Sunday, May 30, 2010

My very first London EXPO :)

Wearing kimono two days in a row? Kudos to me for that :) Yesterday I went to London EXPO for the first time, and after my earlier disappointment in London Film and Comic Con, I decided not to cosplay but instead wear my kimono. Even if I get disappointed yet again, at least I wore a kimono right? Well... I wasn't disappointed. :) I actually liked it a lot! Yes it was crowded, yes it was full of people in (crappy) costumes but I expected it at a convention. The only thing that I didn't like was that they held their presentations, talks and workshops in the main convention hall, where it was so loud that you couldn't hear anything. I miss US conventions where workshops get their own separate rooms. I will definitely come back again, this time in a costume tho. ;P

I decided to go all out for the con. Lots of makeup, false eyelashes, crazy hat, you name it. :) For kimono, I wore my black hitoe with bright yellow abstract obi and red obiage and obijime. Of course, being me and just having to be all matching, I also wore red tabi and gloves, and yellow zori. ;P







Sadly I had a bad kitsuke day that day :( It just didn't want to work for me! My juban sleeves were showing, obi was crooked and the right side of kimono kept slipping down. And I also learned not to wear dark hats with my current hair color because they just get lost and hard to see.





I wish I could have met up with UK kimono club there. For all my suggesting of meeting there, I only briefly saw Isla and Hong and then didn't even see them again at all :( However, the highlight of the con for me was meeting Svetlana Shmakove, the creator of Dramacon. I wanted to meet her ever since I read the first volume. No, actually probably ever since I saw her drawings in Christopher Hart's How to Draw Manga series. I didn't know what time her signing was, and actually didn't even know where it was held. On my way to ask, I stopped by Tokyopop booth and long and behold, there she was! About to leave lol. She stopped to sign her book for me, and we chatted in Russian for a few minutes. Turns out she likes kimono too, and even owns several of them. Overall, she is super cool and I'm extremely happy because I got to meet her :) :)

6 comments:

  1. kyyyaaa!!!

    hehe i love you kitsuke. most of all the obi :)
    Hong did invite me but it was tooo much of a short notice
    hmmmm wish i had gone. Am soooo going to the october one better practice my kitsuke this summer.
    hehe i like how you spice it up buy adding the hat

    that guy's costume looks very interesting :)

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  2. There will be other occasions before October lol. Like Japan Matsuri. Last year it was on Sep 19th, so I expect this year it will be around the same time. So plan for it so you wouldn't have a short notice lol! ;P

    The obi is my pride and joy... haha a lot of them actually. I like abstract kimono and obi, because then I don't have to worry about the seasons :) :)

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  3. It was confirmed for September 18th :) So there, you got yourself a notice! I definitely going to be there too! ;P

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  4. ohh yeah this time am gonna save up will be broke all of july and october unless is i get a job (so hard to find these days ) think i will need to get a rail card if am gonna travel up and down :)

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  5. Lucky! I want to meet her too. I love her manga Drama Con. I really love your obi-age. >< I think you look wonderful and I see no mistakes in the pictures....

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  6. Oh they're there lol. I just kept tugging on my sleeves before each photo was taken )

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