We already knew the weekend was going to made of ultimate win and awesome. It started on Friday in Torrance. I was on the hunt for the latest Harry Potter book. Consider me sucked into that fandom by my peers and significant other. We found a copy at Best Buy, but Best Buy tried to rip us off. Yet, we were able to return the copy with no questions asked. (It probably helped that my blouse so happened to have one button undone in a strategic area...) So we went to Borders to pick up a book for $10 less than the Best Buy price. After shopping for costuming supplies, Tom curled up to Youtube to watch classic G1 Transformers, while I sold into the Harry Potter hype. Did we mention somewhere in between we saw The Simpsons Movie?

We kept our first San Diego Comic Con simple. Simple costumes - Lupin III and Fujiko Mine (Lupin III) for Saturday. We had to get our friend Divine Sage. Then, it was road trip time to San Deigo. We managed to reach downtown at around 9AM, no problems. Our hotel was at the Holiday Inn Express. While waiting for our friends from Brillian Moon Cosplay (BMC), Divine and I started playing with our dolls. Yet, Tom seemed to have more fun playing with our dolls.

We all finally met up with each other. BMC was doing X-Men cosplay for most of the day. We took the shuttle bus (more like a charter bus!) to the convention center. It wasn't a bad of a wait or a commute. Tom and I picked up our press memberships and proceeded to enjoy what San Diego Comic Con had to offer.

For starters, there was the dealer's hall...

I haven't seen anything like it. This dealer's hall trumps the likes of Anime Expo. Tom was able to find two booth's that he wanted to do a shopping spree at - Hasbro's and Lego's. I simply wanted my manga fix. I was very happy ADV was present because I was able to score (almost) the same deal on manga that I missed at Anime Expo a few weeks earlier.

There was much to do and much to see. Lines and lines for freebies from many major entertainment companies. It was very crowded. No time to take many pictures of the cosplayers. Even getting shots at the Capcom booth's Street Fighter and Phoenix Wright's cosplay contest and gathering was tougher to get that perfect shot than expected.

We heard there were a variety of eateries in downtown San Diego. We settled for a five star Mediterranean restaurant. While the prices may seem too much for your average convention attendee, let's say that it's good to have money. I had the yummiest pomodoro pasta yet! The atmosphere really made it feel like a genuine exclusive place where only the elite dine. The upstairs had it's own bar and snookery. We just had to take Lupin III pics there. They didn't even seem to mind Tom carrying a P38. Traveling Valentine highly reccomend Dussini's!

Tom and I did some exploring around the vincinity of Comic Con. Tom wanted to at least do one panel of interest. Unfortunately, the panels we were interested in already happened. So, we just gallavanted around the dealer's room until it was time to get back to our hotel room for check in.

For the mean time, we relaxed in our hotel room room. I took an hour long nap. Aurora enjoyed the balcony view of the parking lot. Meanwhile, the dolls create their own clubhouse out of the TV stand.

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