Celestial Wanderings: Anime Expo 2001

To say AX2001 was interesting would be putting it mildly.

Let's start from the beginning. (This is gonna be LONG)

June 30th - I departed at 7 am bound for San Jose, CA. I arrived there at appox. Noon where I met up with Liv's Mom, Dad, and Boyfriend. We then proceeded to Chinatown to spend the day . First, we met up with Liv's grandmother and aunt and went to lunch. I love eating in chinatown—they have the best food! In the restaraunt we ate in they have people pushing around little carts of food. There is one kind food per cart and if you want what they have, you wave them down and tell them how many servings you want. We then put it on the tray on the table that turns and help ourselves. While we were eating, Liv's grandma (who doesn't speak english) asked (through Liv's Mom) if I was half white. I chuckled and replied that I was very much 100% white girl. However, she was still not satisfied. About 5-10 minutes later we hear Liv's mom howl in laughter. She looks at me at and says, "She says you must be half-chinese—that you are too beautiful not to be. She won't believe me when I say you aren't." I took this as a compliment.

We parted ways with Liv's grandma and aunt to do our own shopping. We would meet up with them later because we had left my luggage at their appartment so that we could fit everyone in the van 9_9* We walked around a lot looking at a few of the stores. At the last one, a shop full of traditional chinese dresses, Liv's mom bought me on as late birthday persent. I found a colour combination I liked (BLUE!!), but the only one in that colour with dragons and phoenixs was a long dress— I prefer the shorter dresses. However, when I tried it, it fit perfectly! When we arrived in Merced, Liv and I had to dress up in our "Ethnic" (what Liv and her mom call those dresses :D) dresses for camera shots. I then termed an even more ghetto term for it—ETHNIQUE! Then Liv and I dressed up in our Magic Knight Rayearth Costumes. Mine is all frump from being in a suitcase and I didn't have bow yet, so we made a temp one from scrap cloth until I could buy some ribbon (You'll see how much better it looks when I could get some starch and an iron to that skirt LOL!).

Ethnique Pictures: [1|2|3|4|5|6]

Pre-AX MKR Pictures (Featuring a Frumpy Fuu): [1|2|3|4|5]

July 1st - We spent the morning waiting for film to develop at Wal-Mart. The Merced Wal-Mart has gotten VERY ghetto since I've moved. I promise I will never complain about the neatness level of any of the Wal-Marts here ever again. We went to the mall to kill some time while waiting for the film. There's a Bath and Body works there now, but this one doesn't sell deoderant :*( We tried to hit Jo-Ann's but they were closed.

We then went to Costco to pick up bulk ramen, soup, sandwich fixings, frui bars, and soda for AX. Liv's mom walked around holding a big bag of salad because she thought it was too hot n_n*

Then we went house hunting with Liv's mom. We did this a few times while I was there. It seems that looking at the model homes is Liv's Mom's newest hobby ^_^*

July 2nd - I went to Liv's work. This is her parents pharmacy. I sat in the back and read magazines LOL I was bored, so I walked down main street and hit the thrift stores hoping to find a pair of shoes that were "ethnic" enough for my dress. No luck :(

We went house hunting again. The last one we looked at was called the "Tin Cup." That's how big it is. I know they were after some theme being next to the golf course, but the name was very appropriate.

Liv's mom gave me clear bra straps to fix my CereCere costume. The coners where the bra ends on top no longer wanted to stay put >( but this fixed it up just fine ^_^

I'm not sure if it was to-day or to-morrow that we hit Wal-Mart again. But we got sick of waiting for Jo-Ann's to open. We got the scrap cloth and ribbon AND spray startch! Oh and my 22 day period finally ended. I will NEVER go on a depo shot again!

July 3rd - Pretty much the same. I went with Liv to her work. Then we went to Masquerade Madness in Turlock. Liv had to get a wig for her friend Jennifer and return a defective spray in colour, while I needed to pick up a wig to be Minako in the (Formerlly known as) Senshi Mysterious skit. I was gonna get a Lady Godiva wig (the kind that goes past you knees) even though I didn't really like it, but then I found one behind the counter that was bright yellow and perfect! We went back home to another delicious dinner made by Liv's dad. Hmm, how many times did I mention to Liv that I missed his cooking??

July 4th - DDAY! We packed up the van with our luggage. We waited for some time for Liv's friend Jennifer to show up. We then drove to Bakersfield so that Jennifer could drop off her car and ride with us the rest of the way to Long Beach. In her house there is a huge 5ft fmaily portrait. Feliepe and I had the same thought at once: If Liv's mom knew of this, she would wall paper the house with pictures of herself posing with her jewlery.

We finally got there at about 2pm—MUCH earlier than we expected. As we checked in Widya came up and said "hi!" I almost didn't recognize him LOL. We put our stuff in our room on the 4th floor and went to pre-reg. Advertised as being "only a few short steps" away from the Hyatt, it was certaintly anything but. We finally got in the Westin only to be redirected BACK outside, around the corner and up the back stairs of the Westin. I found out the next day that if you did your pre-reg after Wednesday you got a nice neckstrap and placeholder for you badge. We got our stapled to cheesy plastic pins >_<

Guess who stopped by that night?? MANUEL. First thing he did was help himself to our food, but that's Manuel for you! We sat there and caught up on gossip. I haven't seen him in 3 YEARS! If Liv is my sister, this guy is my brother. It was as if nothing had changed (except he and I lost more weight and Liv grew more bitter :D)

I am upset at one thing, however. Two people promised to share our room and never showed up. How hard is it to fucking send an email saying you and yer friend can't make it? At the time of this writing its July 17th with STILL no email responce.

July 5th - The Con started! I wore my Lum costume and with Liv, Flip, Jennifer, we went in search of the line for the dealers room. First we ran into Z-chan dressed as...um, I have no clue, but she seemed to be real happy as it o.O* What a clusterfuck looking for the dealer's room turned out to be! First we were directed one way, then another. When we finally got to the line (all out doors) it started to RAIN. which went through my boots, to the tag board and dissingrated the tag board. When we FINALLY got in, I took one of the free bags they hand out at the entrance I shoved my boots in them. I can fix them by finishing sewing the boots to the rubber sole, but I don't feel like it yet ;P So yes, I ran around the dealer room barefoot LOL. I went plushie happy! Ill list all my aquisitions now instead of trying to remember when I got them.

1) Blue Totoro plush ($25)
2) Ryo-oki backpack ($10)
3) Kodama Plush for my BF ($22)
4) Totoro Backpack ($65) It was gonna be $68 but since I also bought a Ken-ohki or whatever I got a few bucks off. I can fit a ton of crap in this backpack!
5)Ken-ohki (Im told that's what its name is $10)
6) Star Locket ($15) I had one I bought for $20 at AX99 but I sold it (for 73$)
7) P-chan ($30) Now my Genma has a friend!
8) Magic Knight Rayearth 2 DVD set ($140) Not Shown
9) Sailor Venus Plushie ($7) Not shown
10) Sveral Pins: JiJi, Kodama (for BF), Totoro, Kero-chan, ChuChu, Sailor Venus ($2 each)
11) Magic Knight Rayearth Manga artbook, hardcover ($29)
12) Import Soundtrack for the NEW Vampire Hunter D movie ($31)

Can you imagine Lum-chan running around with big bags full of stuff? Well, that's what happened LOL!

Mokona is there from last year. He's a prop this year for us.

Here are some great costumes I took pictures of: A nice Card Captor Sakura (Im sick of seeing the other variations), Some guys in drag as Digi Charet characters (too funny to pass up!)—now that i think of it, there were too many guys in drag this year o.O*, a charatcer from Gundam Wing, the Sailorjupiter I talked with while I waited for Liv to bring me my boots (too far to chance the walk!), I don't know what they're from, but I liked their outfits =D, a San, another San, a couple of Sailorsaturns 1 & 2, Jessica as one of the best Serenitys I've every seen, and Vampire Princess Miyu, a blue fairy person. I saw a lot more but I was conserving my camera...

I met up with Claudine (finally!) and Will (who was gonna stay at our room) at Widya's panel about Female cosplaying. Now we could get ready for our skit right!

July 6th - We did our MKR theme! I got many compliments as Fuu—Widya didn't even recognize me! ;_; I guess it really was enough of a disguise for Superman? I went to room 636 to wait for Claudine and the other girls in our skit. I met Arek and Mad Mike and had tons of fun! However, Arek will now and forever think of me as Fuu n_n* (Fuu2) We practiced our skit for a bit and then parted ways. For a brief moment, we had all three knights, but we kept missing Jennifer who wore my pink wig. Wow was that a crappy wig?! I threw it out! On a good note, I kept getting complimented on my Fuu costume (I wasn't so frumpy now) ^_^ I MET BADZ-MARU YAY! We went to the meet the guests panel and boy was that a waste of my 10$! Then later we went to the Music Video Contest. I only saw 2/3 of it cuz we were hungry and wanted pizza before they stopped delivering 9_9*

>OMAKE!<

MKR Pix: [1|2|3|4]
Liv's pix of mostly herself ^_^*: [1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|
Some rare pix of Jennifer as Shampoo: [1|2]
Felipe with Mokona
Liv stalking Watase Yu

>END OMAKE<

July 7th - Seven words: Never Again at AX will I Masquerade. Anal Retentive are two words that come in mind. Let me try to explain how this works. First you have to send in you application MONTHS before the con.Then you must send in a detailed report of how you made your costumes, why you decided on whatever, what you didn't like about it, etc. AND there had to be pix of you making it! Poor Claudine! To-day the scheduled a meeting at 10 am and if you did not show up, you were kicked out. WTF?! All that bull shit was just to get a line up and answer any questions, most of which could have been asked if people had just simply thought! So anyways, the girls in our skit met me in my room before that meeting. Here's me dressed very groovy and waiting for the group. Our skit was a dance Claudine made to a song from Dance Dance Revolution called "Mr. Wonderful." Our costumes are inspired from Felicity Shagwell from Austin Powers, though I thought we looked more like Daphne from Scooby Doo :D

After we got done with that meeting and took care lighting issues, we had maybe 4 hours before we had to meet AGAIN at 4 at the theatre. We went to the dealer's room and got senshi plushies and pins that matched who we were. We ate a little and a couple hiked to their motel to pick up Cassandra's boyfriend (and get themselves munchies, I think). We waited out front of the theatre for them. It was awhile...even though we knew it was far to go for them, we still worried. In the meantime, Arek found us and took some pix! Usagi and Minako fight over Mina's back pack ;_;^, Minako Pose!^.

Pictures I got in our small break: The Ryoko to the right is simply the best I've ever seen! So I felt she needed to be seen :D Besides, she such a nice person ^_^ More Tenchi Grooup 1 & 2, Me with Ryo-Ohki, Armitage (She rawked!), Asuka, and Jess with Barbie Tukino. We even hunted down Mokona! (Mercury is off cutting a deal with Clef to buy him).

Then the 4pm meeting started. Apparently, craftmanship judging was 5-7 pm, with 4-5 being when we could eat. But how could we eat if we were doing yet another Q & A session? ;_; Then we got randomly shoved downstairs for judging. You would think they'd have least tried to get us down their in running order or some other means of organization. As a result, they were still judging AFTER the contest was over. Idon't blame the judges, I blame the people upstairs. So we're starving. Cassandra's fiancee was nice enough (with help from Jess) to track down food for us. We had one problem: The LBCC Staff wouldn't allow them to bring the food in! First they told us we'd have to eat it in the lobby area. Then they told us to pick it up in the docking area (WTF?). Then Malice (Masq. Coordinator) took charge and just brought it in. The LBCC Staf started yalling at her from where they were and she yelled right back at them, "I will NOT let my contestants starve!" GOOOO MALICE!!

The actual Masquerade: Is there something they didn't screw up? Every act seemed to have a problem with music--mostly that their sound bytes would start BEFORE they got on stage (like us). We had to run into place and figure out where we were in the music because the stage hand wouldn't let us out sooner! Other than that, we did ok—everyone liked it ^_^

I HATED the AX "Virtual Mascot." I suppose if it wasn't animated and didn't speak it would have been ok. Whoever did made the arm pit area all wrong and the animation was the jerkiest thing I've seen in awhile. They were playing it while people were doing their skits, which I felt was a big distraction from the people on stage. GAWD I hated the voice!! This person needs to be shot, seriously. It was a high pitch ditzy voice who gave helpful comments such as "Um, I liked their outfits-They're pretty!! <giggle annoyingly>"

Pix Arek took in the press area: [1|2]^

We didn't get out till Midnight ;_; Claudine had intended to walk me back to my hotel room so that I wouldn't have to go along. However, I couldn't wait as my legs and back were about to give. So Claudine, I apologize for just taking off but I was just dead physically. Mentally I was awake...just not physically. My legs were experiencing atrophy from going up and down the stairs all Friday and Saturday ;_;

July 8th - Liv and I were Cerecere and VesVes to-day. We went in search of Sunday deals like we found last year but found none :( So after getting our pictures taken many times and me buying a CD, we left. I took a shower to get rid my pink hair and then we went to da hot tub! We only have one pic cuz Flip used an old camera and the rest didn't come out very well :( So if you have our pix (and many of you do!) send them in please ^_^ AND for all of 2 minutes I saw Dan, whom I haven't seen since AX 99!

July 9th - We went home. Liv is very proud she drove the whole time both ways. =D

July 10th - I came home to Buffalo. This time I was only an hour late as opposed to three days late.

The End (FINALLY!) And if you have pictures of me, let me know ^_^

^=pictures by Arek. Everything else is either mine or Olivia's unless noted otherwise.