London MCM Expo Diary 28th Oct

Writen by NeoBlade on Tuesday, 31 of October , 2006 at 8:16 am, ,

Meeting up with some of the guys from Tokyotoys ^_^

You might have noticed a lack of posts over the weekend… Thats because most of the eMagi members were heading off towards London for the largest animé expo of the year. A meet was planned amongst ourselves and the TokyoToys members and it was great fun. We left here around 6am and made it to London two hours later and had our traditional subway sandwich before departing for the ExCel centre. Read on for our exploits of the whole expo and a video…

On the way we were beating Leaf and Yas to the event but I took the wrong tube and was 10 mins late >_< Getting to ExCel should have been pretty simple but the DLR was down for maintenance so we caught the bus. We met another cosplay group as they were following us to the event and they noticed my TokyoToys badge but I didn't recognise them o_O

We got to the Expo and paid for the fastrack tickets to avoid the massive queues later on and met up with Elton and Yas at the TokyoToys stall. It was good to meet up with Elton again and indeed Yas after all these years. After a formal greeting and some jokes we went around the event to have a look around. Elton noticed some Star Wars light sabers and tried to turn them on. The female assistant helped out as Josh picked the other light saber for a fake duel as they produced sounds when hit. Was pretty funny as Elton grabbed the light saber and used his wet handshake method to produce noises for his own pleasure

The Hot Fuzz activity was crazy as you needed tickets to be eligable to get a signature which was happening around 2:30pm, just after they would talk to the crowd. What we didn’t know was that the tickets had to be “validated” before you could get a signature. That in itself was fair enough but we had to track back from the signing area into the enclosure, get the ticket validated and then move back to the signing area. It was pretty unorganised as there was hardly any Expo staff members, security and that holding and keeping the crowd in order.

Josh, Jason and Elton went to get the signatures as me and Yas continues to browse the expo. I bought a My Neighbours the Yamada’s DVD since it was one of the few Studio Ghibli movies that I have missing and got a free Ghibli poster for the effort. The female assistant was pretty cool as we had a brief chat, smiled and then moved on to the other stalls. Originally we planned to meet most of the TT members around 2:30pm and at 5:30pm however it was unsure if we would be at the event for that long. I met up with Kerry and Matt who were cosplaying as Kagome and InuYasha respectively and they did a great job ^_^ It was nice meeting them in person and having our usual random conversations as Kerry tried to get me to buy her all the sweets at the stand! We then met up with Bluehair, Lamby, DarkChaos, and had a brief chat because some of them had to leave the event to head back home which was a shame. I tried to see who else would join us for a few drinks after the expo but it seemed almost everyone was busy =(

Me and Yas then went off to check out the DDR guys doing their stuff and I had a go on Taiko no Tatsujin, playing on medium then on hard to test my skills. I did quite well I thought Elton and the boys then joined us as Elton wanted a go on Singstar and then Guitar Hero’s against me. He won on Guitar Hero but I would soon have my revenge the day after… Was funny to see Elton and the other guy on Singstar though. Elton with the face of concentration and the other getting into the groove bobbing along.

After a gaming session we met up with the TT staff members, Hideki, Summomo and Eimi and had a brief chat because the stall was so busy! It was a lot larger than in May and for good cause, business was ramped and it was good to see them have such a presence at the expo. We managed to speak to them a bit more later but it was just short and sweet. I forgot to take photos too >_< Elton took Jason and Josh to Central London to check out the sights. I could tell they were getting tired as I don't think they were used of this fast pace life in London lol The Masqurade was approaching so me and Yas got front row seats nice and early as we had to sit though a CSI speech. They were pretty cool and this girl beside me was a crazed fan... I'm sure I'm still deaf in my right ear.

As the masqurade started to get underway, we were told that it was a ticket only event and everyone had to be validated. In May it was a first come first serve event and it ran smoothly so why the change I don’t know. Hell I don’t even know how many people actually got validated but me and Yas decided to try and get tickets anyway. It was a no-go so we just sneaked into the rear as security were distracted by bright lights. Sadly taking photos now was out of the question due to the lack of light and I had to hold the camcorder up high just to record anything, thus a little shaky footage. It wasn’t too bad and it was nice to see Liz’s friends doing their usual good work at cosplaying. It was a shame Caz couldn’t make it due to work commitments but maybe next time. As usual it had technical glitches as they couldn’t even play the right music for the said animé or videogame and on a few occasions the mics were not working along with the music causing much embarrassment for the poor cosplayers. The eventual winner was Shiva I believe with Dark Aerith second (Ameina I believe… Apologies for the spelling!) and Rock Lee third. I think o_O

After the crazy masqurade we headed off to the TT stall for the 5:30pm meet and met more people, WhiteSquall, Olivers, Tom and Rich from Animetion, Lamby, Funkinwolf and others. Blame the head and not the heart as I couldn’t remember everyone I met in London sorry >_< After more formal introductions we had some banter and everyone was a good laugh and we all got along well. I mentioned to Tom and Rich that they did well during their trip to Japan for going on a pub crawl and "training" those geisha's they met ^_^ I also managed to have a final word with Hideki and the staff members and headed off into Central London to meet up with Elton, Josh and Jason for a spot of dinner.

[youtube]ggN4LD-HtIQ[/youtube]

We went to Covent Garden which was a buzz of activity and settled for an outdoor pasta and pizza restaurant called FUEL. I texted Kerry and Matt to see if they could make it in time to join us, but they got stuck since they didn’t know their way around London too well which was a shame. I was going to treat Kerry to dinner as well as I know how hungry she was after the expo. I texted my mate Mike to see if he and Paul could meet us in Covent Garden as well since we were in London so they were on the way too. I ordered pasta in cheese and ham sauce, Leaf had a pasta dish, Yas ordered a pizza while Josh and Jason had pasta with tomatoes. The food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t overly filling but was glad to have a beer anyway to wash it down. Yas probably bought one of the most expensive bottled water I’ve seen for a while and I’m sure it was worth it! Haha.

We met up with Mike and Paul outside this rathar camp pink PIMMs tent and also met Kerry and Matt just outside who were both sporting bunny ears and a neko cap respectively. We headed off to find a good pub but realised we wouldn’t have been able to sneak Josh and Jason into the venue, so we saught out an outdoor pub instead. Sadly we only had time to have one drink so Kerry made the most of it with two double vodka’s and coke along with a pint lol I just had the one pint myself and Elton had a gin and tonic. We went outside and had a good chat about the day and what we’ve all been up to. Looking back we should have moved the tables together so we could all chat, instead there were three seperate conversations going on but it was still good fun. Was good to see Mike and Paul again as well even though it was brief. Last time they took me around the london nightlife to the pubs and that and had a few drinks. I thrashed them in pool and they showed their skills on DDR and Initial D. I also forgot to give Elton a rematch at pool as well.

After our short drink together, Kerry wanted a group hug and was sad that I couldn’t attend on Sunday. She was going in her bunny rabbit costume I was told and usually I wouldn’t miss such a thing lol But I had responsibilities which came first and told ner next time I’ll attend. We said our goodbyes and headed off back to our hotels to retire for the night.

Our hotel was the Jury’s Inn Chelsea Hotel which was near Fullham Broadway. It was pretty nice to be honest and I went up to sort out the room. I was told that they were expecting me so I produced the documents and my credit card got declined… Twice! I had my other credit card and thankfully it went though so we had the room for the night. We were watching some horror movie with Busta Rhymes doing some kung-fu moves which cracked me up before getting some shuteye. I couldn’t sleep as when I get tired and have to keep on going, I automatically go into all nighter mode so I just spent the whole night looking at the ceiling. 9am came so I took a shower and waited for the guys to get ready as we headed off for breakfast. They staff member said it was £9 each for breakfast but he lowered the price to £4 each as we were a group and probably thought I was the parent of Jason lol.

After a nice full english breakfast we then headed off to meet Yas and Elton at the Game On Exhibition…

Photos by Yas, DarkChaos, Bluehair and Tom. Apologies if I have missed someone out ^_^ Just tell me and I’ll correct it!

Spread the word!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

No tag for this post.

Category: Anime & Manga

• Add this post to
• Del.icio.us -
• Meneame -
• Digg

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail