An interesting and fun trip Otakon was this year. First of all it, the Baltimore Convention Center isn't exactlty right down the street from me. The drive is close to 500 miles each way, about 9 hours on the road. So I pack up and just hop in my 17 year old Pontiac and head down the road. It turned out that having an old car was the least of my worries. Summer heat and humidity, along with the usual dosage of highway construction, proved to be the only obstacles to overcome. Traffic? Well, you can't get through Jersey without that so there's nothing unusual to report there, except for seeing an SUV have its tire explode in a cloud of bluish rubber smoke, about a half mile down the road in front of me. After the drive I show up at the hotel right off of the I-695 beltway. If you've ever thought that booking hotel reservations online was the best thing since sliced bread, you might want to pay attention. The unnamed national chain hotel happened to be undergoing renovations, with some parts more done than others. They put me on the second floor, which was nearly finished. The rooms all new bathroom fixtures, furniture and TV's which was great, but was very recently painted. The paint was actually dry, but there were "wet paint" signs stuck everywhere and the paint smell was also everywhere - uggh ..

There was also a wedding that day and the people had come there to stay and party - which they did - all weekend. Having done hotel parties like that myself in the past, I wasn't really bothered but the noise and commotion - I like "happy" sounds. However, the second night I was there, they quieted down for a bit, and I found out that one of their group had gotten stuck in the cranky old elevator and it took a little bit to get them out I guess. After that I refused to use the old thing (I didn't like it when it did work) and opted to use the trusty stairwell. Fortunately, I had to go up only one floor. The morning before I went to the con, I decided to take them up on the complimentary breakfast offered at the hotel. The new air conditioning units that they installed in the rooms worked fine, but everywhere else in the hotel the ac wasn't working, including the restaurant. Someone at the table next to me complained that is was hot and stuffy and asked them to turn on the ac. They did so and the ac came on - for about five minutes, then all of the power went out in the hotel. But I had been served my breakfast already so I was all set. The stay there the whole time was one of those things - a comedy of errors - that if you can't sit back and laugh about it, you would just go insane. Sometimes real life is even more nutty than anime!

Driving downtown and parking was easier than most cities that I've been too, so no problems there, except that the fee for the parking garage is $18/day. Before I finished walking to the convention center (only 2 blocks) I started to run into fans in costume on the street. The first ones that I met were Hikaru from MKR and Hamtaro. Being a big MKR nut myself, that was a great positive sign for me - to see another Rayearth fan before even getting inside - Yay!!^^ The next part was the registration, so I had to go stand in line for about and hour. I didn't pre-register because I wasn't sure if I would go until the last minute. The line was very long, like O'Hare airport in Chicago, but the people moved through much faster than they ever did at O'Hare. So I paid the fee, got a three day pass, a program and went on my merry way and just had fun the rest of the time .. wheeeeeeeeeeee!! Of course Hikaru wasn't the only fan in costume that I met there as you can well imagine. Cosplay Gallery

Two of the panel discussions I was able to sit in on. The first one was with Yoshiaki Iwasaki, director of well known anime series "Slayers", "El Hazard", and "Love Hina" At then the end of the session, there was a presentation of an episode of "Earth Defenders Mao-chan" which he also directed. The second one was with character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto. Everyone in the room was mostly interested in the characters of Cowboy Bebop, which he designed. He's done many others of course, and has most recently done work on "Wolf's Rain".

The Anime Music Video contest was very well attended with many having to sit on the floor of the auditorium. Most of the AMV's were very well done and professional looking. It was really tough trying to decide which of the finalists was the best. I was also able to see episodes of several anime series that are new to me, I already mentioned "Mao-chan", but also "Ayashi no Ceres", "Kare Kano", "Hunter x Hunter", and "Corrector Yui". Of those, "Ayashi no Ceres" really looks promising, so I'm going to look into it.

The fanart gallery was quite impressive, and some of the artwork that was up for auction was really beautiful. I like to draw sketches myself, and seeing how well these artists have done, makes me regret never developing my own talent .. *sigh* Even though I'm not a really a gamer anymore, I still went to check out the video gaming room anyway, just to see what everyone is playing these days. It would have been fun to try some out, but I didn't want to wait for a machine to open up. Too lazy I guess ... Finally I went to the dealer's room to grab a few goodies to take home. The anime cels the dealers had there were too expensive for the quality and content, so I didn't buy any of those. However, I did get a Japanese kimono and obi, an original TMIL movie program, a Digi Charet pencil box, and a DVD of the anime series "Sugar". I really got the show for the kids, but I watched it and I loved it too .. sooooo cute!!^^

Of course there was a lot more going on than what I've listed here, but hopefully someone out there will read this and get hungry enough to go next year or maybe a con a little closer to home. So until then .. bye for now!