Anime Expo was a success! Not only did it serve as a great way to meet the users and some of our moderators, it was a nice escape from boorish, daily life too. ^3^ Unfortunately, Jakobo came down with illness at the last moment so he had to stay home during the entire con. sad Get well soon, Jakobo!!
Day 1, Thursday:
In our car, we had Lanzer, L0cke, my friend Laine, Jakobo's GF Tessa, and myself. We had to pull over a few times during the 7 hour drive to use the bathroom (we're girls, so sue us), and it drove L0cke crazy so he ran into the desert for a bit.
When we finally arrived in Anaheim, we were greeted by some of our mods who had already arrived. xd I was very discombulated from the car ride so my apologies for being so out of it when you first met me.
Our little meet and greet:
Afterward, we had a late supper at Bakers Square.
L0cke and the mods threw paper airplanes out of our hotel room for a while until a 7-foot tall security guard came up and yelled at us for it. Then we went to bed. This is where L0cke slept during the first night:
Day 2. Friday:
Our first exhibition hall day! We arrived bright and early after some coffee and set up our booth:
It was a VERY busy day at the booth! My heels were killing me by the end of the day from standing all day. rofl Thank you to all the moderators who helped us run the Gaia Wheel!
With thoughts of Jakobo in our minds, we bought him a One Piece poster as a get well present. I hope he doesn't already have the poster. sweatdrop
After the exhibition hall closed, we walked to Hometown Buffet for dinner. My memory is a little hazy from this point. sweatdrop All I remember was a long walk to the restaurant, a bus ride with our party of 25 back, and a pause to watch fireworks go off at Disneyland. A few of us hit the anime dance at the Coast Hotel before going to bed. It was...interesting. rofl VO is an extremely good dancer and showed off. xd
Day 3, Saturday:
The big day! Panel day!
Saturday at the booth was like Friday, except 10x busier!
Aching feet, aching feet...
At some point during the day, L0cke turned to me and said, "I've seen a lot of girls walking around in Chinese shirts but you don't even have one and you are Chinese!! gonk " So we walked around the hall and he bought me a Chinese-style shirt, which I later wore during the panel.
At around 5 pm, L0cke and I ran outside to go to the One Piece Gathering. I was dressed as Nico Robin. whee If anyone was at the gathering, please, please, please show me some photos!
After the hall closed for the day, L0cke and I had dinner at IHOP and then discussed our panel plans with the devs and other admins. At around 8 PM, we went to Live Programming 1, where our panel was scheduled to be held, and saw a ginormous line. eek
The panel went well. It was a good room and there were TV screens everywhere so I'm sure anyone who went got a good view at least. ^^ It was very fun and I saw many cameras around so there are probably a lot of photos floating around, especially in the GCD. (I am hunting for photos, so toss some at me! ninja )
After the panel we talked 1-on-1 with a lot of users and provided them with a giant get well card to sign for Jakobo.
Here's a photo taken by amie:
From left to right: Dri, kaia9, VO, Lanzer, L0cke, and Ling (me)
Thank you very much Moonblossom for the miniwings! 4laugh I wore them throughout the weekend.
And after the post-panel stuff, our big ol' group went to Dennys and we didn't leave until 2 am. rofl And then it was time for lovely zzzzzzz!
Day 4, Sunday:
The booth ran pretty much like the past two days. sweatdrop The only big part I really remember is the Gaia Gathering we had at 2 PM. L0cke and kaia9 got up on the balcony of the convention center and tossed t-shirts at the crowd. Security didn't like that so we had to stop pretty quickly. rofl
I had to get a picture of this cosplayer:
We went to Coco's for dinner, which was the best dinner out of all the nights, IMO. L0cke, Lanzer, and darknrgy went giddy when they saw fireworks for sale and went to buy some. They lit some on the way back from dinner but that wasn't my cup of tea so I went back to the hotel and soaked my feet in hot water. It felt divine. 4laugh Later, L0cke came to get me and we watched the AX Karaoke Contest together before going to bed.
Day 5, Monday:
Monday was a much slower day at the booth because it was the last day of the con. I took some random photos behind the booth:
I could not resist getting a photo of myself with Funimation's great Al statue:
The hall closed at 3 PM and we got everything packed and ready to go pretty quickly. We said our goodbyes to our moderators and hit the road. We stopped in LA for dinner at Curry House in Little Tokyo, but unfortunately it was closed. We got back to the bay area around 1 am.
I hope that those who came out to Anime Expo had a good time! And please share photos if you took any; I would love to see them. whee
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ninja rules.