Kumori-con 2012 review (Pictures soon to come)

-Pictures will be uploaded soon.-


Wow. Is all I can really say about Kumori-con.

Just kidding. I have a lot to say. I had a great time and I have to say this was by far one of the best cons so far. I'm going to part this review in sections by day and by pros and cons. For those who don't know Kumori means "cloudy" in Japanese. Since it's held in both Oregon and Washington.  This year was the tenth anniversary for this convention. From what I heard we broke all records this year. That means we had way more cosplayers/con goers than then int he past year. I'm glad I decided to go to this con because we had a great time!


Day Zero:

We left my house around 11:00pm. It took us a while to pack up everything and make sure I didn't forgot anything important. I had a feeling I over packed like normal and I did. I wore my lolita outfit. We arrived on site around 12:00 or 12:30 that afternoon. We were staying at the Red Lion (The hotel right at the edge of the river, farthest away from the park) We easily found a parking spot for the parking wasn't full yet. We went inside to make sure we were okay parking in the lot even through our check in time was three. But we found out we could check in then and there. We were so happy and pleased by that since we had a LOT in the car.

We called our roomies, who had already been on the con site for a while and we all met up in front of the hotel. We had four staying in our room. My hubby and I and our two friends. We helped each other load all our stuff up and into the room. That took a while but it was fun and this was what day zero is all about. After settling in we decided to head out to the park since I had the lolita meet-up and photo-shoot at three. But first I met up with someone who wanted to buy some of my lolita stuff. The lolita meet was cool, although only one person came to talk to me but she wound up renaming me "Molly" so I doubt we'll become friends since she couldn't remember my name....or bother looking in the notebook I wrote it down in for her. It didn't turn out well. I liked the girls but my glasses went dark because of the sun and NO ONE told me they were. I looked horrible in the pictures and I felt like I ruined the meet-up. So I'll just skip wearing glasses next time. We spent the rest of the day with our friends, having tons of fun. We really connected with them and enjoyed talking and being silly with them.


Day one:

We all woke up at seven and it took us about an hour to hour and half to get ready. Which isn't too bad seeing as we were sharing a bathroom and small space with four people. Plus I had to do Nic's make-up. This was the first time I got to wear my new Sakura (Tsubasa) cosplay. I was so excited. My hanfu had so many bells on it. It was hard not to hear me coming. Day one was pretty chill. We mostly just walked around. At three we had a mini shoot with a really nice photographer. I really need to work on posing though as well as remembering not to scrunch my chin down so it appears I have a double chin. I need to learn more about how to pose my face and remember to stand with my shoulders pulled back.

But that's why making mistakes is so important so you can learn from them and make it better over time. I just hope my pictures for the cosplay book turned out well. The worst part about this day was line up for the dealer's hall. It was in a small area with not a lot of dealers. I wasn't impressed. The line was wrapped around the front of the Red Lion. The staff were kind and helpful but I found it annoying when we were trying to get back into the hotel to go up to our room and having them stop and yell "LINE UP STARTS WAY BACK THERE." And shit like that. It bugged me. We had to keep telling them where we were going. Which we shouldn't have to do when we paid good money to get a room at that hotel. It was annoying but didn't ruin our day. After that we spent the day hanging with friends then the evening in the hotel room to relax from a long day of lots of walking. Sadly we lost our FMA wall scroll. :(


Day Two:

The best day ever. We woke up around 7:00 am again but we were being lazy and we didn't leave until around ten I believe. This was our Pandora Hearts day. It was a very busy day. At 12:00pm we had our Pandora Hearts photoshoot. That was fun seeing our high school buddies. But sadly a younger cosplayer thought it was fun to steal my Break's sword/cane. I had remade and polished that prop myself. It was the first prop I had made and it is VERY delicate. It's been broken at least five times before. In minor ways. But this brat (Even through my hubby told him/her not to touch it again) kept pulling it and running away with it. My hubby had on shoes that hurt his feet so he couldn't really chase her/him. I was getting pissed but didn't want to explode at the kid.

Sadly the prop was tugged on too much and snapped. Luckily it broke at a good spot. Right around the part where the top of the cane connects to the bottom. It stayed together during the shoot as well. I was just glad it didn't break at the end or at the top that would have to been put together with something stronger than hot glue. We ignored the brat and tried to not let what happen affect our day or shoot.

At three we meet up with the author of the new and up-coming Cosplay book Check it out! for a interview and photo shoot. Ger was so nice! We relaxed and had a great time talking with her. She's so easy going and kind it was a joy spending time with her talking about cosplay. We may or may not be included in the cosplay book but just being able to talk to the author was something I'll never forget. It really made our day and will be the highlight of the whole con.

After that we roamed a bit then decided to go back to the hotel and relax. We changed to casual clothing. I wore my lolita dress and my Sakura wig and us and our roomies hung out and danced on the balcony, gave out candy to random cosplayers and ate pizza. We had a great time.

Day three:

We had a choice since we had pack up and get ready to move our stuff back to the car. Our room was messsssssssy. XD So at the very last minute  we decided to cosplay. Something we don't normally do on day three because it's closing day. There isn't much going on and we'd have to drive home in cosplay. But since our friends were cosplaying we decided to give it a try. So we chose our Tsubasa costumes. After packing up and loading up tons of stuff to the cars we all hung out inside the Hilton which was a lot of fun.

The best part was when a man pulled me aside to take a picture with a young CardCaptor Sakura. I was so happy and the little girl was so cute! It really made my day and left me in a good mood.


The con turned out great. There were a few flaws but during a con that's normal. I wish we would have been more clean with our hotel room or at least told our roomie to be more clean so it'd would have been easier to see our wall scroll was missing. We had a good time. We'll surely keep cosplaying and enjoy it to the fullest.