LA Trip Part 2 - Anime Expo
AX stuffs, now I have my costume pics organised courtesy of Fish! And that’s the end of the LA reports.
Thursday 2nd July
We were leaving Anaheim this morning. After packing up, we decided to go for breakfast at IHOP along the road. It was ridiculous; finishing a plate of those pancakes would be suicide. The ones I did manage to finish was delicious though.
Following near-death by pancakes, we headed off to get the bus to Downtown LA. Getting from Anaheim to Downtown looked like the one tricky part of our trip, cos it’s pretty darn far. I found a metro bus which looked like it went exactly where we needed it to go, and it only cost $2.45. Did take a good hour and 45 minutes, but we survived. It was stupidly convenient, because the bus stop was right beside our hotel in Anaheim (originally we couldn’t find the bus stop, probably because we were almost on top of it), then the stop we got off at was right next to the Holiday Inn we were staying in for AX. It would have been difficult for a taxi to take us much closer :P
This was the first thing was saw on arriving
The Holiday Inn was great - another spacious US hotel, and we’d even got a room adapted for the disabled, so the bathroom was enormous, but unfortunately prone to flooding with the way the shower was arranged. And also lacking a bath. It was also good that nearly everyone was staying in the same hotel, just on two different floors, so it was easy to visit people, and also to phone them for free on the room phones.
Does it really?
Outside our hotel, on the way to the con, the press were already setting up for the Michael Jackson memorial on Tuesday, with each tv channel staking out spots. Throughout the con, we’d see them trying to film there, desperate to avoid cosplayers in the shot. I don’t know how many shots we managed to wreck, it was funny.
After checking in, Pudding and I got into costume (I wore Pearl) and we all headed over for registration, which we breezed through, unlike everyone who’d lined up earlier mwahahaha.
We have the novelty of being in Eurobeat King’s gallery :P
We met up with the others outside the dealers room, and ended up going to watch some voice acting thing for a bit, which was pretty good, but it did get repetitive. We explored the dealers’ room for a while, then headed back to the hotel. Dinner was in the bar, which again had ridiculous portions, and then we went over to the con for Singled Out, a blind date game which Kelly was hosting. It didn’t start out particularly interestingly, but improved dramatically with drunk!Mark and others participating, concluding with Alex actually winning, with the assistance of our hand signals and even a phone call to him.
Following the event, we were invited to a suite party over at another hotel, but I had to admit defeat and went to bed. I think I finally adjusted properly to LA time by the end of the trip, only to immediately have to go back to UK time.
Friday 3rd July
Today was our only full day at the con. We wore our Peter Pan costumes, which were sooooo much fun. Everyone recognises them, and small children are so adorable when they want to get photos with you! Our wee group was meant to be a secret, so I never said anything about making Tink on my journal. I have details and progress photos up here. Mark took pictures for us at the end of the day, and Fish spiffily edited them.
I love perspective shots
The rhinestones on my dress finally show up, and most of one ear! Yay!
There were a few Michael Jackson fans around with the memorial coming up and on the way to the convention centre, a guy asked us for a photo, and after taking it, commented “Michael would have loved this” which took a moment to click before I realised what he meant, and then we couldn’t stop laughing as we walked away. That’s not why we were wearing the costumes…
Spent a while in the dealers room again, and later went over to the Disney gathering. The gatherings at US cons are a really good idea, and very well organised. They were arranged on the Coscom forums, setting a time and place to meet. On the day, the organiser/s would get the group photos sorted out, and after a chance for people to take photos, would give a countdown for when we could drop our pose, then suggest a new one. The countdown helped out a lot whenever there were big packs of photographers, otherwise cosplayers could be trapped all day. The gathering was also a nice way to socialise with people.
gatherings are lots of fun, as you can see
We finished up at the con quite late, so had dinner in the hotel before heading to Matt’s Brawl panel. It was very entertaining, the blooper reel alone easily persuaded anyone who hadn’t seen the series to try it!
Saturday 4th July
We were in Hollywood in the morning, and went back to the convention in the afternoon. It was Pretear. costume day! Merci to Fish for being all photographer-y
Avec Dez and Tom
Ickle Pudding
CHIFFON. Pudding also got a photo along the same lines
After getting out of costume, we made a trip to the supermarket for essential supplies for during the masquerade that evening. Turned into quite the adventure, on discovering all the things you can’t buy in the UK, and mysterious items we’d only ever heard of; not tried. Twinkies and red velvet cake were sampled. The former promptly binned, the latter enthusiastically nommed.
The masquerade was lots of fun, whether we were laughing at the fails, or enjoying the good skits. Definitely more focus on skits rather than walk-ons, and the scale of the place is impressive, but overall the costume and performance quality wasn’t necessarily anything better than the UK overall. Also, mostly the best costumes were just to be found around the con, rather than bothering to enter the masq.
Afterwards we went to the hotel bar for a while. For the 4th July, nothing was going on where we were. I’m sure there were fireworks and parties and stuff elsewhere, but not round here.
- California is wonderful, and has lovely weather, but it’s not as warm as expected all the time. I should have brought more variety of long-sleeved tops and trousers for the evenings.
- Americans are super-friendly, as ever. Made it easier to ask stupid tourist questions, like “how much is a dime worth” (honestly, it doesn’t tell you on the coin), and all the cosplayers, photographers and other people we met were all so nice.
- The money wasn’t easy to get used to. Not just mysterious dimes, but far too many notes, and the crazy adding-on-tax-at-the-till is annoying
- The roads are huge and scary sometimes. Very glad Fish figured it out for us and explained how the in hell you cross them! It’s a bit much to turn up in Anaheim and suddenly have to cross the equivalent of a motorway, and you don’t necessarily get much time to walk across.
- It really is a different language. Not to the point of being a problem, but never ceases to interest me. (basil :P)
- AX is big, but much like Japan Expo in Paris, just more in the style of one of our cons, so it wasn’t as dramatically different as it could have been.
- I’m not sure I feel the need to go back to LA in particular, since there’s nothing more I really want to see and do there, but I wouldn’t mind visiting elsewhere in California. I’d certainly love to go back to AX or see other US cons, and I’d definitely go back to Disney (of course).
Thursday 2nd July
We were leaving Anaheim this morning. After packing up, we decided to go for breakfast at IHOP along the road. It was ridiculous; finishing a plate of those pancakes would be suicide. The ones I did manage to finish was delicious though.
Following near-death by pancakes, we headed off to get the bus to Downtown LA. Getting from Anaheim to Downtown looked like the one tricky part of our trip, cos it’s pretty darn far. I found a metro bus which looked like it went exactly where we needed it to go, and it only cost $2.45. Did take a good hour and 45 minutes, but we survived. It was stupidly convenient, because the bus stop was right beside our hotel in Anaheim (originally we couldn’t find the bus stop, probably because we were almost on top of it), then the stop we got off at was right next to the Holiday Inn we were staying in for AX. It would have been difficult for a taxi to take us much closer :P
This was the first thing was saw on arriving
The Holiday Inn was great - another spacious US hotel, and we’d even got a room adapted for the disabled, so the bathroom was enormous, but unfortunately prone to flooding with the way the shower was arranged. And also lacking a bath. It was also good that nearly everyone was staying in the same hotel, just on two different floors, so it was easy to visit people, and also to phone them for free on the room phones.
Does it really?
Outside our hotel, on the way to the con, the press were already setting up for the Michael Jackson memorial on Tuesday, with each tv channel staking out spots. Throughout the con, we’d see them trying to film there, desperate to avoid cosplayers in the shot. I don’t know how many shots we managed to wreck, it was funny.
After checking in, Pudding and I got into costume (I wore Pearl) and we all headed over for registration, which we breezed through, unlike everyone who’d lined up earlier mwahahaha.
We have the novelty of being in Eurobeat King’s gallery :P
We met up with the others outside the dealers room, and ended up going to watch some voice acting thing for a bit, which was pretty good, but it did get repetitive. We explored the dealers’ room for a while, then headed back to the hotel. Dinner was in the bar, which again had ridiculous portions, and then we went over to the con for Singled Out, a blind date game which Kelly was hosting. It didn’t start out particularly interestingly, but improved dramatically with drunk!Mark and others participating, concluding with Alex actually winning, with the assistance of our hand signals and even a phone call to him.
Following the event, we were invited to a suite party over at another hotel, but I had to admit defeat and went to bed. I think I finally adjusted properly to LA time by the end of the trip, only to immediately have to go back to UK time.
Friday 3rd July
Today was our only full day at the con. We wore our Peter Pan costumes, which were sooooo much fun. Everyone recognises them, and small children are so adorable when they want to get photos with you! Our wee group was meant to be a secret, so I never said anything about making Tink on my journal. I have details and progress photos up here. Mark took pictures for us at the end of the day, and Fish spiffily edited them.
I love perspective shots
The rhinestones on my dress finally show up, and most of one ear! Yay!
There were a few Michael Jackson fans around with the memorial coming up and on the way to the convention centre, a guy asked us for a photo, and after taking it, commented “Michael would have loved this” which took a moment to click before I realised what he meant, and then we couldn’t stop laughing as we walked away. That’s not why we were wearing the costumes…
Spent a while in the dealers room again, and later went over to the Disney gathering. The gatherings at US cons are a really good idea, and very well organised. They were arranged on the Coscom forums, setting a time and place to meet. On the day, the organiser/s would get the group photos sorted out, and after a chance for people to take photos, would give a countdown for when we could drop our pose, then suggest a new one. The countdown helped out a lot whenever there were big packs of photographers, otherwise cosplayers could be trapped all day. The gathering was also a nice way to socialise with people.
gatherings are lots of fun, as you can see
We finished up at the con quite late, so had dinner in the hotel before heading to Matt’s Brawl panel. It was very entertaining, the blooper reel alone easily persuaded anyone who hadn’t seen the series to try it!
Saturday 4th July
We were in Hollywood in the morning, and went back to the convention in the afternoon. It was Pretear. costume day! Merci to Fish for being all photographer-y
Avec Dez and Tom
Ickle Pudding
CHIFFON. Pudding also got a photo along the same lines
After getting out of costume, we made a trip to the supermarket for essential supplies for during the masquerade that evening. Turned into quite the adventure, on discovering all the things you can’t buy in the UK, and mysterious items we’d only ever heard of; not tried. Twinkies and red velvet cake were sampled. The former promptly binned, the latter enthusiastically nommed.
The masquerade was lots of fun, whether we were laughing at the fails, or enjoying the good skits. Definitely more focus on skits rather than walk-ons, and the scale of the place is impressive, but overall the costume and performance quality wasn’t necessarily anything better than the UK overall. Also, mostly the best costumes were just to be found around the con, rather than bothering to enter the masq.
Afterwards we went to the hotel bar for a while. For the 4th July, nothing was going on where we were. I’m sure there were fireworks and parties and stuff elsewhere, but not round here.
- California is wonderful, and has lovely weather, but it’s not as warm as expected all the time. I should have brought more variety of long-sleeved tops and trousers for the evenings.
- Americans are super-friendly, as ever. Made it easier to ask stupid tourist questions, like “how much is a dime worth” (honestly, it doesn’t tell you on the coin), and all the cosplayers, photographers and other people we met were all so nice.
- The money wasn’t easy to get used to. Not just mysterious dimes, but far too many notes, and the crazy adding-on-tax-at-the-till is annoying
- The roads are huge and scary sometimes. Very glad Fish figured it out for us and explained how the in hell you cross them! It’s a bit much to turn up in Anaheim and suddenly have to cross the equivalent of a motorway, and you don’t necessarily get much time to walk across.
- It really is a different language. Not to the point of being a problem, but never ceases to interest me. (basil :P)
- AX is big, but much like Japan Expo in Paris, just more in the style of one of our cons, so it wasn’t as dramatically different as it could have been.
- I’m not sure I feel the need to go back to LA in particular, since there’s nothing more I really want to see and do there, but I wouldn’t mind visiting elsewhere in California. I’d certainly love to go back to AX or see other US cons, and I’d definitely go back to Disney (of course).