Ah, the Anime Expo night life. It was a challenge this year considering the new venue is nowhere near a central hotel like previous years. Sure, there was the Holiday Inn and Hotel Figueroa, but none of them were party friendly. However, there's one Anime Expo event that we hardly ever miss - the ballroom dance.

Dance classes started at 3PM. This was a two hour session that taught basic waltz and East Coast swing. The couple that taught the dance lessons was different from last year's instructors. To put it bluntly, we missed them. The new set of instructors were very gruelling to follow and even from an experienced stand point, they were going way too fast for a crowd that does not know much about ballroom dancing. It was sad to see the half of the ballroom class go. We never had this problem with the former instructors. Bring them back!

After the ballroom drill excercises, Tom and I decided to just take a walk around the convention center. We were still full from lunch. The ballroom dance started at 6:00PM. "Quand tu m'aimes" was the opening song. Tom and I stayed in our Ouran High School Host Club costumes. It made complex swing moves easier without worrying about wardrobe malfunctions. The ballroom dance was in full swing for the first hour. By the tail end of the second hour, the Anime Expo ballroom dance started to feel more like a rave than a ballroom dance.

We really think Anime Expo should follow suite with Anime Central's ballroom dance - make it a ticketed event in which attendees pay something between $10 - $20 and have the proceeds go to charity (City of Hope?). Typically, those who pay are the ones that care about actual ballroom dancing and care to dress to the nines for it.

Songs played included - "Love theme from The Godfather," "Cha Cha Slide," "Cha Cha Cha," "Epoca," "Brahams' Lullabye," "Eyes On Me," "Unforgiven," "If Moon Were Cookie," "Tequilla," and others.

The third hour started off with the ballroom cosplay contest. While we would have stayed around to video tape the event (it would have been great to see some other cosplay couples shake their groove thing), we had to find dinner fast!

We tried going a few blocks up to The Pantry, but it was crowded and cash only. We tried The Cafe at Hotel Figueroa, but the Tower of Terror decor scared us. Not to mention Angela warned us about Hotel Figueroa! So, we looked to the Holiday Inn. We were banking on the fact that the hotel had a decent sit down restaurant. It did! There were also TVs by each table. Tom and I watched the fireworks from New York on the small screen. There was also a family sitting next to us, the Seymours, and we spent a great deal of our time during dinner talking to them. Thanks Seymours, you have amazingly mature kids!

We walked back to the convention center as fireworks were going off in the distance. We reached West Hall to be greeted by a mass of Caramel Dansen folks. It was a little past 9:30PM. Anime Expo still had some signs of night life, at least for the West Hall.

On the other hand, South Hall was empty. We're not used to seeing convention centers this desolate at 9PM in the evening. It seemed time to head back home, but Traveling Valentine and the SVU division felt like creating their own night life by playing Air Rock Band. There was also an impromptu Pheonix Wright group going on. We also briefly ran into our friend Jesse from New York. When we were done with Air Rock Band, Tom and Stan started comparing Transformers and other merchindise they bought.

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