We started our second day with fresh start. After a good night’s rest, we woke up somewhat early, got ready and ate breakfast at Jack’s. Actually, I got up first to walk in the lobby and around the hotel. After breakfast, we wanted to buy a supply of drinking water so we don’t have to use hotel tap water. Walking down Paseo de San Antonio (or something like that), we found nothing. We wound up back in the hotel to get ready for the convention.



For the most part...most of the morning hours, we just walked around the dealer’s hall and around the main concourse. Talking pictures along the way. By noon, we decided to go to the maid care on the other end of the convention center. So we got in line and waited–rather shortly. The cafe was already filled by the time we could order. The person in charge of the cafe wanted to hold the line until some patrons left. But because the ordering was done by convention center staff, they just called for the next in line–us. It pissed off the person in charge, as well as the greeter maid.



Well, we ordered and awkwardly waited to be seated. I still find it weird being served my maids. Still, because the cafe was somewhat full, we were seated on a table with one person already seated there. As we waited for our (expensive) food, I struck up a conversation with the girl already there. Her name was Laura, I think. And she’s from New Mexico. Our idle chat turned into a somewhat involved conversation about various things pertaining to anime and the like. Only to be interrupted by our cute maid server. At one time our server played Hungry Hungry Hippo withe us–a Japanese version. It was fun. Soon after, Laura left to meet up with her friends. Bummer. Anyway after we ate and some chit-chat with our server, we took pictures with the maids and headed off.



The next couple hours what pretty uneventful. We just hung around the front of the convention center and took pictures. Then the Christians showed up again, spewing their righteous rhetoric. And just as predicted...tension between the “hellspawn” con-goers and the “if you don’t join us then go to hell” Christians. Funny, a convention truck packed out front of the convention center and forwarded and reversed to try to block those dudes. That went on for a couple hours. The police broke up the commotion. Now were was a neutral zone established by the police. Anyway…



We got in line for the Yoshiki’s appearance at Fanime. But line was already long. To make things worse and trying to keep with with a schedule, Yoshiki showed up almost and hour and a half late. It was cool, so cool, to see him, but we had to keep with a schedule and didn’t want to hear about a goth fashion show. So we left at the scheduled time for Yuya Matsushita and FLOW’s concert. On our way to the hotel, there was this random girl that waved at us. I looked to see if there was anyone else around, but wasn’t. For some reason, she kinf of looked like our friend, Kimberly. I looked twice to make sure and just smiled back at her. Pretty unusual sine I don’t know too many people here, but family. We dropped our electronics at our room and got into the end of the line–just outside our hotel. Our wait was short and finally got in.

Yuya was excellent. Most notably, it’s his first ever appearance in the US and is most famous for his song, the opening thing theme for last years’ anime “Durarara!” His dancing was totally excellent. After that was FLOW! Now that rocked the house. I swear I could feel the entire auditorium vibrate. They did not disappoint! Just seeing them and Yuya was way well worth the money for this trip. After the convert, we ate at Joe’s Original Italian Restaurant. The food was excellent, but out waiter was a douche. He must’ve had a olive vine stuck up his ass or something. Anyway we left and checked out the convention center. Nothing much going on. But there was still a good amount of people there. We left and called it the night.

It’s been three years since we went of Fanimecom last, in 2008. This was two months in the planning and it took too long to finally arrive. We left the Inland Empire about 3:30 this morning. I picked up Tim and Lawrence then made it to Ontario in no time. I completely forgot that it was a Friday morning, then we realized it was because of all the morning traffic to L.A. Going through ONT was a breeze–with one hick-up. Tim almost lost his driver’s license going through security, but luckily a TSA agent helped him out. The flight to San Jose was non eventful. There wasn’t a lot of people on the plane, but more than the last time we flew. We arrived on time.



To our surprise, the terminal was completely remodeled and the directions to the various area were clearly visible. It became a modern, streamlined airport. We took the courtesy shuttle to the Light Rail station a couple miles away. When we arrived there, we missed the train that was already there. But anyway, there’s only a few minutes between trains so it wasn’t a issue. We just had to relearn to get our train tickets. It took no time to get to the convention center area in downtown San Jose. After we got off, we check in our hotel. Luckily we were able to get our room that early in the morning. In the past, we had to leave our luggage at the bell station until our rooms were ready that afternoon. Next was registration, even though the line was long, it took no longer that fifteen minutes to get our badges–a breeze.



We had nothing planned in the morning. I then remembered that I needed to buy a tripod and a couple of things I forgot to bring with me, so we went to the mall. We were planning to go there anyway, but now we had a reason to. At the mall, we found a Radio Shack (which all malls have) where I bought a mini tripod. After that, we were hungry so we looked for the food court. While looking, we saw a GameStop and looked around. “What do you know, I travel some 400 mile to buy an old PS2 game.” Yes, I bought one, but it was one I tried to look for at the stores in our area. We finally got to the food court. We were supposed to eat light because I thought we were to Japantown after to eat lunch at a Korean restaurant there, but it was all a misunderstanding. So we filled up and saved our appetite for later on.



On our way back, we rested a bit before going to the convention. It was long morning. We were all exhausted already, but we still had the entire day ahead of us. Back at the convention center, we had nothing planned to we just wandered around. We caught the opening ceremonies in the common area. All the guest were introduced as well as an acrobatics show beforehand. Good thing it wasn’t drawn out because of the very, very, very limited seating. Most were standing. When it was over, we walked around the dealer’s hall. There was so much we wanted to buy, but strongly held off because we had to bring all that stuff back on the plane.

After wandering aimlessly some more, we made it back to the hotel to reload. After being refreshed,we went back to the convention. While the way there, we got a phone call from Tami and planned our meet. Once said, we checked out artist alley. It was pretty quick, but there was a lot of very excellent artists...pro quality too. But we just breezed through. We went back outside to take some more pictures and waited for Alex and Tami.



When they arrived, we went to this Japanese ramen restaurant called “Ringer Hut,” a chain restaurant from Japan. The place looked pretty homey, but the food selection very diverse, more that any other Japanese restaurant we’ve ever eaten at. We got caught up in everything while eating dinner. And after diner, we continued our conversations a little longer. Then we went to a Starbucks, drank our coffee drinks and talked a lot more until closing. On the way back, we were dropped off back at the convention center. As a surprise, they have a some gifts–a good selection of manga and DVDs. Thanks. Signing out. Exhausted today. Been awake for 20 hours already.