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
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!
No comments:
Post a Comment