Convention time is always an exciting time. Though this year I was more excited about attending SMASH and I don’t know why. I did miss out on going last year since I was in Japan at the time but I think it’s more of the fact that I’m currently unemployed and needed something to ease my mind. Anyway hit the jump to read about SMASH Day 1 – Saturday. WARNING: Picture intensive post.

Waking up at the ungodly hour of 6:30am I managed to pack up everything I needed for the day and with my sister made our way to SMASH, of course making a slight detour to pick up Roobar. We didn’t arrive until about 10:15 am and was fortunate enough to find parking close to The Roundhouse. We joined the end of the line and waited probably about 20-25 minutes before we got to the paystation for entry. Although I could have skipped all that and went through the back door since I was a guest panelist, but I didn’t want my sister and Roobar to feel alone.

My guest pass for the weekend

Upon entering the doors I could see that the convention was in full swing. Plenty of people buzzing around buying merchandise, taking photos, posing for photos etc. As to be expected of a Saturday. Although my main goal for attending conventions is to take photos, however I spent a good 2-2.5 hours at the start meeting and greeting the various friends and acquaintances that I know. Just to name a few: Shin, Optic, icie, koshiko and Ou7, and Pudding. The new faces I met this time around was Snark and Simon.

The first stop was the ABJD display table since Roobar and I were carrying our girls. Carrying stuff around does get annoying at a convention, which is a good thing that I could leave most of my gear under the table. For Day 1 I had my sweet Erika dressed in the CLANNAD uniform sitting in her chair with her dangos. I wonder how many people would have picked up the CLANNAD uniform. If only I had a long purple wig!! Roobar’s Saber was in her default outfit and in full armour. The armour is hella annoying to put on by yourself.

I completely forgot about taking photos of my own daughters so these are sourced from Optic’s collection. Please forgive me my sweet Erika!! Of course my Erika and Roobar’s Saber weren’t the only Dollfie Dreams on the table. Simon also brought along his Yoko and Nia:

Once setup, it was time to meet and greet and do random photo shooting! Despite the venue being rather small with satellite areas for other events, I found it quite suitable for such an event. Sure there was a lot of people, but not as much as Supanova where trying to walk around sometimes requires more effort than needed. Everything was well placed as opposed to the last time that I attended SMASH and that was back in 2007. Now that was a mess in terms of where the artists were placed.

Maids and butlers doing a dance on the main stage.

A Gundam hat. Pretty neat. Even had the”Caution” labels.

Tamarket as busy as ever. And yes, I did get loot from them which shall be revealed later.

One of the other things about conventions is the food stalls. Having a look at the food stall list on the SMASH website, I was rather intrigued by some of the vendors that have came along, but alas as every convention, I don’t eat during them. Well the other reason for this year was that I couldn’t buy anything either since I had very little money on me. Though I think the worst thing was not having anything to drink the entire day either, and when doing a lot of talking, it takes it’s toll.

Food from the Paris Cake Shop looked not only delicious, but also like artwork to me. Perhaps I’ll visit their shop once I’m established again. Syoku Samurai were the takoyaki vendor however I can’t exactly say they were a big success. From what my sister had reported to me was that there was a two hour wait for all orders. Not only that my sister said she felt a little sick after eating them, most likely to the takoyaki being slightly undercooked. My impressions is that Syoku Samurai probably underestimated the amount of people who would attend the Saturday hence the long wait and rushed food. The Maid Cafe also makes a return thisyear but I didn’t enter due to the long waiting line. Oh and as a side note, I might look at doing food photography and food blogging, what do you think?

And of course the one thing we always come to conventions for, other than the buying of merchandise, cosplay! The quality of cosplay this year is phenomenal. Two years ago cosplay was still a bit of a let down and last year I didn’t see much since I wasn’t in the country. If this SMASH is any indication of the quality then I wonder what will be seen at Animania in a few weeks.

When I saw this Hatsune Miku cosplayer I pretty much thought to myself “yep, my day has come to an end”. One awesome thing was when I was hanging around the ABJD table, her and other Vocaloid cosplayers were doing some dances just outside on the balcony. If only I had a video camera!

I was being attacked by Orange-kun!

Roobar with an old friend of ours.

It’s Luluko! I did a cosplay shoot for this group a few weeks back. Will post those images once I get to them.

This is Shin. Make sure to Caption This! for the lolz

And of course it was a rather tiring day. Saturday always is, especially for those who are running a store/table:

I was feeling pretty dead towards the end given that I hadn’t eaten or had any fluids throughout the day. However the day was quite enjoyable, though I wished I took more photos but that’s just the way things are for me. Next post will cover the Cosplay Competition photos for Day 1.

Check out other coverage of SMASH!:

• Hunting the Elusive (Day 1, Day 2)
• The Dis-Jointedzone
• Bubby’s SmugMug (Day 1, Day 2)
• Technical Solitude
• SMASH! Forums Photo Thread
• The Tsundere