergency/first aid kit with me….

POTATO HEAVEN.

come to me

THE best lava cake I have ever had. Oh my goshhhhhhhhhhh

After dinner, it was time to part ways ;~; hnnn. It’s always really depressing because I only get to see them at cons, really… Jeanine’s in NY/Van, Victoria’s in Pennsylvania, and Julia’s in LA. Makes it hard, but also makes our time together really worthwhile. c:

ON MY WAY TO MY HOTEL THOUGH I RAN INTO THE MOST PERFECT AKIRA WAH WAH WAH WAHHHHHH. SERIOUSLY WE WERE BOTH LIKE “…??? .!!!!!!!!!!” BECAUSE WE DIDN’T SEE EACH OTHER ALL DAY ;~; and it was the LAST day, the con was already OVER WAHHH. This Akira made my day.. seriously… ;~;

Got picked up by my cousin, and headed homeeeeee! So ended another wonderful AX. Of course, it wasn’t without it’s lows and stressful moments, but whenever I look back on it I definitely think it was a great con. 🙂 Made so many new friends, got to spend quality time with people, and got to wear all the costumes I wanted to. *^* til next year~