World Cosplay Summit Report - Part 1
Alright. I've put this off long enough. Just a warning -- if you're looking for fancy pictures and videos like in Rynn's reports... you're not going to find them in mine. I've always been too lazy for that sort of thing, and I put a heavy emphasis on story-telling, rather than just relaying the basics.
Let me begin by saying, that ever since Rynn proposed the possibility of going out for WCS, I've wanted to do it with so much determination, it's almost ridiculous. It filled my brain for a year and a half, and we followed it's sporadic and uncertain future all the way up until the prelims were finally announced for Fanime. Even after slaving away, going through prelims, and coming out on top, I still couldn't believe it had happened. Even as I slaved away on things for the summit, it still didn't feel real. In some ways, it STILL doesn't feel real. I need to write it all down now, before the details slip through the cracks.
As Rynn mentioned, I could never understand why previous teams never really talked about their experience. Now, having been through it, I think I understand a little -- it's really hard to explain, and even once I'm done, I get the feeling many people who read this still won't fully understand. But, I'm going to give it my best shot, and if you read all of this, you deserve a cookie.
The Night Before
So, despite my best efforts leading up to the Big Event, I was still, of course, working on things until the very last minute. There were lots of mental breakdown, and the night before my flight, I didn't sleep nearly at all -- unless you count my breaking point where I finally decided I needed to sleep or I was going to go insane. I took a one hour nap. That's it. I threw clothes on in the morning, and after several full-out, curled up and shaking breakdowns and declarations of not wanting to go for fear of embarrassing myself, I was shuffled off to the airport by my friend Kayla and Mandy (who came up to deliver the set screens and my sword <3) and there was no turning back.
Day One: July 25/26th
Kayla and Mandy were nice enough to help me transport all my luggage and get me checked in w/ Alaska Airlines. After catching my flight from Seattle, I arrived in LAX very confused on how to get to the International flights, and ended up calling Laura. After several phone calls and asking moderately-uptight Airline workers, I trekked my way outside and walked to the International terminal. There I met up w/ Laura and Rynn, who both looked about as put together as I felt, and we wandered around the terminal for a while, grabbed some snacks, and waited for our flight to board. I started to loosen up a bit, but only a bit. The flight itself was really cool, even if it WAS 11-hours-long -- the seats all had their own personal monitors and a large selection of movies, audio, and games to entertain you. I spent the flight alternately watching movies (How to Train Your Dragon, and Toy Story 2) and sleeping. I always sleep on planes, but it's never the most restful sleep in the world, so when we arrived at Narita International, I was still exhausted. Collecting our things and going through customs was a aggravating experience, especially since I found that TSA had decided to inspect my large boxes -- the ones I had packed the sets, my sword, and my delicate Raven head in.
Once we got outside of customs though, there were a number of people waiting for us -- Ed, and an exec from TV Aichi whose name I can't remember (>.> oops) and the members of Team Spain, Vanessa and Narcis. We were the first two teams to arrive in Japan, so of course, we started making friends. They had invited us to go w/ them to Tokyo Disney, but we had decided that we'd rather see Tokyo itself. So, they decided to come along with us for the next day! : D Anyway, we got on the bus, and were taken to our hotel in Tokyo. The day was mostly gone, but that didn't stop us -- we dropped off our stuff, cleaned up a bit, and then headed out to see some of the area, and go out for dinner. We ended up meeting w/ Jacky (the admin for cosplay.com Japan) and going to a traditional Japanese-style restaurant in Akihabara. We stopped by the Gundam Cafe on the way back, and once we got back to the hotel, we were beat. The hotel rooms in Tokyo were so small, we used one as our closet, and Rynn and I slept in the same room.
Day Two: July 27th
This day was our big outing in Tokyo. It was me, Rynn, Laura, Vanessa and Narcis. This was the day that Laura started to amaze me -- she had done her research of the area, made all sorts of plans, and had everything ready to go.
After getting dressed at a leisurely pace, we all met down in the lobby, and headed out! I hadn't adjusted to the heat of Japan yet, so naturally I was a complete wuss. I ended up getting blisters between my toes and rubbing part of the skin on my feet raw -- I had to buy a roll of scotch tape, and cover my feet in it to keep it from getting any worse. Also, to anyone who has heard that Tokyo is CROWDED, and worse than New York? That is a LIE. I have been to NY, and it was downright claustrophobic, not to mention there were areas where you just didn't feel safe. Tokyo is nothing like that. Yes, there are a lot of people there, but it's amazing, it never feels crowded. You never run into people, or have to push your way through a crowd. It's also one of the CLEANEST cities I've ever seen, and feels SO safe, but I'll get to that later.
I can't remember the exact order of where we went, but I do remember that the first stop was the Meiji shrine. That place was HUGE, and beautiful, and I'm glad we went there, since I didn't get to go to any others in Nagoya, like we'd been planning. After that, we stopped at McDonalds for lunch, and I began to experience the lovely downfall of not knowing any Japanese. Luckily, their menus are covered in pictures, and the people are all very nice and understanding. I however, fail at understand pictures, and ended up ordering ONE chicken strip. Yes, a single piece of chicken. I then felt like too much of a doofus to go order more. So, I grabbed a rice ball in the 7-11 down the street. ^^;
After that, everything is all a mix-up in my head. I know we went to Harajuku, and I nearly died from the heat and climbing stairs to go over the street. We went to Laforet, which is a big shopping mall thing, and the bottom level is all Lolita stuff. That was pretty cool actually -- I really do like some of the stuff, but I don't have the stomach or nerve to be a 'Loli' -- too many of them all caught up in brand names and shit. I'd rather make my own. Rynn bought a purse, and a necklace for Rue, and Narcis bought a hoodie. It wasn't until about half-way through this day that I realized Narcis was so quiet because he didn't speak much english.
Sometime after this I think is when we dashed off to Shibuya, to see Shibuya crossing, and the Hachi statue, and make a call to let Jacky and Ed know we were on our way to Nakano. Once we got to Nakano, we went to a shopping center, where Jacky showed us all the best 'Otaku' shops. We went into this one Gashapon shop where I found a Ling trading-arts figure for 100 yen (that's about $1, FYI -- a STEAL!), a Zidane Trading-art I've been eyeing for a while, for only 550 yen, and a Siren figure I bought for Lada (sailor_asteroid). We shopped around a while, then went back to our hotel, cleaned up, and went out to dinner w/ Yokoto-san and Kishimoto-san, as well as meeting up with Graziela (the Spanish coordinator, who had just gotten into town) and Pol (another translator). After dinner, Laura, Rynn, Narcis, Vanessa, and I, all got the idea in our heads to go out and see Tokyo Tower, because how can you go to Tokyo and NOT see Tokyo Tower. It was really late, it was closed, and we just made the last trains BACK to our hotel, but it was worth it to say I stood at the base of Tokyo Tower. Now when I said earlier, that Tokyo feel incredibly safe, it also has to do with this night trip -- it was WAY late, and there weren't many people on the streets, but people just leave their bikes out, don't lock them up, no one LOOKS shady... it's just such a completely different way of life.
If only I had any idea of what the next day was going to be like.
Day Three: July 28th
We had a double-whammy on this day; we had to cosplay for several press-meetings, with people from the ministry of economics, and the minster and vice minister of Foreign affairs. On top of this, we also had to check out of the hotel before leaving, so we would be ready to head on and catch the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagoya. The morning started off well enough, as we went down to get breakfast, and then went back to the room to finish packing and get dressed. Looking back on it now, this day was so packed, it was ridiculous. I was in the second room putting on my makeup, when all of a sudden, I got hit with this terrible vertigo. I sat down and waited for it to go away, and about 5 minutes later, I still wasn't feeling stable. So, I stumbled next door, because I was starting to get scared of being alone. After laying there for another 10 minutes, it wasn't getting any better. We told Ed when he came by, and I think he told Laura, who showed up and saved the day with some Meclazine (I think that's how it's spelled?) -- a nice medication for Benign Positional Vertigo, which Laura apparently suffers from herself on occasion. I ended up taking 3 of them, and we concluded that my equilibrium got messed up from the combination of air-pressure changes from flying, followed by all the trains we'd been riding the day before.
I drank about 3 bottles of water with the pills -- a bad idea in hindsight, as we were very behind (which I felt really horrible about, but I couldn't do much about the scary whirlies), and I had to basically THROW Yui on, and then of course I had to go to the bathroom. By the time we go to the TV Aichi branch office for our little pre-meeting and some McD's (lets see if we can keep track of how many times we had McDonalds on this trip) I had to go to the bathroom so bad, I rather made a spectacle of myself. It was a little bit embarrassing in hindsight, but at the time I really didn't care.
After our pre-meeting (which involved us drawing chibi-versions of ourselves in costumes on their white-board, for no real reason but we-felt-like-it) and eating, we headed off to the first meeting, which was at the office of the ministry of economics and trade. We had a little meeting with a board of executives, took pictures, got back on the bus, and went over to meet w/ the minister of foreign affairs. That was a much bigger deal, involving LOTS of cameras and press. The Vice-minister was a kick though.
I feel REALLY honored that we were one of the three teams invited to Tokyo for this, but wow, was it a long day.
When we got back to the hotel, they had set up one of the banquet rooms for us to change into normal clothes. Then, we packed up our personal bags, the majority of our luggage having been sent on ahead by TV Aichi bus, and we climbed into the shuttle and drove to the train station. There, we all got our tickets for the Shinkansen, and began our trip from Tokyo to Nagoya.
The ride on the Shinkansen was really nice. Very relaxing, and I got to learn a lot more about Laura, and some of the old drama that happened in the cosplay community a few years ago (around the time I was just starting to cosplay). We talked about Musical theater, the woes of working for banks, and all sorts of things, while Rynn snoozed for part of the trip. I got some video of the country as we clicked along, and I tell you what, Japan is a beautiful country.
We arrived in Nagoya around 8:30PM -- Rynn forgot her ticket on the Shinkansen, so there was a tiny bit of drama getting her out of the gates, but luckily, it got taken care of. You wouldn't think forgetting your ticket would be a problem when you're GETTING OFF, but Japan's train system requires you to feed your ticket into a machine before the gates will open and allow you out of the platform areas. (This made me sad simply because I wanted to keep my stubs for souveniers). We all got put into cabs, and headed off to the Nagoya International Hotel. We didn't get to meet all of the teams, but we did run into Desi and Briggite of Team Germany, and we had just missed Line and Louise (Denmark). We ended up meeting Mel and Ash of team Australia, and inviting the out to food w/ us. We went to Mos Burger, but Ash and Mel took off back to the hotel, because they didn't have any money (Laura offered to pay, and said Kenny could owe her, but they weren't comfortable with that). We talked a LOT about WCS, and what things have been like in the past, and I shared the half of the story I knew regarding what went down w/ SakuraCon. We turned in late that night, but luckily the next day wasn't TOO busy.
I'm going to stop here for now -- After this, we transitioned into MAJOR WCS stuff. There's so much to write, and I'm sure it's a lot to read all in one chunk, and I think Rynn had the right idea by breaking hers into pieces.. I'll write up the Nagoya portion (and possibly break it down more, too) next, but with everything going on in my life right now, I have a lot of stuff to take care of. More on THAT, later! : D
As a parting gift, here's a slide show I made of this first part of the adventure.
Let me begin by saying, that ever since Rynn proposed the possibility of going out for WCS, I've wanted to do it with so much determination, it's almost ridiculous. It filled my brain for a year and a half, and we followed it's sporadic and uncertain future all the way up until the prelims were finally announced for Fanime. Even after slaving away, going through prelims, and coming out on top, I still couldn't believe it had happened. Even as I slaved away on things for the summit, it still didn't feel real. In some ways, it STILL doesn't feel real. I need to write it all down now, before the details slip through the cracks.
As Rynn mentioned, I could never understand why previous teams never really talked about their experience. Now, having been through it, I think I understand a little -- it's really hard to explain, and even once I'm done, I get the feeling many people who read this still won't fully understand. But, I'm going to give it my best shot, and if you read all of this, you deserve a cookie.
The Night Before
So, despite my best efforts leading up to the Big Event, I was still, of course, working on things until the very last minute. There were lots of mental breakdown, and the night before my flight, I didn't sleep nearly at all -- unless you count my breaking point where I finally decided I needed to sleep or I was going to go insane. I took a one hour nap. That's it. I threw clothes on in the morning, and after several full-out, curled up and shaking breakdowns and declarations of not wanting to go for fear of embarrassing myself, I was shuffled off to the airport by my friend Kayla and Mandy (who came up to deliver the set screens and my sword <3) and there was no turning back.
Day One: July 25/26th
Kayla and Mandy were nice enough to help me transport all my luggage and get me checked in w/ Alaska Airlines. After catching my flight from Seattle, I arrived in LAX very confused on how to get to the International flights, and ended up calling Laura. After several phone calls and asking moderately-uptight Airline workers, I trekked my way outside and walked to the International terminal. There I met up w/ Laura and Rynn, who both looked about as put together as I felt, and we wandered around the terminal for a while, grabbed some snacks, and waited for our flight to board. I started to loosen up a bit, but only a bit. The flight itself was really cool, even if it WAS 11-hours-long -- the seats all had their own personal monitors and a large selection of movies, audio, and games to entertain you. I spent the flight alternately watching movies (How to Train Your Dragon, and Toy Story 2) and sleeping. I always sleep on planes, but it's never the most restful sleep in the world, so when we arrived at Narita International, I was still exhausted. Collecting our things and going through customs was a aggravating experience, especially since I found that TSA had decided to inspect my large boxes -- the ones I had packed the sets, my sword, and my delicate Raven head in.
Once we got outside of customs though, there were a number of people waiting for us -- Ed, and an exec from TV Aichi whose name I can't remember (>.> oops) and the members of Team Spain, Vanessa and Narcis. We were the first two teams to arrive in Japan, so of course, we started making friends. They had invited us to go w/ them to Tokyo Disney, but we had decided that we'd rather see Tokyo itself. So, they decided to come along with us for the next day! : D Anyway, we got on the bus, and were taken to our hotel in Tokyo. The day was mostly gone, but that didn't stop us -- we dropped off our stuff, cleaned up a bit, and then headed out to see some of the area, and go out for dinner. We ended up meeting w/ Jacky (the admin for cosplay.com Japan) and going to a traditional Japanese-style restaurant in Akihabara. We stopped by the Gundam Cafe on the way back, and once we got back to the hotel, we were beat. The hotel rooms in Tokyo were so small, we used one as our closet, and Rynn and I slept in the same room.
Day Two: July 27th
This day was our big outing in Tokyo. It was me, Rynn, Laura, Vanessa and Narcis. This was the day that Laura started to amaze me -- she had done her research of the area, made all sorts of plans, and had everything ready to go.
After getting dressed at a leisurely pace, we all met down in the lobby, and headed out! I hadn't adjusted to the heat of Japan yet, so naturally I was a complete wuss. I ended up getting blisters between my toes and rubbing part of the skin on my feet raw -- I had to buy a roll of scotch tape, and cover my feet in it to keep it from getting any worse. Also, to anyone who has heard that Tokyo is CROWDED, and worse than New York? That is a LIE. I have been to NY, and it was downright claustrophobic, not to mention there were areas where you just didn't feel safe. Tokyo is nothing like that. Yes, there are a lot of people there, but it's amazing, it never feels crowded. You never run into people, or have to push your way through a crowd. It's also one of the CLEANEST cities I've ever seen, and feels SO safe, but I'll get to that later.
I can't remember the exact order of where we went, but I do remember that the first stop was the Meiji shrine. That place was HUGE, and beautiful, and I'm glad we went there, since I didn't get to go to any others in Nagoya, like we'd been planning. After that, we stopped at McDonalds for lunch, and I began to experience the lovely downfall of not knowing any Japanese. Luckily, their menus are covered in pictures, and the people are all very nice and understanding. I however, fail at understand pictures, and ended up ordering ONE chicken strip. Yes, a single piece of chicken. I then felt like too much of a doofus to go order more. So, I grabbed a rice ball in the 7-11 down the street. ^^;
After that, everything is all a mix-up in my head. I know we went to Harajuku, and I nearly died from the heat and climbing stairs to go over the street. We went to Laforet, which is a big shopping mall thing, and the bottom level is all Lolita stuff. That was pretty cool actually -- I really do like some of the stuff, but I don't have the stomach or nerve to be a 'Loli' -- too many of them all caught up in brand names and shit. I'd rather make my own. Rynn bought a purse, and a necklace for Rue, and Narcis bought a hoodie. It wasn't until about half-way through this day that I realized Narcis was so quiet because he didn't speak much english.
Sometime after this I think is when we dashed off to Shibuya, to see Shibuya crossing, and the Hachi statue, and make a call to let Jacky and Ed know we were on our way to Nakano. Once we got to Nakano, we went to a shopping center, where Jacky showed us all the best 'Otaku' shops. We went into this one Gashapon shop where I found a Ling trading-arts figure for 100 yen (that's about $1, FYI -- a STEAL!), a Zidane Trading-art I've been eyeing for a while, for only 550 yen, and a Siren figure I bought for Lada (sailor_asteroid). We shopped around a while, then went back to our hotel, cleaned up, and went out to dinner w/ Yokoto-san and Kishimoto-san, as well as meeting up with Graziela (the Spanish coordinator, who had just gotten into town) and Pol (another translator). After dinner, Laura, Rynn, Narcis, Vanessa, and I, all got the idea in our heads to go out and see Tokyo Tower, because how can you go to Tokyo and NOT see Tokyo Tower. It was really late, it was closed, and we just made the last trains BACK to our hotel, but it was worth it to say I stood at the base of Tokyo Tower. Now when I said earlier, that Tokyo feel incredibly safe, it also has to do with this night trip -- it was WAY late, and there weren't many people on the streets, but people just leave their bikes out, don't lock them up, no one LOOKS shady... it's just such a completely different way of life.
If only I had any idea of what the next day was going to be like.
Day Three: July 28th
We had a double-whammy on this day; we had to cosplay for several press-meetings, with people from the ministry of economics, and the minster and vice minister of Foreign affairs. On top of this, we also had to check out of the hotel before leaving, so we would be ready to head on and catch the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagoya. The morning started off well enough, as we went down to get breakfast, and then went back to the room to finish packing and get dressed. Looking back on it now, this day was so packed, it was ridiculous. I was in the second room putting on my makeup, when all of a sudden, I got hit with this terrible vertigo. I sat down and waited for it to go away, and about 5 minutes later, I still wasn't feeling stable. So, I stumbled next door, because I was starting to get scared of being alone. After laying there for another 10 minutes, it wasn't getting any better. We told Ed when he came by, and I think he told Laura, who showed up and saved the day with some Meclazine (I think that's how it's spelled?) -- a nice medication for Benign Positional Vertigo, which Laura apparently suffers from herself on occasion. I ended up taking 3 of them, and we concluded that my equilibrium got messed up from the combination of air-pressure changes from flying, followed by all the trains we'd been riding the day before.
I drank about 3 bottles of water with the pills -- a bad idea in hindsight, as we were very behind (which I felt really horrible about, but I couldn't do much about the scary whirlies), and I had to basically THROW Yui on, and then of course I had to go to the bathroom. By the time we go to the TV Aichi branch office for our little pre-meeting and some McD's (lets see if we can keep track of how many times we had McDonalds on this trip) I had to go to the bathroom so bad, I rather made a spectacle of myself. It was a little bit embarrassing in hindsight, but at the time I really didn't care.
After our pre-meeting (which involved us drawing chibi-versions of ourselves in costumes on their white-board, for no real reason but we-felt-like-it) and eating, we headed off to the first meeting, which was at the office of the ministry of economics and trade. We had a little meeting with a board of executives, took pictures, got back on the bus, and went over to meet w/ the minister of foreign affairs. That was a much bigger deal, involving LOTS of cameras and press. The Vice-minister was a kick though.
I feel REALLY honored that we were one of the three teams invited to Tokyo for this, but wow, was it a long day.
When we got back to the hotel, they had set up one of the banquet rooms for us to change into normal clothes. Then, we packed up our personal bags, the majority of our luggage having been sent on ahead by TV Aichi bus, and we climbed into the shuttle and drove to the train station. There, we all got our tickets for the Shinkansen, and began our trip from Tokyo to Nagoya.
The ride on the Shinkansen was really nice. Very relaxing, and I got to learn a lot more about Laura, and some of the old drama that happened in the cosplay community a few years ago (around the time I was just starting to cosplay). We talked about Musical theater, the woes of working for banks, and all sorts of things, while Rynn snoozed for part of the trip. I got some video of the country as we clicked along, and I tell you what, Japan is a beautiful country.
We arrived in Nagoya around 8:30PM -- Rynn forgot her ticket on the Shinkansen, so there was a tiny bit of drama getting her out of the gates, but luckily, it got taken care of. You wouldn't think forgetting your ticket would be a problem when you're GETTING OFF, but Japan's train system requires you to feed your ticket into a machine before the gates will open and allow you out of the platform areas. (This made me sad simply because I wanted to keep my stubs for souveniers). We all got put into cabs, and headed off to the Nagoya International Hotel. We didn't get to meet all of the teams, but we did run into Desi and Briggite of Team Germany, and we had just missed Line and Louise (Denmark). We ended up meeting Mel and Ash of team Australia, and inviting the out to food w/ us. We went to Mos Burger, but Ash and Mel took off back to the hotel, because they didn't have any money (Laura offered to pay, and said Kenny could owe her, but they weren't comfortable with that). We talked a LOT about WCS, and what things have been like in the past, and I shared the half of the story I knew regarding what went down w/ SakuraCon. We turned in late that night, but luckily the next day wasn't TOO busy.
I'm going to stop here for now -- After this, we transitioned into MAJOR WCS stuff. There's so much to write, and I'm sure it's a lot to read all in one chunk, and I think Rynn had the right idea by breaking hers into pieces.. I'll write up the Nagoya portion (and possibly break it down more, too) next, but with everything going on in my life right now, I have a lot of stuff to take care of. More on THAT, later! : D
As a parting gift, here's a slide show I made of this first part of the adventure.
Click to view