It’s been two weeks since we got back from Anime North in Toronto. I’ve been extremely busy at work and home, so I completely neglected my blog… as usual… Okay, enough excuses. I should just get back into it!
I did a quick preview of Anime North when I did Ghibli Feast #8: the Castle of Cagliostro but Anime North was such a blast! Not only was the convention full of good people of Canada (and people from all over the world), but I got to meet with very special friends, old and new!
Our flight to Canada was at 8:00 am on Friday morning. It was one of those small airplanes but we were very comfortable and excited about the trip, except… when we were filling out our customs papers we realized that we had a lot of nuts! I’ve traveled to different countries many times, but it’s a less than 2 hours flight, and it totally slipped our minds. We actually bought a LOT of nuts the day before so we could munch on them while we worked. T_T Nothing makes us sadder than wasting food. After we realized that we had to throw away the nuts, we ate as many nuts as possible on the airplane. We literally STUFFED ourselves with nuts. Throwing away the delicious nuts was so hard for us.
Customs at the airport was smooth and quick, and they didn’t even check our bags. Sure, we could’ve just not said anything about the nuts, but I remembered the one time I was coming back from Japan, and completely forgot that I had in my bag delicious Japanese oranges my grandma gave me for the trip. They found them, tossed them, and then they took me to a different section and opened EVERY piece of luggage I had and took out EVERYTHING from my bag, examining each item. They even brought a sniffing dog too. I felt embarrassed and guilty for wasting the time of the security people. In fact, my boyfriend did a comic strip about this.
The first thing we realized when we got there was “Canada is HOT.” It felt like it was hotter than NYC. We all thought Canada = always cool. Also on the way to the convention center, we saw a very cute all-in-one trashcan on the street.
Litter, Recycling, Recycling (people in Canada are very serious about recycling!) and cigarettes. You can push the pedal or push to open.
We ate lunch by the convention center before we set up our booth.
Portabella mushroom sandwich at a grill/bar place called "Milestones." Not very exciting looking, but it was very simple and light. Great for my stomach stuffed with nuts. Also the bread was surprisingly soft!
After we set up our booth, we worked 5:00PM~10:00PM. We didn’t know what to expect from Anime North at all, but boy we were super busy! (on Friday night, mind you)
Very consistent flow of people. A lot of people!
When we closed our booth, it was about 10:20 PM. Who knew the nights in Toronto are shorter than New York? Maybe because it was near the airport, but most restaurants were closed, and a couple of minutes before they stopped taking orders for the night we got into a restaurant called “Montana’s” across from our hotel. We were in such a hurry, I forgot to take pictures of the food I ate. But I did take pictures of the doodles we drew on our table. (They brought us crayons.)
My boyfriend drew "Dude", the character from his comic.
A snork and Quack from Peep and the Big Wide World by my friend, Joe, a.k.a. Lupos.
A snork by my friend, Logress.
Quincy, the iguana from Fox Trot by my boyfriend.
At the lower bottom left, I was drawing the very bizarre Totoro knock off toy I saw in Chinatown. It had the face and the color of Totoro, but the body of a wiener dog. I also drew some meat and liquid metal slime.
Saturday was a looooooooooong day. It started 10:00 in the morning, and ended 8:00 at night. It was, as we expected, twice as busy as Friday. But after work, I got to hang out with two of my old friends whom I haven’t seen in ages.
I had photos of my friend’s car in my previous post, but it’s so pretty, I’m going to post them again!
After a long day of work, we got back to the hotel. When we were walking to the hotel from the parking lot. We witnessed a big LARPing session going on at the hotel we were staying at. What’s “LARPing” or L.A.R.P? It’s short for Live Action Role-Playing game. Basically, you play any fantasy role in an actual setting and battle with other LARPers. Kind of like a Renaissance fair but in a battlefield. For more details, see the wikipedia entry for L.A.R.P. My friend (who strangely knows a lot about LARPing) was saying some of them seem to actually know how to LARP. (Probably the instructors of this event.) He was impressed by the numbers of girls in this event. If you find a box that’s labeled “Capes” in your boyfriend’s house, he might be LARPing.
LARPing in session! I snapped this photo as I hid behind the very skinny tree.
I had photos of my friend car in my previous post, but it’s so pretty, I’m going to post them again! It’s a Fiat500, Cinquecento, a.k.a. Lupin the Third’s car.
She looks like she's got dimples.
Shiny metal and shiny leather.
After a long day of work, we got back from the hotel, tried to open a wine bottle with a shoe. Unfortunately, we weren’t successful. But we think the surface wasn’t hard enough, and we didn’t use the right kind of shoe. We ended up using the handle of a hanger. Of course, we put the handle back in the hanger, and we didn’t break anything! Search “wine bottle” and “shoe” in Youtube. You’ll find tons of video where people opening a wine bottle with a shoe. Silly? Useless? Maybe but who knows it may come in handy someday.
The laughing in the background was my old friend/ex-partner in crime (before she got married and moved to San Diego). She misses hanging out with us, as much as we miss hanging out with her, and as you can hear, she was so happy to hang out with us that night.
And guess what? The following day, Sunday was even more special!
To be continued…
I was born in Japan, lived in New York for a while and now living in San Diego, California. I love creating things with my hands in my free time whether it’s making character bento or stuffing stuff! And now I'm working for 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
VERY MacGuyver ‘ish
I was told by my hubby that only Italian wine works with the shoe method.
Lulz if I knew you came to Toronto I wouldve said hi! D:
that’s what I get
for not reading regularly.. I guess?
I dunno. But now I really want to say hi to people.
Btw, I love your bento stuff… 8D
I just found your blog a couple days ago and have been wanting to do nothing but read all of your backposts! I hope you come to Anime North again next year, I will definitely come say hi!
Your bentos are very inspiring, one day I hope I can be as good XD I just started making bentos in July, and while I did have a million children (exaggeration
) crowded around me wanting to take a peek before I ate my lunch (I worked at a daycamp this summer) they’re really not that great.