Otakon 2008: A Recap
Almost a week since I came back from Otakon, but I figure any recap is better than none. Also don’t mind some of the pics as they were taken by my phone. For even more photos, check out my twitter.
The reason for the delayed blog regarding Otakon is the fact that I used more my twitter account to keep track of the events at the convention as they happened. But, after a few days back into the swing of things, and now this blog being underway, I decided to put all my findings in one easy-to-find spot.
I had taken off last Friday in anticipation of all the driving I would be doing. I knew it was at least going to be four hours travelling from New Jersey to Maryland. And yes, sadly I was the driver. I had to drive three others besides myself down there and then four people on the way back up. In a tiny little ‘05 Nissan Sentra, we definitely had limited space. Needless to say, we all tried to pack just the essentials for the weekend.
Once we had gathered everyone and packed all our things as best we could, we drove the long road known as I-95 (or the Turnpike if you’re in NJ) to reach MD. Took us SIX HOURS to finally reach Maryland, and with our usual luck and fashion, not without a few “side adventures” taking place as well.
For example, we pulled into the last rest stop before the Turnpike turns into I-95 in Delaware for a quick break when we noticed walking back to the car, a woman laying out in the middle of the parking lot. A man, who we assumed to be her husband, was hovering over the woman, holding an umbrella over her to give her shade. It seemed like she was having an issue with heat stroke. We knew we had a big 24 pack of bottled water in my car and figured, if she was dehydrated or having a heat stroke, water would be the best solution; especially since cars were swerving around her and all people were doing were gathering in a circle to stare at her.
My friends and I walk up to the husband and the woman and offer to help by giving her water we had in our car. But we were turned away, saying she was fine and to leave her alone. We were perplexed at this answer, but backed off as they wished, and simply watched from our car as we ate our snacks. Once we saw a police officer come over and help out the situation, we felt it was our cue to continue our journey.
Also, along our way there, my one friend’s boyfriend was working in the Funimation booth and was telling us of the “line horrors” that were occurring as we tried to get there. We heard how people were lined up almost to the harbor, that pre-registration and regular registration were in the same single line, an audience cap might be enforced since it was such a massive amount of people, etc. This motivated all of us to get there as quickly as possible, especially since one of us wasn’t pre-registered.
We finally reach Baltimore and since we were worried about my one friend, I dropped off two of my passengers right at the convention center. Then my other friend and I got back in I-95 south to go to the other side of Baltimore to reach our hotel. We checked into the rooms, rested for half an hour, and then went back to the convention to meet with everyone else.
By the time we got there, my non-registered friend had gotten her badge and the pre-registration had it’s own line, and it was small!! So we got in line and got our badges rather quickly compared to what we were dreading. Another group of friends of mine had left later in the day on Friday and sadly didn’t get into Baltimore till 10:30. So we went and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and then went to the registration booths to ask if they could still check in but they had put a cap on registrations for the day. Their day at Otakon would have to start on Saturday.
After watching the Friday Night Fan Parodies, we headed back to the hotel for the night where the second half of our group that came up later was waiting. That was when my one friend mentioned to all of us how a weird note was left in the safe in her hotel room. The note said on one side: “Always trust your instincts! Yes, there are cameras in the room.” And other side it stated a recommendation towards a local sub shop. Confused at the random note left, also find some humor in it, we went to sleep for the first night to charge up for the next day.
Saturday arrives and we all head straight to the convention. The late-comers get their pre-registration in order, we run into a few college classmates of ours, and we all head into the Dealer’s Room. Anyone who has been to Otakon before knows just how MASSIVE this Dealer’s Room is. We pretty much try to walk around just to take in everything and make “shopping plans” when we ended up at thatpaganchick.com’s booth. We saw a bunch of “Dark Path” grab bags there. Being slightly evil and dark ourselves, we couldn’t resist and three of us bought one. So, if you wanted a Dark Path Grab Bag, sorry, we took them! After grabbing our paranormal evil, we went forward towards perverted evil, aka. Hooters.
After our lunch amongst bouncing boobs, we decided to enjoy the Inner Harbor. We had a guy take our picture at the Inner Harbor as we trecked down towards the Barnes & Noble. Being Barnes & Noble junkies in Jersey, we automatically fell in love with this one. They had converted an old power plant into a Barnes & Noble, but used the power plant as decoration. Huge copper-painted cylindrical towers came out from the middle of the room with a little pathway you could walk through. And if you went up the stairs, a beautiful aquarium was there with many different fish. We gazed at all the different kinds of fish. A blowfish was what caught our attention the most as it darted up and down one side of the tank wildly, like it had a personal agenda to attend to. I think I related to it since it was the “fattest” fish in the tank and I know how stressful it can be being the biggest person!!
We then returned back to the convention after finishing our coffee drinks. We headed to the Artist Alley next, where my one friend’s foot began to swell up. We all sat with her and as it looked like it was finally going down, I zig-zagged through the booths to do some “shopping.” I found tons of unknown, “underground” mangas or online comics turned into mangas. I like finding unknown or new things, so I pretty much picked up all I can. After having so many books in my little Otakon bag that it was about to burst, we headed over to the Saturday Night Fan Parodies.
Around midnight, we decided to head back to the hotel. It was around this time when the next big “side adventure” happened during our trip. Two of my friends went up to the second floor when someone threw something out of their hotel window, almost hitting one of them. They quickly finished what they needed to do in their rooms, came down to the rest of us waiting in my car and told us what they saw and what had happened (well… one of them did, the other was completely oblivious). We had already decided to go to the diner down the street for a late night snack and since the manager of the hotel already came out and called the police, we figured it was a good time to go.
After our late night snack/breakfast, we returned and heard from other people how the police had came and escorted the people in that room out. As we walked past to go back to our rooms, we had noticed that they had thrown a glass bottle out the window. We suspected it was drunken rowdiness and someone trying to make the waste basket and horribly missing. That party must’ve sure ended fast after that.
Sunday morning comes (for me it came fairly quickly as after our return, I joined some more friends to drink some American Honey and watch some TV before returning to my room around 4 am) and we all pack up and check out. We parked back in the parking garage, packed the last of our belongings, and headed back inside. This time, we returned to the Dealer’s Room and actually bought a couple of “otakuish” things and we stayed there until it ended. So by 3 PM, we walked out of the Baltimore Convention Center, wondering what to do next.
We had discussed going to a Charlie Brown’s before returning home and we had thought there was one in the Inner Harbor, only to find out after walking there, that it was a Cheesecake Factory and not a Charlie Brown’s. So we decide to still head to the cars and head to the one off I-95 before you leave Maryland. We all gathered there, ate, and then saw a pretty horse on our way back to our cars to continue our journey back north.
After Charlie Brown’s, it was a long traffic-induced SIX HOURS before we finally started to drop people off at their houses. By the time I finally reached my house, it was around 1:30 AM. Needless to say, I pretty much collapsed onto my bed, not doing too much unpacking, trying to get some sleep before I headed into work in a few hours.
All in all, it was an awesome trip as usual. There are a few things I will probably change for next year (I was thinking of trying to be a gopher this year but with me driving everyone, it just wasn’t going to happen). One thing I hope for next year is that I get to do a “tweetup” with all my twitter buddies. I feel bad that it didn’t happen this year but everyone seemed to agree that this Otakon was just so massive and action-packed, a lot of people forgot to remember to BREATHE! I also had wanted to spin my LED poi around either by the BCC or at the rave but feared I’d either be escorted out for having a “weapon” or look nothing more than some random street performer and probably would get a ticket or arrested with my luck. As we had left, we received the dates for Otakon 2009 and already have started to make plans.
Hope you all enjoyed my little recap and hope to see you all next year!!
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