Seoul Comic World

Thank you Yonghan Kim for the awesome photographs.

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

So I ended up organizing a group to go to Seoul Comic World on October 18th and 19th through Facebook and Meetup.  It's been a while since I organized any events and as always things didn't go as planned.  But that is okay because I had a blast and I fully intend to go back again.  The convention costs 4,000 won a day, which is pretty cheap.  So Saturday was the first day and we met up with the group but the person who was suppose to help out with translating overslept.  Thankfully we had a Korean with us who could speak English and she helped us out. 

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

The cosplayers got to go through a separate line as they had different lines to go through and an extra 1,000 won fee.  So me, Anna, Alex, and I guy named Wade got separated from the main group.  Luckily the Korean speaker went with the other group so we didn't have to worry about them.  Plus, Alexa understood enough Korean to get us through the lines without too much difficulty.  Plus the Korean staff did their best to help us as much as possible and didn't get angry when we made mistakes despite being busy.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Anyway, I think they let us through the first line ahead of people because they didn't want to deal with the confusion.  Then we got in the wrong line and had to be escorted to the registration line where we filled out the information about ourselves and our cosplays. Then we stood in the changing room line for a while where Alexa did my makeup.  She did make me pale which worked since I was a vampire.  Alexa misplaced her wallet but thankfully Wade, who didn't have to change into anything as his was more a jacket, found it at the lost and found.

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

So after we got changed into our costumes, I was being Moka Akashiya from Rosario vampire that day, Anna and I had to get into another line to finish hair and make up.  Anna was Kaya from Midnight Secretary and Alexa was Alessa from Silent Hill.  Wade was an original character for his friend's movie.  I must say I miss Otakon where you could just get ready in your hotel room and head on over without any problems.  Alexa and Wade explored while were were busy.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

So it must have taken two-three hours just to get through the lines to get into the costumes, so by the time Anna and I were finished, the non-cosplayers were ready to leave so we didn't get much time to hang out with them.  We had to find a spot where we could take pictures as you can't take pictures inside too much.  I'm not sure if its because you block the way or because they don't want others in the pictures.  Anyway, we took our pictures and the non-cosplayers left, leaving just the four of us. 

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

 

We decided to check out the park and there were a ton of cosplayers.  I sadly didn't take many pictures myself, but it was still a lot of fun.  Anna wanted to take pictures so we stopped near some trees and started taking pictures.  One of the photographers there, Yonghan Kim, started talking to us and took some nice pictures.  He sent them to us later and they turned out to be really cool.  He edited one picture for everyone which was nice and he did it all for free so I definitely can't complain.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

After exploring the park for a while, we decided to head back in and do some shopping, which is good because we never made it back to the vendors on Sunday.  I bought some tarot cards for fun and some other random cards and a mini cat pillow.  The art there was really amazing and I was surprised how much current stuff was there.  Actually the art was mostly from current animes or original works.  Either way, I like what I bought but at that point my eyes were starting to hurt from the contacts and we hadn't eaten anything except and ice cream since we had gotten there so we changed and headed to a place that served galbi across the street.

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

We started talking about Sunday and we managed to convince Alexa to come back again and do Olaf since Anna wanted to take pictures of me doing Anna from Frozen.  And let me tell you this, I knew my costume would be popular but I didn't expect it to go over quite as much as it did.  Poor Alexa had to deal with being dragged into a lot of pictures with me.  Thanks Alexa for being awesome! ^.^  Anyway, we headed home and after getting my costume ready for Sunday and giving Amber some props for a cat costume, I was soon asleep. 

So another early morning and I woke up early so I tried to put the white in my hair with hair chalk but it didn't seem to agree with me and put my hair in knots.  Anna had to help me get them out because the chalk bonded with my conditioner, making it useless.  Thankfully with my Anna costume, my hair was just going into two braids so it didn't hurt anything in the end.  We got there and eventually found Amber but somehow missed the other people who showed up.  Ended up catching up with two of them, Peter and Miguel, later on and they followed us along.

So the lines went so much quicker on Sunday, though a lot of people, I think they were more spread out in coming, perhaps because of church, so we got through pretty quickly.  A Korean/American (I think) lady, I think her name was Kathy Kim, from Washington if I remember correctly, started talking to us and she ended up joining us.  We headed to the make up station which was downstairs this time and she helped Alexa do my make up while Anna did my braids.  I'm kind of hopeless with those kinds of things. T.T  Though it took a while to get ready, it was much faster this time.  I ran into two Korean girls who were doing the other Anna outfit, the coronation gown, and got pictures with them.  I was wearing her winter traveling dress.

So Kathy wanted to introduce us to her photographer friend and led us towards the park right away.  We ended up taking a lot of pictures of me as Anna and Alexa as Olaf and it was hard to move ten feet without people stopping me for pictures.  One girl even hugged me after she took my picture, which I have to admit was kind of cute.  I also liked taking pictures with the little kids who looked up at me shyly.  It was adorable.  ^.^  I will admit I did enjoy the attention though I definitely don't ever want to be famous and have to deal with all that attention every day.  They ran around and eventually found one of the Korean Annas to take pictures with me and Alexa. 

Then after borrowing some gun props from Kathy, Anna wants some props of her own, so we head back towards the entrance so we can buy props.  On the way we got stopped by a guy who asked me if I could speak Japanese.  He must have been a native speaker or at least very fluent because I had a hard time following him and he was struggling to find a simple way to ask me to take the picture.  I'm just glad I was able to speak enough Japanese and understand enough to understand what he wanted.  At least I hope I did...

We also took a break around this time to eat some of the snacks we brought as we didn't want to make the same mistake as Saturday and not bring food.  It took a while as I am not joking about being stopped every ten feet.  Even Anna was getting some followers with her pirate outfit.  We were going to go back inside but then Kathy set us up with another photographer so we ended up going back the way we came to take more professional pictures.  And these guys are pretty serious about what they do.  They literally leaped up into trees so they could take aerial photographs of us.

So after that Kathy headed off after inviting us to come to the weekend photo shoots and hang out.  We headed over to the stage as we expected the costume contest to start around three.  Well, we were wrong about the time and ended up waiting an hour.  And what was supposed to be a twenty minute costume contest turned into a dancing talent show.  I recognize many of the groups, such as Sailor Moon, Black Butler, Haikyuu, and Sword Art Online, though there were a few I couldn't place and I definitely didn't know all of the songs.  But it was definitely worth the wait to watch all the dancing and the Black Butler group did a fifteen minute reenactment of the Book of Circus arc.  Of course the Black Butler group won which made Anna pretty happy.

After that, everything was closing and we never made it back up to the vendors.  We changed out of our costumes as otherwise we would not get anywhere with me dressed up as Anna.  We ate at the same restaurant that we ate at the night before, except this time with Miguel, Peter, and Amber instead of Wade.  It was a lot of fun, totally exhausting, and something I will definitely do again.  Though now I know what to expect on Halloween when I dress up as Anna for the kids.  I went home, took a shower, and just crashed after posting some pictures.  It was a long but awesome weekend.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

(This is my favorite picture that has been taken of my Moka Akashiya cosplay.)

P.S. I finally added some photographs that I got from Betti Jyun Young Jae from the Frozen cosplay shoot with Anna.  Thanks for the photographs!

 

 

Field Trips, International Fireworks Festival, Getting Ready for Halloween, and More

 

 

So as many of you know, I LOVE Halloween.  I am interested in cosplaying and so any holiday that I can wear a costume (plus the added bonus of candy) is a holiday I am completely interested in.  Halloween is also one of the biggest events that LCI does, yay!  And this year we are doing a small event for all the classes so we have permission to wear costumes two other days besides the actual day of the Halloween event.  Hmm.... haven't decided what to do yet, but even if I'm the only teacher, I may just wear the costumes for fun. 

 

Anyway, my class is pretty busy so most of our Halloween decorations are small things I saved over the years and coloring pages they had fun with.  Though we did make creepy looking ghosts with our faces on them.  I even made one for my cat Bella .... I wonder what Bella would think of her ghost.  We made pumpkin drawings too which I used as hats but unlike my black cat theme last year, Halloween decorations are sadly lacking.  And I've been sadly disappoint but the older kids have been stealing the little sticky window decorations.  I don't know who it is but it is sad that they are doing it.  I've also been so busy that the monster project ended up being done with Hanna Teacher.  Thanks for your help Hanna Teacher.  But with the two of us helping, the kids ended up with a mommy and baby monster.

So for Halloween, my class will be performing the song Thriller.  Now, I normally avoid this song because a friend of mine was obsessed with it as a kids and overplayed it.  But doing it with my class is pretty fun as they get really into being zombies and actually get all up in my face.  We are constantly laughing throughout the song.  But that means that we still have a lot of memorizing and dancing to learn before Halloween if my kids have any chance at the song contest.  T.T

So we've had two field trips since the last time I posted.  The first was to the Gyeonggi Museum where I have been before, but it was nice because we didn't do the same things that we did the last time we were good.  Which is good because my class has also been there one or two times before with the school.  There was a tower and rock wall that they could climb, a dance mat where they chased lights, bikes that made flowers spin, a money game room, a place where they made Styrofoam cars, and a library where they could read Korean books.  It was a lot of fun. 

The second field trip was our normal hiking trip though I forget the name of the mountain at the moment.  The kids had fun playing in the playgrounds and finding leaves.  Thankfully they didn't try to wonder away much, just walked too fast for the other classes.  John, from Laura's class, was doing this cute bow to the girls which I caught a little on video. 

We also had reading champions where three of my students, Elizabeth, Ian, and William, placed.  I was going to teach Black Beauty and play Horseland with some of my students, but the class got canceled before we could get into it.  We have a new coworker named Kristine and she seems to be doing well so far.  Last, my kindergarten had pictures taken for graduation outside this year, which was a little different than before but much more fun as my class got to play outside afterwards.  Didn't get much work done but it was fun and totally worth it.  Minus the tug of war on my arms.  Haha.  Otherwise things are normal at work and starting next month I will have some extra prep time to enjoy.

So, some random things that I have been doing that are not related to school.  I hit over 500 completed anime, which includes OVAs, sequels, movies, series, etc.  I saw the ending of a lunar eclipse where the moon was read.  I watched the moon come out again as it slower slid back into white.  I helped Alexa go around to small shops looking for the perfect pieces for her Alessa cosplay which will have pictures in the next post where I talk about Seoul Comic World.  And I learned how to iron clothes as some of my costumes were in desperate need of ironing after being in storage for two years.

Last, I returned to the International Fireworks Festival again this year.  We were by the bridge so we could see the low fireworks and all but the very bottom of the higher fireworks. Though the bridge made it hard to take pictures, and being by the water was cold, it was still a pretty good spot.  Seems like you have to get there at 8 AM to get the really good seats.  We brought food this time and I took Kristine and Anna.  It was Kristine's first day in Korea so it she was pretty tired,  We also met up with some Korean friend's of Anna's.  Italy's was my favorite as it was well timed with the music and had amazing ground fireworks. 

I believe England, China, and Korea were the other countries participating.  All of them seemed to play a song from their home country and a tribute to Korea.  Anna taught us how to play Pass the Pig or Toss the Pig.  Something like that.  It sounded stupid but was actually pretty addicting.  They also did the fireworks off the bridge again and since we were right next to the bridge, it was pretty cool to see, well minus the smoke of course.  My next post should be about Seoul Comic World and my adventure there.