Well, here I am, back from Anime Central and getting ready for Anime North. Sorry everyone that I've been so unresponsive as of late and will continue to be for a while. Things are absolutely nuts right now because of the conventions.

Anyways, just thought I'd do a little con report for all of you!

First off ACEN was a bit of a bust in terms of sales for me, but still a whole lot of fun nonetheless. There was a massive registration fiasco on the first day. People were standing in line to register for as much as 12 hours! It was all because the computer registration system crashed and they didn't have a back up plan. So, when the Artist Alley closed for the evening on Friday a good deal of the convention attendees were still in line waiting to get in! There was also a mix up with our seating request. 4y4m3, neomonki and I were all supposed to be sitting together as a group, but 4y4m3 asked for a power hookup and neomonki didn't, not knowing it would mess up our plans. So unfortunately neomonki got seated across the isle and around the corner from me and 4y4m3. A good deal of our communication ended up being us screaming to get the other's attention and then sending a runner between the tables. XD

Here's a photo of the table that 4y4m3 and I shared.


And some pics of the kanzashi I brought with me to sell. Unfortunately I brought a lot of them home with me afterwards too...


On Friday I decided to wear my Africa Yukata out for the first time. Unfortunately it was a little on the chilly side for yukata this weekend.


As seems to be the tradition at conventions for us, we ate very little that day and were extremely famished by the time the Alley closed. So we decided to order some Chinese food. Now, I'm sure there are some good Chinese restaurants somewhere in the States, but I've yet to find one. The food we got was overcooked and bland, but we were so hungry we gobbled it up anyways. There was a bit left over so we put it in the bag on the floor intending to leave it outside for trash in the morning. Unfortunately we forgot to do that and the food stayed in the bag on the floor all of Saturday.

On Saturday 4y4m3 and I dressed up in furisode. She wore the sakura furisode I'd made for her last year and I wore my taisho furisode. Here's a photo of me, 4y4m3 and neomonki.


This was a weekend of firsts in terms of the kimono I wore. I like to wear all of my kimono out of the house at least once, so all the pieces I brought with me made their debut in public this weekend.

I also got to meet up with a few members from the Immortal Geisha forums this week and I chatted with a very pretty maiko who came to my table. She made her wisteria kanzashi herself and it's absolutely beautiful! She said she made it using plain old white glue! Anyways, eventhough I got a couple of photos of her - and with her - I'm sort of kicking myself now that I forgot to ask her name.


Anyways, after the Alley closed, 4y4m3 ran off to check out a Suikoden cosplay photo shoot. Neomonki and I however did something really stupid... Starving yet again, we went back at the Chinese food that had been out all day. Big mistake... and my stomache let me know it. I'm just happy I didn't end up with horrible food poisoning, only something that some tea fixed right up.

Sunday was the highlight of the convention for me. Despite the fact that I made all of $15.00 that day. LOL Anyways, I got to see Master Chief! For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge Halo fan. I want to do a Halo cosplay myself sometime in the future, but I want to be one of the aliens. Unfortunately I missed the set of three grunts that 4y4m3 saw running around in the morning.


The second incredible thing about Sunday was my kimono! I decided to wear my antique kurotomesode hikizuri for the first time.


Here are some more detailed shots of it as well.


As I was walking around the alley running some erands, someone approached me and said, "That's a fantastic piece you're wearing. Mind if I take your picture?"

I agreed and we started chatting about the kimono. Soon he's telling me that he's a kimono dealer. So I showed him the double dyed hakkake on the kimono and told him my suspicions that it was a geiko hikizuri. As soon as he saw the hem his jaw dropped. Then he said, "Come with me, I have to show you to someone!"

So off to the dealer's room I went, where he showed me to another kimono dealer.

I kid you not, I said nothing on the subject to this second kimono dealer, just showed him the hem - first words out of his mouth, "This is a geisha's kimono! And a top ranking geisha's kimono at that!"

He was absolutely blown away, saying that he'd only ever seen kimono of that calibre twice in his life. Next thing I knew I was being paraded around for the other kimono dealers present for the con, just so they could get a look at this kimono.

They all asked me how much I paid for it. When I told them $80, they were flabberghasted. One asked me how much I thought it was worth. I answered a couple of hundred dollars. Then they told me, "Go and get a written appraisal of this thing right away. It's worth much more than that - and if anything were to happen to it, you would probably never find another kimono like it in your life."

Suffice it to say, I took it off right after speaking to these people, packed it away and made sure I brought it home in my carry on as opposed to my stowed luggage. XD So despite the fact that I'm seriously in the hole from this trip, I have two US based kimono dealers interested in selling my kanzashi for me, and a very valuable kimono... so this may end up being a profitable trip in the long run after all.

Oh, and on Sunday 4y4m3 and neomonki bought kitty ears in the dealer's room. Here's 4y4m3 playing kitty cat in the hotel lobby.


And that's the whole weekend!