anime north 2009: friday convention report

Hamano Ayumi picked me up at my house at 6AM, and we were off to Concordia where we were catching the bus to Toronto. The bus was supposed to leave at 7AM sharp, but some people were late and we didn't leave until around 7:20. The bus ride itself was smooth and we got to the Double Tree Hotel at little before 2PM. The two of us then proceeded to call Tamara, the friend that was in charge of our rooms, as she had taken a different method of transportation. After a few frustrated calls in which the other end hung up on us, we finally sorted out the problem. Apparently, she'd been stuck in traffic and hadn't arrived yet. About an hour and a half later, everyone had arrived and we got checked in.

We all went up to the two rooms, moved a bit of furniture around, and did a bit of unpacking. Ayu decided to cosplay Rita from Tales of Vesperia that day, while I changed into Aster from Tales of Symphonia 2. The two of us then went down to get our badges. We had pre-registered and the line at the time was thankfully non-existant. After getting our badges, we walked around a bit before Ayu said she wanted to get something in our hotel room. We both went back, but I stayed in the lobby while she went upstairs. Upon her return, we went back to the TCC to walk around a bit. We then ended up doing really fast mini-photoshoots of each other in our costumes.

We were both getting a bit hungry and were planning to go and get something to eat, when Ayu ran into some of her friends from school who were dressed as Rare Hunters from Yu-Gi-Oh!. So instead of eating, we ended up back at the Double Tree, as they were supposed to meet someone there. The person was apparently running late, but we ran into one of our roommates who had just arrived, so we went back to our room again.

Ayu and I took a quick breather, while Steph got into her costume. By complete coincidence, Ayu happened to look out the window and spotted the Tales of Vesperia group she was supposed to meet up with. That lead to the two of us making a mad dash downstairs and across the street to find them. Ayu eventuall found them in line for weapons check, and told me they'd meet up again at the "Tales of..." shoot. We ended up walking around a bit more until it was time for Tara Platt and Yuri Lowenthal's panel at the Double Tree. The two of them seemed to be in high spirits, making the panel quite amusing and enjoyable.

After the panel, Ayu and I made a mad dash across the street for the Tales shoot. I ended up taking more pictures than being a part of the shoot, but Ayu seemed to have a good time, in which I was happy about due to the stress the costume ended up causing her. When the shoot broke up, we both wanted to check out the dealer's room. I was really surprised at the lack of dealers selling those boxes of random trading figures. I found a grand total of two that sold things I potentially wanted and maybe three others that had any of the random trading figure boxes at all. I also didn't see any sellers with shitajiki or any of the usual paraphenalia I go for. To be honest, I was quite disappointed, although I guess it's pretty unfair of me to be comparing AN's dealer's room to that of Otakon's.

Ayu's feet really hurt because of her high heels, so we went back to the hotel. I was quite satiated fro the night, so we decided to just lay back and do nothing for the rest of the night until we fell asleep.