Otakon 09: Sunday

Sunday was the last day of Otakon, and we celebrated by packing our stuff and loading the car. I took a few pictures, but my main goal was getting to the Dealer's Room for the first time all weekend and actually buying something. There, I met up with my friend Nate who had cosplayed as someone from Bleach, which he had put a lot of time into; in fact, he didn't even get to the con until Saturday afternoon on account of finishing his costume. I did buy some cool stuff, and at the end of the day returned with real mini-kunais, a wooden kunai, a cool bamboo wall scroll of a tiger and dragon, a DBZ sound keychain, Golgo 13: The Professional DVD, a rice hat, some stickers, and some shirts I could care less about from a grab bag.


Lunch was once again a combination of two vouchers, which brought us 2 hot dogs, a pretzel, 2 bananas, 2 cookies, and a brownie. It felt like a lot more than Saturday, and tasted better too. We returned to Artist Alley for one last run through, but unfortunately the area that I wanted to see had been closed off and taken down. Boo.

Well there wasn't much else we wanted to do after those first two action-packed days, and Jasmin and I decided to wait around by the panel ops room until the final staff meeting. We were there for only about a half an hour when the convention center staff (different group of staff) started kicking out all of the con-goers who weren't there for business purposes. I was asked multiple times if I was staff, and even had one question whether I was telling the truth. I'd never seen them so ferocious on Sunday at Otakon before, and it was a little disturbing. But we waited it out and finally wrapped up with the other staff. In total there couldn't have been more than 15 of us in panels, and the head guy even thanked me specifically for all my work (I wrote down my hours and had a grand total of 10 or 11 out of the recommended 9 for the weekend, wooo). :D

Finally we headed home, but not before paying a ridiculous $78 parking fee ($26 a day at the bottom of Hilton), which we considered the cost of our entire hotel expenses. Overall, despite some bad experiences dealing with Hilton and having drama in panels and elsewhere, I'd say that it ranked as one of my favorite con experiences. The only regrets I had were not going into the gaming area or the presentation area of Artist Alley, and not having more money for the Dealer's Room. If I'm in town next year, I will definitely want to help out in staff again. If I'm not in town, well... I'll be in Japan having a blast anyway. ^_^ And now, back to stories from the last time I was in Japan...

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