When we finally arrived at the LA convention center for Anime Expo, we didn't expect the pre-registered line to be extremely long. There were regular attendees and then there were cosplayers in the line too. Julie decided to use this time to 'get ready'. Since Julie and Aaron didn't pre-register and were too broke to buy their own tickets, we decided to do a switch-off to bring them into the dealer's room. For most of the convention, we like to stay in the dealer's room since it has a lot of cute figurines and merchandise. It does seem silly to pay $35 each just to go buy stuff.
For Joel, his enjoyment of Anime Expo was the large numbers of cosplayers. With his nice camera, he took a lot of pictures of different cosplayers. Of course, most pictures focused on Sailor Moon and her Sailor Scouts. I have mixed feelings towards cosplayers but I am still a fan of really well-made outfits. I wonder if the cosplayers ever feel tired and annoyed from posing all day. 
After we settled in, we decided to head towards Japantown and maybe find some good food to eat for dinner. We browsed some shops and bought some snacks but we were still trying to decide on a good restaurant. In the end, we settled for a restaurant that had expensive food which most of us ended up disliking. Joel and Mary decided to go to the nearby supermarket and bought something else to eat for dinner. When everyone was done, we retreated back to our hotel room and tried to sleep through the hot summer night.
Monday was our last day. Everyone had to wake up especially early so that we could go back to the Bay in time to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. After a long drive, we arrived at our destination. I was surprised to see so many people also going to the Aquarium. I thought they would be chilling at home or maybe at work. It was even more crowded when we entered the Aquarium. There were so many kids, I just knew my patience would be tested. But overall, I had a very fun experience at the Aquarium. I especially like the seahorses and jellyfishes. 
"Tokoname has been associated with ceramics production since at least the Heian period, and Tokoname-yaki works from this period have been found from Aomori Prefecture in the north of Japan to Kagoshima prefecture in the south. By the Kamakura period, over 3000 kilns were active. During the Sengoku period, the area came under the control of the Isshiki clan, and later came under the rule of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
There are a lot of other nuances of Japanese culture that can be observed in the workplace. Like once a person gets a job, it's usually hard for the person to get fired. The company usually tries pretty hard to retain the employee. There are also downsides to Japanese companies as well, but I don't care to go much into detail about this aspect of Japanese business.
Today, Annie made an awesome mascot for the website!
After fixing his car, we decided to just drive around. We ended up going to Hamamatsu. There is a mammoth shopping complex in Hamamatsu called the Aeon mall. It towers with an enormous parking lot of 3500 spaces that announces to everyone that it is the king of the prefecture, and no one should challenge its authority. Here we met an interesting person who was working at a mall booth. He was selling leather wallets and managed to catch that we were speaking in English. He was a fellow English speaker who was from Canada but lived in Japan most of his life. He said he was a surfer and worked at the Mall part-time. It's interesting how English speakers are drawn together in foreign countries.
There really is no place like home, and my home for the year was Toyohashi. I'd like to travel back to Toyohashi more, but it's always a burden financially, especially since I'm currently unemployed. But I really had to go back at least once more in order to say goodbye to everyone and pick up some things. So, I decided to embark on this trek at the early hour of 3:30 in the afternoon.
