Vacation part II: AX and Cali!
Cali and AX!
Day 05
Departing was SO funny.
LB's sword had to be wrapped in cardboard and now looked more a cross than ever. I even posed with it:
We had to strap it to the top of the car because it couldn't fit inside, and man, did we cram a lot of stuff in Reyn's car. It was PACKED. Jam packed. Uber packed. Full to the brim. We stopped at a bank in Cali when we finally got in (and can I please note that I FINALLY got Reyn to listen to Jim Gaffigan, and she loved it) and some lady blessed our vehicle because of the cross on top. That was amazing, by the way. Unfortunately, the top part of the sword got snapped upward so we had another task of finding glue before the Hitman meetup, but that's a story for later.
We got to our hotel and it was really spectacular. It had four towers and the elevators went both inside and out...um, to explain that better. The first five floors of the hotel were like tiers with shops and stuff, so the elevator over looked those shops and lobby up to that point. But then, from the 6th floor and up, the elevator was outside of the building and was all glass, so you could see all of LA as a view. Here's a pic of the view from our room there, which was fantastic:
We had our One Piece meet-up that first day so we needed to get ready, but we also had a few hours to kill. This left LB and Reyn on wig-hair cutting duty, and Allys and I on a 'we need to find glue and a garter belt' mission. We traveled down the streets and found a convenience store next to a Macy's and Victoria's Secret (lucky!) but not without having three ambulances go buy and sounds that reminded us of gunshots. We hurried back and stopped at Starbucks for comfort, LOL, and got dressed up for the dinner meet-up.
LB as Mihawk, Reyn as Boa Hancock, Allys as Alvida , and Me as Jewelry Bonney
Me as Bonney doing her, 'I'll eat everything!' thing. At the dinner everyone threw their leftover food in front of me and another really sweet girl who was Bonney and we had at it. Yes, yes I am biting a styrofoam bowl.
Because it cracks me up to make funny faces.
All of us in the lobby of the hotel
I snuck a picture on Reyn's camera
Reyn being regal as Boa Hancock
After that it was pretty late so we went back to the hotel and went to sleep, and Allys and I prepared to get up early to go get in line for the Yun Kouga (Loveless author) panel.
Day 06
Reyn has this little plush toy she dresses up to match her cosplay, so Allys and I stole it's little hats and dressed up a tiny bit in order to feel not SO casual at that first day.
Kinda like a Lolita Reborn and Lolita Luffy, LOL!
We waited in that line FOREVER and amaizngly enough, stayed awake. We chatted about all sorts of things. All the anime I need to catch up on, some incredible original yaoi story out there called In the Company of Shadows, my stories, Allys' art...you name it, we discussed it. The panel was pretty funny too. We got front row seats and the questions were pretty decent. Someone asked if she planned on making Loveless into a full-blown yaoi apart from it's already shonen-ai-ness, and she sadly stated that because of certain circumstances she couldn't. She did admit, however, that she's had naughty scenes of Ristuka and Soubi in her head since she began it, and that if she could get it approved, she'd publish some doujinshi. That made the room super happy, and she seemed politely embarrassed.
After that Allys and I met up with Reyn and LB and stormed the dealer's room. We bought all sorts of stuff...manga, artbooks, posters, figurines...There was so much there. It was the largest con I have ever been too, and the walk around the dealer's room itself was like a track meet. The rest of the day was definitely filled with shopping, food, and sleep, and two girls staying with us, Stephanie and Lidia, had a conundrum with aaccidently using a towel which had been expressly dubbed, the 'wig hair towel'.
Needless to day, wig hair was everywhere. ;P
We also went to Little Tokyo this night and met Mignonne! Yay! She had some friends with her and we had a BLAST! We ate at a Shabu-Shabu place and were laughing the entire time, making up fanfic ideas (I totally owe a one shot to everyone because of this, now). It was so much fun.
It was my first time having Shabu-Shabu, which apparently means 'swish-swish', because you have this giant pot of boiling water in front of you and you treat it like fondue. Vegetables boil inside and you take a thinly sliced piece of meat and 'swish-swish' it in the pot til it's cooked, dip it in some sauces, and eat away. I'm horrific with chopsticks, thus my nickname for 'swish-swish' was 'fish-fish', cuz I kept having to fish my poor meat out of the pot. It was so fun though. I wish I could relive that night.
Me, Reyn, Mignonne her friends (3 of them), LB and Allys
Me, Reyn, and Mognonne
Day 07
Hitman Reborn day! We hit up the dealer's room some more and got all cosplayed up, and our costumes looked AWESOME. I looked very...manly. >_> Despite the fact I'm super short.
Reyn as Adult Lambo, LB as Xanxus, and me as Adult Reborn
To which someone in the crowd yelled, "Reborn, stop being such a jerk!"
Trip back to Hotel
Reyn and I completely unable to keep straight faces doing Reborn/Lambo pairing pics
Oh hey, I guess we did get *one* straight faced one, LOL
LOL! I have never taken so many serious pictures in my life
So after that we just hung out at the hotel. I think this was the day we had the infamous safe incident, which will live through our memories forever. LB and Allys forgot what our safe combo was...there was an epic debate on whether or not it was Gaara or Naruto's birthday. Neither of which worked, hahaha so we had to call security to come and re set everything. Which was...interesting. None of us noticed until they left, but...our room was littered with yaoi. And not the kind where you could maybe suspect it was a girl and a guy on the cover of a book, it was flat out man-on-man action...everywhere.
At least they were good sports and didn't say anything? Or maybe it was their silence that was lethal. :D?
So Reyn's cousin came that night and we popped out to get something to eat, and it was my last day at the con. One of my super close friends lives in Long Beach and so does Reyn's cousin, so she offered to drive me out there. When we got back, Reyn and her cuz went to get the car while I went to go grab my bags, and LB offered to help me downstairs with them. We got in the elevator, which had 15 people in it, and these two idiots decided to jump up and down in it as it descended.
Which ended up breaking the elevator. So, needless to say, LB and I were stuck on the elevator for two hours while the hotel made efforts to fix it, and not much funniness ensued, sadly enough. The guy who had jumped up and down was a jerk, for one. Another guy in the elevator was dressed like a sexy bunny (LOL) and the jumping-dude kept calling him a transvestite which made me want to 'accidently' step on his foot with my heels. Hard.
LB and I resorted to reading yaoi manga, and everyone seemed sorely dissapointed when I hadn't bought anyting straight, HAHA. But I did have my Cassandra Claire 'City of Bones' book, to which everyone demanded be read allowed. That was funny because even though I was made to promise it wasn't yaoi, the beginning read like it could be. This poor boy was trying to get into a club with what appeared to be a weapon, and it was described as something 'long' and 'hard' across his chest. *le sigh*
To make up for our inconvenience (it was now one o'clock am) they offered us free breakfasts if we put out name on this sheet, so LB put hers and I put Reyn's since I wouldn't be there. After that I left, which was sad, but not too sad, cuz we would all see each other again a couple days later.
Day 07
Long Beach was full of good ol' times with Jaxx, my roomie of three years through college. We went to the beach, re watched Coffee Prince, got in some Nabari No Ou, got lost looking for an aquarium...oh, fun times.
The harbor
Me and Jaxx
Pirate masquerade, anyone?
The closest we got to Mickey at Disneyland
Me about to get eaten by a whale at Disneyland
Me again
I'm still waiting for photos. Sadly enough, my camera died a few months ago so I'm leeching pics from my travel buddies, haha. There are some pics of when we all met up again on Long Beach (Reyn, LB, Allys, Jaxx, and I) to go see Transformers 2 and walk the beach, and still some more from Disneyland too. I'll have to add those when I get them!
All in all, I got back yesterday and it was an amzingly good trip. I love meeting such great people and having such good times...it's always sad when these things come to an end, but if you're sad then it means everything was worth the while.
Until next time!
Oh, and PS. There are a million more pictures of other cosplayers that I will hotlink an entry to later, since I'm sure Reyn will do a mass posting. It shouldn't take too long. XD
Day 05
Departing was SO funny.
LB's sword had to be wrapped in cardboard and now looked more a cross than ever. I even posed with it:
We had to strap it to the top of the car because it couldn't fit inside, and man, did we cram a lot of stuff in Reyn's car. It was PACKED. Jam packed. Uber packed. Full to the brim. We stopped at a bank in Cali when we finally got in (and can I please note that I FINALLY got Reyn to listen to Jim Gaffigan, and she loved it) and some lady blessed our vehicle because of the cross on top. That was amazing, by the way. Unfortunately, the top part of the sword got snapped upward so we had another task of finding glue before the Hitman meetup, but that's a story for later.
We got to our hotel and it was really spectacular. It had four towers and the elevators went both inside and out...um, to explain that better. The first five floors of the hotel were like tiers with shops and stuff, so the elevator over looked those shops and lobby up to that point. But then, from the 6th floor and up, the elevator was outside of the building and was all glass, so you could see all of LA as a view. Here's a pic of the view from our room there, which was fantastic:
We had our One Piece meet-up that first day so we needed to get ready, but we also had a few hours to kill. This left LB and Reyn on wig-hair cutting duty, and Allys and I on a 'we need to find glue and a garter belt' mission. We traveled down the streets and found a convenience store next to a Macy's and Victoria's Secret (lucky!) but not without having three ambulances go buy and sounds that reminded us of gunshots. We hurried back and stopped at Starbucks for comfort, LOL, and got dressed up for the dinner meet-up.
LB as Mihawk, Reyn as Boa Hancock, Allys as Alvida , and Me as Jewelry Bonney
Me as Bonney doing her, 'I'll eat everything!' thing. At the dinner everyone threw their leftover food in front of me and another really sweet girl who was Bonney and we had at it. Yes, yes I am biting a styrofoam bowl.
Because it cracks me up to make funny faces.
All of us in the lobby of the hotel
I snuck a picture on Reyn's camera
Reyn being regal as Boa Hancock
After that it was pretty late so we went back to the hotel and went to sleep, and Allys and I prepared to get up early to go get in line for the Yun Kouga (Loveless author) panel.
Day 06
Reyn has this little plush toy she dresses up to match her cosplay, so Allys and I stole it's little hats and dressed up a tiny bit in order to feel not SO casual at that first day.
Kinda like a Lolita Reborn and Lolita Luffy, LOL!
We waited in that line FOREVER and amaizngly enough, stayed awake. We chatted about all sorts of things. All the anime I need to catch up on, some incredible original yaoi story out there called In the Company of Shadows, my stories, Allys' art...you name it, we discussed it. The panel was pretty funny too. We got front row seats and the questions were pretty decent. Someone asked if she planned on making Loveless into a full-blown yaoi apart from it's already shonen-ai-ness, and she sadly stated that because of certain circumstances she couldn't. She did admit, however, that she's had naughty scenes of Ristuka and Soubi in her head since she began it, and that if she could get it approved, she'd publish some doujinshi. That made the room super happy, and she seemed politely embarrassed.
After that Allys and I met up with Reyn and LB and stormed the dealer's room. We bought all sorts of stuff...manga, artbooks, posters, figurines...There was so much there. It was the largest con I have ever been too, and the walk around the dealer's room itself was like a track meet. The rest of the day was definitely filled with shopping, food, and sleep, and two girls staying with us, Stephanie and Lidia, had a conundrum with aaccidently using a towel which had been expressly dubbed, the 'wig hair towel'.
Needless to day, wig hair was everywhere. ;P
We also went to Little Tokyo this night and met Mignonne! Yay! She had some friends with her and we had a BLAST! We ate at a Shabu-Shabu place and were laughing the entire time, making up fanfic ideas (I totally owe a one shot to everyone because of this, now). It was so much fun.
It was my first time having Shabu-Shabu, which apparently means 'swish-swish', because you have this giant pot of boiling water in front of you and you treat it like fondue. Vegetables boil inside and you take a thinly sliced piece of meat and 'swish-swish' it in the pot til it's cooked, dip it in some sauces, and eat away. I'm horrific with chopsticks, thus my nickname for 'swish-swish' was 'fish-fish', cuz I kept having to fish my poor meat out of the pot. It was so fun though. I wish I could relive that night.
Me, Reyn, Mignonne her friends (3 of them), LB and Allys
Me, Reyn, and Mognonne
Day 07
Hitman Reborn day! We hit up the dealer's room some more and got all cosplayed up, and our costumes looked AWESOME. I looked very...manly. >_> Despite the fact I'm super short.
Reyn as Adult Lambo, LB as Xanxus, and me as Adult Reborn
To which someone in the crowd yelled, "Reborn, stop being such a jerk!"
Trip back to Hotel
Reyn and I completely unable to keep straight faces doing Reborn/Lambo pairing pics
Oh hey, I guess we did get *one* straight faced one, LOL
LOL! I have never taken so many serious pictures in my life
So after that we just hung out at the hotel. I think this was the day we had the infamous safe incident, which will live through our memories forever. LB and Allys forgot what our safe combo was...there was an epic debate on whether or not it was Gaara or Naruto's birthday. Neither of which worked, hahaha so we had to call security to come and re set everything. Which was...interesting. None of us noticed until they left, but...our room was littered with yaoi. And not the kind where you could maybe suspect it was a girl and a guy on the cover of a book, it was flat out man-on-man action...everywhere.
At least they were good sports and didn't say anything? Or maybe it was their silence that was lethal. :D?
So Reyn's cousin came that night and we popped out to get something to eat, and it was my last day at the con. One of my super close friends lives in Long Beach and so does Reyn's cousin, so she offered to drive me out there. When we got back, Reyn and her cuz went to get the car while I went to go grab my bags, and LB offered to help me downstairs with them. We got in the elevator, which had 15 people in it, and these two idiots decided to jump up and down in it as it descended.
Which ended up breaking the elevator. So, needless to say, LB and I were stuck on the elevator for two hours while the hotel made efforts to fix it, and not much funniness ensued, sadly enough. The guy who had jumped up and down was a jerk, for one. Another guy in the elevator was dressed like a sexy bunny (LOL) and the jumping-dude kept calling him a transvestite which made me want to 'accidently' step on his foot with my heels. Hard.
LB and I resorted to reading yaoi manga, and everyone seemed sorely dissapointed when I hadn't bought anyting straight, HAHA. But I did have my Cassandra Claire 'City of Bones' book, to which everyone demanded be read allowed. That was funny because even though I was made to promise it wasn't yaoi, the beginning read like it could be. This poor boy was trying to get into a club with what appeared to be a weapon, and it was described as something 'long' and 'hard' across his chest. *le sigh*
To make up for our inconvenience (it was now one o'clock am) they offered us free breakfasts if we put out name on this sheet, so LB put hers and I put Reyn's since I wouldn't be there. After that I left, which was sad, but not too sad, cuz we would all see each other again a couple days later.
Day 07
Long Beach was full of good ol' times with Jaxx, my roomie of three years through college. We went to the beach, re watched Coffee Prince, got in some Nabari No Ou, got lost looking for an aquarium...oh, fun times.
The harbor
Me and Jaxx
Pirate masquerade, anyone?
The closest we got to Mickey at Disneyland
Me about to get eaten by a whale at Disneyland
Me again
I'm still waiting for photos. Sadly enough, my camera died a few months ago so I'm leeching pics from my travel buddies, haha. There are some pics of when we all met up again on Long Beach (Reyn, LB, Allys, Jaxx, and I) to go see Transformers 2 and walk the beach, and still some more from Disneyland too. I'll have to add those when I get them!
All in all, I got back yesterday and it was an amzingly good trip. I love meeting such great people and having such good times...it's always sad when these things come to an end, but if you're sad then it means everything was worth the while.
Until next time!
Oh, and PS. There are a million more pictures of other cosplayers that I will hotlink an entry to later, since I'm sure Reyn will do a mass posting. It shouldn't take too long. XD