FACEBOOK 500 FANS GIVEAWAY!

Hello everyone! ~

I guess most are aware of it already.. but in case you didn't know I'm currently holding a giveaway over at my Facebook Cosplay Page to celebrate having reached 500 likes!
For some people this is probably a very small and insignificant number – but for me it's a milestone! I'm really grateful for all the support I'm getting and it's making me feel all warm inside, really! I seriously don't know what to say afghdfsagh, I just feel so happy. ;u; Thank you everyone! ♡

To celebrate I've made a deal with my lovely sponsor LensVillage (one of my favorite and most trusted circle lens stores, check them out!) and they promised to give a free pair of circle lenses to the winner of my giveaway! Woop! o/ The best part is that –if you are the lucky winner– you get to choose what lens you want all by yourself!! Isn't that just great? >w<

The giveaway has been running since 18th August, which means that 10 days have already passed! This goodness will end on 31st August – so there's still exactly 3 DAYS REMAINING, with today included! It's high time to take action now, don't you think? 8D
DON'T MISS THIS CHANCE TO WIN A FREE PAIR OF CIRCLE LENSES OF YOUR CHOICE! ENTER NOW ~

DIRECT LINK TO THE GIVEAWAY POST: 

https://www.facebook.com/ShiroSamuraiCosplay/photos/a.1551794595067796.1073741828.1541691956078060/1645828818997706/?type=1

The giveaway image!
(this is just for reference; clickable link to the actual post above)

 You only need to do 3 quick 'n easy steps to enter and –BOOM– you've gotten yourself a valid entry! *insert sparkles here*

 Please note though that a Facebook account is needed since this is a Facebook-based giveaway.

The winner will be announced on my Facebook page after the giveaway has ended. Keep an eye on it – it just might be you! C:

I really hope that many of you will enter! I fixed this all up to reward all you lovely people out there around the world who enjoy my work. ;w; There is no country restrictions so yes, anyone can enter! So everyone who reads this, go ahead and join and do spread the word around! ♡

Remember to hurry up though, only a few days remain! ;) Go go goooo ~

Best of luck to all the participants! ~

[Sponsored] Lens review: GEO Princess Mimi Apple Green

Chuu chuu ~

I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer! ^_^ I've been quite stressed but I've also had a lot of time to relax and do things that I love during this long summer break: play video games, spend time with friends, go on a music concert, attend anime conventions etc. It's been quite the blast!

But hey, guess what? :D

I have a new circle lens review to share with you all wonderful peeps today! You see, I've gotten a new sponsor, woop! ♡ The lovely Eyedodo contacted me a while ago and asked if I was interested in reviewing a pair of lenses for them – my answer was of course a big yes!

I got to choose freely what lenses I wanted to try and for me the decision was made very fast; for long now I've wanted to try the wildly popular Princess Mimi (aka Bambi series) line by GEO and, as soon as I saw that Eyedodo carried them, I was set! I decided to shoot for the Apple Green since I have a huge preference bias towards green lenses, haha. ;v;
Get ready for a review of the GEO Princess Mimi Apple Green lenses!! ~

The lenses I'm reviewing in this post were kindly sponsored by Eyedodo.
All my reviews are always 100% my honest opinion!

Base curve: 8.8 mm
Diameter: 14.8 mm

Water content: 42%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Before I start with the actual review I want to tell a few words about my experiences and thoughts about Eyedodo's store and customer service!

Before they took contact with me I had never heard of their store. I instantly checked it up online and my first impression was that the store looked really fresh, cute and inviting! They use a pink and blue color scheme and it's all just very nice to look at. :3 The site is also easy to navigate in; you can browse lenses by color, type, diameter, prescription and brand – it's really handy, pleasant to use and convenient. Me likey!

It seems like Eyedodo has been around for several years, although I'm getting the impression that most people don't know about them – heck, even I didn't know before and I'm starting to become quite the circle lens guru lol.

I'm actually really happy that they contacted me; I would have missed out on their wonderful store and service otherwise! Yep, I'm praising their customer service. You see, all through our email contact they were always super polite and friendly and the English was rather good to boot – better than what I've had from several other Asian-based sites, that is. Their responses were sometimes slow or delayed, for some reason or another, but every time they promptly and properly apologized so it's fine. All their emails were always kind in tone and were properly written in the sense of having a greeting and some sort of "have a nice day" type of well-wish in the end – never did their emails feel sloppy, uncaring or hastily written. I was really pleased with their contact and customer service; their kindness and professionality exceeded my expectations.

Also, their GEO lenses are authentic (check below!) and this leads me to believe that so would the rest of their sortiment be. You should be able to feel safe ordering from them! ^_^

I also want to mention that they shipped from Malaysia, just like many other big-name circle lens stores do. Shipping time was around the ordinary two weeks and I got no customs nor delays.

Based on my experiences with Eyedodo I would warmly recommend them to anyone! They were always helpful and a pleasure to deal with. I'm sure that if I would have had any issues they would have solved it in no time. I'm really happy that I got this opportunity to deal with such a lovely store!

Okay so, I mentioned in the store review part that I got sent authentic GEO lenses, which I got. :) I am very careful when it comes to circle lenses and where to purchase them from – there are stores out there that sell fakes so never, ever, assume that just because a store sells circle lenses they will be authentic and safe to wear. Fake lenses could damage your eyes and that's a thing you surely don't want to happen because hey, you only have one pair of eyes and they are irreplaceably precious!
So yeah, my GEO Princess Mimi lenses arrived and the vials looked just like they should – and so did the anti-fake stickers that were on each vial bottle. I can tell the real anti-fake stickers apart from possible fakes (look at the websites!) and these were surely the real deal.
Oh, and they also have the proper identification number code thingy on the lids, which is WMM-303.

GEO anti-fake stickers!

I even went to check up the lenses on GEO's anti-fake system, just because I wanted to be 110% sure, hahah! I just typed in the number code that was on the lower scrape-me-off gray part of the sticker and –boom!– the site told me that my lenses were genuine and safe to wear! Yes! o/
Note: Fake GEO lenses have their own "anti-fake" site that will tell you that your fake lenses are real. The real GEO's site is here. Fake sites and fake stickers will link to a different site so beware!

Screenshot proof of the authenticity of my lenses.

With the lens authenticity episode cleared let's move on to the "so, what came in the package?" part. Seeing how I had never ordered from Eyedodo before I had no idea of how they packed their items and so, of course, I wanted to review that too. C:
As I previously mentioned they send from Malaysia, although my package had gone through Singapore and had SG initials at the end of the tracking number code. This doesn't really mean anything though since I've had orders from other well-known circle lens online stores that went through Germany, haha. Yes, so when I got the shipment arrival notification I was quite confused "heeey I've not ordered anything from Germany, have I?".
Err, back on track! So yeah, when my shipment arrived after about 2 weeks I went to pick it up. It was this kind of yellow bubble wrap envelope, nothing special. I found it funny though that for some reason the item info description box said "false eyelash"... xD I guess that's why it felt like the guy who served me gave me a slightly weird look lol.
As soon as I got home I opened the package instantly – I was so excited! >u<
I pulled out this super cute plastic bag that had all the items inside it!

This was what was inside the bubble wrap envelope. So cute!

I opened the plastic bag and took out the contents – it only got cuter! >w<
There was an animal lens case (blue fishes, aka my favorite color and my Zodiac sign!), a very nice thank-you card with a personal handwritten appreciation message inside (yay) and so the lenses, wrapped safely in foam.
It all felt very thoughtful, personal and warm; it made me feel like a very appreciated and valued customer. ♡

This was what was inside the plastic bag!

I opened up the foam, expecting to be met by a pair of vials – wrong!
I was met by even more personal cutesy! x) It felt like the nice individual packing surprises just kept coming! It was awesome; seriously made me feel all warm and fluffy inside hahaah ~

Adorable tiny present box that the lenses were in!

There they are, neatly stored inside. :D

The packaging was top-notch, super cute and personal – it couldn't have been much better! It all felt like Eyedodo valued every single one of their customers and wanted them to feel appreciated. Having a store care for their customers this much is rare. I was taken by surprise how heartfelt it all was. *_*

Now that I've talked about the shipping (and how awesome it was) I can move on to the actual wearing of the lenses, aka get to the main part of the lens review. ;)

~ Lens review ahead! ~

Okay so, the first time I wore these lenses I instantly noticed how thin they were! Thin lenses tend to be more comfortable to wear because you feel them less and they let in more oxygen... or that's what I would assume at least. These lenses are so thin that they like to fold themselves in half while I'm trying to cleanse/rub them; I also had some problems actually getting the lenses into my eyes because they were so thin that they would flop over on my finger as soon as the lens touched my eye.
So yeah, these lenses are thinner than average but they aren't as frustratingly thin as the SeeShell Dizoneye Greens that I had before, so it's not a problem at all. :)

One lens in. This is to show the enlargement effect!

As soon as I had gotten both lenses in I was amazed by how pretty they were! ;o; I love green lenses to begin with but now that I had the Princess Mimi lenses in I understood why this series is so popular!
The design of the lenses is really eye-catching and it looks amazing, almost a bit mesmerizing with its lovely green shade! It makes me feel like some forest elf boy or something, hahah.
I think that this kind of lens design is great for cosplayers as well as J-fashion fans! It's a lens that will work for a lot of different looks and I'm sure that it's a favorite for many circle lens enthusiasts!

Photo batches of the lenses ahead!
First batch is indoor photos, second batch is outdoors.

All photos taken by me during a late August evening with a clear sky!

There's no color filters or such and that's so that the colors would be as close to real life as possible.

Facing the window in my apartment. Window is always sun side.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo indoors.

Apartment room light, lamps on.

Apartment room light, lamps on. Part 2.

White corridor light.

Crappy yellow staircase light.

Facing staircase's window. Sun side.

Facing staircase's window. Sunset.

The enlargement effect is rather big but it's not big enough to swallow my eyes, at least. I think that the enlargement is perfect if you're looking for big eyes but don't want to overdo it. ^_^ It's big enough to be noticeable from afar and make your eyes stand out but not to the point of looking downright freaky. It's a really flattering size and yes, it does give you the anime look!

The first time I wore the Apple Green's I had them on for almost 4 hours before I started feeling like I wanted to take them off. I was in my apartment where I had the air conditioner (it's a big fan) running so the fact that I managed to wear the lenses for that long is already a good thing!

I did notice that my vision blurred towards the 4-hour mark and I did also always have this slight feeling that I was wearing lenses – especially when I blinked. Also, the first time I put the lenses into my eyes they watered a bit but it didn't hurt; it took around 10 minutes before my eyes got used to the feeling of having the lenses in.
The second time I wore the lenses I felt like they were slightly uncomfortable at first (it didn't hurt or anything, just the very noticeable "lens in the eye" feeling that is unpleasant) but that went away rather quickly. I managed to wear them slightly below 4 hours this time (I could still have worn them maybe 2 hours more at maximum, but that would have needed some determination) but all along I could feel that I had lenses on; that feeling never disappeared.
They're not the best in terms of comfort but still above average, especially when considering that the second time I wore these lenses I was playing video games and thus staring at a television screen those full 4 hours, which, normally, would dry out my eyes even faster than usual.
I think that at most I could stand wearing these for about 5-6 before really wanting to take them off, but that would be pushing it a bit and probably wouldn't be the most comfortable. The first feelings of slight discomfort tend to come around the 1 or 2-hour mark for me and my vision can get occasionally blurred – or there's a temporary feeling of dryness.

Outdoors, back against the sun. (aka facing the wall)

Sitting under the building's roof (in the shadow) outdoors, turned towards the sun.

Facing the evening sun directly.

Facing a corner of the building, back against sun.

Facing a wall/door of the building, back against sun.

I am loving the Princess Mimi Apple Green circle lenses and I would recommend them for any cosplayers, J-fashion fans, lolitas or just basically anyone who wants to try some really nice green colored contact lenses! ^u^
The only thing they lack in is comfort, at least on my eyes, but they're still comfortable enough to be wearable – and the sheer beauty of these lenses is nice enough to make me want to wear them anyway, haha. I am suspecting though that one of the reasons why these lenses aren't super ultra comfortable for me might have something to do with the fact that the base curve of my eyes and the base curve of the lenses doesn't match; my eyes have a base curve of 8.6 mm something and the lenses have a curve of 8.8 mm.

Lastly I have the photos that show what the lenses look like from a distance!

Want to see reviews of the GEO Princess Mimi series but in different colors?

Check out these: Almond Brown

Short summary:

Color: 8/10
I need to say that the green shade is lovely – I love green lenses to begin with and these remind me exactly why! 
Design: 8/10
The design is really nice and eye-catching. It makes your eyes look lively and amazing and the black limbal ring just adds to it!
Opacity: 7/10
Opacity is definitely good. The green shows up well but it mixes in with my eyes towards the pupil.
Enlargement: 8/10
These lenses sure are big but it's not to the point of being overwhelming – I still feel like I could wear them to school!
Comfort: 6/10
Not the best but not bad either. I can wear them for around 4 hours before the need to remove the lenses gets really big. When I wear the Apple Green's I always feel that I have contacts on.
Naturalness: 2/10
Mjeh, they don't look crazy or anything but they are a bit too fancy to pass for your real eyes, haha.

All in all, I am seriously pleased to the utmost with Eyedodo's service and I would really recommend everyone to give their store a look and buy from them if you find anything that interests you! ^o^

Their service is excellent and I really don't have a single complaint, even if I would try to look for one. They're a pleasure to deal with, based on my experiences. :)

Thank you for reading and I hope that this was helpful! (｡◕‿◕｡)/

Thank you so much, Eyedodo! ♡

Lens review: Dueba Volte Violet

Hello guys!

I have another lens review to share today! ^_^ It's the Dueba Volte Violet lenses which, sadly enough, might be impossible (or close to impossible) to find anymore. It saddens me that the Volte series is seemingly discontinued, but no can do – all good things do come to an end. :( They were one of my early favorite circle lens series, nuuuh...

These are seemingly also known under the name Dueba Twinkle Violet...?

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm

Water content: 38%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

As you can see my vials are of the G&G brand and not Dueba. But this is nothing to worry about since G&G, Barbie and Dueba are all the same brand!

One lens in. Notice enlargement effect.

The first time I wore these lenses I was really sleep deprived (had slept less than 3 hours on the previous night) and I wore them at an anime convention. I could only stand the lenses for 2 hours and then I really really wanted to take them off. This surprised me greatly since all the other Volte lenses (Green, Gray and Brown) that I've worn have been of utmost comfort. Sure that my sleep deprivation –and thus tired eyes– might have contributed to the lenses feeling bad in my eyes, but I don't know to what extent. I remember them feeling dry and a bit itchy and I kept feeling them in my eyes at pretty much all times.

I wore the lenses again for a second time today and I instantly noticed that I still felt them in my eyes from the moment I put them in. This time I couldn't blame a lack of sleep since I had slept until 11:00, aka more than enough. I started taking the photos and after I was done I went back to chill and check internet. I noticed that out of nowhere my eyes got really watery and maybe 15 minutes after that I started feeling the whole "my eyes are drying and getting irritated" feeling. I kept the lenses on for 1,5 hours and then I went "fuck it!" and took 'em off. The horrible wig headache might have been a contributor.
I don't know if I've been having extra sensitive eyes lately or if I just got an unlucky pair this time around, but whatever the case these sure aren't as comfortable as the other Volte lenses I've had. *shrugs*

Oh, and even after taking the lenses off I kept feeling the whole "phantom lens" sensation, as if the lenses were still in my eyes. x) It took a while (30+ minutes) before my eyes got back to their normal comfy selves...

Photo batch of the lenses ahead!

All photos taken by me during a late August afternoon with a clear sky!

There's no color filters or such and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Indoors facing the window in my apartment.

Flash photo indoors.

White corridor light.

Crappy yellow staircase light.
(notice how my wig turned Miku Hatsune lol)

Outdoors facing the sun directly.

Outdoors sitting under the roof, facing the direction of the sun.

Outdoors, back against sun.

Outdoors, facing a corner of the building. Back against sun.

It's such a shame that the comfort is not very good because I really like the color of these; the design is also to my liking. I think that the purple color is surprisingly opaque – it doesn't disappear into my real eye color when I'm in a place with insufficient light, like the Volte Green tended to do easily. :/ 

I like that the Volte series have a medium-small enlargement effect so it doesn't look too dolly and will fit people who have smaller/narrower eyes naturally. They also look surprisingly okay in terms of naturalness, even with that noticeable black limbal ring haha.

Distance photos!

Psst, interested in seeing what the other colors of the Volte series look like? ^o^

Check out these reviews: Gray, Brown, Green.

Short summary:

Color: 8/10
It's a super lovely light violet shade!
Design: 8/10
I really do like the swirly design!
Opacity: 7/10
These have rather nice opacity. The violet shows up even in crappier lights without ending up "disappearing" into my real eye color. It also blends a bit towards the pupil.
Enlargement: 4/10
Enlargement effect is average, a bit on the small side maybe.
Comfort: 4/10
Comfort is the worst of all Volte lenses I've tried; for some reason I can't stand wearing these for more than 1-2 hours. :( My eyes feel them and can start watering for no reason or get moments early on when the lenses suddenly feel dry/irritating in my eyes etc. Maybe it's just an unlucky pair? It's quite the bummer nonetheless, as the other Volte lenses have been super comfy to me...
Naturalness: 3/10
Quite natural, especially for having a notable dark rim and for being violet.

Shiro Samurai out! Bye bye!

Nerdcon 2015 – Sumo judge, nerdiness and so much sushi!

Hello all fellow nerds! :D

I'm back home from Nerdcon in Umeå and I must say that this was one of my funniest con experiences this year! I really had a blast!
Nerdcon may be small and rather new, but that doesn't mean that it can't be a great convention!
So, before I kick this summary up I'll just say some basic information about Nerdcon first – it's a convention in Umeå, Sweden, that was held on 14-15th August. Nerdcon is a mixed convention in the sense that it's not solely about anime and manga; Nerdcon puts focus on board games, video gamers and Western fandoms too. There is a little bit of everything!

I traveled to Nerdcon with my fellow company Sacchan, Jäätynyt Enkeli, Hasakitsuki and with our good friend Marcus! Marcus hadn't been to any conventions in, like, forever, but we managed to get him to tag along after some preparations and planning! :')
We left for Umeå super early on Friday morning, aka the same day Nerdcon would start. I think we woke up around 4 in the morning and everyone were in Sacchan's white Renault before the clock had struck five. Yes, Sacchan was a sweetheart and decided to drive us all to Nerdcon (she fairly recently got her driving license) instead of everyone taking the bus together, which would have been more expensive for everyone and, especially, to Marcus who is short on moolah.
The drive to Nerdcon went fine; I slept, we talked a lot of shit and pulled silly jokes and such, it was fun lol.
We got to Umeå a little bit before eleven I think, which was a good time because the con would open its doors at twelve, but those who were volunteers could get in one hour earlier. Everyone of us except Sacchan were volunteers and two of us had their shifts starting at twelve, so it was a good thing that we didn't get lost along the way we actually had calculated the time for driving right and arrived in good time.

The entrance to Nerdcon!
Note: the black sign reads "Umeå's music school".

Last year Nerdcon was held in a small school building in the middle of centrum that was quite narrow to move in, while also retaining a weirdly comfy feeling (despite the lack of windows xD) – but this year they expanded and moved to Midgårdsskolan a bit outside centrum, in Regementsområdet. I would say that it was a great change as Midgårdsskolan is absolutely awesome for a growing convention! Midgårdsskolan is an art & music school so it kinda is like, well, that kind of schools are, aka filled with creativity and a very pleasant free-spirited atmosphere.

We all went inside and, yes, did it look like a school building inside – a very fresh, lit up and inviting one!

Nerdcon entrance/information counter.

At the information counter they told us that there was some issues with the ticket system so only volunteers could get inside for now. We were a bit early anyway so at least I expected that everything wouldn't be up and running smoothly just yet, but it was no issue.
I had printed out my volunteer paper proof thingy and showed it. I then got a pastel pink & blue fabric con ticket on my wrist and a volunteer badge to hang from my neck, woop!

Nerdcon con ticket. It's cute!

The volunteer badge. Inside the plastic holder were also 4 food tickets,
to the cafeteria, with a worth of 50 SEK each.

Our group were some of the first to enter the building and it looked all clean and... empty, haha. It felt weird to be so early at a con!
My first impression of the con building was really positive and I instantly found myself hoping that Nerdcon would stay here the coming years!

The view you were met with right after you had passed the entrance/info
desk. The stairs led to the second floor, aka where the merchandise room,
video game rooms and board game rooms were.

I found a few guys (security guys if I recall right) standing in a corridor and asked where the bathrooms were. They told me to go past the cafeteria and turn to the left. The corridor these guys were standing in had toilets too, but these had a sign on them reading "personal toalett", aka normally reserved for those working in the building, like teachers etc. I didn't want to risk it so I just followed the directions I was given instead. xD The toilets were easy to find but oh boy did they feel narrow when I entered with all my bags! lol

The cafeteria area.

The Ginga corner (for fans of the Ginga Nagareboshi Gin series) was present,
just next to the cafeteria.

I changed from my traveling wear to some more fancy alternative outfit instead – I wore a black & white fabulous dress shirt, a dark blue vest, a multi-colored fluffy wig, circle lenses and white hakama. Oh, and I had a face mask!

The cafeteria.
It was run by the usual school cafeteria workers (I assume)
and not Nerdcon itself. That's the reason I couldn't work in the
cafeteria this year, because Nerdcon informed me late that they weren't
in charge of it, even though at first it was a possible
working area choice. Oh wells ~

Just the cafeteria's price list, in case anyone wonders what
food options there were. x)

RAMUNE!
Nerdcon had made sure that the cafeteria would sell Ramune, which
was awesome. Sure that it cost 35 SEK per bottle (compared to 20 SEK when
Nerdcon sold it themselves last year) but it was still appreciated.

I noticed quite early that Nerdcon seemed to have quite many volunteers (I kept seeing people with the badges!), which I think is a good thing because then at least things should run smoothly more easily. :') Compared to the super big and popular Närcon who has way too few volunteers and it fucks up so many things...

Oh and yeah! The Friday was really warm, especially outside. I was sweating like a sinner in church... or something.
I hadn't quite expected it to be this steaming hot in mid-August. OTL

Nerdcon outside area. Such a comfy school surrounding!

There were benches just outside so you could go out at any time
to enjoy the nice weather. There was a door leading outside from
the cafeteria which was always open (during con time) and a nice
shortcut to get to the main outside area.

Nerdcon offered sumo wrestling fun for everyone! :'D
And this was were I later ended up spending most of my time working...

My working shift was to start at 16:00 and I would work for 4 hours each day, which meant that on Friday my shift ended 20:00. Jäätynyt Enkeli and Hasakitsuki had the shift just before me and Marcus worked at the same time as me. I worked with "Aktivitetskontrollant och medhjälpare", which translates to something like "activity controller and assistant". My working duties were to do stuff like helping people who were lost and didn't find their way to whatever place, to check that everything was working in the anime and gaming rooms, help with competitions and other activities etc.

Schedule of everything that happened during the con.
Open in full-size to read!

While my shift hadn't started I just walked around and checked everything that there was to offer; I found the merchandise room, which had at least one seller that I recognized from Skecon. I didn't buy anything because I didn't really find anything that interested me.. but I did spend a while looking through the stuff.

One of the sellers in the merchandise rooms also carried Ramune (cheaper
than the cafeteria had but not cold) along with Pocky and some other sweets.

Most sellers sold the usual con stuff that I've seen so many times before and lost interest in. There was a book shelf with manga (second-hand I assume), older video games and such that was actually cool – there was even the Japanese Gamecube version of Tales of Symphonia!

Random con merchandise.
All along I wondered what that Monster Hunter thingy was.. I couldn't figure it out.

This seller had some stuff I hadn't seen before, including a shitlot of wigs.

There were these "books" with all the wigs that she was selling being
documented with pics, price and description. It was really nice!
I didn't buy anything though because I figured I could get the same kind
of wigs cheaper, just buying them myself straight from eBay...

T-shirts and figurines.

The "sword guy". He was at Skecon and I'm pretty sure he was at
Närcon too...

When my working shift was about to start I headed for the information desk at the entrance, 15 min before 16:00. One of the organizer/arranger guys showed up and asked me and Marcus which one of us felt like sumo wrestling; I eagerly waved my hand and got to follow him outside. There he just told me what to do, went through the sumo rules and most of the remainder of Friday I spent helping him run the sumo wrestling. xD I don't complain, it was super fun!
At one point the arranger guy had to go somewhere and so I was left alone in charge of the sumo. I rolled it like a boss until he came back. It was very entertaining to watch people's reactions and comments when they put on the sumo outfits; some of them said some outright hilarious things. xD

I found that the Nerdcon arrangers were really cool in the sense that even during my shift they told me it was okay to go fetch food from centrum, if I was hungry and wanted something that they didn't offer at the con. So yeah, my company went a quickie run we got lost to Umeå to go eat some sushi at Shogun, the sushi bar just next to the bus station. It's cheap and good!

My sushi plate! Om nom nom nom ~

After the sushi me and Sacchan were screaming for some energy drinks because yeah, I had slept less than 3 hours the night before and then kinda slept poorly in the car. Needless to say that before we went for the food break I had been, at one point, super tired and yes, it was during my working shift. I tried to just push the tiredness aside as much as possible but I couldn't help the constant yawning. ._. So when we were in centrum and actually found a store that carried Esa-Petteri Euroshopper's energy drinks we were overjoyed! XD Yes, it's the cheapo one but it has won a best taste test in Finland lol.
When we got back to the con I went to watch over the sumo wrestling again. I think about one hour or so before my shift was to end the arranger who was responsible for me just came up to me, while I was sitting and fanning myself on the bench, looked into my eyes all serious and started doing the religious bless-you-draw-a-cross-over-his-chest moves and said "I free you from your duties, you are a free man now", in a serious and borderline epic voice. I hadn't seen it coming at all and it was just awesome! XD I went all "Woohoo! o/" and then he continued by saying stuff in a dreamy, wise man way. "Go and live life now, go do all the things you always wanted to do... GO BUY A CAR ~"
"FUCK YEAH, GONNA BUY A MERCEDES!" was said by me and then I derped my way back inside.

The video game room.
I was disappointed that there were no old-school consoles
like last year. Gamecube was the oldest they had. :'( One of my
main draws to go to a video game room is to play really old consoles because
I don't currently have access to those at home. *coughsupernintendocough*

OMG Mario Kart: Double Dash!! in LAN mode. ♡

I kept wanting to play the LAN mode Double Dash but every time I went to check it there was either no one playing it or a full party, so I couldn't jump in. :'(

The second video game room. Yes, there were two. The smaller one
(the one on this pic) was driven by Nerdcon itself, the bigger room
by some other groups.

If you walked past the bigger gaming room and continued walking in the corridor you would find the board game room and the Fantasia room. I didn't spend any time in either; I just checked them out. It's cool that there's stuff for everyone but personally I haven't indulged myself into this part of the nerd culture so I don't really know anything about it... xD Should maybe try one day.

Just an example of what most of the corridors looked like.

The board game room.

There was a lot to choose from!

Some board game put on the table for play.

The Fantasia room. They sold some merchandise and also seemed to
act like some kind of gathering point for Western fandom fans? I don't know.

Friday was slowly drawing to a close... and I had gotten hungry again. I don't remember exactly when but at one point I passed by the cafeteria and noticed that the blueberry Ramune –which I had been eyeing all day– only had one bottle left so I decided to buy it. I've never seen it before!
Oh and guess what? Of course when I opened the Ramune it had to go fountain mode on me and spill all over my clothes! Grrrrrrrrreat...

This was like... my night meal??
The cupcake was awesome, by the way.

We left on Friday maybe one or two hours before Nerdcon closed for the day. I had contacted my friend Hitsu earlier and she had said that we could sleep over at her place this year as well. Everyone jumped into Sacchan's car and we started the drive.. and we got lost.
And Hitsu didn't answer the cellphone.
And the cellphone(s) died.

But somehow, through a miracle, we found our way to her. It felt so nice to be able to lie down after all those hours of sitting in a car and being sleep deprived. It was also very nice to see her again! ^_^
We ended up talking a lot of shit and then eventually falling asleep.

When Saturday morning dawned we all (except Marcus, who was sleeping somewhere in the con's sleeping hall dormitories) dragged our asses up from the beds the worst thing ever and started to prepare for the con. I was extremely sleepy so I ended up not getting up from bed early enough to put on my cosplay at Hitsu's so I just put on my everyday shit instead. Hitsu said that she'd maybe come later to the con but in the end she didn't show up at all. Oh well, she had recently been sick and all so it's understandable ~

Nerdcon had a "pysselhörna" upstairs, aka crafts corner.
You could draw, do origami and "pärlplattor", whatever the latter is
called in English. I honestly have no idea.

When we got to the con I instantly wanted breakfast. I hadn't eaten anything at Hitsu's and so a trip to the cafeteria was the first stop.
I didn't want any pies and none of the warm foods were tempting so I ended up just buying a bakery, a banana and a bottle of pineapple flavored Ramune.
Oh and guess what?
The Ramune exploded on me.
Again.
I'm not even kidding!
Niillä on joku salaliitto mua vastaan...

Nutritious breakfast. 10/10

After getting some breakfast into my stomach I felt like I could maaaaaybe be bothered to put on my cosplay; I honestly didn't really feel like cosplaying (haven't been in the mood lately and something's wrong, I know) but I told myself that it would be a waste if I wouldn't at least cosplay for a couple hours now that the costume had been taking space in my bag during the whole journey and I had bothered to even pack it with. So yeah, on with the cosplay. And I totally lazied out on all the makeup –save for darkening my eyebrows– and thus looked like shit.. or well, as I did when I first started out cosplaying lol.
I just felt a lot of discomfort being in costume (and the wig was being a bitch) so I didn't stay in cosplay for more than a couple hours at most. I just basically went outside with Sacchan as tissimummu Matsumoto, did some photoshooting outside and went to change into my alternative fashion outfit instead, which I felt a lot more comfortable in. *shrugs*
For some weird reason *surprise surprise* we still managed to get a couple shots I appeared decent in, so here you go. :S

Cosplayer: Shiro Samurai (Jushiro Ukitake)
Photographer: Sacchan
Photo editor: Shiro Samurai

It was actually super hard to stay serious during the photoshoot because me and Sacchan ended up pulling so many shitty jokes and references from the Finnish Donald Duck animations by SilliS. :'DD "Hyi vittu paskea!"

In the end I suddenly learned how to talk like Goofy... and all hell was loose. XD Oh my gosh, the laughs we had!

Bonus pic!

This sums up so well how I felt about cosplaying lol. xD

Another reason for why I changed out of cosplay early was because my shift would start already at 14:00 on Saturday. The wig was just way too annoying (and tangled) so I just wanted to get it off as soon as possible lol...
I borrowed a shorter silvery wig from Jäätynyt Enkeli and omg, it was so smooth and tangle-free. It was short enough to not get stuck in my bags' shoulder straps and so I could work without being annoyed out of my mind.
When my working shift started I went to the entrance again and suggested that I could go and be in charge of the sumo wrestling again, as I had noticed earlier that there was no one watching over it and it worried me. I got the thumbs up from the arrangers and off I went to act as a judge and watch over the thing!

Photo by Jäätynyt Enkeli.

Photo by Jäätynyt Enkeli.

Once again I had so much fun being the judge! Would do it again if the opportunity ever rises. x)
It was funny though because while I was in charge of the sumo a person came up to me and told me that "if only your wig was a bit longer you could cosplay Ukitake". I just straight-faced it but in my mind I was all "if you only knew that I cosplayed Ukitake a few hours ago..." XD

We went to fetch take-away sushi from Shogun for lunch/dinner again! o/

When my working shift had ended I spent the last hours of the con in the video game room. I ended up playing some old-school Kirby samurai style sword drawing game. By that I mean a game that was all about who was the quickest to react and press the button when the sign appeared. It was fun!

Marcus (with the long hair), two other guys and Hasakitsuki
playing the samurai Kirby mini-game. I joined in afterwards!

It was so glorious when I played the Kirby game and we all four pressed at the exact same time and so yeah, we got a tie/draw with all four of us! XD It looked like Kirby colorful ice cream in the center because everyone was just standing there and every player had a different color (I was red) ...

In the bigger gaming room's white board someone had drawn a beautiful
cup and there were also the names of all the Mario Kart tournament teams.

I think we left Nerdcon one or two hours before it officially closed its doors because we just didn't have anything else to do and most activities were over. All of us, Marcus included this time, went to Hitsu's place to calm down and leave homewards later on.
Buuuuuuut.
We didn't, because it got too late and we were tired.

We left for home on Sunday morning instead, now that everyone had gotten to rest properly. On the early afternoon we spent our last hours with Hitsu listening to music and watching hilarious shit from Youtube.. on her television.

"AKUN KAKKA ONKLEMA" :'D

Tyhäm! ♡

Gotta go fast!

If you don't know what this is then shame on you, you're missing
out on one of the best misheard lyrics videos. XD

Before we left we went to fetch some sushi for the trip. Yes, again. From the Shogun sushi bar of course. Deal with it! ~
I just don't get tired of it and hey, there is no sushi place remotely near my home town so it's a luxury for me to even get sushi in the first place!

~~~~~

I think that's all. I'm probably forgetting to mention a craplot of stuff (like how many times we got lost in Umeå centrum and all the rage that followed) but oh well, can't remember everything. xD And can't be bothered to write every little detail either because lazyyyyyy.

But all in all Nerdcon was a great experience and I'm definitely coming back next year too! I had more fun than I thought I would and the con building exceeded my expectations as well. :) The only thing I was missing was the lack of the old gaming consoles in the video game rooms but oh well, I managed without so it's not the end of the world.

Thanks to all the people who came and talked to me and to all the people who make Nerdcon happen! You deserve medals!

Shiro Samurai waves bye!