Anime North 2010

This year marks our third year attending Anime North in Toronto.  Each year we get closer, hotel wise.  The first time we stayed at a Four Seasons a couple of exits down from the convention site, and we vowed never again.  Last year we stayed at the Crown Plaza down the road on the other side of an over pass, we decided not to again because it was more expensive and I hated that damn hill we had to constantly walk up and down on and I didn’t want to risk getting hurt again on that stupid guard rail.  This year we stayed at the Holiday Inn which is about the same distance but no damn hill.  But so much walking, the fat girl in me was not pleased with all the walking and the heat, though thank god for SPF 80.  For next year we are biting the bullet and just shelling out the extra money and getting the doubletree which is right across the street from the TCC and has all the panels.  Now for the run-down.

Friday:

After my lead foot driving we made it into Toronto a little bit before 1pm.  We checked into our hotel and had a grease riddled and overpriced meal at Perkins.  We then wandered over to the convention centre and registered, the line wasn’t too bad, it was moving a lot faster than the registration line.  At that point we were just happy to walk around after being in the car forever.  We had a few hours before the dealer’s room open so we went over to the Square One Shopping Centre.  I had my first experience of bubble tea at BubbleTeaze.  It was…different.  I’m not sure how I feel about the tapioca balls, I think I would have preferred the aloe jelly, which I didn’t see until after I had paid for my drink.  But overall, not too much money spent there, that was being saved for the con.  At about 6 we did a quick breeze of the dealer’s room and artist’s alley just so we could get a layout and come up with a game plan for the next day.  Dinner was at the Sushi Dragon, which was in full swing mode, though we got a table pretty quick.  At this point my diet was in suspended animation so there was fried gyoza, fried spring rolls and a sushi and sashimi platter, booyah.

Saturday:

Still no diet insight, so breakfast was a full affair, which was surprisingly lacking the grease at Perkins.  There were seasoned potatoes, cheese, bacon, eggs and pancakes with real butter.  I’ve missed potatoes and I think I more or less inhaled that thing.  The fat girl was pleased.  Also, no diet drinks in the vicinity the entire time, which was awesome, though short lived.

We hit up the dealers room, bought an armload of manga.  It seems like one particular seller keeps adding more tables to its already endless line of manga filled tables.  It’s so overwhelming and beyond awesome to see that much manga laid out in front of you.  Normally having to shop online or be limited to one row of manga at Walden’s, it’s like shock and awe.  There’s just so much stuff to look at and to buy, you have to take a moment and try to figure out where to start.  I saw several very prepared people walking around with lists and every year I ask myself, why didn’t I think of that?  I still have yet to make a list.  We got some really awesome prints in the artist alley, one girl I saw last year but didn’t get any of her prints, as soon as I saw her table again I bought three of them.  I hesitated on this one table that was selling handcrafted models and when I went back on Sunday it was sold, but she sells them online so I might get one later.

This was also the first year we made it to the Cosplay Chess, which was everything I hoped it would be and a wee bit more.  It was cool and we’re definitely going to go to it again next year.

So after much browsing we went to check out a couple of panels and mostly we didn’t stick around to finish sitting through them.  We watched Spice and Wolf, and other shows in the viewing rooms.  We chilled in our hotel room for a while because we were sweaty and nobody likes to feel gross for too long.  We made the mistake of only getting to the Totally Lame Anime presentation only 10 minutes early, it was really funny and I wish we could have stayed longer but people kept standing in front of us and it was really difficult to see so we left.

We were going to go to the H Anime panel but the guys trickling in were kind of creepy so we skipped that and went down to one of the viewings which provided a hilarious experience.  One kid was totally asleep in there, he had two chairs pushed together and he was just out, it was funny.  Walking through the lobby in the doubletree, there were so many people passed out in chairs.

Sunday:

Now Sunday brought an experience.  We were closing our day with some more money spending.  It started out well enough, until one thing happened: we ran out of cash.  Now we thought this would be remedied fast enough, but oh how naïve we were.  Our ATM hunts at the TCC were a failure, our debit cards wouldn’t work because our bank is lame and uses visa and none of the machines used the same institution thingys that were on our card.  Neither did the convenience store, a kid told us the machines at the doubletree weren’t working and the gas stations were out.  We tried our hotel and were having the same problem.  So we went on our search for a bank.  We crossed that stupid hill and found an HSBC and that one finally worked.  So 2 hours after the initial thought of “oh no, I’m out of cash”, we were able to finally get some.  I shall be switching banks before the week is out.  The day was saved in the end and we prepared for the long ass trip back home.  When we were walking back we saw the EMT’s pulling somebody on to a stretcher, his face looked pretty red so I’m thinking heat exhaustion?  Either way, I hope that dude’s alright now.

Overall it was super fun, still always bummed that it’s over so fast.  It feels like being there for days and then not at the same time.  Always excited to go and next year we are totally cosplaying no matter what, damn it.  I suck at summaries.