京都 part 2

So here is the remaining part of my time in Kyoto along with some pictures from the last post.

In the last post I talked about how I was at the Imperial Palace before it was moved to Edo (Tokyo). I was so struck by the sheer amazing feeling I had gotten that I hardly noticed my feet were killing me and that it was so cold, it was snowing. But I did notice when we saw the middle schoolers running around the entire length of the palace a few laps for gym class and the random people playing baseball on a baseball field on the grounds. That was amusing. My friend wanted to run and play with them, but I wasn't wearing good shoes and was too embarrassed. My friend asked, "WHEN ELSE COULD YOU SAY YOU PLAYED BASEBALL IN KYOTO ON THE PALACE GROUNDS?!" She's right, but I was way too shy. They were already staring.

So here are the remaining pictures:

The map of the palace and its surrounding gardens. The area where the buildings are mostly concentrated is the actual palace. The large white walkway around the palace was where I walked.
Just thinking of what happened here so long ago and who stood on that path...
RUN MIDDLE SCHOOLERS! RUN! HAHAHAHA!
(Actually, at one point, my friend joined them and ran with them. The boys she ran alongside gave her the most shocked and scared face ever and ran faster. Those behind her laughed.)
One of the entrances to the palace. There were, I believe, four. One at every cardinal point.
The area in which I walked around. It was so quiet. You'd never know it was smack dab in the middle of the city. And just imagining the carriages that used to roll through here carrying important people, people who ruled the country at one time, is just inspiring.
Okay, so background cultural note on this. This is called a "Dai", or rather, that's how you pronounce that Kanji. It means big and once a year during a certain festival, the residents of Kyoto watch as this Dai and many others carved into the mountains are set aflame. Now just the area engraved into the ground are on fire, none of the surrounding flames. It's a terribly important aspect of Japanese culture and very famous.
Another one of the entrances. Man...the detail of these places...just amazes me...
Baseball at the Kyoto Imperial Grounds. I wonder how the old emperors would've felt about this. Haha.
A pathway in the middle of the garden. There were many of these, but this one just seemed so magical. I can't even imagine who took walks around here. Some famous ladies that tended to the princess' or the Empress or something... It makes me think of the Tale of Genji every time
And then, just outside the gates to the palace, is a street and it's back to modern Japan. It's amazing the time skip...
The sign stating it's the Imperial Palace
On the way to the second castle we visited that day, we found this great walway path that went under the street. It was a nice change of view instead of cars and what not and there was a cool part where you literally walked on stones across the water. Or you could walk almost sideways alongside the water. Many old people walked here.

So after the Palace, there was another castle nearby that I'd heard from a friend back at the dorm that we had to go and see it. It had something called "Nightingale floors" and was created by Ieyasu Tokugawa. It wasn't far from the palace and the day was warming up a bit, so we walked.

Upon arriving at the castle, it began to snow again. But that only added to the magical-ness of the area. This castle was BEAUTIFUL. It's called Nijo castle and, sadly, I couldn't take any photos inside. I bought postcards once in the gift shop and took photos of the gardens. There was also a smaller castle inside the walls we visited, but we didn't go inside it. The gardens were more than enough for us. It was a wonderful day.

Once inside, though, we learned what the floors were. When Tokugawa created the castle, he worried of ninjas killing him during the night and spies listening in on his meetings during the day. So he created a special hanging system under the floorboards so that no matter how quietly you walked, there was a jingling noise much like a bell in a ball for a cat. I guess you could say it sounded like a bird or something?

The rooms were extremely elegant and all of the paper doors were elaborately decorated with hand drawn pictures. The pictures were all of nature, as all paper doors usually are when decorated. What amazed me was that Tokugawa commissioned local student artists to create the works. Some were so amazing, it was hard to imagine what it could've looked like from professionals. Not only were the screen doors just amazing, but the hand carved wood working around the doors and windows inside the rooms were so breath taking.

Now the palaces here are quiet different from what you're probably thinking of. There is a long wooden wrap around hallway that goes around the entire palace. This leads to every single room. The rooms are almost all centered in the middle of the house and are connected together. They're only separated by the paper doors. The servants come down the hallways to deliver food and messages while those that live in the palace stay in the main rooms. The largest rooms in the palace were (in order) the meeting room, Tokugawa's study, and the ladies' quarters. The ladies quarters was separated into positions of were the women sat in the room being that the most important sat closest to Tokugawa and those that served all the ladies were closest to the door. We also got to see the room where the weapons were stored. My friends were most excited about this, haha.

The outside area was amazing, especially closer to the water. It was amusing because even from outside, you could hear the floors jingling and the people walking. At the other castle, we ran into these Korean boys that were excited to see us. They asked to take our pictures and spoke in relatively good English. It was amusing and we did so. The view from the top of the hill near the palace was amazing.

As always, there are more photos on my Facebook so, if you get the chance, please check there for more photos. I'm going to look and see if there's an ability where I can make a section on my blog just for photos and post some more up for those of you without the ability to access my Facebook.

So as I leave off on this post, here are more photos. The next entry will be of Osaka. I will 100% be going back to Kyoto very shortly as I miss it and didn't get to see nearly as much as I wanted. Sorry for taking so long to update everyone of my time there.

The sign outside.
Close-up on the detail from the gate into the castle. So amazing... (That white stuff slashing across the picture is snow)
What a grand entrance!
It's like I've stepped back in time again!
The outside of the castle. Being this close, you could still hear the people inside walking around.
Some of the amazing landscape out by the pond. So beautiful... And with the people walking around and the bells jingling it was like a little magical wonderland
The underside of the roof. I just love how pretty it always looks. Nothing is left to be bare
See? Nothing is left bare.
What it looks like underneath the outside walkway. To get down into the gardens, there was always a giant slab of stone to step onto where one's outside shoes sat. Then, from the stone, you'd walk down onto the grounds.
The other palace on the grounds
At the top of the stairs entrance looking at the entrance. Those giant walls were common for palaces back during the more feudal times as it was perfect for ambushing invades as well as protecting against attacks.
The other palace. It was a lot more wood and less screens. This palace was definitely more about the gardens than the inside.
The view from the top of the hill nearby.
The cherry blossoms are gonna come soon. And it'll be beautiful.

Thanks for reading this post! See you next time!

~星子☆

京都 part 1

This is the long awaited post of Kyoto, Japan's old capital and one of the oldest cities in the world. It's possibly my favorite place in all of Japan. It was a little crowded at times, but it's a very large tourist trap in this country, so I can't say I blame them. But it wasn't anything like Tokyo, and for that, I'm grateful.

The trip to Kyoto, however, did not start out well. We left Nisshin rather early in the morning and the drive to Kyoto was about an hour and a half. On the way there, it snowed! My friends and I got really excited, but when we hit Kyoto, it was pouring rain. I was pretty upset because I didn't bring my umbrella and we all had suitcases. Not only that, but the directions I had looked up beforehand to the hotel were rather confusing and the station in Kyoto was massive.

How much rain was coming down. That's City Hall in Kyoto which was near our hotel.
Kyoto Station's roof
Looking up and around at Kyoto Station
There were elevators going up and this is looking down from almost the top.

We eventually found our way thanks to a nice man who stopped and walked us all the way to the train. It was awesome and he spoke English fluently, even though I was speaking Japanese to him. However, finding the hotel was another adventure all in itself. We were in a very crowded area of Kyoto along a tight walkway of shops and restaurants. We were all in awe, but it was still raining pretty hard and we had all the suitcases. I had to stop in multiple places to ask for directions (since no one else in the group was willing to ask for help) and we finally found it (thankfully next door to a 7/11).

After we got to the hotel, we went out for karaoke and planned our trip out for the following days. We mapped out places and were going to go do most of the stuff the following day, following a path of castles and shrines. We also planned to try and find a spot to meet and greet Geisha, but it was a $100 per person and rather difficult to get to the area. As we only had three days, we decided against it. Oh well...another time, I guess

Day one of our trip began and we started it off by going to one of the most famous shrines in all of Kyoto: Fushimi Inari shrine. This was my absolute favorite place of Kyoto. It was gorgeous and I want to go back when the cherry blossoms bloom. The shrine itself is one that worships the fox as a clever spirit, but also one that brings wealth. There are various Torii through-out the shrine as well as statues of foxes. It's great for walking and getting lost as it is a massive shrine.

Here are just some of the pictures I took while there.

Sign from the train station
The backside of a Torii. It has engravings of who made it and such and some historical information about the area. I just love the black on red.
The little shopping area on the way to the shrine. There were amazing stores that I spent a great deal in. The shop keepers loved having us there. And one store was devoted entirely to chopsticks! I've never seen so many beautiful chopsticks! It was amazing! I bought three for my R.A.'s back at the dorm as a thank you for everything present
A Torii inside the shrine. Just one of MANY.
A broom still in use by Miko (shrine maidens) today. These are used not only to sweep and clean up the shrine, but to sweep away demons and bad spirits.
One of the many fox statues. Some are holding things in their mouth and that means good luck. It's best if you pass under their claws, if they're out. That's double good luck, or something.
A section of the shrine that's very famous. It's just hundreds of Torii that line up for a walkway. At the end of the walk, it splits up to even smaller Torii on two sides of the walkway. People who have seen "Memoirs of a Geisha" might know this area as a scene of the movie was filmed here.
The roots of this trunk were so cool. It was right there along the pathway.
The backside of the Torii have words written as to who made it, if it was dedicated, and where it came from.
You have to enlarge this photo to get the full effect of how amazing it is.
The map of the entire shrine. Enlarge to see just how huge this place really is.
These wooden fox shaped blocks were things you buy. On one side is the face of the fox that you can draw in. It can be any kind of face you want. On the other side, you write a wish that you hope can come true.
An old sign that's been around for who knows how long!
Some of the sights.

After Fushimi, it came time to go to the Pagoda in the middle of the city. Sadly, once we got there, we realized it cost quite a deal of money to get inside and we weren't willing to spend that much for something we couldn't even get inside. So we walked around the outer garden instead. It was a beautiful day and as we were about to leave, a man came up and talked to us. He was so polite and told us about the area. He explained that he was training to be a tour guide, so he tested his skill out on us. Amazingly, we understood everything he said. We felt quite proud of ourselves for that, let me tell you.

Here are some shots from the area.

Entrance to the area.
The pagoda!
Save for the cars on the right, it looks like I've stepped back in time!
Amazing sky!
A building that's been around probably longer than my country's been established.
The details around here are amazing
Deadly gutter I almost fell in more than once
Closer to the Pagoda.

After that area, we walked back to our hotel (much walking) and found the most amazing ice cream shop in the world. This place made my dreams come true (well almost. if it had bubblegum ice cream, I'd be set).

The lobby of the shop. So amazing...
THE BIGGEST TUB OF ICE CREAM EVER! It takes three days in advance to make and serves about 15 people. I was amazed this was in Japan considering this looks straight from America. My God...
I almost got this
Just a small sample of the menu. It was 8 pages of this
What my friend ordered. Yum...waffles...
WHAT I ORDERED! There's banana, chocolate, vanilla, whipped cream, corn flakes, strawberry, cherry, and pocky in that parfait

The next day, we visited the old Imperial Palace before it moved to Tokyo. Upon arriving, we realized, we can't actually go inside. This is because I didn't know that you had to send a postcard a month in advance requesting permission to go in for a tour. Not only that, but it was a long complicated hassle to go and get the permission slip once we obtained permission there in Kyoto and then walk with our tour guide to the place. And considering everyone in the group had split up and we didn't know beforehand if we would even be at the palace that day, it wasn't worth it.

So we walked around the gardens! It started snowing while it was sunny and it felt magical. I thought back to how long ago when people would run by here on horses and how carriages would progress the Emperor and his family back and forth centuries ago for so long... and how so many wonderful kimonos and elegantly dressed ladies would speak so poetically and sit under the trees Then I realized I was walking among that area and it felt really amazing. It kind of hit me while at the palace and I looked around at this immaculate place kept in perpetual standstill. It was like when I was in Hiroshima, except I didn't feel guilty or that skinless and bleeding people walked around. No, that time, it was like when I went to D.C. back in 8th grade.
I was walking around where some of the most powerful and influential people have walked before. People who made history, who controlled a country, who changed the face of the world and the face of an entire culture. I've been to two places were people like that walked and lived.

I'll finish up here with that and finish Kyoto's entry on another post with the pictures from the palace as well as the other castle we visited. Then I'll update about Osaka.

Wednesday is when the placement exams are so wish me luck! I hope I get bumped up two classes. I'll be happy with just one.

~星子☆

Hello!

Just leaving a quick message here. Sorry for the lack of updates, especially about Kyoto and Osaka. I went back to America for awhile and have been studying for my upcoming placement exams that take place in a few weeks. Also, the Kyoto and Osaka trip is quite a long post.

I'm going to type up those two updates on Word and then paste it on here when I get the chance. Just thought I'd drop you all a line saying I'm still alive and that everything is going great. It's warming up a bit out here and I finally have money since my next trip won't be for awhile.

However! I have been invited by friends to go back to Osaka with them sometime to go to Japan's Universal Studios. I'm horribly excited for it. Also, I plan to go back to Kyoto when the cherry blossoms are in bloom with my girlfriend for a weekend and will post some things up about that.

Until then! See you around!

P.S. GO CANADA! I'M SO PROUD OF YOU FOR WINNING THE GOLD! They totally deserved it. America, you put up an amazing show. So proud of the boys.

~星子☆

東京ディズニーランド！！！

So now it's time for some Tokyo Disneyland! I was super excited on this, but wearing thin in the wallet and getting tired of traveling by this point. It was the big one before I went to Kyoto and Osaka at the end of the month.

I went back to Nagoya because classes started back up (I'm the only American in my class of Britts! >< ) and then had to go back the following weekend I went right back to Tokyo. Oh man... But this time I had a friend come with me because she was joining me at Disneyland. Again, I met up with my friends from the previous visit and after a good night's rest, we headed off to Disneyland. In the morning, from my friend's apartment, I saw Mt. Fuji! It was so cool, but enough of that. (Haha)

We had to travel quite a ways before we got there and once we got off the train, we knew we were in the right area. EVERYTHING was Disney. Even this awesome vending machine was Disney! (Sorry, it's on my phone because I forgot my camera... The pictures on here are from my friend who went with me.)

After the train, we had to pay to get onto the Disney monorail (Disney's private train line) and pass by the actual Tokyo Disneyland. We were actually going to a separate Disney park, not the actual Disneyland (kind of like at the original Disneyland, there's now the California theme park across the way). This was called Disney Sea and it was more for couples and friends than family (which was kind of nice, let me tell you). When you walk into Disney Sea, there's a giant globe that spins on water and shows the countries. We took pictures and I said, "wait...let's see Japan first. I bet it's bigger than California." SURE ENOUGH IT WAS BIGGER THAN TEXAS! We all died of laughter going, "JAPAN'S NOT THAT BIG!" and took a picture of it.

That's when the characters popped up. I rushed to see Donald, but the Japanese who are usually so polite in public and make lines to get into lines suddenly turned into the rude people I see all the time at theme parks back home. I couldn't get in there and just gave up after 10 mins. of chasing him and constantly getting shoved aside. It was ridiculous and I was pissed. The line to see Mickey (there was an actual live) looked WAY too horrendous, so I gave up.

So we FINALLY headed inside the actual park and ended up in Italy. It was great! But surprisingly quiet as hell. You'd never know you were at a theme park... You could actually hear the music! I was impressed. Thep lace was gorgeous and was made to look like downtown Venice. Sadly, Italy held no rides, so we quickly moved away from the shops and all that wonderful pasta into New York in the 20s. They did an amazing job on how it felt. I really felt like we were back in the States in Disneyland. A lot of Japanese people watched us because we were skipping and dancing and that's just what you do at Disneyland. For once, I didn't mind because they weren't staring and thinking, "oh God, foreigners..." and instead it was like, "OH LOOK! FOREIGNERS! AREN'T THEY ADORABLE?! *camera*". (not joking about the camera)

We found the Tower of Terror and after an hour and a half wait (all Fastpasses were gone), we got into the ride. At first, I was amazed that there weren't that many people at the park, but I realized it was because they were all in the America section (gee, I wonder why...). The Tower of Terror back in the States is one of my favorite rides as it was the first ride to ever ACTUALLY scare me (rides don't scare me one bit), so I was excited to see how they changed this one. It was no longer a Twilight Zone, but was now a cute little demon thing that attacked this ubber rich white dude and cursed him. That irked me a bit...but what REALLY got me was the ride dropped us 3 stories. THAT'S IT?! JUST 3 STORIES?! The one in California drops you 7 stories. It wasn't even close to being scary. My friends loved it, but I was NOT impressed.

We left and started heading for the other rides. There was a huge Titanic-like cruise ship where a play was taking place. These hot Japanese called out to us in English saying, "HELLO! HOW ARE YOU?!" and we shouted back, "WE'RE GOOD! THANKS!" and realized, "shit, we should've gone back. There were enough guys for all of us to practice our Japanese on..." But the play was so hysterical, I cried. They were trying so hard to make Japanese men and women into American flappers and such from the 20s. Then Mickey showed up and his voice alone in Japanese just sent me over the edge in hysterics. My friends didn't understand why I was laughing so hard, but I dunno. I just find it so funny when I see Japanese trying to be American or visa versa (actually, it's funnier when Americans try to be Japanese... and really humiliating in certain situations). It was just one of those things.

Once we left the little play, we didn't know where we had ended up until we saw an old colonial-style house and found ourselves back in colonial America! It was exciting, but really small. I honestly have no idea why it was there in the first place... But we ate lunch there and saw this great little play taking place where they re-enacted old black and white episodes of Disney episodes, mainly focusing on Donald. It was adorable, but you CAN NOT understand Donald in Japanese (Now I understand why they had subtitles for him in Kingdom Hearts...).

Once done we ventured into some area with mainly water attractions. There was this fun little hovercraft ride we went on and then we went on this other ride. I wasn't impressed by the theme park so far and didn't have high hopes for this hurricane ride. I didn't think anything was going to happen on it, despite it seeming like a Star Tours-esque ride. Once on, I laughed because they showed these American guys and I just KNEW we would get the goofy one who was going to cause the entire thing to go haywire. I was right, but I'm so glad I was wrong about nothing happening. This ride was AMAZING! I was so scared when the missile suddenly came through the roof and almost killed us all and we got sprayed by water (that was a surprise!).

Once done, we made our way into Mexico and tried to find churros, but couldn't. We found a rollercoaster and went on that. It was pretty fun, but so quiet. So we, being foreigners and totally getting away with it, were loud and screamed even though it wasn't scary. It made the other Japanese on the ride CRACK UP and even join us in screaming. It was great! We got off laughing out heads off and said in Japanese, "WE'RE HOME!" and the Japanese people were just in so much shock like, "THESE GUYS ARE GREAT!" We then found the churros, but they were....sesame flavored ones.... They were gross and I did not like them.

We walked through Arabia (Aladdin) and then ended up in China (Mysterious Island) and we passed Atlantica. It was cool. We found the back way into Italy and found Maple Syrup churros. Um...okay? Are we in Canada? We ate them....WOW THEY WERE GOOD! We had to get more. It was great. We headed back to China and went on the best ride of the night, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Granted...we had to wait FOREVER and our tempers were kind of getting to the high point.

Now...usually the Japanese are REALLY good with crowd control, but this was ridiculous. They let 50 people in the Fast Pass line go and about 10 in the regular line go. Even the Japanese were getting fed up. We were NOT happy and it was getting very cold and I didn't bring a jacket (we were right on the ocean too...). It was getting late... But then we went on the ride and it was GREAT! This ride made me gasp in surprise and a little shock. That's because I didn't know when we reached the top of this rise up into the air, we'd come outside and for the briefest second I thought there would be no track under us to catch us.

Then once done, I wanted to see the water performance called BravSEAmo (horrible pun), but half of my friends wanted to go back to Tower of Terror, so we split up. The performance was so GREAT! It was a love story between a water goddess and a fire god. It was sweet and it reminded me of when I went to Vegas and they had the water fountains (man, I loved those those) at the Bellagio. But by that point, the theme park had closed. Yeah, and we had gone on like four rides... >>

But then we headed home and rested up. Man, that was a crazy weekend. Now my trips are done until Kyoto and Osaka for which I leave for on Monday. I'll update when I can, but as soon as I leave Osaka, I'll be turning 22 and the following day I leave for the States. Here are pictures from my time! MT FUJI! 富士山 The hand holding things on the monorail! :D The globe thing. I wish I could show you how big Japan was. That's how close I got to Donald. The volcano where the fire god came out of. The building was the back part of Italy. That volcano area is the China part. Look how pretty Italy is! (and those balloons were like 20 bucks!) Broadway in the 20sLook at the Tower of Terror glistening in the sun :D
The inside of the Tower of Terror. And there's that rich guy.
Those outfits those girls wear can ONLY be found in Tokyo Disneyland. There were SOOOOO MANY CUTE THINGS found ONLY in Tokyo Disneyland. It made me so sad we don't have back in the States.
That water/hover craft ride that was kind of fun. IN THE BACK IS THAT HURRICANE RIDE!The rollercoaster that no one screamed on!
RANDOMLY in the Arabia section we found plaster on this wall of AMERICA! We freaked out and alerted Japanese about it and they didn't see why it was so amazing.
Arabia section
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH!

Thanks for reading! See you next time!

~星子☆

Comiket

So today's blog is going to be a little bit different. For one, it's about an Anime convention I attended here in Japan. So that means a lot of you don't want to (and don't have to) read this blog. For two, I'm not going to have pictures in this one. That's because the people who I took pictures of never said I could put their photos up online. I told them they could of me, but I forgot to ask. >>

That being the case, I'll start off this blog by saying, "HOLY SHIT COMIKET WAS AMAZING!"
You'd NEVER know there were hundreds of thousands of people at this convention by how quiet and well organized it was! Like seriously, it was just so amazing...

First things first. Comiket is not your regular Anime convention that some of you are familiar with. Comiket is mainly fan-made artwork in the form of doujinshis (fan-made comics) and are usually pairings or romance stories. Some are amazing side stories that people made with canon features and an actual story and some are just little posters and pictures to sell. But this place is so huge I honestly didn't get to see the entire thing. There are three halls, the East 123 hall, the East 456 hall, and the West hall. The West hall is near where you cosplay.
Speaking of cosplaying! You cannot cosplay outside; only in certain areas inside or ropped off areas outside. Also, you CANNOT take pictures of people without permission. If someone thinks you're taking their picture and you didn't ask permission, you can get kicked out. It's crazy.
Also, there's a map that shows where the artists sit. You need to know the artists beforehand and the majority of people do. It's NEVER a good idea to bring the entire book that you buy to get the map (that tells you what artists are going and where they are) and it's put into sections.

In the East hall 123, those in the A sections are the REALLY good artists, the hard sellin' ones that are most popular. They usually sell out by noon and this con starts at 10. Then there are those on the side that USED to be A's, but are now B's or are just under A-ranking. They're still good, but don't get the lines As do. (I'll explain later) Then there's the rest of the tables which in are lined up A-S. On the East hall 456 it's lined up in the hiragana of あ through ち I think, but I think it went a little further...
Then there's the West hall that's organized quite the same, but differently. I didn't see much of the West hall. Although, there's another part to the West hall where there are actual vendors from companies will sell their stuff. We wanted to go there, but we never found it on the day I went.

The first day we got there, we somehow skipped through the line that was about another 2 hours long, thank GOD. I don't know how we did this, but we did. We get into a line and think, "okay, we're in line". Nope, we're in line to get to the line. This is a trend we see keep happening. Thank God it went so smoothly you never really noticed. We were in the main line just to get in for about 45 minutes. During that time, we took out our map to make sure we knew where we were going (this place was so huge, you HAD to have a map) and the majority of this convention was Hetalia. Half of the main building was Hetalia. I was excited beyond all reason. As I looked around at our fellow con-goers, I noticed that not only were they mainly girls, but...they all had the same areas mapped out on their maps; almost the same locations and everything. They then noticed us and how we had little Hetalia keychains and what-not with us. I was blasting my Hetalia music on my headphones and dancing to it so they knew. My friend said, "this girl behind you, she looks ready to steal your England keychain!" It was great!

We got inside in a relatively quick amount of time and rushed to the East hall 123 where all our stuff was that we wanted. We split into two groups. I headed straight for the two I wanted the most (Hoshitamago and Hakkapink) and saw that there was a line. I started to get into the line when I was stopped and told to get into the line to get INTO the line. Everyone was SO nice and smiled at us and tried to talk in English, but when we showed we talked Japanese they were like, ":D :D :D" and talked Japanese. The lines weren't all that fast and I got to hit a lot of the tables in two hours. By that time, it was noon and the A tables were closing up shop. It was time to cosplay!

So you don't pay to actually get into Comiket. You pay to cosplay. But even then, it's only 8 bucks; so wonderful... So once we paid, I thought we went to our own little dressing rooms and all to change. No, it was a gym sized room of girls just stripping and changing and you had to plot down on the floor like a picnic and dress there. Wow....talk about awkward because the minute we walked in, almost all eyes were on us. Yeah...

So once we were done dressing, I was blind because I had colored contacts in and my outfit called for no glasses, so here I was clinging on to people on where to go, but we had NO IDEA where to go. We went outside and were almost in trouble for doing so, but these nice guys told us where to go and weren't mad at us. We talked Japanese to them and they were relieved to know we weren't dumb first-timers, but just lost first-timers. It happens. This place is frickin' huge.

So we finally got to the cosplay section out in the West hall area. At first we were starving and ate as fast as we could, but then people saw us and were, at first, afraid to approach us because they didn't know English and thought we didn't know Japanese, but our Japanese friend (who actually is from America, but hey) found us and once people saw him, they thought he was our spokesman and asked him if they could take our pictures. He repeatedly told people, "they speak Japanese" and eventually word got around that the foreigners in the area can speak Japanese. That's when we became the hit of Comiket. We had lines to see us, girls crying, people asking to be in pictures with us. We even started this entire thing where this large group of Hetalia cosplayers begged us to join them in pictures and then, once in, this HUGE crowd appeared. The cosplayers with us said they'd never seen it like this and they said it was because, "we have the REAL THINGS here! THEY'RE SO CUTE!"

That w as when I met the two that made my con. These two were so adorable and so amazing. They made me SO INCREDIBLY happy, you just can't believe... I had been with my friends when my Japanese friend told me there was a US and UK dressed up as Santa's near the exit. I rush over and see them and almost die. They're just sitting there together texting and look SO cute! I nervously go up and ask if I can take their picture. They JUMP up in surprise and scramble to get ready and, once done with the picture, come flying at me. They're amazed that, not only do I speak Japanese, but that I came all the way from the US to come to Comiket. I explained that I was studying in Japan and they got even MORE excited. I thought the America was going to have a kitten, she was so excited. She started jabbering on how she wants to go the States and learn English like no other while the England tried to hide herself. She was so shy, it was too cute!

We were soon pulled apart and were lead into another large group and people took our pictures after we took theirs and visa versa. It was chaos. I eventually made my way back to the two Santa's and went up to the England and asked for a picture with her. Since I was colonial America and she was England, she FREAKED and almost cried she was so happy. We posed together as big brother with little brother and people flocked to us. Some fangirls cried they were so happy to see "the real thing" there and such. I was in heaven. That England, she was so adorable. And the America kept apologizing saying she made my country "look horrible". Trust me, she was adorable as hell.

Once done with cosplay, we headed home since the con really was over by that point. Once home, we collapsed, but headed to a friend's later and ate at his apartment. It was great fun, but I could feel my throat getting sore and my insides starting to hurt. My skin, too, felt a little sick-ish. I got worried and told my friends I wanted to head home early. But it didn't matter because by morning, I was very sick.

I ended up not going to the second day of Comiket, sadly, but my friends did. They texted me during the day and got me soup before they left to help me feel better. It was nice and by night time, I was a little better. I was still relatively sick the rest of my time in Tokyo, but all in all, it was a GREAT con. Best anime convention EVER. I want to go back... *starts to save money*

Next update will be about Tokyo Disneyland. I'll have that up soon because come Monday, I'll be in Kyoto and by Wednesday, I'll be in Osaka and then I'll be back home for two weeks, so I need to get on that. Next update will have pictures. Sorry for none this time.

~星子☆