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Just another anime enthusiast.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Greetings from San Francisco

Hey there, I've arrived in San Francisco 2 days ago and will be leaving today to Los Angeles for the final 2 days. Our little vacation ends on July 2nd but we're making the most of it.

We saw many new sights and tried many tasty foods in both San Francisco and the previous city, San Diego. You can be sure we'll do all sorts of things in Los Angeles as well !

I will be uploading the whole picture album after I return to Toronto and sort through all the photos.

Er... That image looked stretched, but if you click it, its alot better.

Cheers.

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Friday, June 24, 2011

Written on the go: Leaving for Los Angeles




At the airport will be leaving for Los Angeles in an hour on the 8:30am flight.

Today I woke up at 5:30am to get ready. So excited!! See you soon!

- Written on the go from iPhone 3GS


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Thursday, June 16, 2011

University of Waterloo Convocation

At last, its over ! ALL OVER ! On June 15 of 2011, I had my convocation at the University of Waterloo. Celebrating my achievement of a bachelor of science in honours chemistry. A full gallery below, so read on and celebrate (with me)!

June 15th was the convocation date for all of sciences, applied health sciences was in the mornings at 10:30am and natural sciences such as biology, chemistry, and others were in the afternoon at 2:30pm. I was in the latter group. Most of my friends were there to pick up their diplomas except a few. You will see them in the gallery below if I decided to write caption on the photos.

I also brought a good from from my highschool with me to UW because he was free. He had never been to UW before and to our surprise, while there, we bumped into some of his friends too ! This world is so small.

We returned home at around 7:00pm in time for dinner. No parties unfortunately, was grabbed by my parents before I could escape. Boohoo.

Gallery below.
UW Convocation June 15, 2011

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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Anime North 2011

Between May 27 and 29, 2011, Anime North 2011 was hosted at the Toronto Congress Centre, which had been the location for atleast 4 years now. I don't really know what I can say about Anime North at this point, it feels just like every other year. Though this year, unlike the last, I went with a different bunch of people so we saw different things. Read on for a comprehensive summary of my life on May 28, 2011.

We arrived there at about 11:00am. And we were greeted with this line.

BAM ! The line is to the left and it is an oval around the area where cosplayers were being photographed (around the right side and center)

We waited in line for about an hour before finally getting into the convention centre. Inside was another line but much shorter and took maybe 10 minutes.

The inside line. Registration desk is to the right.

Once we registered, our first sight was the artist corner. There were a fair amount of good artists in my opinion who created professional looking artwork.

A sample artist booth at the artist corner. Many of the booths were swarmed with customers and spectators when we were there. I hope I won't get in trouble with these pictures...

We bumped into a friend of a friend of ours who had her own vender table. We chatted for a bit and moved on. Throughout this day, we bumped into a handful of acquaintances. From vendors, to cosplayers, to normal attendees.

The next area we looked at was the dealer's room where all the vendors who weren't artists were selling merchandise. This included everything from DVDs, to mangas, to posters, to figurines, to gundam models, to even erotic pillow covers. The atmosphere is like the artist corner except artwork is replaced with merchandise. Also the vender tables are larger for their inventory and they usually have their store name somewhere in the back.

The atmosphere of the dealer's room area. Just like the artist corner but with more people (and less room).

Because I recently started buying Yugioh cards, I bought a few packs from a vendor here. It was from a vendor who also has a card shop called Card Masters.

Both of those areas were pretty cramped as seen in the photos. Cosplay photos taken in there were a bit of a pain for both the photographer, cosplayer, and other people. As everyone had to adjust slightly to provide a free space for the photoshoot. Therefore, I would advise to take cosplay pictures outside. Preferably infront of the main Toronto Congress Centre entrance right by the intersection between the convention centre and the Double Tree Hotel. That area has a huge traffic of people going between the two buildings.

After shopping, we proceeded to get food. Since based on previous experience at Anime North, the Harvey's at the intersection would be extremely full, so we went to the Double Tree Hotel to eat food. There we saw many people playing card games with one another. Mainly Yugioh cards. However as I didn't bring my cards, I couldn't join them. Also, I would feel bad if other people had to watch me play and do nothing.

Where we ate. I brought my own food, my friends bought food from there.

For the remainder of the time at Anime North, we checked out panels, video show rooms, and other events. The panels and video rooms were dull and uninteresting as either someone would talk about the topic of the panel or a video would play for the anime in question. Neither of which interested me much to write about. I will say this however, if you were thinking of going to a panel. Don't. And I have a reason, if you don't know anything about the topic of that panel, you're probably not interested in it. If you were, you would have looked into it already. If it was about an anime, you probably would have watched it, and therefore, you will already know what the speaker will be talking about. Of course, to be fair, you should go once just in case. Maybe you'll find some hidden enjoyment from me. If you do, please post in the comments below.

An unique, interesting event at Anime North 2011 for me was the Idol competition, since I went with another group of friends previously, there were different tastes and I hadn't seen this before. The idol competition was like a singing competition. Each contestant would sing a Japanese song. Also there were 3 judges who would give constructive criticism. And at the end of the presentations, there would be the awarding ceremony for the winner.

The idol performance stage. The masquerade which I wanted to watch but didn't have time would also be held here.

We left at about 6:00pm because our driver had other plans later that night and had to get ready. It was all in all a great day. Bought some stuff, took some photos for memories, and even saw something new. Would definitely be up to go again next year if other friends are going.

I even considered cosplaying, except I'm terrible with a sewing machine and buying cosplay clothes easily cost $100+. Perhaps I will reconsider when I get a job.

Please visit the gallery below for many more pictures.

Anime North 2011, May 28

Hope you enjoyed reading this article. Any comments of questions, please post them below.

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