To my Sakura-Con brethren... I'll see you next year.
Highlights from this year's Sakura-Con are as follows:
1) Getting to hug a giant Totoro
2) Three girls dressed up as The Prince's cousins from Katamari Damacy
3) The Comedy AMVs
4) The merchant from Resident Evil selling Pocky
5) The die-hard fans who recognized my costume
Friday evening Mr. Big and I rolled into Seattle and immediately headed to Sakura-Con. It was already packed with thousands of people and the streets were littered with cosplayers. Dressed in our civilian clothes, we felt a bit out of place. Conventions are the only place where dressing normal will make you stick out.
I saw tons of girls dressed up as Yuna from FFX-2, so I quickly started plotting what to dress up as for tomorrow. Luckily I had brought my Major Motoko Kusanagi outfit from Ghost in the Shell 2nd Gig and spent most of that night sewing together her jacket.
I stood in the pre-registration line with Mr. Big for about an hour 'n a half. I hate standing in line and oftentimes have thoughts that would likely get me thrown in jail for 3-6 months. It didn't help that the people we were surrounded by had awful B.O. Seriously, people - just because you're going to an anime convention doesn't mean you can still skip showering. It's common courtesy!
Halfway through the line, an announcement over the intercom informs attendees that their credit card machines are down, therefore everyone has to pay with cash... And there was only one ATM in the room. Man, I though the nerd revolution was going to come! There were so many groans and curse words, I wanted to scream "Ear muff it!" to all the little children. Unfortunately, the next day my friends (who didn't pre-register) had to stand in line for three hours.
I was excited because my friends dressed up as Naruto from Narurto, an Akatsuki member from Naruto, and an Organization XIII member from Kingdom Hearts. I was not enthused when a guy poked me really hard in order to ask me for a picture. Not cool, guy.
My friends weren't used to cosplaying, oftentimes forgetting they were dressed up. Several times people cheered "Hey, Naruto!" expecting a high-five, and he walked right past them without noticing. When he found out later, he said he felt like an ass.
One thing that I'll never get used to is being on the top floor and feeling it move due to the concerts going on underneath. That, and that GLOMP game that involves a water bottle and hugging...
This year made me decide that I will be dressing my children up in the future in order to get the "Aww" factor from attendees. There were so many cute kids with huge crowds around them. I don't know why, but children in costumes as your favorite characters are just uber adorable.
We ended up staying in downtown Seattle until about midnight. By then, we were ready to crash... our geek quota was full for the next year.
After Sakura-Con, Mr. Big and I made a run through Seattle. We hit up Pike's Market, snagging plenty of hum bows and garlic breads to last us for the next couple of days. We also met a guy from Australia who was taking pictures of a can of PAM cooking spray in different locations around Seattle, including the original Starbucks. "Every picture makes the difference and so does PAM," he would joke in his accent. That'll make a pretty unique coffee table album.
I haven't been to the Seattle Aquarium since I was in middle school. It's changed so much and I think I appreciated it more this time around. My two favorites were seeing the Puffins floating around and finally finding the Ogopogo inside the giant walk-through tank.
Afterwards, we hit up The Crab Pot on the waterfront. We were handed a bib, a mallet and a bucket-full of seafood and told to go to town. I think I have officially filled my crab-intake for this lifetime.
On the drive home, there was a giant rainbow that seemed to start nearby. I've never seen one that I could almost touch... It was a good way to end a really great weekend.