Thursday, April 12, 2007

   Sakura-Con: Prologue
This is where I shift into Wordy Bastard mode. You've been warned . . .


(To set the stage . . .)
Like I had planned, I got out the door before 8am so I could start picking up all my travelling companions. I hadn't slept much all night because I kept waking up to pack more stuff or just being unable to sleep. Anyways, once in the car I headed westward for half an hour, picked up Icecore (who is now actually a member of theO, might I add) and then picked up "Souji" (whose cosplay was still unfinished at this point). After that, I head BACK eastward for half an hour to forty minutes to get "Yoruichi" (everyone lived quite a ways from each other). Finally, once we had a full trunk and an iPod of Latin Hip-hop (courtesy of "Yoruichi"), we headed southbound.

The actual border was pretty quick an uneventful unlike the last time I headed down by myself. Heh, I actually used "anime convention" in my "purpose of this trip" answer and the guy didn't give it a second thought! The worst of it was that Icecore's hair was substantially longer than it was in his ID, so the border guy kept taking a closer look at him. Buuut, no harm no foul. Off we went!

I forget where we stopped exactly next. It was about an hour south from the border on the I-5 when we pulled off for gas and breakfast at Denny's (which I love). Heh, Denny's is becoming a sort of convention tradition for me, I feel . . . anyone who goes convention-going with me, keep this in mind. But yeah, had breakfast, I drank 3 cups of coffee since I was driving, "Yoruichi" kicked a hole in my shin at some point in the middle just because she could . . . in any case, we were all very full and content. Back to the I-5 . . .

I think we got to the edge of Seattle a bit past noon, where traffic really started to chug down. The drive itself was pretty nice, though - really nice weather, we made good time and all - but once you got close to the actual city, it was game over. Hehe . . . luckily, "Yoruichi" mostly knew where we needed to go as she was a Sakura-Con veteran by this point. We ended up driving past a lot of places in a scouting sort of manner (that, or we just kept getting lost). Either way, we found the Convention Center (and the Cheesecake Factory) and our hotel . . . however, it was another friend of "Yoruichi's" who had booked the room, and he still had a ways to go before arriving in Seattle. Thus, we kept parking in various different pay places here and there in downtown Seattle for the next bit.

(Walkin' around Downtown Seattle.)
Anyways, it's middle of the afternoon, and now the four of us are just walkin' around, takin' in the sights. It's funny, because for us Downtown Seattle feels very much like Downtown Vancouver. Heh, if anything it seemed cleaner to us! A Seattle native later disagreed with us, but yeah . . . that comes later. So we just walked around a bit, jump on a random bus that takes us quite a bits away from downtown Seattle . . . heh, eventually when we had gone over a bridge we decided we needed to turn back around; we just barely got back to the car in time before our parking ran out, but yeah. One saving grace was that "Yoruichi" grabbed a transit map at some point along the way - we finally had a map of the local surroundings!

Oh yeah, before we headed back to the car, we went to the Convention Center first to scout it out and see where the pre-reg' line-up was gonna be. In any case, it wasn't open yet so off we went . . .

Eventually we made our way to Pike Place Market and looked around some more. The market itself was neat, everyone except me bought some form of jewelry at some point . . . tossed some money to an old busker who was singing anti-Bush songs that were amusing . . . . . y'know, good times. In the lower levels we found a jewelry shop lady with a baby strapped to her chest and a dog on her counter; thus, we had to talk to her. She was the one who mentioned that Vancouver was cleaner than Seattle . . . also funny enough, we all had ties to her ethnic background (she was part Chinese, part Filipino, part Hispanic). But yeah, she was a nice lady to talk to . . . and, she pointed us in the direction of the Gum wall!

(The Gum Wall in all its Gum Wall glory)
If you look in my picture gallery I posted last post, you can see pictures of the Gum Wall (in the "Beyond the Con" album). Yeah, that thing was freakin' cool. Except my batteries died before I could get a picture of myself in front of the wall. Damn. In any case, I stuck a Canadian penny to the wall with my gum before we left . . . . . now keep that bit in mind for tomorrow's post, okay? Okay!

It was much later in the day by this point, being about 5pm or something like that. "Yoruichi" was the only one out of us who had pre-registered, and as such was eligible to get her badge and stuff this day instead of Friday morning. So off to the con' we went . . . parked in the convention's parkade next to some anime-related van and headed in.

Inside, we were looking at a 45-minute line or so. And people were already cosplaying. Heh . . . this was more or less the first of many, many points in the trip where the mutterings, "fucking otaku..." left my lips. 'Cause honestly, some people are just, well . . . . . yeah, "fucking otaku...". Heh, I also learned that my previous theory that "West coast cosplayers are just more attractive than some others" did not apply here. Umm . . . I think I'll that at that. On the plus side, I did see "Big Chris" at the line-up. For those of you who don't know, Chris is famous on the west coast convention path as the big black man with a heart of gold. It's hard not to love him. I just went over to say hi and to tell him that everyone in Vancouver missed him over the summer (personal things came up for him so he didn't make it to Anime Evolution that year). Heh, he in turn saw me and picked me up in a hug. Yeah, cool guy . . .
(Big Chris and I together, Day 1)

Anyways, once "Yoruichi" got to the desks, she got busted because since she's not quite 18 yet she needed a guardian at the con' who already has his or her badge . . . soooo, she had to wait 'til tomorrow morning for me to get mine. Yeah, she was pissed.

We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner after that. While "Yoruichi" and "Souji" waited outside with the little electronic queue thingy, Icecore and I got the car out of the Convention Center parkage (which allegedly closes at 8pm). We then parked in the big parkade across from the Convention Center and next to the Cheesecake Factory; by this point, I had long since accepted that I was gonna be paying out the bum for parking this weekend . . .

Cheesecake Factory was good, though. After the hour-wait to get in, we all had burgers and stuff, toasted to friends new and old, and to our luck that we weren't as bad as the "fucking otaku" just yet. Somewhere along the meal "Yoruichi" got called by her friends and our roommates who had finally arrived in Seattle. Well, they had all pre-registered, so maybe there was a chance everyone could still get their badges tonight . . . so, "Yoruichi" hauled ass to meet up with them and see if they could make it . . . they weren't able to, but they tried.

Anyway, where are we . . . oh right, we paid the bill and met the others outside. We had "Kisuke" who booked the room, and his friend Axel (who was actually named Axel, awesomely enough). Anyway, they headed to the Sheraton while we got the car so we could park at the Sheraton's hotel before taking our stuff out.

Here's where it gets funny and sad all at once . . . . . so we leave the parkage, pay $5 or something for the hour or two we spent in there, and start circling the Sheraton trying to follow the signs to their parking. Well, it's not working, so we pull up to their front door to ask them where we're parking. You see, the Seattle Sheraton doesn't ACTUALLY have a parking lot, but we can park at the public parkade across the corner, where they'll give us a thing to hang on our mirror (though we'll still be paying the parkade rates of $26 per 24 hours . . . ick).

Yeah . . . if anyone figured it out, we were supposed to park in the exact same parkade we were just in. We also ended up parking right back in pretty much the exact same spot we had earlier. Burn.

(Chilling in the hotel, fixing our outfits . . .)
Back to the hotel with all our bags and stuff, got up to the 18th floor, got into our room. And yes, we were room stuffing which is a no-no but we couldn't help it. So we all settled in, figured out where everyone was sleeping ("Kisuke" and Axel got beds, "Yoruichi" pushed the big chairs together to make a bed, and "Souji", Icecore and myself were on the floors which was fine). While we chilled for a bit, getting to know each other and whatnot, "Souji" quickly went back to work on finishing her outfit. Yeah, she was really freaking out at this point . . . but, she pulled it off just in time, so yay. "Yoruichi" also put the finishing touches on her top and stuff as well while the rest of us just hung out, took pictures . . .

(Parkade trip!)
Well, "Kisuke" wanted to get stuff out of his car, so we went back to the parkade. If you look at the pictures, you can see that part of the trip . . . along with the dork with the "Saiyan" plates. So we got that stuff; now we needed to decide what to do next.
(Fucking otaku...)

(Axel, "Yoruichi" and "Souji" trapped in the bright Seattle lights)
I think it's important to stress that by this point in the night it was well past midnight. Buuut, "Yoruichi" being the freakin' adventurous person she is wanted to head off into Downtown Seattle . . . we figured maybe we could find food or something, as "Kisuke" and Axel hadn't eaten yet. Heh . . . . . yeah, we didn't find food. They got a little grumpy (they had instant noodles at the hotel, you see). But, it was still fun, we took pictures, ran up some stairs like in Rocky . . . Downtown Seattle was our playground that night . . . we were curious so we swung by the convention center just to see where the "camping out all night" line-up for registration was and how bad it would be . . . at this point many of us were seriously considering camping out for a spot in the line . . . . . thankfully we didn't, but we'll get to that later.


Got back to the hotel, "Kisuke" and Axel made noodles, the coffee pot shattered at some point in the process (it REALLY should not have broken that easily . . .) . . . and by about 2am we figured it was time to go to bed and wake up early enough to get in line for registration - I had heard some scary, scary war stories about registration at Sakura-Con. Thus, we set all our alarms for 5am which would give us enough time to dress enough and get into the line-up . . . then it was bedtime for the six of us, who now only had three hours to really rest up for the longest Friday of the year up to that point . . . . .


[TO BE CONTINUED . . .]
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