I went to the San Fransisco Cherry Blossom Festivale on Sunday, April 18th. I cosplayed as an original Gijinka of Pikachu, and my friend went as Ash Ketchum (Pokemon).For once, we left on time! No way! That never happens. So me, my boyfriend (Ed), and my friend (Andrea) left around 10:30 to go to BART. Unfortunately, BART trains don't run from my city to San Fransisco on Sundays, so we had to take one train and transfer to another. Then we took a bus the rest of the way. Getting there took, as usual, about two hours.
When we got there, the first thing we did was go into the nearby mall to find some food. We found a decently-priced place with no line and got some breakfast / lunch. After that, we found a place to stand to watch the parade. We ended up right behind a trash can that was covered with a trash bag, making it useless, but just about as stinky. Luckily, we were right next to a photographer, so people stayed out of our line of sight for the most part. We were also in the shade.The parade lasted about two hours, from 1:00 to 3:00. It had a lot of fun, interesting floats and acts, from drums and dancing, to beauty pageant winners and political figures. Honestly, I can't remember everything, heh.
Anyway, after the parade, we went to watch the winners of the cosplay contest get announced. We found decent seats, though the people in front of us were loud and a little obnoxious (and blocked almost every picture opportunity with their big, red, phallic balloon -.-). We were in the shade in our seats right up until the costume contest actually started. Darn you, sun, and your strange habit of moving! Anyway, the costume contest runner-ups, third, second, and first place winners were announced and the audience (those not blocked by balloons) was given a chance to take pictures of them.
Following the announcement of the winners, there was a cosplay talent show, a non-competitive show that mainly included cosplayers singing and dancing. it was hosted by Usagi Tsukino, also known as the San Fransisco Sailor Moon. She was, as always, delightful and entertaining, and her professional group (AnimeMyu Senshi) also performed. The talent show was fun to watch, and definitely worthwhile.We then went to look for more food. We stumbled upon a noodle house, but it was vastly overpriced Forty-five dollars for noodles? No thank you, I'll go find some twigs or something.. We decided to leave and ended up eating at a small Japanese place that I had actually spotted at last year's Cherry Blossom Festivale. There we met up with another friend for a while who was there promoting Kin-Yoobi Con 2010.
It was about 5:00 when we finished eating, so we quickly looked at the remaining booths that were still open, and I bought three pairs of earrings, with some money my boyfriend gave me ^-^ The funny thing is, I bought earrings last year too, haha. We went over to where some pretty trees were and took a few pictures before leaving for home.
Overall, it was tons of fun. I was surprised at how much attention our costumes got, actually. I don't know why, but I considered Pikachu to be a fly-under-the-radar type of costume, probably because I put almost no effort into it. I felt sort of bad, really, so many other cosplayers deserved all the attention we were getting. But I guess I shouldn't complain, haha. My only disappointment is that I couldn't find any of the friends I had hoped to meet up with. :(
Quotes of the Day:
"We NEED a napkin!" "A napkin!?"
"Uhh.. That's fine. You go. Go with your silly-colored friends."
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