AX 2008 - Day 0

So this is a bit late, but I wanted to collect my thoughts on it first before posting. Anyway...



So I have never been to a convention of any sort in my life. So when my buddy Sara asked me if I wanted to go to the Anime Expo this year, I was a little hesitant, but I looked at the website and saw how much the ticket cost was and decided that I could afford a trip this year. I then told my two friends about it and they said that they would like to go too. So began the awesome journey. Three months prior to the Expo, I got my ticket for the Expo AND a train ride out there! It was so exciting to buy my own vacation tickets and what not. It almost felt like I was finally starting to move out of home. (As odd as that may sound...)

One of the conditions for me staying in the room with my friend Sara was that I had to Cosplay (or "The act of dressing up in costume as favorite characters from anime, video games, movies, etc." -- Web Definitions). So I thought about what I would like to dress up as, and I chose a character from an Anime. The character's name is Grimmjow Jagerjaques, and he is from the anime called Bleach. Sara agreed to make the jacket and help me out with whatever else i needed. The jacket came out beautifuly! and she was also able to help modify some parts that i ordered beautifuly! All in all Sara's work was OUTSTANDING!



My friend Mason and I decided to take the train over to LA because it was a LOT cheaper than flying both ways. The ride was awesome and seemed like a little adventure on the way out to LA. We got reserved coach seats and decided not to get a personal sleeper as it would have costed us about $1000 for just one way... But we were both satisfied with the train ride because we had ample leg room and even though I had forgot to check my suitcase it sat comfortably in front of me! Now, I'm a tall guy (standing at 6'1"), but i had enough leg space to fully extend my leg out in front of me while barely touching the seat. I don't tend to sleep well on planes, and it seems that it's the same for the train. I was in and out a lot, but got enough sleep for the following day. Our train was suppose to arrive early in the morning, but was actually 5 hours late due to flooding in Illinois. This set back actually ended up working better for the both of us. Our roomates actually didn't arrive in LA until MUCH later in the day, so mason and i had plenty of time to explore LA's awesome Metro system! After a few hours of cruising on the metro, we decided to head over to the convention center for early registration. We got there and I had registered as industry and found my line to be only 4 people long, where as mason had a line of over 1000 people in it. It was awesome. After registering we decided to wait in the nice air conditioned Convention Center until our comrades had arrived. Shortly after sitting down and reading a few articles, they arrived. We got our baggage and headed to the hotel to meet with them.



We got to the hotel and waited a short period of time, and oddly enough sat next to one of our roomates who we did not know at the time. It was really funny to find out that he was rooming with us. We got our room cards and were off to the rooms. We got up there and we all looked around and began deciding where we were going to sleep. After everything was arranged, those who didn't already finish their registration went down to get registered while the rest of us decided on food. We decided on a pub, which was quite pricey even for LA, and had fun. That night we slept soundly waiting for the first day of Anime Expo to start!