NYC and Shoujocon 2003
Aug. 25th, 2003 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ad_exiaGeez, I'm getting tired. We'll see how long I last. Got back from Shoujocon about 9:30pm; very smooth drive both ways, Amberlee's adventures in Boston finding the Fenway notwithstanding. ^^; But anyway. We'll get to that.
Thursday:
Got up nice and early, took the bus over to Fenway House (only got one "Look! It's a big key!" "No, really, thanks, I didn't know I was carrying a big key" on the way there) and played Guilty Gear XX (what a surprise) with Skuld until Amberlee found us. She'd had a bit of trouble finding the Fens, but finally called Skuld and we stood outside until she found us. Got going; like I said, the ride there was smooh with relatively little traffic. Got to Rye, passed right by the hotel as we were all ogling the very pretty big white building right across the street from the hotel entrance that was unfortunately NOT the hotel (we are dorks) but turned right around and found it with otherwise no problems. ^^;; Checked in and unloaded, then hopped the train to New York. Whee!
My first time in NYC ever; it was definitely pretty darned cool. Grand Central Station is HUGE and COOL and we bought one-day passes for unlimited public transportation rides ($7, nice!) right off the bat. Amberlee headed off for her Zen thing and Skuld and I hopped the subway to explore. Went to Times Square, the World Trade Center site, Rockefeller Place, Central Park, and Chinatown. Found a Kotokinya Japanese Bookstore at Rockefeller, and though I tried to steer us past it (we were going to an anime convention the next day, after all!), fate decided that we could not escape the clutches of MANGA and so we eventually went in and bought the first volume of Tsubasa. With LI! on the cover. I am going to cosplay Badass Li From Tsubasa (TM), I have decided. And no one will recognize me. But that's okay. I'll be Badass Li. ^^
Chinatown was to meet a friend of Skuld's (Sean, hope I spelled that right...) and meet Amberlee at Joe's Shanghai for dinner. OMG they have the BEST things, called soup dumplings. They're awesome. And I hear they're hard to get, so I feel I am one of the privileged few to eat at Joe's (snicker) and eat soup dumplings. SO yummy. Amberlee had also gotten us some goodies at a bakery, to be saved later for when we were starving at the con.
Friday:
Got up at a pretty decent hour (10ish, whee) and, dressed as Sora and Luffy, Skuld and I went to get our registration stuff. Amberlee hadn't pre-registered, so she'd gone a bit earlier to take care of that (dessed as a Communist Party Member, book and all!), but Skuld had pre-reg'd and I'd managed to use one of Cocoa's group registration numbers, since I guess one of their group members bailed on them. $25 admission, yay! Then we just kind of wandered around, as there weren't many people there, the dealers' room didn't open until noon, and there wasn't much going on. At noon we hit the dealers' room, when we did most of our fangirlish buying. Friday Dealers' Room spoils: KakaNaru doujin (I *swear* it's a cute one, not squicky!), Naruto pencilboard (oh yes, now I have three, I am horrible), MANTA plushie (I found a Shaman King plushie! I found a Shaman King plushie! They had no one else, but they had Manta and he was $5 so I had to buy him to carry around for when I was Anna, and besides, we like Manta.), and a Slayers wallscroll. Erm... I don't actually remember a lot of what else we did on Friday; Amberlee was finishing up her Braska costume for a photoshoot that evening. Skuld came back and changed into Riku (complete with newly-spray painted wig ^^;) and we entered the hall competition. Amberlee finished her costume and came down and walked around with us, and also entered the hall comp. There was a Cosplay.com "photoshoot" that we did, along with a kind of nonexistant Final Fantasy one. Met a really nice Rikku and her mom, who was cosplaying Yuna. They were definitely cool! There was an ice cream social (whee! Ice cream! But we weren't Kamui and Fuuma...), and the AMV contest, some of which were really, really good. The "Bring Mute to Life" one was shown (last, so appropriate, and it won first place, I might add). Eventually met up with Cocoa and co., including Ko, Rackham Rose, Rachel, and Cocoa's siblings, etc. Were fangirly, was fun. ^^ I *think* that's about it for Friday... We actually got to bed at a pretty decent hour! Oh, but we did stop in to watch the Friday night Whack-a-thon (Ebichu) and also to pop into the midnight karaoke, where we met most of the Tutu group, and talked to them about random stuff. They're really nice - they had more people there: Fakia, Tutu, Claire, Pique, Neko-sensei, and Edel-san. Dude, they are SO good with wigs. Got some good tips!
Oh, and Jen, I found another Risa cosplayer! Her costume was pretty good, but not as good as yours (no pointy tails on the blouse and no... floofy stuff in the skirt. I know what it's called but I can't spell it at this hour). She was really nice though, and wanted a pic with Sora. ^^
Saturday:
X group day. Whee. Why, oh why, must poor Kamui suffer such a fate? Let's see, we had Kamui, Fuuma, Subaru, Seishirou, *two* Sakura Trees, Yuuto, Karen, Sorata, Aoki, Yuzuriha, Kakyou, Keiichi... I hope I'm not forgetting someone here. Anyway, took group photos, and lots of them. Was alternately molested and glomped. Like I said. Poor Kamui. ^^;; Then we split up to do stuff; Skuld and I went to the Tomoko Taniguchi (ohboy, I hope I spelled *that* right) panel 'cause Skuld likes her work, then got RAMEN in our room (yay) and wandered some more. Amberlee had found this "Tactics" book for a friend, since he likes FF: Tactics, but upon further examination, we found that it was something completely different, but pretty darned *gorgeous* all the same. I went to the dealers' room later and found some clearfiles, and so of course I had to buy one (eheh). It reminds me a bit of Yami, with a cute Hisoka-looking kid that of course I like. ^^;; Ah well. Stopped into the Hello Kitty Live Action with Amberlee... Oh. My. God.
And that's all I can say about that.
More wandering, wandering... Skuld entered the DDR contest, and when we stopped into the game room (which had been nonexistant until that afternoon) there was THE X FIGHTING GAME! SO COOL! WHEEEEEE! Actually, I didn't get a chance to play it until Sunday, while Skuld was playing Para Para, but still. It was there. I saw it. Yay. Got sushi for dinner (yay Amberlee!) and watched an ep of Voyager before heading out for the cosplay contest that night. I watched some of until I left to go see Peach Girl Live Action, which I just had to check out. It was okay, but it was set in college as opposed to high school, and all the same things happened (i.e. main events) but they were slightly different. ::shrug:: Kinda cool though. Dear Lord, why do I like that manga? ::cries:: Anyway, the contest - what I saw of it - was pretty good, there was this GREAT Harry Potter skit involving Harry coming out and asking why his life wasn't more like a video game, and then he and Draco dueled (with little HP signs and magical moves and all!) until Harry just plain snogged Draco until he fell over. Hee~
Then was the Shounen-ai Love-In. I came in while they were showing something pretty good, but left when Ai No Kusabi started since I'd seen it before. Wandered up to the room for a little; Skuld's friend Sean came to visit so they were up there, but then I went back to see when ANK was going to end. I still had a little while, so I watched some eps of Ultra Maniac (kinda good!) before heading back to the Love-In. After Ai No Kusabi... Oh man. Total and complete weirdness. Something involving "Labyrinth" in the title (don't feel like digging out the program right now), and it was ON CRACK. We had fun heckling it though. Then Be-Boy something or other, which was okay but again, short and not action-filled. Then something that looked actually pretty good, if not a little... condensed. ^^;; I left after the first ep, though, because it was 2am-ish and I was tired and FREEZING because it was cold in there, and by that point I'd turned into the Sanosuke no Miko instead of Kamui because sitting in a chair even with little bat wings isn't the comfiest of things for very long.
Sunday:
Got up at 10:30 or so, dressed mostly as Anna, Luffy, and a kimono-clad Amberlee, and then we all packed up the car. Ate, then went to artists' alley and the dealers' room one last time (Skuld bought some Guilty Gear cards but I managed not to get anything else except for the present I picked up for Jennie in artists' alley, mwahaha) before Amberlee went to the kimono panel and Skuld and I went to the game room where, as I said before, I played the X game! Man, it is *so* not conducive to button-mashing. Sad. Although I think I was getting the hang of it; I played most of the people: Kamui (duh!), Fuuma, Sorata, Arashi (will I *ever* spell her name right?), Yuuto, and Nataku. I stopped by to watch the Whack-an-Eriol while Skuld was DDRing, which was rather amusing. Then Skuld and I (gasp!) wandered some more, talked for a bit, and eventually hung out with a happy group of people who'd plopped themselves in a corner and gave us food. Then it was time for Closing Ceremonies, at which Amberlee won fourth place for her Braska costume (YAAAAY!) and Skuld and I tied with the Tutu group for third with our KH costumes (wai!).
Then they auctioned off the Whack-a-thon heads... O.o There was Nanami, Shigure (*all* of us had complained the whole weekend about whacking Shigure, but apparently the Akito hadn't been ready in time and they needed a last-minute replacement; I still don't think it's fair to poor Shigure), Ebichu, and Eriol. Eriol's head went for 60-something dollars. Whoa. ^^; Won by the staff member who, dressed as Eriol, had taken the first shot at "himself." It was a blast.
The ride home was very smooth; we stopped at McDonald's for some food, hit a little traffic in MA, but that really was about it. Except for the MASSIVE amounts of construction making Mass. Ave. be closed off... that was unhappy, but I finally got home and here I am, finishing my happy report.
Pictures when I get them scanned. And I should scan those Otakon pix, ne? ^^;;
Going to check into Green Hall tomorrow, maybe move a few rolly suitcases-worth of stuff, then PACK so I can be all efficient on Tuesday with my rented van.
A BIG THANK YOU to Amberlee for driving us and letting us use her hotel room and for just being all-around cool. Wai! We love you!
- Tired Kamui-chan ^^;
Thursday:
Got up nice and early, took the bus over to Fenway House (only got one "Look! It's a big key!" "No, really, thanks, I didn't know I was carrying a big key" on the way there) and played Guilty Gear XX (what a surprise) with Skuld until Amberlee found us. She'd had a bit of trouble finding the Fens, but finally called Skuld and we stood outside until she found us. Got going; like I said, the ride there was smooh with relatively little traffic. Got to Rye, passed right by the hotel as we were all ogling the very pretty big white building right across the street from the hotel entrance that was unfortunately NOT the hotel (we are dorks) but turned right around and found it with otherwise no problems. ^^;; Checked in and unloaded, then hopped the train to New York. Whee!
My first time in NYC ever; it was definitely pretty darned cool. Grand Central Station is HUGE and COOL and we bought one-day passes for unlimited public transportation rides ($7, nice!) right off the bat. Amberlee headed off for her Zen thing and Skuld and I hopped the subway to explore. Went to Times Square, the World Trade Center site, Rockefeller Place, Central Park, and Chinatown. Found a Kotokinya Japanese Bookstore at Rockefeller, and though I tried to steer us past it (we were going to an anime convention the next day, after all!), fate decided that we could not escape the clutches of MANGA and so we eventually went in and bought the first volume of Tsubasa. With LI! on the cover. I am going to cosplay Badass Li From Tsubasa (TM), I have decided. And no one will recognize me. But that's okay. I'll be Badass Li. ^^
Chinatown was to meet a friend of Skuld's (Sean, hope I spelled that right...) and meet Amberlee at Joe's Shanghai for dinner. OMG they have the BEST things, called soup dumplings. They're awesome. And I hear they're hard to get, so I feel I am one of the privileged few to eat at Joe's (snicker) and eat soup dumplings. SO yummy. Amberlee had also gotten us some goodies at a bakery, to be saved later for when we were starving at the con.
Friday:
Got up at a pretty decent hour (10ish, whee) and, dressed as Sora and Luffy, Skuld and I went to get our registration stuff. Amberlee hadn't pre-registered, so she'd gone a bit earlier to take care of that (dessed as a Communist Party Member, book and all!), but Skuld had pre-reg'd and I'd managed to use one of Cocoa's group registration numbers, since I guess one of their group members bailed on them. $25 admission, yay! Then we just kind of wandered around, as there weren't many people there, the dealers' room didn't open until noon, and there wasn't much going on. At noon we hit the dealers' room, when we did most of our fangirlish buying. Friday Dealers' Room spoils: KakaNaru doujin (I *swear* it's a cute one, not squicky!), Naruto pencilboard (oh yes, now I have three, I am horrible), MANTA plushie (I found a Shaman King plushie! I found a Shaman King plushie! They had no one else, but they had Manta and he was $5 so I had to buy him to carry around for when I was Anna, and besides, we like Manta.), and a Slayers wallscroll. Erm... I don't actually remember a lot of what else we did on Friday; Amberlee was finishing up her Braska costume for a photoshoot that evening. Skuld came back and changed into Riku (complete with newly-spray painted wig ^^;) and we entered the hall competition. Amberlee finished her costume and came down and walked around with us, and also entered the hall comp. There was a Cosplay.com "photoshoot" that we did, along with a kind of nonexistant Final Fantasy one. Met a really nice Rikku and her mom, who was cosplaying Yuna. They were definitely cool! There was an ice cream social (whee! Ice cream! But we weren't Kamui and Fuuma...), and the AMV contest, some of which were really, really good. The "Bring Mute to Life" one was shown (last, so appropriate, and it won first place, I might add). Eventually met up with Cocoa and co., including Ko, Rackham Rose, Rachel, and Cocoa's siblings, etc. Were fangirly, was fun. ^^ I *think* that's about it for Friday... We actually got to bed at a pretty decent hour! Oh, but we did stop in to watch the Friday night Whack-a-thon (Ebichu) and also to pop into the midnight karaoke, where we met most of the Tutu group, and talked to them about random stuff. They're really nice - they had more people there: Fakia, Tutu, Claire, Pique, Neko-sensei, and Edel-san. Dude, they are SO good with wigs. Got some good tips!
Oh, and Jen, I found another Risa cosplayer! Her costume was pretty good, but not as good as yours (no pointy tails on the blouse and no... floofy stuff in the skirt. I know what it's called but I can't spell it at this hour). She was really nice though, and wanted a pic with Sora. ^^
Saturday:
X group day. Whee. Why, oh why, must poor Kamui suffer such a fate? Let's see, we had Kamui, Fuuma, Subaru, Seishirou, *two* Sakura Trees, Yuuto, Karen, Sorata, Aoki, Yuzuriha, Kakyou, Keiichi... I hope I'm not forgetting someone here. Anyway, took group photos, and lots of them. Was alternately molested and glomped. Like I said. Poor Kamui. ^^;; Then we split up to do stuff; Skuld and I went to the Tomoko Taniguchi (ohboy, I hope I spelled *that* right) panel 'cause Skuld likes her work, then got RAMEN in our room (yay) and wandered some more. Amberlee had found this "Tactics" book for a friend, since he likes FF: Tactics, but upon further examination, we found that it was something completely different, but pretty darned *gorgeous* all the same. I went to the dealers' room later and found some clearfiles, and so of course I had to buy one (eheh). It reminds me a bit of Yami, with a cute Hisoka-looking kid that of course I like. ^^;; Ah well. Stopped into the Hello Kitty Live Action with Amberlee... Oh. My. God.
And that's all I can say about that.
More wandering, wandering... Skuld entered the DDR contest, and when we stopped into the game room (which had been nonexistant until that afternoon) there was THE X FIGHTING GAME! SO COOL! WHEEEEEE! Actually, I didn't get a chance to play it until Sunday, while Skuld was playing Para Para, but still. It was there. I saw it. Yay. Got sushi for dinner (yay Amberlee!) and watched an ep of Voyager before heading out for the cosplay contest that night. I watched some of until I left to go see Peach Girl Live Action, which I just had to check out. It was okay, but it was set in college as opposed to high school, and all the same things happened (i.e. main events) but they were slightly different. ::shrug:: Kinda cool though. Dear Lord, why do I like that manga? ::cries:: Anyway, the contest - what I saw of it - was pretty good, there was this GREAT Harry Potter skit involving Harry coming out and asking why his life wasn't more like a video game, and then he and Draco dueled (with little HP signs and magical moves and all!) until Harry just plain snogged Draco until he fell over. Hee~
Then was the Shounen-ai Love-In. I came in while they were showing something pretty good, but left when Ai No Kusabi started since I'd seen it before. Wandered up to the room for a little; Skuld's friend Sean came to visit so they were up there, but then I went back to see when ANK was going to end. I still had a little while, so I watched some eps of Ultra Maniac (kinda good!) before heading back to the Love-In. After Ai No Kusabi... Oh man. Total and complete weirdness. Something involving "Labyrinth" in the title (don't feel like digging out the program right now), and it was ON CRACK. We had fun heckling it though. Then Be-Boy something or other, which was okay but again, short and not action-filled. Then something that looked actually pretty good, if not a little... condensed. ^^;; I left after the first ep, though, because it was 2am-ish and I was tired and FREEZING because it was cold in there, and by that point I'd turned into the Sanosuke no Miko instead of Kamui because sitting in a chair even with little bat wings isn't the comfiest of things for very long.
Sunday:
Got up at 10:30 or so, dressed mostly as Anna, Luffy, and a kimono-clad Amberlee, and then we all packed up the car. Ate, then went to artists' alley and the dealers' room one last time (Skuld bought some Guilty Gear cards but I managed not to get anything else except for the present I picked up for Jennie in artists' alley, mwahaha) before Amberlee went to the kimono panel and Skuld and I went to the game room where, as I said before, I played the X game! Man, it is *so* not conducive to button-mashing. Sad. Although I think I was getting the hang of it; I played most of the people: Kamui (duh!), Fuuma, Sorata, Arashi (will I *ever* spell her name right?), Yuuto, and Nataku. I stopped by to watch the Whack-an-Eriol while Skuld was DDRing, which was rather amusing. Then Skuld and I (gasp!) wandered some more, talked for a bit, and eventually hung out with a happy group of people who'd plopped themselves in a corner and gave us food. Then it was time for Closing Ceremonies, at which Amberlee won fourth place for her Braska costume (YAAAAY!) and Skuld and I tied with the Tutu group for third with our KH costumes (wai!).
Then they auctioned off the Whack-a-thon heads... O.o There was Nanami, Shigure (*all* of us had complained the whole weekend about whacking Shigure, but apparently the Akito hadn't been ready in time and they needed a last-minute replacement; I still don't think it's fair to poor Shigure), Ebichu, and Eriol. Eriol's head went for 60-something dollars. Whoa. ^^; Won by the staff member who, dressed as Eriol, had taken the first shot at "himself." It was a blast.
The ride home was very smooth; we stopped at McDonald's for some food, hit a little traffic in MA, but that really was about it. Except for the MASSIVE amounts of construction making Mass. Ave. be closed off... that was unhappy, but I finally got home and here I am, finishing my happy report.
Pictures when I get them scanned. And I should scan those Otakon pix, ne? ^^;;
Going to check into Green Hall tomorrow, maybe move a few rolly suitcases-worth of stuff, then PACK so I can be all efficient on Tuesday with my rented van.
A BIG THANK YOU to Amberlee for driving us and letting us use her hotel room and for just being all-around cool. Wai! We love you!
- Tired Kamui-chan ^^;
