I'd planned to cosplay at Ushicon as Saint Tail from Kaitou Saint Tail, and I even had all of the costume completed and brought, but I ended up not wearing it. Just lazy, I guess, and not in the mood to cosplay--I also didn't want to mess up my hair by putting it in the necessary ponytail first thing in the morning, and besides, Eryn was the only other one who'd brought a costume, and we both kinda decided we didn't want to wear them. Ehehe, I'll probably wear it at A-Kon though. The only thing that had to be sewn was the black vest, anyway (on which I sewed the buttons! yeay!).. I already had/was able to buy the black tights, pink skirt, white shirt, and black ribbons for my hair and neck.
Friday
Finally, the con we'd been looking forward to practically since the last one ended had arrived! It seemed that school lasted forever, but at last the bell rang and we could leave. Bekah and I rode Eryn's bus home with her, where we waited for her dad and Kat to get there. Once they did, we loaded all our stuff in the van and were off to Austin!
We got to the Mariott around 7 or so. The Mariott's a pretty fancy hotel, we even had a bellhop who took our stuff up to the room for us--definitely a big improvement over the two-floor motel Ushicon 1 had been in. But I thought that maybe the Mariott was too big a hotel for a con in its second year--I'm used to cons being so overbooked that they have to provide overflow hotels, but there were so many extra rooms not occupied by congoers that there were almost three separate groups (cheerleaders, a sports team, a teacher's conference) staying in the hotel right alongside the con guests.. I bet they were freaked out by all the cosplayers. hahaha.
Anyway, Eryn's dad checked us in while we went inside to see what was happening inside. Almost right away Zack and Stephen walked up and gave us hugs. It was so cool to see them, since it had been forever! (Practically since Animefest.) Then we went upstairs to our room (on the 14th floor! fsckin huge hotel), put our stuff in it and everything, and changed clothes. Not cosplay, just random cool stuff. I wore my new white loose socks I'd gotten just the day before, my black pleated skirt, and a red short-sleeved shirt, along with my cat tail and ears. ^_^ (there's no pictures of this outfit though, which makes me sad ;.;)
Then we went downstairs, where Zack and Stephen were waiting for us (like puppies! Okay, I don't know where that came from), and we all wandered around for like ten minutes, checking things out and seeing where all the rooms were. On the lobby level there were viewing and panel rooms, and the J-Pop room (a J-Pop room! Definitely wasn't there last year!) and con suite were on the second floor, which you got to by climbing this huge, open set of stairs just off the bar area. Going down the stairs brought you to the autograph signing area and gaming rooms, including a DDR room with about four arcade machines that cost 50 cents to play. (Big improvement over last year's unofficial mat-and-playstation "DDR room"!) However, nothing really looked interesting and there weren't any other people that we knew so we went up to Zack and Stephen's room where their roommates were. The guys were talking about Zack's party that he was going to have, so we just kinda sat around and listened. Some Asian guy (don't know his name ^^) gave us all little mini Pikachus that unzipped so they could turn into Pokéballs. They were so cute! But I think I left mine in there so I don't have it anymore ;.;
Then later, like 9 maybe, we moved into the 'party room' a few doors down so Zack could start his party. People busted out with the alcohol, I had a sip of Skyy Blue and one of some drink Zack had (it was good!) but that's it.. Bekah had more T_T;; but the rest of us were just as sXe as me about drinking, so don't worry. More people started arriving, they began to play techno music, etc, and a lot of us were just sitting all over each other on the bed talking about random stuff. Zack and Stephen were trying to get as drunk as they could apparently, but it's all right because they did yaoi for us again. ^__^ Except that evidently Zack slipped a little tongue in there, and Stephen pulled away and was all, "Dude, that had tongue!!" It was so funny.. XDD
Then around 10, we started getting ready to go down to the Shoujo Pajama Party. We went up to our room to change into pajama pants, and then went back down to Zack and Stephen's room so they could change. Zack had like, pajama pants and a matching shirt and everything.. XD Yeah, so we went downstairs to the shoujo pajama party, which was totally not as cool as it should have been. It was like a video room, all dark and everything, only people were spread out on the floor. Lots of people weren't even in pajamas, and they had said it was "mandatory" on the flyers T.T; And they weren't playing awsome stuff like Gravitation, it was random first episodes of magical girl shows. One was "Ask Dr. Rin," which I have the opening song of, so it was like 'Woahh I know this song' when it came on, but the series itself was so dumb.. about this girl who has the powers of FENG SHUI. Okay, right. I don't know if it was an intentional parody or not, but I'm hoping it was. o.o
So yeah, it was dumb, and some dude we didn't even know had been trying to talk to us, so we left and went back up to the party. Now there were even more people, and three guys passed out in various corners of the room to boot. Yeah, all right. We all sprawled out on the bed again, and stayed that way for awhile, until people starting smoking cigarettes (~_~) and Eryn decided she wanted to leave. So she left, and some of us went with her, while others stayed behind for awhile. Then at some point, security (I think it was hotel security--not con security! That's bad!!) came by and told us to keep the noise down (it hadn't seemed that loud though), so they turned it down a bit, and shortly after, Zack came by and was like "I've been told to come get you" and began pulling me away. When we got to our floor, everyone else was waiting. Bekah hugged me and Eryn was like "Are you all right?" like something horrible had happened. I was really confused but it turned out they had heard that the party had been full-out busted instead of just warned, so they were all worried. But it was really okay. By that time it was around 12 or 1 I think (Eryn's dad didn't give us a real curfew, and we made sure to make a lot of noise when we went up there at 10 to make it seem like we were coming in for good, when we just went outside again XD) and we went back to the guys' floor, but to their room instead of the party room. People curled up on beds again and we watched stuff like AMVs, Budweiser commercials, and the Lord of the Rings episode of South Park on Athos's computer, which he had brought and hooked up to the TV. We were in there for awhile, sleeping on and off for a few hours, until around 4 or 5 a.m. when we went up to our room and collapsed on the beds there.
Saturday
I don't remember when we got up, maybe around 8 or 9. Whenever it was, I was still tired (x_x). But we showered and got dressed.. like I said before, me and Eryn had brought our costumes to wear today, but ended up deciding not to wear them. Instead, I put on Eryn's black fishnet shirt and a cool red and black shirt I'd borrowed from her, along with my black pleated skirt and her red and black striped tights. And my platform Mary Janes, of course ^_^. Everyone else put on random cool stuff, and then we went downstairs to get registered (it had been closed by the time we got there on Friday). The registered line was like 10 times longer than the pre-reg line, which was nonexistant XD. And because me and Eryn had pre-reg'd, we were able to get our badges right away :D (poor Bekah and Kat! XD). Once we had all registered, we went down to the dealers room. ^__^ Yee, they had so much cool stuff. Here's what I got:
Cardcaptor Sakura Japanese manga Vols. 9, 10, and 11 (now I have 7-12 original Japanese :D which means I have them all!)
Angelic Layer English manga Vols. 2-4 (yeaayy Wizard is on the back cover of 4 ^_^ I love Wizard~)
Chii from Chobits plushie (it's so cute! Eryn got the little pink bunny too)
Set of three Yami no Matsuei plastic postcards (do they have yaoi? Hell yeah they do ^_^)
Cardcaptor Sakura First Movie trading cards
Angelic Layer trading cards
Fruits Basket trading cards
Chobits trading cards
Mini pin of Cardcaptor Sakura in the first opening dress
Mini pin of Cardcaptor Sakura in the third opening dress (:D)
And also a Cowboy Bebop poster for Doug, since he had given me money to buy something for him. It's a very nice poster, I was so happy to find a good one ^_^. Oh, also, we saw Jody (remember him from last year's Ushicon? The guy that followed us around and got especially attached to Allison XD) in the dealers room, decked out in his CROSSPLAYING LIME COSTUME. XDDD He looked like such a dork.. ahaha. He'd seen Eryn earlier, and she had to talk to him, but because we spent the rest of the con avoiding him, I didn't have to! XD
Then we went up to our room to play with our new stuff and have lunch (lunchables! XD). When we looked at the clock it was like 12:50, so we hightailed it downstairs to get in line for the yaoi panel at 1:00! And yes, I mean line, there was a big fangirl cloud outside the room waiting for the previous panel to end. Kat didn't want to go to it, so she wandered off to watch anime, while me, Eryn, and Bekah stayed behind (Bekah=budding yaoi fan? I think so!). Hahahaha it was so cool. Lots of "YAOI!!!" cheering just like last year. Actually, it was a lot like last year's, but still cool! Teehee.
Then we went back up to the room and took naps.. sort of. I'd only slept for like twenty minutes before Ashley, Stephanie, and some other people (apparently) busted into our room to tell us they were here. Shin K had been driving them down at the same time as us, but had gotten into a minor car wreck and the way and had to go back home. Then on Saturday Stephanie's dad drove them down so that they could bust into our room and take our Oreos (hahaha). Eryn and Bekah went after them to get them back, but by the time they found them, the Oreos had already been eaten XDD. Personally, I'm amused by this, but Eryn was quite angry over the Oreo loss. hehehe.
I can't remember what we did for awhile after that, but at some point we went and walked around outside. There's this cool creek thing in between the edge of the hotel grounds and the streets of downtown Austin, so we were playing around there and it was fun. So that's where all those pictures of us standing by a creek and stone walls came from :D. Then around 6, we went to get in line for the cosplay, but Zack kinda convinced us that it was going to suck, so we chilled in the lobby for awhile instead. Zack was trying to work things out for a party he was going to have at his house, and at some point he came by to tell Stephen to join him and their other roommates for some "male-bonding." So I was like..
Sarah: *perks up* You're going to "male-bond"? You mean like, have sex?
Zack: Yes, we're going to go have hot, dirty sex. Now come on! *drags Stephen off*
XDD oh my, so amusing. Anyway, the party ended up not happening, I don't know why, but probably for a variety of reasons, one of the main ones being because Zack had gotten high and was really in no condition to drive anyone to his house T.T So we stood around for awhile, hanging out.. we were doing that when Ashley came by, in her Sadako costume (from Ring, one of the scariest damn movies ever). She saw me starting to look semi-freaked out, and then promptly flipped all her hair over her face and started crawling towards me T____T. Then a few minutes later she did it again, only I hadn't seen her crawling, and someone told me to turn and I saw this black-hair-covered HEAD next to me. But I didn't freak out--I just said "You whore" and she cracked up XD. Then when she did it a THIRD time, I smacked her head. Mean people trying to scare me.. *sniff*
Also, a bit later we saw Mr. Axe walk by!!! My freshman history teacher.. just.. GOES ON BY!! O__O I don't think he saw me, but I know he saw Ashley, all dressed up like a pink and black freak, and that was funny. But duuude, it was just so freaky. He was one of the teacher's conference people that were just hanging out in the hotel alongside the congoers. Hahaha, bet he was freaked out XD
Then after talking to Daniel and his friend Michael (aka 'the hot guy' from A-Kon 13 ^^;) for a bit, we went to the dance. Ehh, things really weren't too interesting after that. The dance had good music, but I just wasn't in a corresponding mood, so it wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped. At some point, Kat and I went up to the room and watched some Jackie Chan movie until we fell asleep. Eryn and Bekah did stuff downstairs with Zack and Stephen, I dunno what, but it led to some interesting things happening when they banged on the door for me to let them in and I was half-asleep and locked them out instead.. ^_^;; ehehe.
Sunday
We woke up (at 9:00!! evil >_<), packed up, etc. I couldn't find a lot of my stuff and thought I'd lost my Yami no Matsuei postcords, but in the car I found them stuck in one of my manga so it was all right. Then we drove home, etc etc. We passed by the old Ushicon hotel on the way home and me and Eryn got all nostalgic about it. *sniff!* Which reminds me, we saw Jackie (Pervert Girl) and Alyssa (Harry Potter Backpack Girl) from Ushicon 1 as well.. yeay! So cool to see people we know, even if we didn't see Bridgette and Christina at all. ;.;
So, which was better, last year's Ushicon or this year's? I really can't decide. In the end I have to say that they were probably about the same--both fun, just on different levels. And it was definitely better than Animefest and A-Kon 13, so yeay. ^_^