Saranara, 2013~

I can't quite seem to wrap my head around the idea that 2013 is already on its way out. I also can't figure out whether it's because I truly was that busy or it's a sign of that old age when time passes by exceptionally faster the older you get...

2013 did come with its usuals, like conventions and the like, but it also came with a significant number of events. My "Europe" cruise brought me to the part of the world I would least likely imagine myself going to. Only mid-year did we find out that my brother and girlfriend got engaged and decided to get married also in the same year to avoid the 4 in the 2014. The condo I had purchased many years ago (surprise!) reared its head to happily announce that it would be finished earlier than originally projected.

The fourth quarter of the year was, without a doubt, the most treacherous but it has all been worth it. Even now, as I am up at 8am in the morning during my holiday, waiting for my final two main furniture pieces to arrive, I'm excited and hope that they'd just hurry up and drop off my stuff already so I can get settled. Out of my whole break, I think I've only really slept like there's no tomorrow twice and it's already about to end on me. I need to hibernate so hard right now.

New years resolutions never really work out for me. I always say I will play more games, but guess what, I haven't played anything in the last 3+ months (PAD is a douche and doesn't count) and very little months before that. My saving money was for the sake of this condo but I think I might just have spent more: increased coffee intake, more Kickstarting, year-of-the-JRPGs RPGs, and let's not even begin to talk about the furniture and random necessities.

Next year will yet again be interesting. If anything though, I'm still looking forward to the now.

Zero Degrees Wedding

It's now too obvious why people don't normally get married during the Winter.

It was a chilly, grey-skied morning on Sunday, December 8th, seeing that it was still only 6am. I got to my sister-in-law's place to prep makeup and hair with the rest of the family, to find that most of them were all already very much awake already. Time went by quickly as the makeup artist and hairstylists did their handiwork. Family members on the bride's side continued to make their way in all morning. Food was served and eaten, another pig (already slaughtered one for the previous ceremony) was sacrificed. Next thing we knew, the boys were already outside waiting by the corner of the street. Ready or not, we got the door games going. I got the privilege to wax my brother's leg. Unfortunately for him, he was the hairiest of them all.

Once he successfully reached the bride, we took a short break with more foods before moving onto the tea ceremony. Did she get a lot of jewelry or did she get a lot of jewelry?! Anyway, suddenly we realised we were short on time so we left to head to my brother's place briefly (for the sake of tradition) and then headed to the ceremony venue. More than the expected amount of people showed up but we managed to make it work out. Then the butterflies! Standing up there for the whole ceremony was probably the toughest task of the day. The whole time I was like, can't flinch, can't move so much, did my dress drop too low? is my tag showing? am I smiling enough?? man I'm tired?! when is this over?!? But the practice and the real thing was nowhere alike, especially the location of those pillars! I ended up standing in the wrong place for the longest time until I looked over to the maid of honour to find that I was completely off. #$@&??!

Group photographs followed the ceremony, then followed by more photographs outside in and around the park. This is where the real test began. Hellooo, Winter! Thank goodness we opted to use hairy shawls/capes to keep ourselves warm(er). Even then, our top halves were only barely warmer. Let's not even talk about the other parts. Moments into the photo-taking, we lost all feelings in our fingers. Oh well, who needs fingers anyways! Hours later, we were done and the next part took us to the restaurant for the reception.

We got there to find that another customer had booked some time before our wedding started to do a video. We gave them some slack and allowed them to stay a bit over their time but then they kept sticking around, to the point that our main organiser man took charge and ordered them out. They also took their sweet time making their way out too. We gave them a good staredown to ensure they were on their way.

The night went on without a hitch: more teas were served, many toasts were made, many more speeches were done. But the highlight was my brother who blew us all away with his impressive cheat sheet-less bilingual speech. We all ended in tears and, man, during times like this I'm proud to have a brother like him. I only remember the rest of the night had us scurrying to and from places, eating random things that was served to us on our plates and saying the greeting here and there to the friends and family.

By the end of it all, I was not drunk (fortunately) but I was exhausted to the core. I debated whether to stay at the hotel they had reserved us but opted out because of my lack of drunkness. Also thanks to my great friend Mo2 who offered to give me a lift to my car as well.

I'm glad everyone pulled through and supported each other, regardless of the complications and conflicts. It's hard to make everyone happy but I'm extremely happy my brother (and sister-in-law) took in my parents' suggestions and opinions, and although they were selective, they still adjusted certain things to satisfy all parties.

I'm also grateful that my brother found such an amazing girl (or should I say, grateful that this amazing girl went for my brother :D?). I'm truly feeling and seeing these blessings now. /endsappy

Fan Expo Vancouver 2013

With very little intention on going to this year's Fan Expo, I decided to check it out on the Sunday anyway, as a volunteer to say the least.

The expo moved themselves into the old convention building where they utilized the larger hall space for all their activities. It had the same layout for vendors, artists, celebs, fancy car display, and the electric playground people (no seriously, since when were they a big deal?). The weather also turned real ugly throughout the afternoon, so there really wasn't anywhere to go. Wish I had more to say but I don't! Here's some (two) photos.

A Chillin' Sakuracon 2013

Following this year's hasty pacing, our usual spring event in Seattle had arrived as soon as we knew it. With my overzealous cosplay plans, I largely dedicated my March evenings and free time to costume making, and even then I only managed to finish one of the two (hours before leaving) I had planned for this year. Now that I'm a bit costume creation-drained, I'm not quite sure if I'm up for the second of the two I originally wanted to get done, especially when I actually need to focus on my fight sticking instead...!

Thursday - The Day Down
The night before, leading up to the moment of departure was a bit of a headache with Sty's elder sister. Before I turn this into an all-out rant, we expected and unexpected an extra passenger to join us on the ride down, but I don't think she realized she was being only one-sided considerate. On one end she didn't want to bother her pet caretaker friend too much, but on the other, she doesn't realize she was freeloading a ride off me on the last minute and tried to make my plans work around hers. I wasn't particularly pleased but I did voice my opinion just enough to allow us to move along.

Regardless, although an hour late, we managed to pick up all the other bodies, Lester in Richmond and Sty in White Rock promptly after. Our delay added more to hour plus long border wait. We stopped at Boundary Bay in Bellingham where we had some good drinks and lunch.

After filling ourselves, we continued our way down and stopped at the premium outlet and walmart. As the day passed, we slowly began to realize we didn't have enough to do the other things we had planned, so we decided to defer most of it for our trip back up instead.

We finally arrived in central Seattle, dropped off Lester's stuff and headed to badge pickup to meet up with our other half, ToFu's group which consisted of himself, Rift, Mags, n Doom. Badge pickup was almost magical this year as the line was not a suffering 3 hour long wait (GJ, Sakuracon!). We dropped off our luggages at Rift's place and chilled at Nigel's bar, Outlander. Durian beer was good stuff.

Friday - Deathly Slopes (Day 1)
With almost no plans for this convention, we had ourselves some morning food at [name of resto]. Upon our arrival at the convention, our two halves went our separate ways. I lined up for Fujimura Ayumi's autograph and then heading to the dealer's hall to scout for the usual goodies. After managing to fill in the time, we managed to last until Rift's arrival from work before we headed to his recommended sushi resto, Nijo for happy hour. His "few blocks" turned out to be quite the journey down slopes and slopes of streets. The restaurant was unexpectedly a izakaya, which explained the need to go during their happy hour, and although we were satisfied, we were not full.

We returned to the con and bummed around a bit more, (e.g. gaming room for touhou sky arena) and then headed home early for "real food." Although we expected "real food," the guys only managed to bring back chip snacks for boardgame time.

It's that guy who, I guess, is kinda important.

Saturday - Gentlemen and Mental Gents (Day 2)
For breakfast, the gentlemen offered to make omelettes and thus we had a pretty homely meal. Come con time we stopped at the Psycho-Pass panel to begin and listened in on a list of predetermined Q&A questions. Although that prevented stupid questions, the predetermined topics were mostly typical, although some information was insightful into the series. After the panel, I tried at Kawahara Reki's autograph session. Knowing Kawahara Reki's popularity at the convention, it wasn't a surprise his autograph session attempt was futile as it was full mere moments after it opened. We wasted some time before heading to the Psycho-Pass industry guests' autograph session, Wada Jouji, Shiotani Naoyoshi, and Motohiro Katsuyuki.

We took our time heading to the Touhou panel's 2nd half to try and avoid the usual, unimpressive Touhou 101. Sadly the second half wasn't that much more entertaining but we sat through it and joined in on the photoshoot afterwards. Squinty-Eye Man!Sanae (lying on the ground saying "dodge my attack!") and Metal-Leek Man!Suika ("I'll hit you with my metal leek!"), thanks guys, you guys sure left an impression (y).

To the guy who shouted the photoshoot ordering, do a better job by starting with the group photo first the next time.

The starving us went to the Taphouse for late drinks and food before returning back for some drunken after hours Iron Artist, to only be beat out by a Dr. Who reference.

Sunday - A Shorty (Day 3)
For our rare third breakfast in a row, we stopped at Whole Foods for some hot foods, which was surprisingly good for grocery market food. When we got to the convention I checked out the lonely Blue Exorcist meetup before finding it too lonely for my tastes. We continued to loiter in the dealer's hall to wait for Sty's sisters, who only joined to do non-convention things, to return from their local shopping. It was a while before they came back, so Sty and I each enjoyed ourselves Starbucks' exclusive convention event drink, which they called the Sakuraccino.

The Sakuraccino - really delicious actually.

Once all the minions gathered, we moved ourselves back to Rift's place to indulge in deep dish pizza, chilling, and gaming before it was Doom's time to depart back to his state. To finish off the night, we watched the Rurouni Kenshin live action movie, which was a very nice touch to end the trip.

Monday - Happy Labourer's Day
For our return trip, we took our sweet time waking and packing before heading back up. We picked Lester up when we were ready and made our stops on the way back to our country. Although there really weren't that many additional stops (Uwajimaya, Trader Joe's), we still ended up arriving back late at night.

Ending Thoughts
In retrospect, the trip was pretty boring. Other than hanging out with good company, the convention itself was very uneventful. We were all pretty disappointed they didn't bring any illustrators/artists we could hassle with silly and embarrassing questions. The musical guests were small fry, Kawahara Reki is only kind of interesting (not interesting enough for me to fight for his autograph sadly), and a voice actor.

Twenty Dirty - The Q1 Post

Belated Akeome~

Already four months into the year and there are no signs of it slowing down anytime soon.

The end of 2012 was rather pleasantly eventful: a best friend, Mo^2, got married; a rare visitor, Miluda, who's now moved to Japan, came to visit us Vancouver homies and had us an amazing karaoke night out; a returning Brit visitor, by the name of Kaz, decided to spend his Christmas break here; the handful of birthdays; and did I mention a lot of sleep? Christmas Day was spent at my brother's this year, as the usual place, my Aunt's, was undergoing renovations. I also decided to be adventurous on Boxing Day and took a look around the malls to join in on the unnecessary crowding, which doesn't seem to have changed. Finally, New Years Eve was at Saboo's where we had junk food and enjoyed our chocolate red wine we got form the states the day before. The lack of cable and inability to locate a livestream/radio station for the NYE countdown left the night a bit disappointing but we still had our own personal fireworks display, thanks to our pyro neighbours.

Then the first day of the year began with me tripping and sending my foot flying towards my brand new sewing machine box I was just about to pick up and move away. Fortunately the toe itself wasn't broken but the nail lifted. I absolutely had zero interest in knowing whether I lost it for good or not, so I kept it under wraps and away from any sort of physical contact for the whole month. It's still pretty bruised up and ugly now and it does occasionally hurt still, but I seem to be able to wear most of my shoes that don't involve crushing the toes together (no pretty heels for me). I'm just glad I still have a complete toe nail.

So new years means new years resolutions. I can't say I did well with my previous year's resolution of working harder on my backlogs, but it will indeed carry on forward to this year, especially. A new game pile seemed to have started to develop, despite the fact that I don't even own a 3DS yet. There's also an amazing lineup of JRPGs heading this way this year, so I'm going to have to brace for impact. As if it isn't bad enough already, I've already made one major splurge earlier this year for the eargasm release of:

The amazing "Krut Hymneth" Complete CD collection of the Ar Tonelico concerts

It's been a weird Q1, to say the least, but there's lots more to look forward to this year. I've also missed putting time aside to blog. Something I'll work towards doing more again this year. Not to mention, not only has Flickr broken most of my images but most of everything else seems outdated. Expect an overhaul to come!
今年もよろしくおねがいしますね～