Cosvision 2016 – When the hotel breakfast is more interesting

Good evening everyone!

I've returned safely from my trip to Cosvision in Hämeenlinna, Finland, and now I'm writing to tell you all about the con. I honestly still have the "con hangover" but I just want to get this summary done and out as soon as possible, haha.
Soooooooooo... let's roll!

So, for those not in the know, Cosvision was held on 23-24 April and I went there with our kakkaravut trio of me, Frozen Angel and Sacchan. Awesome company always makes things better!
We had decided quite early on that we'd carpool southwards with Sacchan's car and that's also what happened. The road trip down went well and although it was long and occasionally tiring we didn't run out of shit to talk about – we're seriously such a close-knit bunch that we always have loads of fun together, no matter what!
I think the traveling took around 8 hours. I don't feel such long car trips anywhere because I'm so damn used to sitting in a car for hours and hours upon end; once when I was a little kid dad even drove all the way from southern Sweden to goddamn Italy. Beat that. That was, by the way, one of my most memorable childhood experiences.

Start of our journey. Nice weather graced us!

We were blessed with good weather when we started and it stayed good all the way down. We had all kinds of hilarious discussions to kill time and there was never a boring moment – our topics included everything from shit that only dads say to cosplay group plans and literal shit stories. There was also something really bizarre about waving baguettes around...
We also laughed hard at a car with a roof box that read "qualit box" – much qualit, such wow. :'D Another one was a Hesburger logo with only the Hesbur part lit up and the ger was occasionally blinking; it stayed as a joke for all Hesburger restaurants we saw afterwards. "Look, there's a Hesbur-ger-ger-ger-ger!" *insert Taking the Hobbits to Isengard here*

Oh and yeah, of course whenever we passed some town or whatnot with a possibly-funny-name-if-we-change-a-few-letters we of course pulled crappy jokes about it. You know, Mikkeli naturally turned into Kikkeli (lit. dick), Kinkomaa turned into Kinkymaa (lit. kinky land) and so on. No ragrets, hihi. We also bust a gut when we saw a resting place called Haarakangas (lit. crotch cloth) above Oulu – people who have watched Hetalia will understand.
Oh and also, a road called "Makkarajoentie" (lit. sausage river road) had us all howling with laughter. When I first saw it (we passed it by fast) I had a realization of "WAIT A SECOND. DID I JUST READ RIGHT?" and then Frozen Angel confirmed that he also read it. Oh lord the laughs that ensued.

Sunset! (and the obligatory river, because we're in Finland)

We stopped for a snack break at a Hesburger somewhere past Oulu and, although I didn't buy anything, I need to say that the service was so painfully slow I was cringing all along. There was like max two or three customers in front of our trio and it felt like it took way more than 15 minutes before that damn young woman working there got to us. She did everything so goshdarn leisurely I wondered how the heck she even got the job in the first place because it felt like watching a fucking sloth preparing french fries. Seriously horrible. I normally don't complain but it was just plain bad and frustrating – I even felt the need to leave one of those feedback papers to complain when we left because oh god, seriously? ._. Oh and yeah, Sacchan and Frozen Angel ordered smoothies and it was just too good when, after placing the order she said, all politely, that "it's just gonna take a short moment" and I couldn't help but roll my eyes as soon as we sat down waiting – a "short moment" was, of course, not short at all. :)) Geez.

Night-time driving.

Night fell and somewhere past Jyväskylä but before Hämeenlinna, in the middle of nowhere, the car in front of us suddenly came to an abrupt halt. We were really weirded out and wondered what was going on! Of course we had to stop completely as well when closing in and that's when we saw it – there was something on middle of the road that wasn't moving.
From a distance I first thought that it was some kind of light colored rock but as soon as we got a bit closer it became obvious that it was an animal. And it was.
...
But it was not the kind of animal you'd expect.

Hoot hoot, motherfucker.

This cute little owl was just sitting there, completely blocking the road and it didn't budge an inch (it was like a statue, seriously) nor open its eyes. It was weird and I really worried what was wrong with it; I've always loved birds and even after we passed the owl I could not stop thinking about it. Why was it there? Was it hurt? Did someone come to save it?
I saw that the woman in the car before us called someone; I really hope she called the animal protection peeps. I hope it survived. Poor thing. ;_;
Luckily it was close to midnight and on a calm road so maybe everyone else saw it on time too.

The clock was around midnight when we finally reached Hämeenlinna, our destination. We had been keeping in touch with Firith all along the journey because he was the fourth member of our group and the one who had booked the hotel for all of us. We found the right place, parked the car in the hotel's parking lot, checked in and pretty much immediately went to sleep because we all were so tired. I shaved my poor beard before going to bed because yeah, gotta be smooth for the sake of cosplay ~

Third floor hotel corridor showing the two rooms we had.

Me and Sacchan shared one room (number 330) and Frozen Angel and Firith shared another room just next to ours (332). The hotel was Original Sokos Hotel Vaakuna. Pretty nice hotel, nothing to complain about. The huge amount of pillows was appreciated and, especially, the mega-sized one lol.

Our hotel room on the morning.

Saturday morning came. Holy crud it felt horrible to wake up after such a long journey and with only like 6 hours of sleep. I'm just really not a morning person, at all. Ugh.
I kicked up Sacchan, we put on our travel/casual clothes and went to knock on our double trouble's door and then we headed down to eat breakfast buffet together. The hotel breakfast was better than I expected; there was actually a lot of really tasty stuff and the variation was good! I even managed to eat a lot without feeling overly stuffed and getting the whole "feel nauseous in the morning" crap. Thing is that on con mornings I tend to be unable to eat much at all (especially hotel breakfasts, which is frustrating) because I'll just start feeling sick and, well, it sucks.

After breakfast we started putting on our cosplays for the day; I was to do a Darkrai gijinka from Pokémon and Sacchan did shiny Umbreon. I had some trouble with the eye makeup so Sacchan did the Jack Sparrow eyes for me, haha. ( ; 3;)
When we were done all four of us started walking towards Verkatehdas, which ended up being really close to the hotel. We took the slightly longer shore way to check for photoshoot locations and just outside the hotel there were this really cool stone ruin things and I, of course, wanted a quick shooting there.

Cosplayer: Shiro Samurai (Darkrai)
Photographer: Sacchan & Frozen Angel
Photo editor: Shiro Samurai

When we got to the con area my first impression when I saw the outside was "uhmm, looks a bit dead"; I was somehow expecting there to be a bit more life outside. Then again, it's not really alarming because you just kinda assume most people stay indoors anyway.

A view of Verkatehdas' entrance. The building Cosvision was held in.

As soon as we stepped inside we went to get our con tickets from the table in the entrance – it went very quick and without issues. What surprised me though was that the con bands were not fabric and not paper either. They were plastic and looked like those wrist bands you get in hospital when you're stuck there with some serious disease. What the fuck. I was honestly kinda disappointed. The ticket made me look like I had just escaped from some asylum, lol. It didn't feel like a con ticket.

Cosvision con ticket.

My first two impressions as soon as we got to the main area of the con were "confusing" and "comme ci comme ça". It felt like there was something missing. I was honestly kinda weirded out when the first thing I saw was groups and groups of con attendants just filling out the stairs doing nothing; it instantly gives an impression that people are bored and have nothing else to do than engage in idle chitchat with their friends. It was disappointing because there was not much to do and you could tell on the people that pretty much everyone seemed to be thinking the same things you were, aka that the con felt half-assed and overhyped. I mean, the location/building is great and very fitting for a con but some placements were poor *coughartistalleycough* and it felt a bit confusing. The main issue though was that there simply was nothing to do unless you liked to play board games or stuff like Twister or something. There was no video game room, no anime karaoke, no crafts room, no activities, nothing. Time went by so slowly because you just spent time staring at the clock and walking through the merchandise hall over and over again, although you had nothing to buy.
I can sorta understand that because it's a cosplay focused con they maybe didn't prioritize activities for whatever reasons (hard to sit in elaborate costumes etc) but seriously, if there's nothing to do people just end up sitting on the floors and stairs and the whole con atmosphere disappears or feels like a "hang out with friends con", no matter how big and pompous the con's original idea was. Honestly, Cosvision ended up feeling like a Kitacon in the south with some top-class cosplays. Really disappointing and especially so because the last Cosvision was a success.

I spent almost all of my con time just sitting around whenever wherever and just chatting with my friends and photoshooting outside. It was so dull and if I had gone alone I would have been bored out of my mind in, like, 10 minutes. Once again it was my company that saved the con experience and my Nintendo 3DS. I also really enjoyed that I got to see some con friends I hadn't seen in a couple years, like Ri-kun.

Random photo of the main area.

Entrance view.

Oh and yeah, the merchandise hall was kinda... lackluster. There was like below 10 shops and they were all those basic ones that you see at every Finnish convention and which products you've already plowed through more than enough times. Only Bard & Jester was refreshing to see and their stuff is always inspiring to look at anyway. Oh and yeah, there was this one little shop there where you could buy slush and cotton candy – that was a cool surprise that I wasn't expecting.

A big selection of Ramune flavors. Too overpriced for my taste though.

Merchandise hall.

Merchandise hall. The shop to the left (Bard & Jester) was the best/coolest one!

I need to say that the placement of Artist's Alley was meh. I honestly completely missed it on the first day because it was placed in a spot where it was hidden by the entrance area's wall, no matter which direction you came from. There was no signs either telling people that it was there; the only sign pointing to that direction said "ticket information spot" or something like that and it didn't even cross my mind to check it out because I didn't have any issues with my con ticket, lol. I think the cinema was there too but yeah, never saw a sign for the Artist's Alley.
It felt like Artist's Alley probably suffered from the bad placing; they were kinda separated from the rest of the building where stuff happened, you know, the "dark corner" effect. Why wasn't it put in the same place as the merchandise hall? It would have been better because then the merch hall wouldn't have felt so empty.
Artist's Alley was small (approximately 6 sellers) and I didn't really find the items for sale that interesting – almost everyone sold necklaces/jewelry, for some reason. I did find a nice Megaman necklace that I bought as a present for my big sister but I didn't buy anything for myself.

One of the Artist's Alley tables.
OMG SILLIS MERCH.

The photo above was by far the best thing with Artist's Alley – I honestly mentally died of laughter when I saw it. xD Non-Finnish people won't get it but those weird Donald Duck things are a huge meme in Finland (Finland is a Donald Duck country, fyi) that was made by SilliS. Pretty much everyone knows them –at least if they've spent time on Youtube's weird side– and they are absolutely hilarious, if you have that kind of humor of course. The guy selling those presumably had some contact with SilliS himself (probably friends) and they had teamed up to create those merchandises. Yes, I asked him and he told me that it was a collaboration project with SilliS so yeah, they were as official as they could be! I was sad that the Donald ones had sold out because I would instantly have bought a necklace with "AQ-sedä" on it, hihi.

Around 16:00 or something all four of us headed back to the hotel to eat some provisions and some of us changed out of cosplay. Me and Sacchan then got hungry and we headed out with the car to go find a Hesburger. It turned out Hämeenlinna, aka Hämärälinna, is a confusing place to drive in – we got lost and just went around in circles and then we ended up accidentally exiting Hämeenlinna and going into the main road. Oops. Luckily there came an ABC shop/restaurant/gasoline station (it's all three of them, lol) where we could turn our car around and then, much to our luck in misfortune, said ABC had a Hesburger! It didn't quite go as planned but we got our burgers so we were happy, lol.

Obligatory con diet. #heseläski

After stuffing our faces with cheeseburgers we headed back to the hotel to leave the car and then we decided to go back to the con. Much to our surprise we quickly learned at the con's outdoor area that it had already closed for the day. Excuse me but... what the actual fuck?
The con closed its doors 18:00 on the goshdarn main day and I had a hard time believing it. Seriously, I paid 25,70 € for a two-day weekend ticket and it closes at fucking six in the evening?? Urrrrgh. >_> What a waste of money! I'm an evening person and that's about the time I get started and into the con mood but lolnope, you pay a high ticket price for a con that closes in time for the kiddies to have supper and go to sleep. The disappointments just kept coming, I swear.
I'm used to even small cons in Sweden being, first off, three days long and, secondly, both cheaper and open 24/7. Finnish cons are such a joke in comparison and everything's overpriced and adghsadsjhafjh – it's just not worth it. I guess I'll keep to going to cons in Sweden in the future because every time I give a Finnish con in the south a chance lately I've just ended up with a huge hole in my wallet and nothing to make it worth all the travel expenses etc all the way from the north. Bah.

So yeah, we stayed outside to photoshoot Firith's cosplay and then he and Frozen Angel wanted to do some Hetalia pairing photos. We had a lot of laughs because things escalated quickly but it got cold past sunset and I ended up freezing so bad I had trouble pressing the buttons on my camera. On the way back to the hotel I also somehow twisted my left knee (I have weird joints) and it hurt like living hell. I'm not normally the person to complain about pain but it was seriously so bad I could not bend my knee at all and thus had to walk with my left leg completely straight.
We made our way back to the hotel, most of us disappointed and annoyed with the overly early closing time. Me and Sacchan stayed outside to photoshoot my Darkrai costume more properly now that I got to borrow FankiFox's long black gloves. The photoshoot pictures will be posted separately.

The remainder of the night I spent chitchatting with Sacchan and we came to the conclusion that Cosvision really was a bummer or, as we said in Finnish, "mitäänsanomaton ja juostenpaskattu". Seeing how early it closed it's not worth it because we seriously spent more time in the car driving to the con than at the con itself, lol. It's just so weird because they had two years to make it good and still it feels like the arrangers just pooped and the execution fell short. The whole con just felt so lackluster and indifferent and it didn't make things better that panels and lectures were cancelled left and right, including the one by Panther's Tear Forge about cosplay against bullying, which I had looked forward to the most on Saturday. There were few panels to begin with and that also made for the feeling that there was nothing to do and it only got worse because stuff got cancelled and nothing replaced the gaping holes in the schedule. Then again, it's not really the con's fault if a lecturer informs super late that they can't come, but still. The amount of bore was too much, especially considering the ticket price – take off 10 € from the price and it would have been acceptable.

Sunday morning eventually came and we woke up at seven. I noticed early on that my eyes were living their own life and because of it I decided to skip cosplaying Hatori on this day. My eyes were seriously watering so much I could not even keep them open; I was squinting and rubbing and my eyes just cried non-stop for hours and it was horrible. I've never experienced anything like it. The corners of my eyes were super sensitive too and wearing any kind of makeup was out of the question.
Normally going without a cosplay would have felt like going naked but now I didn't even feel bad about it, mainly because of the disappointment – it felt like it didn't even matter. Sure that I would have loved to take pair photos with Firith as Ayame but oh well, no can do when my eyes took the early checkout ticket.

Me and Sacchan headed directly for the hotel's breakfast buffet as soon as we put on our clothes and I'm not gonna lie – the hotel breakfast was more interesting than the con itself; I looked forward to it more. The food was surprisingly good and varied (I've eaten at a lot of restaurant breakfasts) and it was the highlight of the day, lol. Going to the con wasn't exciting at all and we didn't even care about being there early because there wasn't anything to do anyway.

Hotel breakfast, showing the options of "what to put on your bread".

Cookies, nuts and muesli etc.

My first plate. The Karelian pastries were awesome.

14:00 I headed for Cidi's and Hitsuwa's lecture – at least it wasn't cancelled. I liked it, it was fun and nice to listen to what they had to say. The bad thing is that the person keeping track of time (a con worker) fucked up and so their panel ended at least 15 minutes ahead of time because she was stressing them up, even though they would have had plenty of time. ._. Seriously...

Panel start.

We left the con around 16:30 because my mom called me while I was in the food market with Ri-kun (buying something to eat) and asked if we had left Hämeenlinna already. I told her that we were about to leave and she told us to hurry up because absolutely horrible weather –and thus driving conditions– was coming our way; seemingly it had even been announced in the news that anyone going out with summer tires should stay home or take public transports like train or bus. It was supposed to be that bad but, honestly, we drove all the way home and not a shit happened. Then again, maybe we were just master ninjas and magically avoided the bad weather somehow, who knows?

~~~~~~~~~~

But yeah, I don't even know what more to say about the con itself. The whole con was such a mess and it lacked anything to make it entertaining and worthwhile, save for amazing cosplayers. It really needed more activities, more panels, more sellers, more everything. People really put on their best outfits but the con itself was such a drag and a huge disappointment. :( I remember the first Cosvision fondly but this was just so bad that I don't even think I'd attend the next Cosvision unless some real improvements happen; it simply was not worth the money and time it took for us three to travel there and back. 

It was sooooo disappointing that I don't even know what to say! So much wasted potential because seriously, they had all the time and means to make it amazing (I mean come on, the only cosplay-focused con in the whole country!) and still it managed to end up so bland and insignificant. It's just sad because I at least had high expectations and hopes for the con and then it ended up being such a mediocre "hang with friends" con, except with amazing cosplays.

One of the best things of the con was that I got Elffi's signature!

That's about all that I have to say. Thanks for reading. 

~ Shiro Samurai out.

Hetalia photoshoot: the Rising Sun – Japan!

Konnichiwa! ~

Today I had a photoshoot with Sacchan behind the camera! I decided to dress up as Japan (human name: Kiku Honda) from Hetalia and have a photoshoot outside – I've been wanting to photoshoot this new (and still undebuted) cosplay ever since I didn't get to cosplay him at Kitacon this year. I'm not a super-huge fan of Hetalia, if I may say so, but it was a show that I enjoyed nonetheless because of all the silliness, haha. My favorite character ended up being Japan, which is not a surprise at all.

I've been wanting to have a proper photoshoot this whole year and I've actually felt quite shit because of the lack of new cosplay photos. :/ But now I can finally leave this year behind me with a satisfied mind because hey, I got some fresh new shots!

But with all good things comes a bad thing – I was freezing my ass off during the whole shooting! It was like -3 °C outside, which is not much, but the thing is that there was a cold northern wind of like 5 meters per second so... yeah. I couldn't feel my toes and neither could I move my fingers after I had been standing outside for like 15 minutes or something – we had to go inside to take breaks and warm up! I also ended up having my legs shaking so damn much that it was out of my control and yeah, I was happy I was wearing a kimono because it didn't show at all, lol. Oh well, enduring the cold was worth it because the photos turned out fabulous! 

What won't we do for cosplay? xD

Cosplayer: Shiro Samurai (Japan)
Photographer: Sacchan
Photo editor: Shiro Samurai

Before anyone asks this is technically a closet cosplay for me and that's because all the pieces of clothing are authentic vintage kimono items from my collection, with the exception of the obi, which is borrowed from Jäätynyt Enkeli. The wig is from another cosplay and it was a perfect fit for Japan too. Generic Asian hairstyle lol.

I decided to take the sword as a prop because I seriously don't know how to pose without anything, lol. Besides, Japan does use a sword at least in one episode, so it's legit!

By the way, for anyone curious the circle lenses that I'm wearing are the I.Fairy Ruby Browns – just click on the name to get to my review, if interested. ^_^

On those photos above –with the sunlight– I was actually facing/watching the rising sun, literally. Fun part is that the clock was 10:00 in the morning... yeaaaaaah. ._. You see, I live very high up in northern Sweden; we have the darkest time of the year at this very moment and that's because of a thing called polar night, aka right now we only get 3 hours of sunlight per day – try to imagine that. Yep, that means that if we had extended the photoshoot for a few more hours I would have been watching the sunset as well. Go figure.

Only fullbody photo.

Oh and yes, I don't think that Japan wears a kimono outift in exactly these colors in the anime so yeah, consider this an original version. He does wear almost the same thing on a promotional artwork for the World Series though, except that I basically used the reverse colors – meaning that I used a plum colored haori instead of a blue one and a blue kimono instead of a plum one. 

...

...

...

Why are you looking at me like that?【・ヘ・?】

...

...

...

Ehrrm.

Actually... I honestly just forgot to check my reference picture when I dressed on the morning so yeah, I had somehow managed to swap the colors in my mind. xD Not like it's a big crime or anything; it's still something I can easily see him wearing – I mean, he's friggin' ~Japan~ himself after all, he should own plenty more than just two sets of kimonos... LOL.

~~~~~~

Eeheeeey, that's all for this round!

Shiro Samurai out! Thanks for viewing ~

Photoshoot: Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th series!

Hello guys!

Before Närcon this year I asked around online if some cosplayers were interested in having a free photoshoot with me; I'm currently trying to improve my (newbie) photography skills and, because of this, I'm offering free photoshoots so that I'd get both the experience and some portfolio examples for the future of different photos I've taken. :) I got some response pre-Närcon but most fell through in the end, mainly because of bad weather but also a few because of no contact. One of the guys I did get a hold of during the con was Stefan, aka Bygg Cosplay, who actively kept in touch with me both before and after the photoshoot he even called me while I was eating at McDonald's close to midnight before the con, that's saying a lot about how much he wanted the photoshoot. xD
Stefan cosplayed the shady Jason Voorhess and we had decided already in advance to wait for nightfall before I took the camera in hand. Shooting at night didn't come without difficulties though, but we managed by being creative and looking for light sources that we could use.
We took a few photos the following morning too, but the main part of our photoshoot was on the first night.

I must admit that I'm normally not a fan of scary/horror movies and games etc but I still had a blast photoshooting Stefan as Jason. He was kind, easy to work with and even suggested what kind of photos he wanted – which helped me a lot because I had no prior knowledge of his character.
It was a great learning experience to figure out how to get a creepy touch to the photos etc and I definitely enjoyed it! Sometimes it's good to go a bit outside your usual comfort zone just to learn something new and open up yourself for more possibilities and variety! Thank you Stefan!

So now –with Halloween slowly creeping closer– I present to you my second part of the hey-I'm-doing-cosplay-photography-as-well series! Enjoy!

The first part of my photoshooting journey you can see here ~

Cosplayer: Bygg Cosplay
Photographer & photo editor: Shiro Samurai

I'm sorry I don't know the name of the first guy who volunteered to be "Jason's victim". :( The second guy who's being strangled on the daytime photos is Hjallecalibur.

I would really appreciate to hear if you folks out there would like me to keep up with these kind of cosplay photography posts? Is it something you want to see on my blog in the future as well?

Thanks for viewing! ^_^

Shiro Samurai says 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!