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.