Day 4 Jump Festa + More Crazy Koreans

This was an exciting for all parties involved... you all know by now I'm a big anime / video game nerd so I was excited to hear that my visit to Japan would come with one of the biggest and free-est cons this side of the planet. We woke up at about 7am and got ready to meet our other group members at Ikebukaro station (Alex Dimmick, Alex Hill, and Byeolyi) and we made our way to the con which roughly involved switching two trains and about an hour altogether to ride. When we got there we were met by an outrageous number of people shuffling in and out of that place. The line moved at a steady rate and we were in after snaking between fences for what felt like a mile. The convention itself was set up a lot differently then ones I was accustomed and the reason being is because of the mass numbers of people. Instead of panel rooms there were just huge stages where they would usually have the writers of the respective jump stories talking along with the various voice actors. I got to see the Naruto and the Bleach stages. Though out the 3 huge airplane hangers that involved the Jump Festa there were scatterings of various video game vendors which were a great way to check out some of the new stuff that may never hit America or we'll have to wait for, for 2 years. The lines for most of these booths were very very long but we did get to sample some stuff. One such game was Kingdom Hearts 358/2 (for the Nintendo DS). We got to watch some of the newest demo videos for various other Square Enix games like Final Fantasy XIII and all the FFXIII related games along with the new Crystal Chronicles game for DS and a couple other games that didn't really gain our attention haha. We also got to eat various anime themed foods and got lots of free merch. We left the convention about an hour before its closing in hopes to beat the mad rush but that helped very little seeing as we all packed in like sardines for the train out. As we changed trains and the population decreased we eventually got a chance to sit down. Now as a gaijin or “outsider” you are looked at by much of the population as out of place and there-fore tend to avoid contact with you if they arnt introduced to them first. So here is a group of dumb gaijin sporting out cardboard Naruto headband/hair combo we got for free at the con sitting on a train. The rest of the group was able to sqeeze onto one side and so I sat down right by a young-ish Japanese guy who didnt really mind my presence and then an older Japanese lady came from the stationa and hesitated for a second and then wipped looked for another seat but gave up and sat next to me... but she wasnt so much concerned with me being a gaijin as she was trying not to laugh at my cardboard headband... so what does alex hill do... she starts taking pictures (with the flash off) I'm still waiting for that picture but man I can't wait to see it. After we made it home shortly after we left again to meet more people to go out for Byeolyi's birthday at a thai food place where there was conversation, good food and pictures for all to share. It was really a good time even when all the Crazy Koreans kept putting food in front of me... I don't think I ever felt that full before.