Today was the first full-family convention experience. Our original plan was to leave the house at ten, but since things rarely go well when five people are forced to function on one schedule, we left after noon and didn't get to the convention center until after two in the afternoon.
Due to traffic and stress over finishing my Medusa cosplay at the last minute, I was about ready to strangle someone and didn't start to breathe until we encountered a viking woman in a nearby bathroom. (Even the cosplayers on the crowded streets hadn't soothed me while we sat in the car.)
Once we had our passes, I was free to frolic among the nerds as long as I met my parents at the appointed time and place. On my way to said location, I came face-to-face with people from my school, and some I wasn't expecting to see either. I started to laugh at seeing the first, and didn't see the taller one until he started talking. We part ways but my sister and I teamed up at the checkpoint to try and hunt them down. We wandered the con floor, which was incredibly busy and hot, stopping at random stalls while craning our necks to look for the surprise peers. Failing, but finding some good stuff along the way, we met our share of cosplayers and snapped a picture of Princess Mononoke and an extremely friendly Ciel.
By the way, Ciel, if you stumble across this blog, I have to say this: I was not stalking you. That second meeting was me seeing you by chance, and I really, really need the traffic on my YouTube channel... I'm just saying, you seemed a little scared of me.
After we met up with Mom, the three of us headed upstairs for the anime screening room. There was some confusion in finding it, but we managed.
The room was dimly-lit and I didn't want to disturb the viewers, so I bolted to the front to get out of the way, feeling my mom was talking extremely loudly. I nabbed a seat next to two guys in the front row who recognized my costume right away. I wasn't feeling up to the sub-only show on-screen, so I happily chatted them up. After realizing we were probably bothering some of the people actually watching the show, we slipped out into the hallway to speak in normal tones.
Sooner or later my family (my dad had shown up somewhere before now) got tired of anime and left, telling me to be at the checkpoint by six. I talked a bit longer with the two before the Fullmetal Alchemist fan and I set off to find the stand selling Ed's watch - one of which I'd gotten earlier. The other stayed behind to wait for the group he was with.
Finding the stall was harder than we thought, seeing that after a few hours on the floor, all the booths start to blend together. Either way, we talked some more on the way there about various shows and here and there pausing to look at something that caught our eye.
I think I scared him a bit when I snapped a picture of a box of yaoi manga to send it to a friend. (Who knows who she is.)
Eventually, I caught a glimpse of some VOCALOID CD's, looking up from my browsing to see we'd found the stall we were looking for. He was ecstatic as he gleefully grabbed his watch and paid for it as I thumbed through posters.
Shortly after that, it was time for me to leave, so he waved and took off into the crowd. I organized myself, stuffing plushies and posters into my bag and (discreetly) applying deodorant before settling down on the concrete floor to listen to my iPod.
My parents and sister picked me up at out set time, and after a quick skim through a few more stalls we left and went home. I was utterly exhausted, so they dropped me off at home promising to bring me back a noodle bowl as they went out for dinner.
Here are my purchases for the first day of my WonderCon experience:
$10 Soul Eater wall scroll
$15 grab bag hat
$9 Alphonse Elric plushie
$15 Edward Elric stopwatch
$10 autographed Firefly poster (split with sister for a friend)
$3 Black Rock Shooter poster
$22 Miku Hachune plushie
Hair ornament (gift from Mom)
Tomorrow is another day - "look forward to it!"
-Much luvz, Hideki
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