Good morning! On Saturday my friends and I took a trip to New Orleans to spend the day at Mechacon, an anime convention.
It wasn't much of an adventure with the driving over there. Kristina wanted me to stitch trimming around her Halloween ornament. Luckily I didn't get a headache (I usually do if I try to read, etc. in a car!)
Isn't it cute? Kristina's mother decided that she wanted a Halloween-themed ornament tree this year so Kristina has been stitching away at several patterns lately ;)
So the picture is my attempt at adding trimming to her ornament. It isn't the best. It was hard to stitch in a moving car with bumps, etc.
We got to the Riverside Hilton around 10ish and it was PACKED full of people. I wish our local Mobi-Con had that kind of traffic and reception by the community.
Do you remember Amanda's post on her trip to New Orleans where she had found several artsy dogs around the city? Well, the Riverside Hilton has a cute Mardi Gras themed dog. I had to take a picture of it.
Registration didn't take as long as we feared. Maybe 20 minutes or so despite the long line. This year they had everyone in a line and they would let so many people at the same time go up to the checkout lines depending on if you were paying with cash or credit card.
After that, one of our friends decided to wander the convention while the others found their way to the gaming room and the sign-up sheet for a Halo contest.
While everyone wandered, we went back out to the car to get my friends' costumes. I was their 'dresser' assistant for the afternoon.
Amulet Clover and Sapphire from Vocaloid
My friend Bonnie made both costumes! She is an amazing seamtress. Her mother has been teaching her how to sew so she has been making all her cosplay costumes this year.
After taking photos, we wandered over to the dealers' room and had fun going through there. Kristina was determined to find a K-pop table and I told her that there was no way that they would have one........................They had one!!! Kristina was 'ah and oh'-ing over everything, but she couldn't buy anything because it was so expensive. And of course she had to stop and talk to some of the other fangirls at the table ;)
While Bonnie wanted to get signatures from some voice actors, the rest of us decided to go have lunch and bring her back something to eat since she didn't want to lose her place in a very, very long of fans waiting for signatures.
We walked over to the Riverwalk area and decided on Poppy's Sports Grill and Bar for lunch. I had their catfish poboy.
Absolutely delicious! It was so big that I ate it with a fork!
After that we headed back over to the hotel and gave Bonnie her lunch. She wanted to try the shrimp poboy. Kristina and I decided to wander the artists' alley, which was really not an alley at all, but a very large conference room packed with artists' booth.
You know I can't resist an artists' alley, right?
My purchases from the convention:
Purchases, convention program, and lots of artist's business cards!
Not from artists' alley: three Sherlock Holmes buttons, a Japanese rabbit coin purse, and rabbit cell charm.
From artists' alley: a large pink happy onigiri plush (*squeal*), a girl squid with bow cell charm, a volume of original manga, and some panda earrings for my friend Amanda ;)
Sorry for the *squeal*! I shelled over the money for that plushie when I saw it in the artists' alley and was carrying it around like I was a little kid or something. I just love it........it is so soft and adorable ;)
Closeup of the charms and earrings! I love the panda with the glasses; it's so cute!
So a good majority of my purchases were in the artists' alley, which is usually true for all the conventions I go to because I love to see what people are crafting/drawing.
After that we headed over to a panel on Dancing K-pop, which was okay. I think I would have done it differently by having no chairs in the room and everyone trying to learn the dances. The guy was instructing volunteers in how to dance like the girls in one of Girls' Generation's videos. LOL
By that time, it was getting to be around 3 o'clock so we decided to hunt out the Cafe du Monde that I found on Google nearby. We asked for directions and found out that the cafe was actually in the Riverwalk mall. Who knew..........the map didn't saw a word about it being in the mall......just near it.......LOL
Yummy!
I will say it is hard to eat beignets without getting sugar everywhere and accidentally inhaling it while trying to take bites of the beignets! LOL
Here are some of the pictures I took of costumes:
Two girls dressed in Japanese yukata which is a summer kimono made from lighter materials compared to the traditional kimonos worn in the colder months.
A girl in a traditional Korean dress, a hanbok. She was really nice. She was telling us that she bought the dress from Korea for $120, but the shipping was $40! She said she was going as all three cultures for those three days of the convention. One day in traditional Chinese, another in Japanese, and then Korean. How fun! I love the variegating colors in this dress. So beautiful ;)
A Rilakkuma bear and macaroon-themed lolita! So cute.
Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars.
Finally two ladies dressed steampunk.
Overall, a wonderful day with friends enjoying being geeks! I will definitely try to go next year. I would love to have an artists' alley booth, which aren't badly priced, but hotels are so expensive in NO! Maybe in the future, eh?
Until next time ^_____^
