After getting us early, we all got ready to start our day. For breakfast we ate at Carl’s Jr across from the Bonaventure. I thought that, as a group, we made a pact not to eat junk food for a year. But I guess I missed the memo because eveyone said it was supposed to me until AX. Oh well, I gave in. After AX I’ll continue the no “No Junk Frood Pact.”

Tim called and was on his way. We talked a bit about the plan at Carl’s. After we ate, we went back to the Bonaventure to catch the shuttle. In the meantime, I went to the front desk to leave Tim a key to room. On the way to shuttle stup, we were surprised to find out that it was a bus that’ll shuttle people to and fro the hotel and convention center. Cool. It had A/C too!

We arrived at the convention center to look for line for the Opening Ceremonies. It was at the Nokia Theater, as we figured and waited a long time in line. Now it’s 1020 and Tim just arrived in LA. We’re instide the Nokia waiting for the Opening Ceremonies to begin.



The Opening Ceremonies wasn’t anything to write home about. But the demonstration of the Japanese seiyuu students was very interesting. There was a big ovation for David Hayter (Snake, MGS4) when he was introduced. During the ceremony, I was videotaping. But while doing that, I was stopped by Nokia personnel. Even though they let video cameras in (which they weren’t supposed to do), they stopped me anyway. The rest of the guests of honors were introduced. During and after the introduction of Shoko Nakagawa, she didn’t have a chance to speak as with the other guests. It was pretty messed up! David Hayter had a chance to speak after his mic was fixed, the Shoko, who was the second to be intoruced didn’t. This was a big oversight by Expo and pretty disrespectful to Shoko. She was left hanging as the Opening Ceremonies ended. Oh yeah, Tim showed up finally outside the Nokia Theater.



12:30

As always, there was a mad dash to the exhibit hall. But the difference is...there’s total lack of order! It was chaos! Everyone’s waiting outside the doors of the exhibit hall. Nobody knew what was going on. So to be out of the crowd, we decided to find an out-of-the-way place to relax. Lawrence and I were separated from the guys, but we proceeded to the designated spot. They didn’t show up. They went to a panel instead. On the way to the panel, Lawrence and I met up with Adrian, but not Tim and Francis. We stayed with Adrian for a bit, then Lawrence left to meet the other guys.



Adrian and I went to the “Gundam 30 Year” fan panel. The room that it was held in was college classroom style. A short 20 minute video was shown showcasing all the Gundam shows in the last 20 years. Only one wasn’t shown, “Gundam F91.” The fan panel was interesting. It was mostly a question and answering panel.

After the panel, Adrian and I finally got to go the exhibit hall. Unlike last year, there was nowhere to to rest the tired otaku. So we just wandering around the hall looking at stuff. I remembered that in Fanime, Broccoli was premiering “MosMode” magazine in the us with a presale as AX before the general public later on in the month. So I bought the AX special. And we wandered around some more. Later on we got in contact with Lawrence and Tim to meet us in the dealers hall. After met, we headed back to the Bonaventure to regroup and go to dinner.



We ate at some Japanese restaurant that was not worth mentioning. It was too pricey. Authentic Japanese food at authentic Japanese prices. I don’t recommend the restaurant. A lesson learned. After dinner, we relaxed a bit in our room and Francis finally showed up. We relaxed some more. Now we were deciding who’s going to the AMVs or the Battle of the Bands.



Since the bands thing starts later than the AMVs. Adrian and I joined Tim and Lawrence at the AMVs in the Nokia Theater. The AMVs started at 2000. Finally an event started at the right time. Adrain and I stayed to watch one set of AMVs, the action set. We then left for Battle of the Bands. The first band that played was the opening act for the event. They were a Japanese band called “GaGaaLing.” They were a pretty good goth hard rock band. The rest of the bands that played were local bands that played one song each. We left as soon as it was over. We didn’t even wait for the announcement of the winner. So that’s it. We went back to the hotel. End of the first day.

Last night, I finally got back from my trip overseas. Good thing I called the airline ahead of time. By having an open return ticket, I had limited days to stay. All flight on the day I was to return are all booked. I had a choice to return on the 2nd or wait another three weeks. I decided to take the early return home. I left 8 PM and arrived in LAX around 11 PM. It was a 16 long boring trip. But I remembered that Anime Expo was the next day. As soon as I got in, I registered. So off to AX 2008.

After making last minute plans, we took the Metrorail to Los Angeles. Tim dropped us off at Riverside Station before going to work. It was a tight fit in Tim’s car. At the station as we were getting our tickets, we met this guy. His name was Daniel. We were all going to AX. Daniel told us that he it was his first time going to AX. It’s cool. So he joined us and traveled as a group on the train. Off to LA.



When we arrived at Union Station, we headed to the Dash stop. Daniel had to return home in Palmdale to take care of some business. So in the mean time, he stayed with us intil he had to leave at 11 AM. On the way out of Union Station, we saw the Dash shuttle, but it was full. We waited for the next one to show up. We got on at it took us to 5th and Flower streets. We arrived at the Bonaventure. But Adrian and I are only ones to show up at the hotel registration. We left Lawrence and Daniel at the Citibank building across the street to wait for us.



Adrian and I went to the Bonaventure to get our room. Everything went smooth. We were given the keys to our room and went there. When we opened the doors, to my surprise it was a king single. I could’ve sworn that I reserved a double. We went back to the front desk to verify my reservation. According to the front desk, “whom ever registers through Anime Expo are given room block by Expo. If two or less are in a room, a single is given. If there are three or more, a double.” For future reference for anyone who registers through AX...don’t! There’s no guarantee that what picked on their website is what you’ll get! Sure it’s a little cheaper and you get some perks (that are not explained well on the website), you have no guarantee. It’s better on the long run that you register outside AX to get what you reserved for! I called Lawrence and Daniel to come up to our room. We kicked it for a bit shooting the s*&^ until Daniel had to leave. We went down with him to the stop and exchanged info to meet us later on.



We walked around the block though the Farmer’s Market after Daniel left to kill some time before we meet up Steve. There were a bunch of stuff to buy at the Farmer’s Market like fresh vegetables, fruits, all sorts of fast food and miscellaneous items. We went across the street again to check out the shops there. Actually I was thirsty and wanted to find a convenience store. Well, we found one. We noticed that there was a barber shop next door. Lawrence was thinking to getting a haircut, so he went. Adrian and I waited for Lawrence. While waiting, we went to check out the drug store nearby. I bought some stuff, and we then went back to our room to drop the stuff off. On our way back to meet up with Lawrence, we decided to cross the bridge to the CitiNational building from the Bonaventure. Damn, we got lost going up and down levels trying to look for the bridge entrance. After a little bit, I gave up, went to the lobby level and found the bridge entrance from the outside. We crossed the bridge, through the building to meet up with Lawrence. By the way, the court on the CitiNational build is a great place to take cosplay pictures. In the meantime, Steve called me and was on his way. Good thing that Lawrence’s haircut finished in time. We sent back to Bonaventure to meet up with Steve.

Steve finally arrived. After almost a decade, Steve and I met again. He’s Samantha’s godfather by the way. He took us for a ride in his Navigator for lunch to a place called the Pantry. At the restaurant, we talked about the old times from and after high school. Steve even told stories about the s%^& I used to do back in the day. So we took our time eating and chilled for a bit.



After the Pantry, we didn’t know what to do next. So we we sent to Little Toyko. We walked around the and hit the usual places...Anime Jungle and Anime Jungle 2nd. Steve and I were talking about old anime that we used to watch back in the day. At 2nd, he bough the first two volumes of Naruto. There’s a place that I haven’t been to like forever...Weller Court, across from the main tourist area. On the way there, there was this guy that was asking directions to the Marukai Market. The only market I knew about was the one in the old Yaohan Plaza (I forget what’s it’s called now) and Nijiya Market in the center of Little Tokyo. So I told him the directions. Unbeknownst to me, we saw the Marukai Market at Weller Court. Damn I felt bad about the directions I just gave the guy. I hoped he found the market I told him to go to. Up in Weller court also was a Curry House and a Kinikuniya Bookstore. We went into the bookstore to check out and buy a couple books. Since we just ate, the Curry House was out of the question. Lawrence and Adrian went to Marukai to buy supplies and some “special” drinks. Steve and I waited in the courtyard and actually talked about golf. Dang. Steve dropped us back to the hotel because he had plans with Maria, his wife.



We went up to our room to chill and to wait for Francis to show up. So when he showed up, it was time to go to the Convention Center to get our badges. We took the Dash there since it was a long walk and that the free shuttle service wasn’t available yet. At the convention, we went in to get out badges and it went fairly quick. We chilled a bit to wait for the arcade room to open up. Francis and Adrian were waiting to play the Initial-D 4 videogame. In the meantime, Lawrence and I checked out the rest of the convention center to see where the other stuff are at and what’s going on. We met up again with Adrian and Lawrence. They finally got a change to play. I was already worried that the Dash shuttle service will end soon. We waited from them to finish. After that went left and waited at the Dash stop. There were three guy there who were waiting a for a while only to realize that Dash already ended. We walked back to the hotel room. After a long day walking, it felt like a really long walk to the hotel. Back at the hotel, we rested and later ate dinner at a second or third rate Chinese fast food place here at the hotel. That’s it. It’s actually midnight and we’re all exhausted.