Fanime 2010: Day 0
On Thursday at noon, Derrick, Sam, and I finally left for what was to be a long, painful, seven-hour trip.
Thirty minutes from our starting point, an asshole in a silver convertible merged directly into us. Thank god the carpool lane had been coned off and our driver was a gamer with quick reflexes. Sam immediately swerved into the empty carpool lane which thankfully hadn’t begun construction yet. The driver of the convertible, who turned out to be an Asian male (figures), sheepishly waved at us. Oh yeah, thanks for nearly killing us, ass.
After checking into the hotel, we figured it would be a good idea to go to pre-registration. I was starving, but I figured it wouldn’t take long.
Upon arrival, we saw that the line looped around the convention center. We were stuck between an armored cosplayer who frequently held up the line for photos and a girl who was unable to play Pokémon without loudly narrating everything she did in-game. The wait was estimated to be two hours. Oh my god.
After an hour and a half of misery, Derrick very sneakily cut the people in front of us. Since I was so busy complaining, I didn’t even notice and followed him.
During a quiet period, I began a conversation with, “I read on 4chan that a lot of people are looking for Miku cosplayers to fuck. Yikes!”
The guy in front of us said, “Uh, I think I began listening to your conversation exactly at the wrong time.”
I responded, “No, you didn’t… That was actually the subject of the conversation.”
He laughed and we spent the rest of our time in line making fun of Sam for naming his Pokémon character with all caps (what an idiot!) and being unable to pronounce “Rattata.”
This is how we met Oliver and Desi. Both were students from the San Jose area and knew tidbits of Japanese. Oliver had tendencies to act very homosexual and Desi was very kind and friendly. After receiving our badges, they kindly waited for us. I was glad since I wanted to exchange contact information, but to my delight, they suggested we go out to eat together.
We went out to Hydration, a place that served bento lunches and boba tea drinks. Oliver kindly paid for one of our meals and Derrick’s meal was forgotten for over twenty minutes. Thanks to that mistake, we received an entire extra bento for free.
Many fun things happened, such as Oliver kissing Sam. Desi unfortunately wouldn’t be able to join us at Fanime due to work, but at least Oliver would be able to meet up with us.
It was a good, promising start to our trip.