SUPER LONG POST
Sakura-Con was awesome. :D
It was very different this year without Dad and Jared. The drive was twice as long, though possibly a little more fun. We didn't stay at Deb's place. Jared wasn't there to be my adorable cosplay toy. Instead of going back to family when I didn't have anything scheduled, I hung out and got to know a lot of people. Let me recap the days!
Thursday:
Drive up. We left kind of late, because I was tired and still needed to finish packing and felt like crap because I just got sick. So I was slow-going. I got picked up from school and driven to my house, where we put together last-minute things and the issue of the Peakses not arriving was sorted out. Then we went to Katie's place for her family to finish and pack the car. Tommy was already there, so we left for the con from Katie's house.
I slept most of the ride there, but when I wasn't sleeping, it was fun. We had strawberries that I couldn't smell but must have been delicious. We ate at a pasta and pizza place and I had to call my parents to talk about food. We also rocked out to Disney songs and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and my voice by the end of that was pretty shot. Let God be your GPS.
Since the Peakses weren't arriving until the next day, I stayed in a hotel room with Katie, Charla, and Erin. Randy and Tommy stayed in a different one.
Friday:
Randy and Tommy and Katie all went out to get their badges before I woke up. I got up before they came back, so I started to get my costume ready so as not to waste any time. The plan was to get badges and come back and change, but I couldn't go until they got back. So I decided to get into my cosplay first since they had left without me. I took a lot of time getting into my costume, since I had to iron it and style my wig. So by the time I got to registration, which was around 9:30, the line was loong.
It took me two and a half hours to get my badge, which was half and hour longer than needed be. When I finally got up to the pre-reg booth, they couldn't find me when they looked up my name, so they sent me over to the management booth. Though the line for it was tiny, it took half an hour to get through. I told them the problem and we figured out that they had entered my name in wrong, even though I had told them that my last name was two words. Grr.
So I finally got out of there around noon. My schedule would be pretty packed from 2:00 to 10:00, so I decided to go eat. I went out for crepe and the line was super short. Eating inside, I saw a Hetalia cosplayer I knew called Erin, AkaYoru on deviantArt. After I finished, I joined her and the group she was with. We went together to the dealers hall, and I got a shiny poster of France and a free bag to go along with it.
I left for my photoshoot at 2:00 and met up with a user called Jaimie13. She was part of a group of cosplayers in orange jumpsuits. Since this was my first one, it was a little bit of an experiment. It's hard to do a solo shoot. Some cute pictures did result though. It was drizzling outside when we did the shoot, and I got a small grass stain on my pants and the photographer got a little muddy. I'll be posting pictures later, but here's one from that shoot!
I think I went to check out the artists' alley after that, and I found Kocha's booth. I bought the bad friends trio piece from her, and it looks even better in print. I love it. She had these adorable Gilbird charms I was thinking of getting, but never got to. I also went into the dealers' hall again and bought the One Coin figure of France that I've been wanting for a while. I totally splurged on Hetalia merch this con.
The big Hetalia photoshoot was scheduled for 4:00. Not only was I a little late, but apparently they started early? I'm not sure by how much, but it was before Valeria and her crew got there and they were kinda pissed since they had been organizing it all. The shoot was terrifyingly massive, and when I first arrived, my jaw dropped. I was afraid to join in at first, but I did. Katie didn't join in any of the pictures, save for one with me. I missed the Bad Friends pic, because it was one of the first ones they did. There was this one male Spain cosplayer that had a large flagpole that I kept borrowing, because while I did have a flag this time, I forgot a pole. Holding it made me feel powerful.
I met up with Katie again for our shoot at 6:00, and then with Dana before the Hetalia panel. I had seen Dana throughout the day, so I don't know when it started, but we made this photobomb game. +1 point for a successful one. -1 if the photographer gets mad. +10 if they laugh. Somebody asked for a photo of Dana and we bombed it, getting a head start on her own game.
The Hetalia panel was pretty fun. It was run by the German trio with a little bit of extra awesome. We played a Pictionary-like game, truth-or-dare, and some World Domination rock-paper-scissors. There were lots of jokes about Prussia's cock. They had brought a huge stuffed rooster with a label that read "5 meters," as well as other small chirping chicks. After the panel, a bunch of cosplayers went to hang out in the huge open room on the sixth floor, so I joined them. We had an AA nations meeting recorded, a game of "keep the tomato away from Spain," and a game of ninja, among other things. I didn't eat dinner.
After most of the Hetalia crew had left, I had a party on the floor with Erin. We got many people to join us by just gesturing. We probably had 2 or 3 different groups of people, including Rey, a friend I made through Pictochat at Kumo. I made a herpes dance with Olivia.
The Peaks' room was now open, since they had arrived, so we all had our stuff moved there.
Saturday:
The first event I had scheduled and went to was the Ouran photoshoot at 10:30. Quite a few people wanted pictures of us. We started inside at the grand staircase, and moved outside where we got some pretty cool shots at the gazebo. I met the Haruhi and Tamaki cosplayers that I had talked to on the cosplay.com forums (MiyuYuuhi and Maneki_Neko14, respectively) and they were the best ones there.
I then proceeded to hang out with Miyu for quite a while. I met some of her friends, and particularly got to know the Peach cosplayer and David, the really tall Ciel cosplayer that she had just met at Gasukan. We tried to go get crepe, but the line was super long. We sat with Dana and Hazu until my photoshoot with Al at 1:00. I managed to get Miyu to join me in the shoot, and it was a good thing, too! It was a lot more fun than it would have been otherwise. The photographer had to leave early to get to another place for a different shoot, but Hazu joined up with us and continued taking pictures. Before we went on our quest to find the huge waterfall that I had seen pictures and heard of, we met up with Jaimie since I had another shoot scheduled with her. Dave also followed us. We went on a long journey for the mysterious waterfall then, but alas, we never found it. After giving up, we managed to get a few cracklicious photos with David's cane, a copy of Link & Zelda's pose that we had seen on our way, and a variety of photos when we went back to the gazebo. Tamaki joined us for a little bit at that point. It was awesome.
We all went our separate ways at about 3:00. I had a shoot at 4:00 that I needed to change my wig for, though I wasn't sure I wanted to since I would need to restyle it. I decided to go get crepe then, since I didn't get any before. Just as I had finally gotten it and started eating, I came across Katie and Irene who were going up to the room anyway to get ready for Irene's shoot. They were eating too, so if they could make it, I could. I decided to change my wig to be Haruhi, so I'd already have it on to restyle later. I could have written this better... But let's move on.
I made it to the meeting place for my shoot in time, and on my way there, I realized that the (different) Tamaki that Miyu and I sat by earlier who asked Miyu if she was the Haruhi that she had a shoot with at 4:00 was me. It totally didn't register at the time. I expected to have a good laugh with her about it, but she wasn't there! I waited for half an hour, and since she still hadn't shown by then, I decided to go back to the room to change and restyle the wig for Spain. It worked mu better this time, even though it looked like I had little horns when you looked at me straight on.
I went back to the grand staircase to find Erin as an adorable Romano with Jessie as her Spain. There was also a Belgium cosplayer. And Jews! Hung out there for a while until I went to my cousin's place for a delicious dinner of chicken soup and matzah and chicken mush. I talked to her about family and Israel and my costume, and I went back to the con at around 8:30.
This time around I hung out with people from the Hetalia group the day before, but this time the America was Germany and the England cosplayer was Canada. I was stolen by a group containing Volcaloids and a Romano and brought to the hang-out place on the sixth floor. We were there for a bit, and then left. I ran into Sakura!! ;A; I miss her. We went on a quest to find France, because I needed a picture with 'em. Along the way, I kept running into people I knew. It was quite literally stop-and-go until we came across a small group of other Hetalia cosplayers and gave up and decided to hang out with them. There was a hyper (though not usually so!) Hungary, male Austria, and I feel like there was someone else I can't recall. Katie came and joined us.
My day was made when France appeared, supposedly exiting the nearby room. I got a picture with her. I was so happy. I danced. Also, the group of amazing Hetalia cosplayers came by - Revolution America & England, Ottoman Empire & Greece, Succession Hungary. I couldn't stop staring at the Ottoman Empire cosplayer. orz Then some photographers came along and got some shots of us all in a group. Kocha took a few single shots of me. Ottoman & Greece had a personal shoot then with someone, I discovered by stalking them a teeny bit. Things would down after a long while and everyone had to go, so Katie and I went to the sixth floor hang-out. Greece was in a molesting mood, Romano was contrary, succession Spain was chill. I gave Canada/UK my contact info. Did the herpes dance with Olivia again. Made a human pyramid that fell apart without quite finishing.
That was at the very end of the day, and it got to be 1:00 am and time for us minors to leave the convention space. You'd think this'd be the end of the day's reteliing, but no, not quite. Katie and I were heading back to our room, but into order to get into the hotel through the door we were using, we needed our key. I fished around for the key in my pocket, but it was a little slow since I could only use one hand and had quite a bit of other flat things in there. This lady came up to the door as well, and got hers out before we did. So I was all "okay, she got hers first, let's go," and went to walk in the door, when she said in a really nasty tone "Uh no get your own sorry," and closed the door in my face. I have never had a person be so unconditionally rude to me before in my life. I was shocked, and Katie and I had a good laugh about it one the way up to our room.
Sunday:
Woke up a little late and had to rush to get my costume on in order to meet Nikki on time for my photoshoot at 10:00. I got there on time and waited with Rey for a bit. I checked the message from Patrick on my phone that I didn't have time to check earlier because I was in a rush, and discovered that Nikki had to bail because she was too exhausted. So much for getting there on time. I stayed to photobomb a couple photos, then went to look for that Hetalia friends I had made to show them my costume before I had to change out of it since out check-out was at noon. I didn't find them, but I did see Miyu and I went to say hi to Valeria and them even though I had lost my Wolrd Domination card.
Then it was time to pack, check out, and load the stuff into the car. I decidede that I could ride in my costume in the car if I just took my wig off when it was actually time to leave, so I didn't need to change. After the car was done being loaded, I headed back to look for my friends. I cam across Rey again, then went to the dealers' hall.
I don't remember the order of everything here, but I came across Brette and Haley, Erin, and finally that group I was looking for that weren't in their Hetalia cosplay that day even though I thought they had planned to. In that last visit in the dealers' hall, I bought a lot. I got a set of four pictures from the booth I had got the France poster from. I bought a set of Ultimate Showdown cards. I bought a pack of Hetalia trading cards and got two empty boxes to go along with. I forgot to mention that I picked up cat ears for Kat the day before. I met a couple of revers who really liked my costume in the dealers' hall too, but I don't remember their names.
The Katie came and her parents were getting ready to leave. We talked to this super cool lady lady at the contacts booth for quite a while. I need green contacts. I went to get crepe for the last time, and then we left! Bye bye Sakura-Con!!
I should have changed out of the costume, since the skirt/shorts were too tight and squeezed me in a super uncomfortable way. At least I brought pants to change into later, so when we stopped for food, I was able to feel much better. AND THEN I SLEPT UNTIL WE WERE NEARLY HOME.
It was very different this year without Dad and Jared. The drive was twice as long, though possibly a little more fun. We didn't stay at Deb's place. Jared wasn't there to be my adorable cosplay toy. Instead of going back to family when I didn't have anything scheduled, I hung out and got to know a lot of people. Let me recap the days!
Thursday:
Drive up. We left kind of late, because I was tired and still needed to finish packing and felt like crap because I just got sick. So I was slow-going. I got picked up from school and driven to my house, where we put together last-minute things and the issue of the Peakses not arriving was sorted out. Then we went to Katie's place for her family to finish and pack the car. Tommy was already there, so we left for the con from Katie's house.
I slept most of the ride there, but when I wasn't sleeping, it was fun. We had strawberries that I couldn't smell but must have been delicious. We ate at a pasta and pizza place and I had to call my parents to talk about food. We also rocked out to Disney songs and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and my voice by the end of that was pretty shot. Let God be your GPS.
Since the Peakses weren't arriving until the next day, I stayed in a hotel room with Katie, Charla, and Erin. Randy and Tommy stayed in a different one.
Friday:
Randy and Tommy and Katie all went out to get their badges before I woke up. I got up before they came back, so I started to get my costume ready so as not to waste any time. The plan was to get badges and come back and change, but I couldn't go until they got back. So I decided to get into my cosplay first since they had left without me. I took a lot of time getting into my costume, since I had to iron it and style my wig. So by the time I got to registration, which was around 9:30, the line was loong.
It took me two and a half hours to get my badge, which was half and hour longer than needed be. When I finally got up to the pre-reg booth, they couldn't find me when they looked up my name, so they sent me over to the management booth. Though the line for it was tiny, it took half an hour to get through. I told them the problem and we figured out that they had entered my name in wrong, even though I had told them that my last name was two words. Grr.
So I finally got out of there around noon. My schedule would be pretty packed from 2:00 to 10:00, so I decided to go eat. I went out for crepe and the line was super short. Eating inside, I saw a Hetalia cosplayer I knew called Erin, AkaYoru on deviantArt. After I finished, I joined her and the group she was with. We went together to the dealers hall, and I got a shiny poster of France and a free bag to go along with it.
I left for my photoshoot at 2:00 and met up with a user called Jaimie13. She was part of a group of cosplayers in orange jumpsuits. Since this was my first one, it was a little bit of an experiment. It's hard to do a solo shoot. Some cute pictures did result though. It was drizzling outside when we did the shoot, and I got a small grass stain on my pants and the photographer got a little muddy. I'll be posting pictures later, but here's one from that shoot!
I think I went to check out the artists' alley after that, and I found Kocha's booth. I bought the bad friends trio piece from her, and it looks even better in print. I love it. She had these adorable Gilbird charms I was thinking of getting, but never got to. I also went into the dealers' hall again and bought the One Coin figure of France that I've been wanting for a while. I totally splurged on Hetalia merch this con.
The big Hetalia photoshoot was scheduled for 4:00. Not only was I a little late, but apparently they started early? I'm not sure by how much, but it was before Valeria and her crew got there and they were kinda pissed since they had been organizing it all. The shoot was terrifyingly massive, and when I first arrived, my jaw dropped. I was afraid to join in at first, but I did. Katie didn't join in any of the pictures, save for one with me. I missed the Bad Friends pic, because it was one of the first ones they did. There was this one male Spain cosplayer that had a large flagpole that I kept borrowing, because while I did have a flag this time, I forgot a pole. Holding it made me feel powerful.
I met up with Katie again for our shoot at 6:00, and then with Dana before the Hetalia panel. I had seen Dana throughout the day, so I don't know when it started, but we made this photobomb game. +1 point for a successful one. -1 if the photographer gets mad. +10 if they laugh. Somebody asked for a photo of Dana and we bombed it, getting a head start on her own game.
The Hetalia panel was pretty fun. It was run by the German trio with a little bit of extra awesome. We played a Pictionary-like game, truth-or-dare, and some World Domination rock-paper-scissors. There were lots of jokes about Prussia's cock. They had brought a huge stuffed rooster with a label that read "5 meters," as well as other small chirping chicks. After the panel, a bunch of cosplayers went to hang out in the huge open room on the sixth floor, so I joined them. We had an AA nations meeting recorded, a game of "keep the tomato away from Spain," and a game of ninja, among other things. I didn't eat dinner.
After most of the Hetalia crew had left, I had a party on the floor with Erin. We got many people to join us by just gesturing. We probably had 2 or 3 different groups of people, including Rey, a friend I made through Pictochat at Kumo. I made a herpes dance with Olivia.
The Peaks' room was now open, since they had arrived, so we all had our stuff moved there.
Saturday:
The first event I had scheduled and went to was the Ouran photoshoot at 10:30. Quite a few people wanted pictures of us. We started inside at the grand staircase, and moved outside where we got some pretty cool shots at the gazebo. I met the Haruhi and Tamaki cosplayers that I had talked to on the cosplay.com forums (MiyuYuuhi and Maneki_Neko14, respectively) and they were the best ones there.
I then proceeded to hang out with Miyu for quite a while. I met some of her friends, and particularly got to know the Peach cosplayer and David, the really tall Ciel cosplayer that she had just met at Gasukan. We tried to go get crepe, but the line was super long. We sat with Dana and Hazu until my photoshoot with Al at 1:00. I managed to get Miyu to join me in the shoot, and it was a good thing, too! It was a lot more fun than it would have been otherwise. The photographer had to leave early to get to another place for a different shoot, but Hazu joined up with us and continued taking pictures. Before we went on our quest to find the huge waterfall that I had seen pictures and heard of, we met up with Jaimie since I had another shoot scheduled with her. Dave also followed us. We went on a long journey for the mysterious waterfall then, but alas, we never found it. After giving up, we managed to get a few cracklicious photos with David's cane, a copy of Link & Zelda's pose that we had seen on our way, and a variety of photos when we went back to the gazebo. Tamaki joined us for a little bit at that point. It was awesome.
We all went our separate ways at about 3:00. I had a shoot at 4:00 that I needed to change my wig for, though I wasn't sure I wanted to since I would need to restyle it. I decided to go get crepe then, since I didn't get any before. Just as I had finally gotten it and started eating, I came across Katie and Irene who were going up to the room anyway to get ready for Irene's shoot. They were eating too, so if they could make it, I could. I decided to change my wig to be Haruhi, so I'd already have it on to restyle later. I could have written this better... But let's move on.
I made it to the meeting place for my shoot in time, and on my way there, I realized that the (different) Tamaki that Miyu and I sat by earlier who asked Miyu if she was the Haruhi that she had a shoot with at 4:00 was me. It totally didn't register at the time. I expected to have a good laugh with her about it, but she wasn't there! I waited for half an hour, and since she still hadn't shown by then, I decided to go back to the room to change and restyle the wig for Spain. It worked mu better this time, even though it looked like I had little horns when you looked at me straight on.
I went back to the grand staircase to find Erin as an adorable Romano with Jessie as her Spain. There was also a Belgium cosplayer. And Jews! Hung out there for a while until I went to my cousin's place for a delicious dinner of chicken soup and matzah and chicken mush. I talked to her about family and Israel and my costume, and I went back to the con at around 8:30.
This time around I hung out with people from the Hetalia group the day before, but this time the America was Germany and the England cosplayer was Canada. I was stolen by a group containing Volcaloids and a Romano and brought to the hang-out place on the sixth floor. We were there for a bit, and then left. I ran into Sakura!! ;A; I miss her. We went on a quest to find France, because I needed a picture with 'em. Along the way, I kept running into people I knew. It was quite literally stop-and-go until we came across a small group of other Hetalia cosplayers and gave up and decided to hang out with them. There was a hyper (though not usually so!) Hungary, male Austria, and I feel like there was someone else I can't recall. Katie came and joined us.
My day was made when France appeared, supposedly exiting the nearby room. I got a picture with her. I was so happy. I danced. Also, the group of amazing Hetalia cosplayers came by - Revolution America & England, Ottoman Empire & Greece, Succession Hungary. I couldn't stop staring at the Ottoman Empire cosplayer. orz Then some photographers came along and got some shots of us all in a group. Kocha took a few single shots of me. Ottoman & Greece had a personal shoot then with someone, I discovered by stalking them a teeny bit. Things would down after a long while and everyone had to go, so Katie and I went to the sixth floor hang-out. Greece was in a molesting mood, Romano was contrary, succession Spain was chill. I gave Canada/UK my contact info. Did the herpes dance with Olivia again. Made a human pyramid that fell apart without quite finishing.
That was at the very end of the day, and it got to be 1:00 am and time for us minors to leave the convention space. You'd think this'd be the end of the day's reteliing, but no, not quite. Katie and I were heading back to our room, but into order to get into the hotel through the door we were using, we needed our key. I fished around for the key in my pocket, but it was a little slow since I could only use one hand and had quite a bit of other flat things in there. This lady came up to the door as well, and got hers out before we did. So I was all "okay, she got hers first, let's go," and went to walk in the door, when she said in a really nasty tone "Uh no get your own sorry," and closed the door in my face. I have never had a person be so unconditionally rude to me before in my life. I was shocked, and Katie and I had a good laugh about it one the way up to our room.
Sunday:
Woke up a little late and had to rush to get my costume on in order to meet Nikki on time for my photoshoot at 10:00. I got there on time and waited with Rey for a bit. I checked the message from Patrick on my phone that I didn't have time to check earlier because I was in a rush, and discovered that Nikki had to bail because she was too exhausted. So much for getting there on time. I stayed to photobomb a couple photos, then went to look for that Hetalia friends I had made to show them my costume before I had to change out of it since out check-out was at noon. I didn't find them, but I did see Miyu and I went to say hi to Valeria and them even though I had lost my Wolrd Domination card.
Then it was time to pack, check out, and load the stuff into the car. I decidede that I could ride in my costume in the car if I just took my wig off when it was actually time to leave, so I didn't need to change. After the car was done being loaded, I headed back to look for my friends. I cam across Rey again, then went to the dealers' hall.
I don't remember the order of everything here, but I came across Brette and Haley, Erin, and finally that group I was looking for that weren't in their Hetalia cosplay that day even though I thought they had planned to. In that last visit in the dealers' hall, I bought a lot. I got a set of four pictures from the booth I had got the France poster from. I bought a set of Ultimate Showdown cards. I bought a pack of Hetalia trading cards and got two empty boxes to go along with. I forgot to mention that I picked up cat ears for Kat the day before. I met a couple of revers who really liked my costume in the dealers' hall too, but I don't remember their names.
The Katie came and her parents were getting ready to leave. We talked to this super cool lady lady at the contacts booth for quite a while. I need green contacts. I went to get crepe for the last time, and then we left! Bye bye Sakura-Con!!
I should have changed out of the costume, since the skirt/shorts were too tight and squeezed me in a super uncomfortable way. At least I brought pants to change into later, so when we stopped for food, I was able to feel much better. AND THEN I SLEPT UNTIL WE WERE NEARLY HOME.