#we have guests all weekend so Sunday at earliest

[cloudywithachanceofjam]

right I’m blocking all trop tags from now and I genuinely don’t know when I’ll get the chance to watch the first episode so I will check back in and scream with you all as soon as I can

have fun everyone who gets to watch it tomorrow!

[noxtms]

MINISTER ANTONIN KARKAROFF has remained tight lipped regarding this years ministry gala following the tutshill derby attack and hospitalisation of his only son, with many assuming that these extenuating circumstances would lead to it being pushed - for the first time since conception - into september at the very earliest. as a mark of strength ( and some would say, in true karkaroff fashion ) however, the minister of magic has today confirmed that the annual gala will go ahead as normal on the first sunday of august, with the dedicated organisational team working around the clock to ensure another successful evening ! 

❝   the dedicated team usually starts working on the event in early june, and volunteer employees are pulled from every department and given strict instruction on what they should focus on in the planning of their presentations and talks. of course minister karkaroff felt it wasteful to throw out the hard work of so many individuals, but the more important thing has been showing the death eaters who attacked innocent individuals at the derby that we remain strong & uncowed in the face of their adversary. in addition to the heavy auror presence, the minister has paid for private security out of his own pocket to ensure that our honored guests feel most secure over the course of the night - and one has to wonder how we possibly couldn’t, knowing as we do now that he himself is perfectly capable of protecting guests en masse in the worst case scenario !  ❞

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE :  

kingsley shacklebolt was the mastermind behind the ANNUAL MINISTRY GALA, with he & his cabinet organising the very first one following the end of the second wixen war as a way to show off their new and improved ministry of magic to the public. it has become an extremely important event in wixen society, and tickets are highly sought after by members of the public, even now - for a single night on the first weekend of august, ‘outsiders’ are given the opportunity to see the the changes implemented across departments since the end of the war and the steps taken to ensure that they do not return to what they were, before it. 

ministry workers and those who fought in the battle of hogwarts have, in the past, received an automatic invite along with the option to bring along a plus one. the rest of the guest list has always been bulked out by the random allocation of 150 tickets to members of the british wixen community, who receive their invites by owl post two weeks before the gala itself. the greatest wixen chefs known across britain prepare an incredible four course meal that is served early in the evening before the beautifully decorated tables are vanished and a ballroom dancefloor is conjured at the centre of the atrium, all the better for guests to enjoy a slow dance to the orchestral music that plays all night. several open bars can be found dotted throughout the space, and flutes of champagne or glasses of wine can be brought along to the presentations from all ( but one, since the dept of mysteries remains closed ) of the departments on what they’re currently focusing time & effort on. department heads give rehearsed TEN MINUTE talks to any interested guests, and they’re free to answer any well worded question that is thrown their way, though cautioned to remain tight lipped when it comes to their personal opinions. 

this year, one of the topics they should remain silent on is one that is bound to be hottest amongst guests as all of the most recognizable members of dumbledore’s army are snubbed from the guestlist. the members of the da who took voldemort’s life and brought about the end of the war were, in the past, treated as celebrities - they received vip lanyards that gave them access to off limits areas of the ministry, private and guided tours, a spot at the head table with the minister of magic at their side and, in general, special treatment in comparison to everyone else. it seems that minister karkaroff - the newly minted hero of the tutshill derby attack - has finally gotten his wish, and for the first time in eight years, the da have not just had their perks taken unceremoniously from them, but been excluded almost in entirety from the event as a whole. 

OUT OF CHARACTER : 

the eighth annual ministry gala is the third version of this event that has hit the nox dash since we opened, and this year, we have officially come full circle. the da have always had pride of place at this event as the heroes of the second war, shown to us through the special treatment that was heaped on them at the sixth gala ( the first one we ever wrote ). at the seventh, they were taken off that vip list and sent to the back of the atrium following their breaking in to the department of mysteries in christmas, 2020. now, they have been excluded entirely. it WILL NOT go unnoticed, but how much people allow themselves to care about this widely deemed minor snub is for you to decide ! 

the event officially begins on sunday the 21st of august at 12:00am gmt. click here to see what that equates to for your tiemzone ! 

it’ll last for two weeks, but i’m not going to request the pausing of current threads provided that event threads are appropriately tagged and differentiated from them. 

all event related starters can be tagged with nox.event029 ! the location is the ministry of magic, but feel free to specify what level your character is on ( while keeping in mind that the main level - where meals are served and the orchestra plays - is the atrium, while the department of mysteries is locked and strictly off limits ). 

the only publicly known members of dumbledore’s army to receive an invite are those who would believably have been issued an invite due to being seen as an important figure in the wix world, in their own right, with the only other option available to them being the possibility of being the plus one of a named & played character. this snub is on purpose - ie, while a loophole does exist, i don’t want you guys to exploit it ! the very, very few who attend will receive no special treatment, and may find the vibe from high ranking officials to be uniquely cold. please keep that in mind ! 

if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to message the main with them ! please comment your current favorite song on this post to show you’ve read it !

[reidingmelodies]

Sugar Rush

Summary:  Who knew finding the perfect wedding day dessert was so much work? Pairing: Spencer Reid x gn!Reader Category: Fluff Includes: Food consumption, light kissing Word Count: 2.4K

“Did you know the first wedding cake was most likely served in Ancient Greece?” Spencer began, looking down to where you were laying with your head snuggled against his chest.  You hummed in interest, moving your hand to meet his where it rested on his lower stomach, intertwining your fingers together.  Spencer smiled at the gesture before continuing his spiel, “But one of the earliest mentions of wedding cake originates from Ancient Rome where the cake was actually broken over the bride’s head in the hopes of bringing them good fortune in their life together”.

Your brows furrowed at that, and Spencer couldn’t help but laugh at your reaction.  “Well, we certainly won’t be doing that at our wedding,” you giggled, giving his hand a light squeeze.  

Flipping your hands over, he brought your hand to his line of sight and admired the engagement ring resting on your ring finger.  “Do you want to smash cake in my face after we cut it?”

You thought for a second before shaking your head.  “I don’t think so- unless that’s something you want to do?  I don’t even get why that’s a thing in the first place, it seems kind of gross”.

Spencer sighed in relief, beyond grateful that wasn’t something you wanted to do.  He loved you, and he was more than happy to exchange germs with you in other ways- but throwing cake at each other definitely wasn’t his style.  “I’m glad you don’t because I feel the same way.  Cutting the wedding cake is traditionally seen as a symbol of a couple’s commitment to each other, and I don’t want to ruin that by throwing cake in your face”.

You smiled, rolling over slightly until your stomach laid against his and propping your head up to look down at him.  Spencer hummed in approval at the new position, moving his hand from yours and resting it on your lower waist.  “Plus,” you added, “we’re paying way too much for the cake to waste a single drop of it”.

Spencer laughed in agreement, pushing himself up lightly to give you a soft kiss on your lips.  “So no cake smash- there’s one part of the great cake debate settled”.  You groaned at his words, dropping your head and burrowing your face in the space between his shoulder and neck.

“I don’t understand why there’s so many cake flavors to choose from!  Honestly, do we even need a cake?” you groaned, voice coming out as no more than a mumble against your fiancé’s neck.  Spencer rubbed your back soothingly, before humming in acknowledgement.

“We’ll figure it out, babe,” he reassured you, giving your forehead a quick kiss.  “On the bright side, regardless of whether we pick one or not we’ll get to try at least twenty different types of cakes for lunch tomorrow”.

“I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” you laughed, pushing your upper half up to once again look at his face.  “But as long as you’re with me I’m sure it won’t be too bad,” you finished, leaning down to lay a sweet kiss on his lips.

“What a sap,” Spencer jokingly mumbled against your lips, causing you to pull away and playfully roll your eyes at him.

“A sap you decided to spend the rest of your life with,” you countered with a smirk, eyes softening in admiration at the grin that spread across Spencer’s face with your words.

“Best decision I ever made,” Spencer claimed softly, sealing his declaration with a concession of kisses against your lips.

You smiled, threading your fingers through his hair and continuing what you started- leaving the discussion of cakes and all things wedding behind, choosing instead to spend the night entangled with your fiancé, trading kisses and whispered declarations of love well into the evening.    

***

The next morning, you sat in the kitchen nursing your cup of coffee while Spencer took a shower before you headed to the bakery.  It had been six months of engagement bliss for you and Spencer, and you both found yourself on an impenetrable high for the first three months with no qualms.  As far as the two of you were concerned, you were irrevocably in love with each other, full stop.  You didn’t know when you wanted to get married, or where, but you knew that you wanted him by your side for the rest of your personal slice of eternity.  

Eventually, that answer stopped being met with aw’s from your friends, and instead had been met with playful eyerolls followed by logistical questions regarding the wedding.  It became apparent pretty quickly that there wasn’t a where or when anywhere in your plan, but the who, what, and why were pretty clear.  And when it came to wedding planning, the last three took the back burner.  Who would have thought?

Weekends cuddled up with your fiancé turned into Friday nights spent researching, Saturday afternoons filled with venue tours, and Sunday mornings comparing notes (and somehow, that was always the part that lasted the longest when it came to you and Spencer).  

Once the venue was secured, you both became invested in the rest of the details that made your special day unique to the two of you, settling on a lilac color scheme and Save the Dates in the form of bookmarks.  Everything settled into place pretty quickly after that, except for the dreaded cake.

There was just too much to it.  Between the design, number of layers, and flavors there statistically wasn’t a high probability of pleasing all of your guests much to Spencer’s dismay.  And as much as everyone said that the most important thing was that you and Spencer were happy with the cake, the two of you were more than happy with each other, and that’s all you really cared about.

“Ready, Y/N?” Spencer broke you from your train of thought and drew your attention towards him.  He smiled, holding a travel mug of coffee in one hand and your car keys in the other, motioning towards the door with his head.  

You nodded, taking the keys and heading towards the door with the love of your life in tow, internally cursing yourself for stressing out half as much as you have about a silly cake.

***

Two hours later, and one thing was for sure- you were right to be stressed.   The owner of the bakery was one of the sweetest women you’ve ever met (the title of sweetest belonged to Penelope Garcia, hands down), but as welcoming and supportive as she was you still felt like a fish out of water.

You and Spencer were ushered into a room with exactly twenty-three cake samples laid out on tables, accompanied by open portfolios and photos of some of the bakery’s most renowned creations.  In the time since your arrival you’ve tasted flavors ranging from lemon raspberry to mocha chocolate and you were exhausted.  

You couldn’t help but feel like the universe was punishing you and Spencer for joking around the previous night about how great it would be to eat cake for lunch.  You leaned over to tell Spencer just as much, and the exhaustion was almost worth it when you saw his smile illuminate the entirety of his face.  

“What happened to ‘as long as you’re with me I’m sure it won’t be too bad’?” he jokingly questioned, booping your nose and giving you a quick kiss on the cheek when he saw the joking glare beginning to form on your face.

“Changed my mind when you called me a sap,” you retorted with a smirk followed by a quick squeeze of his hand so he knew you weren’t serious.  Your comment made him laugh, and soon enough you were both in a fit of giggles surrounded by mountains of cake and half looked through portfolios.   

As your laughter died down the reality of the situation you were in began to set it.  You loved all of the cake you tried, but everything about what you were doing just didn’t feel right.  The more you envisioned your cake, the cloudier the picture became.  All you knew was that you wanted something that screamed you and Spence, but none of the flavors you tried did that.  You sighed, and Spencer immediately perked up, forever in tune to you and your needs.  

“What’s going on up there, love?” Spencer tapped the side of your head lightly with his pointer finger, causing the right side of your lip to slightly curl up.

“If I ask you something will you be honest?” you asked, putting your hand on top of his.  

Spencer immediately nodded, grasping his fingers with yours and bringing your hand to his lips.  “Always”.

“Do you picture any of these cakes at our wedding?”  You questioned, bringing the closest portfolio towards you with your free hand and flipping through the first few pages.  “They’re all so pretty, but I just don’t think they’re us, ya know?” 

It was quiet for a beat longer than you expected, and for a second you were nervous you had somehow offended Spencer.  But when you looked up and met his eyes, all you found was his understanding gaze looking back at you.

“I completely get what you mean,” he began, squeezing your hand before continuing his thought, “but Y/N.. do you really think that we’ll ever find a dessert that’s more us than donuts?”

You knew right away that he was joking, but you also couldn’t help but smile at the flood of memories that overtook you once he said it.

As Penelope liked to call your relationship, “the greatest love story of this generation” began just a block south of the bakery you were at over chocolate sprinkled donuts and coffee.  It was a Tuesday morning, and you were running a few minutes late in your morning routine.  You usually got to the cafe around 8:15, just before the majority of the 9-5 workforce showed up for their morning coffee fix.  

That day though, you had missed your usual metro and walked in the door of the café at 8:27 AM.  It was overly crowded, and you were already dreading waiting in the overpopulated line for your coffee, but as luck would have it Dr. Spencer Reid had picked that exact morning to treat the BAU to coffee and donuts. 

He had walked in the door behind you, smiling in recognition at the book he saw peeking out of your bag.  Before he could stop himself, he tapped you on your shoulder, reciting a fact about the author of the book.  Almost immediately, his face dropped, worried that you were going to tell him off for being nosy.

To his relief though, you smiled and asked him for his opinion on the book- before you knew it, you both made it to the front of the line, and you found yourself longing for more time with the stranger who seemed to know an infinite amount of fun facts.  

As you both waited for your coffee and donuts, you took a leap of faith and asked Spencer if he’d want to meet up for breakfast the next morning.  To your delight he agreed, and the rest was history.  After three months of sporadic breakfast dates whenever Spencer wasn’t away on a case (mainly consisting of you trying all of the donuts on the café menu and Spencer sticking to chocolate frosted with sprinkles), he took his own leap of faith and asked you out on a date beyond the comforting walls of the café.

As far as you were concerned, donuts were a fundamental part of your love story, and Spencer was a genius.

You smiled at the memory, turning to Spencer and giving him a quick kiss on the lips.  He gave you a lovesick grin in response- “what was that for?”

“Have I ever told you you’re the smartest man I know?”

Immediately, Spencer nodded.  “Just last week when I told you how many books have been published by Penguin Random House.  You also said it the week before when we were talking about polar bears and I-” your laugh caused him to lose focus, all of his attention instead focused on the way your smile lit up your whole face.

“Okay, okay so I call you a genius a lot- sue me,” you countered, giggling with every word that came out of your mouth.  “I think you’re onto something with donuts though”.

“Wait, really?  I was just kidding,” the confusion was obvious on Spencer’s face, but it was laced with excitement as well and you knew right then and there that he was as hooked on the idea as you were.

“I know you were, but that doesn’t make it any less genius!  It’s just so us.  And not only that, but think of all the different flavors we can get!  That way everyone has a choice over what dessert they have and we don’t need to stress over finding one most people will like.  Oh my gosh babe, and Penelope can definitely help us think of a cute way to set them up!  Maybe we can do a cake stand or put them out in a buffet style?”  You made eye contact with Spencer, eyes widening as you realized you haven’t even asked for his opinion yet.  Softly, you brought your ramble to a close, doubt slowly kicking in, “Unless you don’t think it’s a good idea?”   

Smiling, Spencer stood from his chair and motioned for you to do the same.  Considering the fact that you would do anything he asked you to, you followed suit and he pulled you into his side, planting a kiss to the top of your head.  “I think you’re the real genius in this relationship, Y/N”.  You giggled at that, and Spencer continued, “it’s an amazing idea.  And you and I both know Penelope is gonna love that you thought of her to help us put it together.  How about we go to the café and see if they’d be able to help us out, hm?  Maybe grab some donuts while we’re there too?”

You nodded enthusiastically, before grimacing at the idea of having another sweet, “We’re gonna have a sugar rush for the next week, Spence”.

“Every day with you is a sugar rush, Y/N,” he quipped, trying to hold back his laughter at the disbelieving look on your face.      

You chuckled, leaning in for one of many sugary sweet kisses awaiting you that afternoon before playfully retorting, “And you have the audacity to call me the sap in this relationship.”

***

Link to join my taglist ♡

Tagging: @calm-and-doctor​

[gallagherhqs]

              THE TRUE STUDENT BODY OF GALLAGHER ACADEMY receives an email the sunday before classes begin that there will be an assembly bright and early monday morning ,  before the witness protection students can even fathom waking up yet ,  before even the earliest classes are set to begin .  nobody dares to miss it ,  not when president sutton sent out the email blast  personally  from her office .

        january 27, 2020, 5:00 :   the auditorium is packed but silent ,  as bleary-eyed ,  yawning students all perk up in their seats when president sutton walks onto stage and steps up to the podium .    “ GOOD MORNING STUDENTS , “   she says .   “ i would first like to commend everyone on another successful bootcamp session .  i know it hasn’t been easy for everyone ,  especially with our new GUESTS as a distraction ,  but you’ve all proven yourself that each and every one of you deserve to be here .  

                 “ i also would like to thank you for showing our new students from georgetown university such a WARM welcome .  we are still working with the authorities to understand the threat at large ,  but until then gallagher remains the safest place for them .  once we find out more ,  you all will be notified as well .   but because of this imminent threat ,  unfortunately we will not be opening the campus this weekend ,  as we always do . “   THIS garners a small response from the crowd ;   everyone always looked forward to visiting roseville the first weekend after the semester began . 

                  “ HOWEVER . “   a single word brings a hush among the crowd .   “ because of the new students and indefinite code red we’ve been put on ,   we at gallagher want to be sure that each and every one of you are still being offered the very best for your training .  so i’m very excited to introduce our new faculty members for the second semester . “   her hand motions to the side of the stage ,  and twenty or so unfamiliar figures join president sutton ,  lining up behind her along the length of the stage .  each are donned in the gallagher crested blazers all faculty wear .  even the drowsiest students are now all at the edge of their seats in curiosity . 

                  “ these faculty members are the best of the best ,  all alumni from gallagher or the late blackthorne .  each have been hand-picked to serve as a mentor for a particular area of study at gallagher ,  based on their current career path and previous studies at our own fine institute .  each major will have one gallagher alum and one blackthorne alum that will be rotating throughout classes to provide assistance to professors ,  and will be meeting with each of you regularly for one-on-one mentoring . “   president sutton pauses .   “ they are also here to provide extra security for our current guests .  please treat them with as much respect and dignity as you do for the rest of our faculty . “  

               this time in her silence ,  a round of applause sounds from the students ,  but not without whispers as well .  someone swears they recognize one alumni ,  another person complains that this will just mean harsher grading for the entire semester .  but it’s not until later that a very important questions pops up in a few students heads :   why does gallagher ,  known as one of the safest schools in the world ,  need more protection ? 

𝐎𝐎𝐂 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 :  we will now be introducing gallagher & blackthorne alumni as temporary playable characters ,  and will be accepting twenty-four in total  ( as mentioned above ,  two per major ) .  you will soon be able to find the application for them on our app page ,  but PLEASE keep in mind that these characters must be 32+  ( and rather than our 5+/- year rule regarding faceclaims ,  alumni characters must not be two years older or younger than their face’s real age )  and we will  N O T  be allowing any student/alumni romantic relationships  ( because it makes some people + admin penny uncomfy ) .  for now we will be keeping track of who applies for them on our app count page ,  and accepting whatever apps we receive tomorrow  ( 1/27 )  at approximately 10:30pm est .  as always ,  message us if you have any questions !

[cbk1000]

So today Mr. Jenn and I broke into our own house.

We weren’t able to access the entire thing when they first brought it in because it hadn’t yet been put together, so we couldn’t get into either bathroom, the master bedroom, or one of the guest rooms. We decided we’d all (we being me, Mr. Jenn, my sister, and my parents) swing by today because we were going out to my parents’ for lunch for Mother’s Day, and they only live about fifteenish minutes away, so it’s not a terrible drive. We were hoping they’d left a door unlocked since there’s nothing to steal, but unfortunately they didn’t, so we initially couldn’t get in. We looked all over hoping they’d hidden a key somewhere for the workers--no dice. Tried calling the sales rep (the company we went through is open on weekends and he works Sundays) to see if he might know if they left a key onsite, but he didn’t have a clue and said we probably couldn’t pick up a key till tomorrow at the earliest. We’ve waited a year for this house, we’re getting in today, goddammit.

So we went back and had lunch and then Mr. Jenn and I decided to go back to his parents’ to get my lock picking kit (and also some paperwork proving we were the owners in case anyone got suspicious, although it would have been rather hilarious to be arrested for breaking into our own house), which we did. It took us a little while, but Mr. Jenn finally was able to get it open and we WALKED THROUGH OUR WHOLE HOUSE!!! I did a walkthrough video, but my stupid phone didn’t save it for some reason. We’ll be out next weekend, so I’ll take another one then. 

We’re so fucking happy with everything. I love the floors we chose, the counters look nice, the kitchen is nice and open, the walk-in pantry was a fantastic fucking upgrade; I think it’s going to work really well for the two of us, for what we want. And the master bedroom has one of the best views in the house. AND A DOUBLE VANITY IN THE MASTER BATH I’VE NEVER HAD A FUCKING DOUBLE VANITY THERE’S SO MUCH GODDAMN COUNTER SPACE I LIIIIVE.

[guapo-t-w]

Local Tidewater VA Beer Festivals

UPCOMING BEER FESTS AND FESTIVAL FORECAST: Thu, May 16 - Kiwanis Club of Chesapeake 40th Annual Shrimp Feast, 4:30 - 7:30 pm, Chesapeake City Park, 900 Greenbrier Pkwy, Chesapeake. Announcing the 40th Annual Chesapeake Kiwanis Shrimp Feast tickets now on sale now!  $35 in advance and $45 at the door.  Thursday May 16, 2019 from 4:30-7:30 pm at Chesapeake City Park.  All you can eat Steamed Shrimp and BBQ as well as hush puppies , baked beans and coleslaw. Soda, Beer and Wine are also included!  Live entertainment!  Purchase your tickets here... https://innovativeticketing.com/Events/Detail/?NTQ5MDBDNEEtRjU1Qi00MkM3LUJFNEEtMTg2QzgzQ0VBQUY5 Fri, May 17 - Suds & Buds 2019, Norfolk Botanical Garden, 5:30 - 9:30 pm, 6700 Azalea Garden Rd., Norfolk. The 5th Annual Suds & Buds party with a purpose benefits three causes -- Norfolk Botanical Garden, Rotary Club of Norfolk Charites, and Lee's Friends. Join us for a casual after-work evening party at the annual Suds & Buds garden party. This is a rain or shine event for ages 21 and over! Tickets include: Admission to Norfolk Botanical Garden during the event – Rain or shine; Delicious Food by Local Area Restaurants (included in ticket price); Live Music by award-winning singer songwriter Lewis McGehee ; Free Convenient Parking; Relaxing After-work Party in Rose Garden Hall with Friends (Casual Attire); Two Drink Tickets – Craft Beers & Wine ? (additional tickets are available for purchase). Tickets to the Suds & Buds party are $49.99 each and can be purchased online.  http://covatix.com/events/suds-buds-2019/tickets Sat, May 18 - COMMON GROUNDS Collaborative Beer Fest & Camp Night, 4 - 8:00 pm, Holiday Travel-L-Park, 1075 General Booth Blvd., Virginia Beach. The 4th Annual Common Grounds Collaboration Beer Fest & Camp Night is a carefully curated showcase of brewing badassery and creative expression of one time only flavors you don’t want to miss! Held in the beautiful wooded Sherwood Forest Campground at the Holiday Trav-L Park near the Virginia Beach oceanfront, indulge in the tastiest of adult beverages while hanging out with your favorite breweries! Then spend the night camping by the bonfire under the stars with your friends!  https://www.commongroundsfest.com/ Sat, May 18 - The 8th Annual Pungo Wine Festival, 12 - 6:00 pm, Back Bay Farms Inc., 1833 Princess Anne Rd., Virginia Beach. Please join Connect With a Wish at the beautiful Back Bay Farms in Virginia Beach for the 2019 Pungo Wine Festival benefiting Connect With a Wish. Come out and enjoy a fun-filled day of wine tasting from some of your favorite Virginia wineries. Plus there will be live music, craft beer, food trucks and local artist and vendors. Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 at the door. Wristband and tasting glass will be provided for guests ages 21 and over. Bring a blanket or chair, invite your friends and come enjoy a great day for a great cause. Ticket sales will be available through CoVaTix at https://covatix.com/events/pungo-wine-festival Sun, May 19 - B3: Beer and Bourbon at the Brickhouse, 12 - 7:00 pm, Hosted by Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum, 1113 Atlantic Ave, Virginia Beach. Join us Sunday, May 19 and enjoy beer and bourbon tastings from local breweries and distilleries as well as a shrimp boil and BBQ to provide your tastings with the perfect match. Dance to live music while soaking up the sun in the beautiful Oceanfront Museum Garden. More information coming! Tickets $50 and include food, drink and entertainment! Tickets on sale NOW!  https://covatix.com/events/beer-and-bourbon-at-the-brickhouse Thu, May 23 - Bacon Bash 2019: A Bacon, Beer & Bourbon Affair, 6 - 9:00 pm, Virginia Living Museum, 524 J Clyde Morris Boulevard, Newport News. Celebrating the love of bacon, The Rotary Club of Warwick at City Center Newport News will host its signature charity event featuring local restaurants serving up their best bacon-inspired dish! Guests can sample each dish throughout the evening and will have the opportunity to cast a vote for the People's Choice Award to be presented at the end of the evening.  In addition, beer, wine and a variety of non-alcoholic beverages will be available throughout the evening. Ticket includes food, beer, wine and samplings of bourbon cocktails. Price increases to $60 on day of event. Proceeds from this charitable event will support The Rotary Foundation and a variety of local charities.  https://www.baconbash.org/ Sat, Jun 1 - O'Connoroo Summer Carnival, 12 - 10:00 pm, O'Connor Brewing Co., 211 W 24th St., Norfolk. Calling all lovers of craft beer, music, magic, art, fun, and games! Calling all carnies and gawkers alike! Come one, come all to the new O'Connoroo Summer Carnival! We are hosting our SIXTH annual O'Connoroo music, food, and beer festival on Saturday, June 1st! This year, we've added plenty of carnival games, prizes, live magic, fortune telling, axe throwing, fire dancing, and more to a lineup of amazing local food trucks and popups plus SIX live music performances! Last but not least, be sure to check out the NFK Street Museum ~ Mural Fest & Street Party happening simultaneously on this day from 2-7pm! This walkable street event will feature multiple unveilings of some of the most beautiful murals in Norfolk. We are excited and honored to have been chosen as the site for one of these murals, produced by the world famous John Van Hamersveld! Sat, Jun 1 - 4th Annual Revolutionary Beer Fest, 1 - 5:00 pm, Hosted by Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways History Foundation, Chesapeake Golf Club in Las Gaviotas, 1201 Club House Dr., Chesapeake. We will be celebrating amber suds with historical reverence as we pay tribute to the history of beer from the earliest days of our nation all the way to today's beer and cider breweries. The event features unlimited free samples of approximately 30 beers from 15 breweries, food available for purchase from Traditions, vendors, live music and more! TICKET PRICES: Tasting Tickets start at $35 prior to event- while supplies last. Unlimited free samples of beer (If we do not sell out these tickets will be $40 at the door the day of event); Designated Driver Tickets: $15. We are also offering a special golf package for those of you that would like to enjoy golfing prior to the Beer Fest. Golf Package: $85, includes round of golf, seat under tent, and Tasting Ticket. Please go online to Eventbrite to purchase tickets via credit card or feel free to contact the foundation for cash or check purchases and  for further information. ADULTS ONLY - 21 AND OVER - NO CHILDREN - NO PETS Sat-Sun, Jun 1-2 - 20th Annual Blackbeard Pirate Festival 2019, Mill Point Park, 100 Eaton Street, Hampton. Celebrating 20 years of one of the top rated pirate festivals in the world!! Find out why pirate lovers come from all over the country to enjoy the sights and sounds of 18th century Hampton overrun by pirates each year. Hampton’s waterfront comes alive with dozens of pirate re-enactors, costumed in historically accurate garb, who transform today’s Hampton into the busy seaport of yesterday. Led by Blackbeard the Pirate himself, re-enactors help visitors step back in time and re-live the history and legends of 1718 Hampton. The Festival offers a variety of children’s activities, live musical entertainment, fireworks, period vendors, arts and crafts, and much more!  http://www.visithampton.com/event/20th-annual-blackbeard-pirates-festival/2019-06-01/ Fri-Sun, Jun 7-9 - 43rd Annual Norfolk Harborfest, Town Point Park, Downtown Norfolk Waterfront. Celebrating America's largest, longest-running, free maritime festival in its 43rd year. For three memorable days, the historic waterfront festival offers a weekend packed with thrilling activities on land and sea to include tall ships and the Parade of Sail, artisan foods and beverages, unique and unusual performances, one of the largest fireworks shows on the East Coast, family games and activities, national and regional entertainment, and much more. FREE & Open to the Public!  https://festevents.org/events/2019-season-events/norfolk-harborfest/ Sat, Jun 8 - Revel Fest, Hosted by New Realm Brewing - VA, 12 - 5:00 pm, 1209 Craft Lane, Virginia Beach. We would like to invite you to join us for our inaugural Revel Fest at New Realm Brewing Company. Revel means to enjoy oneself in a lively and noisy way, especially with drinking and dancing. Seems like a fitting way to enjoy a Saturday afternoon! So come revel with us in the beer garden at New Realm with unlimited beer pours from 11 local craft breweries, food from our new restaurant, live music, and the Revel Fest Marketplace. Music by Jesse Chong Band and Buddha Council. A full list of local craft vendors and food offerings coming soon! Ticket price includes food offerings from our new restaurant, unlimited tastings, access to live music and craft vendors.  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/revel-festival-tickets-59322640615 Fri-Sun, Jun 28-30 - 2019 Bayou Boogaloo Music & Cajun Food Festival, Town Point Park, Downtown Norfolk Waterfront. The Bayou Boogaloo Music & Cajun Food Festival is Norfolk’s annual love-fest with New Orleans’ vibrant spirit and captures the melting pot of Bayou culture. From New Orleans to the Downtown Norfolk Waterfront, two stages featuring national recording artists providing diverse cultural musical entertainment. The Arts Market of New Orleans returns and brings with it talent, unique artistry and the culture of Louisiana! The Arts Council of New Orleans and Norfolk Festevents hand-pick the most unique and one-of-a-kind artists from Louisiana to share their stories, culture and craft. This year, numerous artists in various mediums including art, jewelry and sculpture will be on site displaying their works. No Bayou celebration would be complete without the mouthwatering Cajun delicacies prepared by authentic Louisiana inspired chefs. Festival guests are in for a real treat as they feast on fresh crawfish straight from Louisiana, jambalaya, gumbo, etouffee, alligator, muffuletta, andouille, and beignets. Guests will also find festival favorites like sno balls (discovered in New Orleans, by the way!), root beer floats, smoothies, Italian water ice, glazed nuts, kettle korn and funnel cake. Wash it all down with a variety of cold beverages including a fine selection of beers straight from New Orleans' own Abita Brewing Company as well as New Orleans Jack Daniel's Hurricanes.  https://festevents.org/events/2019-season-events/bayouboogaloo/ Sun, Jul 7 - Barks & Brews 2019, 12 – 6:00 pm, sponsored by O’Connor’s Brewery, Norfolk Botanical Garden, 6700 Azalea Garden Road, Norfolk. Bring your dog to the Garden and have a beer for a fun day with live music! Guests are welcome to explore the Garden with their furry canine companion. Explore 175 spectacular acres with your dog and enjoy a cold beer with food and music. Regular garden admission applies. Not-Yet-Members: Dogs: $5 (human admission applies) – become a member today and save! Your dog must remain on a leash at all times. Stop by our Visitor Center for extra doggie waste bags. Other Barks & Brew dates: Sundays – Aug 4, Sep 8, Oct 13.  https://norfolkbotanicalgarden.org/events/barks-and-brews-2019-1/ Fri, Jul 19 - Taste of Virginia on the Bay, Ocean View Beach Park, 100 W. Ocean View Ave., Norfolk. Taste of VA on the Bay will be taking the place of previous year's Brews on the Bay Beer Festival. There will be craft beers, wine, spirits with plenty of food vendors.  www.oceanviewbeachpark.org Sat, Aug 3 - Whistle Belly 2019: A Virginia Beer & More Festival, 7 - 11:00 pm, Merchants Square, 401 W Duke of Gloucester St., Williamsburg. Whistle Belly is back and bigger, bolder and better than ever! Mark your calendars for Saturday August 3rd for the ultimate beer party on Duke of Gloucester Street. Crafted by the DoG Street Pub & presented by the Junior Woman's Club of Williamsburg. Over 40 breweries, and more than 70 beers and delicious eats! Live Music to be Announced! Drinks & all you can eat for only $55! Save up to $10 by purchasing in advance. General Admission Tickets get access to the festival from 7 to 11 pm. Get Early Access tickets to enjoy exclusive beers. With an Early Access ticket your festival begins at 6pm with access to food & beer including 10 beers only available to Early Access guests!  http://www.whistlebelly.com/ Sat, Aug 10 - Beer, Bourbon, & BBQ Festival,  2 - 6:00 pm, Hunt Club Farm, 2388 London Bridge Road, Virginia Beach. Hampton Road’s Favorite Smoked Meat Onslaught is back – with TEETH! Come and see what over 225,000 people nationwide have enjoyed! This is our 4th Annual PORK-OUT in Virginia Beach. COME AND JOIN US! For a down-home, Southern-fried, good time... to support your inner Redneck! Get ready to enjoy all those pleasures that true Southerners live by - Beer, Bourbon, Barbeque, Boots, Bacon, Biscuits, Bluegrass and Smoked Beasts! It's two great days of beer sippin', bourbon tastin', music listenin', cigar smokin', and barbeque eatin'. Your admission buys you a sampling glass so you can enjoy an ALL-YOU-CARE –TO-TASTE sampling of beer and bourbon.  http://www.beerandbourbon.com/virginia-beach-va/show Sat, Aug 24 - 5th Annual Neptune's Coastal Craft Beer Festival, 1 - 6:00 pm, Hosted by the Neptune Festival, Neptune's Park, 31st Street and Atlantic Avenue, Virginia Beach Oceanfront. Neptune’s Park will be transformed into a craft beer lover’s haven on Saturday, August 24th, featuring local Virginia beers and cask ales, as well national and regional craft beers. Enjoy over 65 beers from 30 breweries, live music, food trucks, and more! Tickets will go on sale May 1, 2019. Each ticket includes a commemorative beer-tasting glass and tastings throughout the day. Early Bird Tickets: $30 Until July 1 or until allotment has been reached; Advance Tickets: $35 Through August 18; Week of Event Tickets: $40. https://www.neptunefestival.com/events/neptunes-coastal-craft-beer-festival Sat, Sep 7 - 4th Annual VA Cork & Craft Festival, 12 - 5:00 pm, Chincoteague Island KOA, 6742 Maddox Blvd., Chincoteague Island. Join us and the Special Olympics of Virginia for the 4th Annual Cork & Craft beer and wine festival. Sip on a variety of beer & wine while listening to the Island Boy Band and enjoying the breathtaking views of Chincoteague Bay and the lighthouse on Assateague Island. Shop for local artisan wares & crafts and indulge in great food provided by local food trucks. Buy your tickets online now for $30 (includes unlimited tastings and a commemorative tasting glass). Price goes up to $40 at the gate the day of the event. Designated Driver option available beginning January 2019 for $10, which includes soda/water. Children 15 years old or younger enter free. Need a place to stay? Check out our recommended accommodations and special packages available at Chincoteague Island KOA and Fairfield Inn & Suites. For all the details, visit www.VACorkCraft.com Fri, Sep 13 - Barrels, Brew & BBQ, 6 - 10:00 pm, Hunt Club Farm, 2388 London Bridge Rd., Virginia Beach. Come out on September 13th and help support Ronald McDonald House Charities of Norfolk!  All you can eat BBQ, drink Craft Beer, Wine and Champagne. Silent Auction, Raffles, Games, Music and much more!  https://barrelsbrewbbqfest18.thundertix.com/ Sat, Sep 28 - Craft Beer Festival, 12 - 5:00 pm, Hosted by Cape Charles / Chesapeake Bay KOA, 32246 Lankford Highway, Cape Charles. Calling all Craft Beer Lovers! We have more than 30 brews just waiting for you to sample. Once you've quenched your thirst check out the live entertainment or do some shopping with the vendors onsite. *This is a ticketed event  https://koa.com/campgrounds/chesapeake-bay/ Sat, Oct 12 - 7th Annual 757 Battle of the Beers 2019, Hosted by Beach Ambassadors, 1 = 6:30 pm, Camp Pendleton, Birdneck Road, Virginia Beach. This is the only festival in Hampton Roads that exclusively features local 757 Craft Breweries as they battle it out to win in different beer categories – with 100% of the proceeds go to local Hampton Roads charities including St. Mary's Home and Hope House Foundation! This award-winning and unique event pits Hampton Roads-based breweries against each other to determine who has the best beer in Hampton Roads. Each year, local breweries put their best brews on tap and are rated by an official brewer tasting panel and by attendees of the event to see which beer is the best in the 7-5-7. Drink Happy - Be Safe Follow the blogs at: www.brew-n-rock-tidewater.blogspot.com or www.guapo-t-w.tumblr.com and follow the latest listings of local brew events on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/hamptonroadsbeerforum/

[columbusohioblog-blog]

Places You Can't-Miss On A See To Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio is one of the most stunning cities in the nation, and it's been under the radar for far too long. This location offers a great mix of things to do, like the Arena District, The Ohio State University location which is filled with bars ideal for a night on the town in addition to killing time at least a couple hours in German Village consuming bratwurst and lazing in its parks.

Here are locations you can't miss out on when you're checking out Columbus, Ohio!

The Topiary Park

This gorgeous area is on the original website of the historical Ohio School for the Deaf, which is house to a jaw-dropping living sculptural analysis of Georges Seurat's traditional painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte. It was also become the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical called Sunday in the Park With George.

Columbus Museum of Art

This world-class museum is loaded with masterpieces, however what makes it much more unique is the ingenious way of starting important discussions. A number of its exhibits highlight thought-provoking questions, and it's worth putting in the time to read the responses from guests-- and include your own.

After that, make certain to hang out in the Wonder Space-- a family-friendly space covered in remarkable artworks by textile artists that include Jeila Gueramian's supreme blanket fort. You'll feel forced to touch or feel whatever, and will want to try all the hands-on activities such as weaving on the life-sized loom.

Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

The Franklin Park Conservatory has actually been drawing visitors to its acclaimed gardens, Chihuly glass work, and creative art display screens for more than a century. There are more than 400 plant types which are displayed in a kind of greenhouses and is interesting to check out as they represent environments from the rainforest to desert.

The two-acre Children's Garden showcases lots of interactive adventures for connecting with nature, like taking in the view from the treetop hammock or building your own fairy house.

North Market

This public market has been home to bakers, butchers, and candy makers-- not to mention fishmongers, restaurateurs, greengrocers, and ice cream artisans-- serving up the freshest regional meals because 1876.

There are dozens of "best in class" independent merchants that make this distinct space an essential part of the city. If you come hungry, you'll get a real taste of Columbus, from Brezel's Bavarian pretzels to Pistacia Vera's handmade pastries to the steaming dumplings at Momo Ghar Market.

German Town

Learn the history of one of the earliest locations in Columbus as you value the architectural features of the original brick homes built by German immigrants in the 19th century. If you're lucky, a property owner might even welcome you inside so that you can take a look.

Short North Arts District

Among Columbus' invigorating communities, the Brief North Arts District is home to plenty of galleries, indie shops, and dining establishments. You can attempt to check out on the very first Saturday of the month when High Street hosts the favorite Gallery Hop, and you get to soak yourself in all things art.

Huntington Park

You can take pleasure in a baseball video game at Huntington Park. It is among the travelers' favorite things to do. The local Columbus Clippers are the Triple-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, and tourists admire the atmosphere, the views, and the cost of games at this ballpark. The park can hold 10,000 people, but many say it's rarely crowded which permits visitors to explore and walk around different parts of the stadium.

Easton Town Center

Easton Town Center is an open-air shopping district, and it hosts stores like Coach, Nordstrom, and Cage and Barrel, the community likewise invites a farmers market on Thursdays from June to August.

The complex is home to lots of dining establishments also, which range from casual and fast like Panera Bread and Cosi to more posh establishments such as Smith & Wollensky and Mitchell's Ocean Club. When it's summertime, Easton Town Center entertains several events which include yoga classes, art shows, movie screenings, and concerts.

This place is outstanding for shopping, grabbing a meal, and people- seeing. Some state that it's finest to hit this shopping complex during the day as recently the evening crowd has actually become a little rough.

Whether you're thinking of a weekend trip or looking for methods to captivate your friends and family, we've got you covered. It’s also the best time to hire an expert home cleaning service to take care of your house. We have actually put together the top things you need to see in Columbus, and this is simply a start!

[vickisventures]

Road Trippin’

I think this has got to be the earliest I’ve ever seen snow fall.  We only got a couple of inches and it didn’t stick to the roads, but it was pretty and cold!  It is starting to melt now and the blobs dropping from the trees and falling on the roof of our RV makes it sound like we are under attack, but we are safe and warm inside.  We weren’t so sure we were going to be yesterday about this time.  We decided to go hiking yesterday morning.  There was a 5.6 mile hike called Hell’s Canyon that we’ve been wanting to do but we wanted cooler weather to do it in. Figured since it was only supposed to get to 47 degrees yesterday, it’d be “cooler.”  It was a nice hike with some pretty “fall” colors and 5 water crossings (thankfully the water wasn’t too high and there were rocks strategically placed for hopping across).  This area had a forest fire in 2000 and so some of the area is lacking trees and so we could only imagine what it looked like pre-fire but it was a worthwhile hike that took us around 2 ½ hours to complete.  So, we got back, ate some lunch and the temperature started to drop.  Time to crank up the heat…but it didn’t want to “crank.”  Déjà vu! (Happened with our last RV too.)  It would try to but the furnace wouldn’t stay on.  So, Steve started to troubleshoot. It took a couple of hours (and lots of prayers) but opening the motor and cleaning the sail switch (don’t ask me!) seemed to be the answer and the furnace kicked on. I’m not sure either one of us slept very well, waking up, wondering if the heater was still on and working but it was and still is.  I’m glad because it’s supposed to get down to 20 tonight.  Steve has unhooked the water hose and filled the fresh water tank so we don’t have to worry about the water freezing and we are just using the water in the tank.  Thank goodness for a heated underbelly and tank heaters!  This may be practice for our month in North Dakota!  

We have been trying to knock things off our to-do list.  Since we’ve still been doing online church, we decided to go to Deadwood on Sunday.  Also the gold mine was closing after Labor Day so we figured we were running out of time. We headed there first.  We couldn’t get on the next tour but they said if we’d wait an hour, we could go.  We just decided to sit in the truck and wait it out.  The tour was of an old gold mine that never made a ton of money.  It was interesting and when our guide lit a candle and turned off the lights in the tunnel, we got to see just how dark, dark is. I can’t imagine working in a mine with only a candle. Then we went to the Days of ’76 museum.  The town of Deadwood has had a rodeo and big celebration called the Days of ’76 since 1924 as a way to honor Deadwood's first pioneers - the prospectors, miners, muleskinners, and madams who poured into the Black Hills in 1876 to settle the gold-filled gulches of Dakota Territory.  The bottom floor of the museum had old wagons and carriages for you to look at.  That part was my favorite.  From there we went to find a place to park so we could walk Main Street.  There are lots of pay parking lots and garages but if you don’t mind a little walk, you can find a free lot north of town close to the Days of ’76 museum.  We figured since we were all about free, we’d do that!  We were ready for lunch and didn’t want burgers so we went to the Nugget Saloon which had good reviews on Trip Advisor for their pizza.  It was the best pizza I’d eaten in a while!  They have a secret recipe, whole wheat crust that was amazing.  We got an all meat pizza and were in heaven.  They also had a guy playing a guitar and singing so the place was packed.  I noticed they had an upstairs area and so I asked the lady at the bar if we could eat up there and she said we could if we ordered downstairs.  Wow, did we luck out.  There were only 2 tables (and a game room) upstairs but we were the only ones up there and we had a perfect view of the entertainer without having the music so loud you couldn’t talk.  Score! After that we headed to the Adam’s Museum.  It has a variety of exhibits and is free to the public.  The Adam’s House isn’t free ($10/pp) but we had our VIP passes and once again, kept our “free” day going.  It’s an old Victorian house that has had several well-known, local families live in it.  It was a beautiful house and the tour was very informative and enjoyable.  After that we found some ice cream (not free) and then our truck so we could drive to the Mt. Moriah cemetery where Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane were buried (as well as some other famous people from the Wild West.)  There’s a fee to go in but we arrived after 5pm and the fee booth was closed.  It was a full day of activity but well worth it. Deadwood also has a lot of casinos (and street smokers) so although it was a nice place for a day trip, I wouldn’t want to stay there.  So, our VIP pass got us into everything without paying a penny; we just had to pay for food and gas…made for a pretty inexpensive day.

As for campground news, Labor Day weekend wasn’t too rough.  Thursday was busier than I expected and Friday was just as I’d expected.  We had 31 arrivals on Friday and although Jen and Bill were gone all afternoon, we survived without too many issues.  Guests did start rolling in around 11:15 (45 minutes prior to check-in time) and I made the decision to go ahead and let them do it. I figured if I could keep the 31 RV’s from stacking up on me, it’d be worth it.  We had 2 come in with trailers and UTV’s that we weren’t expecting and that did cause some stress as we tried to figure out where to park them.  I really don’t understand why people don’t mention that kind of thing when they are making their reservations!  It’s not like it’s easy to find space for UTV trailers. Then we heard Saturday evening that part of the park was without electricity.  We still haven’t heard the full story but apparently there was an overload that caused 2 sections of the campground to go dark.  They weren’t able to get it fixed that evening, so people had to be without electricity until the next morning.  It had gotten into the mid 90’s that day, we were full with a lot of big rigs and I figure a lot of people had all of their A/C’s running full steam and it was just too much.  Thankfully, we weren’t affected by it but I bet there were some unhappy campers!

We are supposed to go to Rapid City and get our fridge fixed tomorrow morning.  Prayers that it will actually work by the end of the day, would be appreciated.

3 more work weeks left…

[recentanimenews]

Anime in America Podcast: Full Episode 3 Transcript

  The Anime in America podcast, hosted by Yedoye Travis, is available on crunchyroll.com, animeinamerica.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

  Episode 1 Transcript: In the Beginning There Was Fansubs

Episode 2 Transcript: Robots, Real Estate, & Silvio Berlusconi

  EPISODE 3: THE LONG CON(VENTION)

---

Disclaimer: The following program contains language not suitable for all ages. Discretion advised.

[Lofi music]

Alright, I’m sure you know the scene: people dressed up as their favorite characters, giant halls packed with toys and hamster plushes, hour-long lines to pack into a room to get a glimpse at creators and actors. Even if you’ve never been to an anime or comic book convention before, you know exactly what they’re like. You’ve seen the photoshoots, read the reports, or probably saw that one episode of Community where they go to an “Inspector SpaceTime” convention. Inspector Spacetime.

  Conventions are a huge part of fandom. In 2020 alone, there are 62 anime conventions scheduled for the United States. And that doesn’t even include all the comic book and movie conventions that have anime programming, like San Diego Comic Con. Before all of this, before you could go to a different anime convention almost every single weekend in a year… it all started in a hotel room in Dallas. This is Anime in America brought to you by Crunchyroll and hosted by me, Yedoye Travis.

[Lofi music]

The year was 1983. The inspiration? Star Blazers, the adaptation of Leiji Matsumoto's Space Battleship Yamato that aired in the U.S. in 1979. It was pared down from the original—names were changed, scenes were cut, and the violence was dialed back—but it still became a cult hit. So what do you do when you love something so much you just want to share it with other people? You start a convention.

  The idea of conventions was not new, not even in 1983. Science fiction conventions date back to the 30s, but back then it was like, seven dudes in someone’s house reading Isaac Asimov, or some shit like that. Over time, it morphed into something that more closely resembled the modern fan convention formula—fans, panels, dealer’s rooms, special guests, and cosplay, although that specific word wouldn’t enter the lexicon until much later. Soon, fans started organizing conventions for other stuff too, like Star Trek, horror movies, and comic books.

  Why was Star Blazers so special though? Up until then, most of the anime shown on broadcast television was episodic. So you could show any episode, in any order, and no one would know the difference. Not so with Star Blazers. By many accounts, it was one of the first serial anime series to air in the United States.

[Star Blazers season one theme]

You had to watch every episode, in order, to follow this rich storyline of intergalactic warfare, cosmic politics, and a brave crew recruited to retrieve technology from a faraway planet to save life on Earth from the ravages of alien nuclear technology. It was the stuff of science fiction dreams, and a lot of people were hooked.

  So in 1983, three guys—Mark Hernandez, Don Magness, and Bobb Waller rented some space at the Harvey House hotel in Dallas, booked some merchandise dealers, and hosted Yamato Con 1. Their video room promised one full season of Star Blazers, as recorded off the TV, minus the commercials, and the Space Cruiser Yamato movie in its original Japanese.  Back then, not everyone had a VCR because they were still incredibly expensive. The average price of a VCR in 1983 was $500, uh which, given inflation, is more now. So just think- consider that.

  And that didn't even count the VHS tapes, which cost $15.99 for a blank 90-minute tape. So just the idea of being able to sit around all day watching Star Blazers with other like-minded fans seemed revolutionary and very costly. Need I remind you, it cost a lot. Yamato Con even had a dealer room, with eight merchants selling everything from model kits to manga. About 100 people showed up, which is a lot when you think about how this was way before the Internet and message boards made it possible to advertise your event on a wide scale.

  There is some controversy about whether Yamato Con was technically the first ever anime convention in America, but it’s certainly one of the earliest instances of a con being devoted entirely to anime. At that time, there were already anime screenings at science fiction conventions around the country, and yes, of course, obviously it was a lot of Star Blazers. 

[Lofi music]

Here's Jim Kaposztas, who in 1983 convinced New York’s oldest science fiction convention, Lunacon, to start showing Star Blazers in one of their video rooms. Side note, if his name sounds familiar, it’s because Jim is also credited with making the first ever Anime Music Video or AMV, or those videos you used to watch in like 2006 where Naruto would dance to The Pussycat Dolls or whatever it was. In Jim’s case, it was a montage of the most violent scenes from Star Blazers set to the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love,” a tribute to the British TV series, The Prisoner. Which, I’m not sure, I don’t understand how that works as a tribute, but that’s fine.

  Kaposztas: My first exposure with anime at conventions was Noreascon Two, that was the 1980 World Science Fiction convention in Boston. There was a group called the “Cartoon/Fantasy Organization,” or C/FO for short, run by one Fred Patten, and he was screening anime in a small room at part of the convention. One of the things that he did was he was showing this movie called Lupin the Third Castle of Cagliostro and he was running a survey for the distribution company, Tokyo Movie Shinsha. So people would come in, they would watch this subtitled movie and then fill out forms, but other than that he was running all sorts of anime that was popular in that time frame from a lot of the early giant robot shows, to Space Pirate Captain Harlock, some of it subtitled, some of it not.

  Yes, before the internet was dominated by our very privileged sub versus dub debates, some fans didn’t have a choice but to watch anime in its raw Japanese.

  Kaposztas: Back then, there would be people that would narrate it which, from time to time it’d be like part right, possibly right, and bordering on some Mystery Science Theater 3000. 

  Okay. Let’s take a quick trip back to 1981. Reagan is president, crack is at its height, and Post It Notes were just invented. It’s December, Philcon 3, and budding anime fans are hungry for anything anime. Jim Kaposztas again.

  Kaposztas: They were screening the original Space Battleship Yamato, they were screening whatever they could get a hold of. I’d seen loose episodes of Space Runaway Ideon, Mobile Suit Gundam, and a lot of the times it was people figuring out “okay, this is what’s going on in the show,” and such. Usually there would be parties like on Friday nights and Saturday nights, people would put up little signs. In the case of Gammalon Embassy it’d be a picture of Deslock that says “Gammalon Embassy, Room Whatever!” And it’d be somebody with a VCR and a bunch of tapes and they’d show stuff and try and explain it to people. Used to get like 20-30 people packed into a hotel room, staring around a small television monitor. 

  Jim Kaposztas was addicted. He went to Lunacon in 1982 in costume, dressed as Captain Avatar--the first commander of the starship Yamato--complete with the beard, and all the other stuff. I don’t know what that guy looks like, so I wish I could give you more information, more of a visual. But you guys have Google. 

  He runs into a guy named Rob Fenelon who tells him, "Hey, I have all these Yamato tapes from Japan, but no VCR," so Jim drives the 30 miles home, just to get his giant VCR, and drives all the way back. They screened Space Battleship Yamato all Saturday night, then they do it all over again on Sunday morning. Months later, Rob gets in touch and says, "Hey, why don't we put together a video room at a convention?" They made a bunch of contacts, screened some anime with the local Star Blazers Fan Club, and a year later, at Lunacon 1983, started what eventually became known as the Star Blazers Video Room. And to fill time between screeners, he would include anime music videos, the aforementioned anime music videos. The first one he made took hours to make, and required the use of two VCRs. And thus was born the AMV, all thanks to Star Blazers.

  Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, where it was actually a lot easier to stumble upon manga in the wild thanks to the large Japanese-American community, Fred Patten was doing his best to raise anime into the limelight. Patten, who tragically passed away in 2018, was one of the godfathers of the American anime scene, spending a lifetime promoting and writing about anime and manga.

  In 1977, he co-founded America's first anime club, the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization or the C/FO for short. Around that time, he even became friends with Osamu Tezuka, who was "bewildered but flattered" that so many American fans took the trouble to figure out the plots of his manga, for a language most of them couldn't read. Tezuka was so flattered, in fact, that in 1980, he convinced Devilman creator Go Nagai,  Lupin the Third Creator Monkey Punch, and a couple other manga artists to go to San Diego Comic Con with him to check out the American manga fandom for themselves. That same Comic Con, both Tezuka and Patten were presented with Inkpot Awards—Tezuka for the film Phoenix 2772, and Patten for “Outstanding Achievement in Fandom Services and Projects.”  

  So while anime video rooms, Japanese guests, and even anime conventions have been around since the 80s, it wasn’t until the 90s that the convention landscape as we know it today really started to take shape. And once again, it started in Texas. As things seem to do.

[Lofi music]

Once again, there’s a little bit of controversy on which convention was technically the “first” anime con, but Project A-Kon is definitely the oldest continually running anime con in the U.S. that still exists today. The first one took place the weekend of July 28, 1990 at the Richardson Hilton in Richardson, Texas, and had an attendance of 380 people, which if you remember earlier, 100 is a lot. So now it’s 3.8 times that.

  According to its flyer, it was the “first animation con run BY fans, FOR fans,” with guests like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animator Louis Scarborough, Jr., Animag editor and publisher Trish Ledoux and Jeffry Tibbetts, and celebrated Disney animator Tex Henson. Tickets were only $4 a day, $6 for the weekend, and included access to two video rooms, a masquerade dance, a dealer’s room, an art show, a model contest, and something called… Japanimayhem, which they described as a “LIVE”—all caps—”anime-style RPG”. 

  All that at $4 a pop, obviously your next question is “What is Japanimayhem?” What the fuck is that? Who knows? Japanimayhem was a card game released in 1989, designed by Mark Camp and Stephen Grape, with the alluring subtitle, “A Game of Violence on Video for Anime Lovers.” Basically, players represented parodies of anime characters who competed to see who can rack up the most victims in a killing spree. Which… hmm. For those parents who blame violence on video games, here’s a little bit of fodder for you.

  But I digress. Back to Project A-Kon. Hopefully you still remember Star Blazers from... literally two minutes ago? It is the anime that inspired so many anime video rooms and fan gatherings in the 80s? Well, it was also partially responsible for Project A-Kon. When Star Blazers was being rerun on TV in 1982, it inspired a high school student from Denton, Texas named Derek Wakefield to turn his science fiction club into a Star Blazers fan club. Thus, the EDC—the Earth Defense Command— was born. The club grew in size, eventually putting Derek in touch with the Star Blazers Fan Club in New York—the same fan club that Jim Kaposztas and Rob Fenelon worked with to organize a small screening of the series before they launched their own video track. And now you see how everything is all related.

[Lofi music]

1983, Yamato Con. EDC wasn’t involved with the event, but some of the members did show up and distribute flyers for the club, and one of those flyers found its way to an attendee named Meri Davis, who not only went on to later head the EDC… but also Project A-Kon. You see, by the late 1980s, the EDC had morphed from a Star Blazers fan club to more of an anime club in general. A really organized anime club, that had regular meetings, local chapters, fan zines, newsletters, screenings, and a tape distribution service that helped the anime scene in Texas grow like wildfire. So when one of them said, “I wish we could put on an anime con,” the wheels started turning, and from that Project A-Kon was born.

  Once again, everything always comes back to Star Blazers. By the way, if anyone wants to learn more about this time period, you should definitely check out Dave Merrill’s blog, “Let’s Anime,” which is a great resource on that entire era. We’ll drop a link in the show notes just so you can check that out, ‘cause we’re nice people.

  By 1990, the anime scene in America had really taken off. Thanks to the efforts of all the dedicated fan organizations, the growing availability of VCRs and fansubs, and writers like Fred Patten, Trish Ledoux, and Helen McCarthy, who was spear-heading the anime fan movement in the UK, anime in America was getting to be a big deal. So big that even the Japanese studios were starting to pay attention.

  To tell this story, we gotta jump back to the 80s once again. You might be familiar with the name Studio Gainax. They’re the Japanese studio behind legendary titles like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann. Well, the founders started animating as a hobby, creating short videos in 1981 for an Osaka sci-fi convention nicknamed Daicon. Like many cons, it was a pure labor of love. At that same con, the group of fans also had a table where they sold garage kits, which were these small-batch resin models that would only be available for a limited time at certain conventions. They were so successful that the following year, they launched a company called General Products, with the goal of making model kits that were actually licensed. At the same time, they continued animating under the name Daicon Films.

[Daicon IV Opening]

This was before the two officially combined to form Studio Gainax, one of the first studios that had animation and merchandising under one roof. And General Products was actually really successful. They had two brick and mortar shops in Japan, and they helped organize the Wonder Festival in 1985, a toy and figure show that still runs twice a year today. 

  At some point, it made sense to expand overseas. Gainax’s animation division had already dabbled in the US market in 1987 with a movie called The Wings of Honneamise, a coming-of-age tale set in an alternate world about a man who becomes the first person in space, amidst political turmoil and conflict. It’s a love letter to what humans can achieve when they dream and work together, but that’s... not really what American audiences saw. The version that premiered at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood was heavily edited, hastily dubbed, and renamed Star Quest. And it umm… it didn’t do too well. It bombed. And it basically disappeared until it was re-translated and re-dubbed in the 90s. But General Products wanted a piece of the American fandom pie, so in 1989, they launched GPUSA. They stuffed the catalog full of shiny new anime merchandise, but they wildly overestimated fans’ interest in their products. For starters, a lot of those titles hadn’t even made it overseas yet, so anime fans had no idea what they were even looking at. So due to poor planning, GPUSA flopped and closed its doors a few years later. But not before they sponsored… AnimeCon.

  You might better know AnimeCon by its modern name: Anime Expo. Kind of. Which, I’ll get to it later, it’s… you’ll understand soon. AnimeCon was run by Gainax, Studio Proteus, and two anime clubs: UC Berkeley’s Cal-Animage, and Bay Area’s CA-West. It was scheduled for three days, starting August 30, 1990, a couple of months before I was born, at the Red Lion Hotel in San Jose, California. Because of Gainax’s connections, they were able to get an incredible line-up of Japanese guests, including Kenichi Sonoda, Katsuhiro Otomo, Haruhiko Mikimoto, Gainax’s own Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Toshio Okada, and amazingly, Leiji Matsumoto. And just a quick round of applause for getting all of those names in one go, first take. 

  Before we get ahead of ourselves—Matsumoto ended up cancelling his appearance, but the convention was a huge success regardless. It drew around 2,000 attendees, in comparison to the previous 380 and 100 figures that we dropped earlier. That was five times more than Project A-Kon 2 that same year, which had about 500 attendees. 

  Sadly, there never was an AnimeCon 2. They just ran out of money, they went broke. But from the ashes of AnimeCon rose the SPJA, the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation. A collection of Bay Area sci-fi and anime fans, they officially incorporated in April 1992 under the leadership of Mike Tatsugawa, who in 1989 had co-founded Cal Anime Alpha at UC Berkeley. They struck an agreement with AnimeCon to purchase their assets and obligations, and on the Fourth of July weekend, 1992, they put on the first ever Anime Expo. But all was not good in paradise.

[Dramatic music rises in the background]

There was a generational rift in Bay Area fandom, and it split into two camps-- East Bay versus South Bay, C/FO versus Cal Animage, the new kids on the block. The result was two competing anime conventions scheduled for 1993, held on back-to-back weekends, only 40 miles apart. 

[Dramatic music fades]

Anime America was set to take place the weekend of June 25 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Anime Expo was scheduled for the following week, July 4th weekend, at the Oakland Convention Center. It seems like July 4th is a bad time to host an anime thing, but maybe that’s just my opinion, and maybe I’ll be proven wrong in the next couple paragraphs.

  Anyway, the industry was not pleased. In fact, they flat-out refused to support both conventions. In December of 1992, Viz founder Seiji Horibuchi wrote the con chairs of Anime America and Anime Expo a stern letter, pleading with them to either make nice or separate their events.

  Here’s a little snippet of the letter, which was co-signed by publications and companies like Bandai, Shogakukan, Studio Proteus, Animerica, Animag, and of course, Viz.

[Piano music plays throughout]

“Dear Convention Chairmen,

We, the industry professionals listed here, do not believe that there should be two ’93 Bay Area anime conventions in close time proximity. It’s as simple as that… Japanese guests don’t have time in their busy schedules to attend two conventions. Retailers don’t have the resources to set up for two conventions. And there’s no way the fans (those outside the Bay Area, anyway) can afford to come to both cons… We’re writing to let you know we’ve talked among ourselves, and that we’ve all agreed that unless (1) there is only one Bay Area anime convention, or (2) Anime America and Anime Expo are separated by time and/or distance, we all withhold our support from both conventions… We would like to hear from you by January 8, 1993—a new year for a new convention. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll have to assume you do not wish our support… Please, won’t you consider our proposal? We don’t think we’re being unreasonable. We freely offer you our full support—the combined forces of the entire American anime industry—if only you’ll put aside whatever has been holding you back and do what’s right.”

  So, they were not- they weren’t mad. They were just… disappointed, I guess. That’s a lot of words to just say “Hey bro, chill! Relax. Move the conventions. What are you doing?” This could’ve been a Tweet. It could’ve been a Tweet.

  Spoiler alert, both conventions went on as planned, both had Japanese guests, and both had attendance counts north of 1,000 people. So… suck it, anime industry! Ha-ha! Both had an industry presence, as well, with A.D. Vision, informally known as ADV, opening their first preorders ever at Anime America for their subtitled release of Battle Angel. And surprise, Seiji Horibuchi ended up going to both conventions. Look at that, look at God.

  Even with the fan interest, it became clear to the SPJA that change needed to happen. In 1994, they moved south to the Anaheim Convention Center, a few blocks away from Disneyland, of all places, and they’ve stayed in Southern California ever since. For the most part, they’ve always taken place on or around Fourth of July weekend. One big change, of course, is that it’s a lot bigger now. Last year, they reported around 115,000 unique attendees. For reference, that’s about the same number of people who live in the entire city of Berkeley. So [exhale]-hWow that’s umm.... that’s a come up, right there. That is a come up.

  Sadly, Anime America closed its doors after its 1996 event, but the Bay Area isn’t without anime cons. These days, there’s about a half a dozen events that fans can go to scattered throughout the year. 

  The 90s were a really great time to be an anime fan. It’s nothing like it is now; fans are just straight up spoiled now, they got everything. All their anime streaming on demand, all the Hulus and the Netflixs. But the 90s were really good. Anime was getting distributed left and right, and you could even pop down to your local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video and rent a tape for a dollar. For the younger listeners, Blockbuster is like… it’s like Netflix, but you had to umm... you had to look a person in his face when you rent porn. [Silence] It’s like that.

[Lofi music]

Even though it was a lot easier to find anime, the best place to watch it was still anime conventions and your local anime club. Thanks to fansubs, tape trading, and pooling resources, clubs often had access to the newest shows and a vast library of titles they would routinely lend out to members. And because they already had experience booking venues for screenings and communicating with other clubs, it made sense that clubs all over the U.S. would eventually arrive at the same conclusion—let’s start an anime convention.

  A few weeks after Anime Expo 1994 hosted a 2,000-attendee convention in Anaheim, all the way in Pennsylvania, a much smaller fan gathering was taking place. Started by four guys from the Penn State anime club, it was held at the Penn State Days Inn, in State College, Pennsylvania from July 29-31, 1994. They called it [Sparkling]… Otakon! Guests included comic artist Robert DeJesus, a handful of professional and fan translators, and notable members of the local anime community. Like most anime conventions, it also included screening rooms, panels, a dealer’s room, model competitions, and other now standard events. By official count, it had about 350 attendees. They weren’t going for a huge, record turnout, though. They just wanted to go to an anime convention that was efficient, well-run, and had stuff that they liked. Prior to planning Otakon, the founders had just attended a different convention, and on the way home, got to talking.

  Monroe: They went to the convention, and I can’t remember which one it was, it’s on the website somewhere, and it was the four fathers, the four guys in the car. It was Bill Johnston, Mitch Hagmaier, Dave Asher, and Todd Dissinger. And the convention they went to was very, very small, but it was also apparently very badly organized, and as they were driving back from the con, they were saying “you know, we could do a better job,” and then they decided to do it.

  That voice you hear is Sue Monroe. She wasn’t at the first Otakon, but she heard about it from her cousin Matt Pyson, who did go. She ended up going the second year, and she liked it so much, she asked to be on the staff. She’s been on the staff ever since, and even served as Otakon’s first female president and Con Chair in 2002.

  After that first year, Otakon just kept getting bigger and bigger. 

  Monroe: Every year, the whole plan was “we can do better.” So we would sit down after the con and we would talk about all the things that hadn’t worked out and how could we fix it so that that wasn’t going to happen again? And by the time that I was Con Chair, we had 17,000 people, we were at the Baltimore Convention Center.

  Monroe: For a while there, we were increasing at an exponential rate, because each group took something that they were interested in and just focused on making that better. Every year, it was something else that they were going to do to fix things, make them more efficient. And the whole idea was that it’s by fans, for fans, so we looked at what we would want if we were going to a convention, and we tried to make it as much like that as possible. 

  In 2001, Otakon surpassed 10,000 attendees. By 2004, that number had shot up to almost 21,000. Which is fucked up.

  Monroe: We didn’t have enough staff to handle everybody. We had to make sure we had enough people, and since we’re an all-volunteer staff and we’re a little picky about who we bring on to staff, we just couldn’t handle that many people. We also had no room. People were very, very- well, that was also around the time that yaoi paddles came out.

  Oh, okay. Yeah. Right. Yaoi paddles. Cool. Look… bro, if you know, you know. I don’t know what to say. They’re umm… they’re kinda like umm… fraternity initiation paddles- you remember the paddles they had at frat houses they would hit you with? It was that, except they said “YAOI” on them in all caps, which is a call-out to a popular genre of manga and anime featuring romantic and oftentimes sexual relationships between men. It’s gay anime, why are we saying… it’s a lot, why’re we saying it like we’re Republican Congressmen?

  They were sold and popularized by a doujinshi vendor, Hen Da Ne, but if you follow the Internet crumbs back far enough, you’ll find the actual source, a woodburning artist named Mike who goes by the online handle Akicafe. In a Cosplay.com thread from 2004, he posted the origin story of the paddle. He said it started out as a joke between himself and the owner of Hen Da Ne, since a big chunk of the company’s business relies on the sale of yaoi manga and doujinshi. So he crafted the very first yaoi paddle, with nice wood burned letters, and a high gloss acrylic finish. Apparently Hen Da Ne liked it so much, they decided to mass produce them, much to Akicafe’s dismay and without his final consent. [Sarcastically] Haha, ain’t that fun, how that works?

  So the paddles took off. They were sold at every convention that Hen Da Ne was at, and for a while, everyone was happy. Until people started misusing their powers. Unruly fans ran around, smacking strangers with wooden paddles, and throwing them at each other. This was around the same time “glomping” was a popular thing— and glomping, if you don’t know, is when fans would just run at each other and tackle people with bear hugs. Very violent practice. It all came from a good place, or course—it was genuine fan excitement and love for their fellow fans—but it also got to be too much. People were getting slapped and hugged without consent, and it became kinda a problem. Like, a big problem.

  Monroe: We had a lot of glomping going on back then, so you’d have people running through the hallways, well not running because you couldn’t run, it was too crowded, and throwing themselves on other people. It just became very… it wasn’t fun, and if it’s not fun, why do it? When I was Con Chair in 2002, I’m the type of person who reads all of the reviews, so after 2001 I read all the reviews and I marked all the things that were problems that people had complained about in the reviews. And we used to do that every year. And then we tried to fix them, tried to make things better. But we were getting to the point where we couldn’t do that because the absolute problem was we had too many people there. It was just too full. The downtown area liked us, although it got to the point where the people at Burger King didn’t want to work on our weekend anymore, because we always shut them down. 

  By 2005, Otakon started capping their audience at 22,000, which is a good problem to have. The year after, they raised it to 25,000, and it just got to be too big. But despite some grumblings here and there about crowding and wait times, fans still loved it. Anime conventions had gone from being local gatherings to bucket list fan destinations. They were even hosting music concerts for legendary acts like Yoko Kanno, T.M. Revolution, and L’Arc~en~Ciel. Even Japanese fans started coming to America, just to check out these conventions.  

  The industry was happy, as well, and Japanese guests loved having a reason to come to the U.S., and they loved being able to meet their American fans in person. Guests like Madhouse co-founder Masao Maruyama liked Otakon so much, he’s been back 15 times since his first guest appearance in 2001. He’s even listed as an honorary staff member, which is insane. Although that origin story is kind of wild. We’ll let Sue tell that one.

  Monroe: In 2002, which was my year, was his first year as a guest. And it was a wonderful time and he was a wonderful guest, but at one point somebody stole his pack that had all of his electronics in it. They just walked in while he was doing a panel and walked off with it. And his passport was in it. And it had been such a really excellent con, and here was the most terrible ending we could think of to it. And Maruyama-san voluntarily came to the Dead Dog-

  For reference, the “Dead Dog” she’s referring to is slang for an informal party on the last day of a convention. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds. Maybe worse.

  Monroe: We were trying to get the Japanese guests to be a part of the Dead Dog after the con, so that the staff, who worked throughout the entire convention and didn’t get to see all of stuff that the fans, the rest of the members, did, that they would have an opportunity to interact with the Japanese guests. So he was at the Dead Dog, and we discovered that this had been stolen. So a number of us went back to the BCC and it was like one of those Keystone cops things, we drove back to the BCC and we had 35 minutes that we were allowed to be in the building before our contract ran out. And we searched and searched and we went in to the- you know that wall that moves to close off a room? Well that’s where we found his bag. They had taken the electronics, but they left his passport and his tickets because they didn’t find it. So we found that five minutes before we had to be out of the building.

  Luckily, no one else needed to lose their passport to be convinced to keep coming back. They just liked it. And the American market was growing really fast in the early 2000s. It was at its highest around 2002/2003, when the anime-related market in North America was valued at about $4.84 billion. Home video sales hit a high of $415 million, and fans could even buy anime at mainstream retailers like Walmart, or watch it on Cartoon Network. 

  Even with all that, they still kept going to anime conventions. And where the fans were, the U.S. anime distributors were, as well. Companies like Geneon, Bandai, Tokyopop, Viz, and ADV were setting up massive booths at shows like Anime Expo, which hit 25,000 attendees in 2004. Its enormity stunned long-time fans like Fred Patten, who wrote that the event seemed to “flood and overflow the Anaheim Convention Center.” He blamed the “unexpectedly poor management” as much as the crowds, lamenting that registration lines the first couple of days were four to five hours long.  

Even more surprising for fans who had grown up in the era of tape trading, 2004 was the first year that anime distributors started publicly cracking down on pirated and unlicensed anime DVDs. During their Anime Expo panel, Bandai announced that they were bringing legal action on four dealers caught selling bootleg DVDs. Several other exhibitors were given warnings to remove all their counterfeit merch, and those who didn’t were kicked out and banned from the dealer’s room. 

  In just a decade, Anime Expo had gone from a dueling Bay Area fan convention to the largest anime con in America. [Convention music fades in] American distributors started jockeying for power, building bigger and louder booths, hosting mini concerts, and holding autograph sessions of their own. Part of it was advertising to attendees, but part of it was just to impress their business partners in Japan. [Music ends] Because so many business licensors also attended Anime Expo, it kinda turned into a… what’s the word? A pissing contest. A contest for piss.

  Heiskell: It’s all Anime Expo, that’s all it is. I mean, if you go to Otakon, no one has big booths there. And then if you go to- it’s just Anime Expo is the only dick measuring contest now. And it’s gotten to the point where it’s two levels. The first of them, and then the second tier.

  That’s Lance Heiskell. He was at Funimation for 13 years, first as a Senior Brand Manager, then eventually the Director of Strategy.

  Heiskell: And you know, Anime Expo just makes money off of that, because to be within the corporate liensors, if you have a big booth it means that you are a, to them, you’re a big anime company. And we didn’t have a big booth until I kind of forced the issue of Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s like this is a huge show, we need to bring our- we had a corporate booth, but it was more for licensing show. So we retrofitted it for Otakon, and that was in 2004 whenever Lark and Show was there, and then our booth was- I mean, sorry, our first episode was the opening act. The first dub. And then you had all of this Japanese press there, covering Lark is Dale, covering Fullmetal Alchemist, we had like Aniplex there, and we had to have a booth. And so that was the first time that we had a big booth. Then the next year after that, I think that’s when Adam started doing the conventions, because Anime Expo we had our first like big boy booth, and that was Tsubasa was that first big booth for Funimation. I think the big booth era, I think the height of it was probably 2004, because I know that it was- yeah, it was probably 2004, 2005, because I just remember Tokyo Pop’s Monster House booth, and then it was right next to Bandai, and I remember Jerry Chu just blaring noise from speakers towards Tokyo Pop’s booth, and Tokyo Pop doing the same, that when you would walk through, your ears would just be kind of garbled. And then every 30 minutes, you’d hear the drum, they’re throwing stuff off. I do have video of that, of the drum and the throngs of people. I have video from 2005, because the Funimation booth was on the far right side, and ADV’s was on the far left side, and they gave ADV the biggest sighs because their booth was really kind of quiet until the drum. And then you just saw everybody swarming due to the them, with the big drum. So, they invite the press to throw stuff out, or just anybody to throw stuff out. I mean, that would be fun. And then, I mean ADV’s booth served two purposes, because the second level was meeting rooms, meetings with the Japanese licensors. This was before the Marriott, so it wasn’t really a good space to have meetings.

  The Adam he mentions is our very own Adam Sheehan, Director of Events at Crunchyroll, who prior to coming over here worked alongside Lance at Funimation for 10 years. They know a lot about anime conventions, because they’ve both been to a LOT of them.

  Sheehan: Hi, I’m Adam Sheehan, I’m Director of Events here at Crunchyroll. We do about 12 to 13 events- we attend- Crunchyroll, on a regular basis. Back in the day, when I was young and gungho at Funimation, we did up to about 25, 30. I remember like one month, I was doing one every single week for four or five weeks in a row, and I was a shell of myself at the end of it. So I was like “I’m getting too old for this, so I basically need to figure out a better way to do it,” and also, we actually focused on doing more at less, so instead of basically doing the same thing over and over again at multiple cons of different sizes. We pick or choose our ones, and then do a LOT at it, like a bigger activation. More guests, larger panels, and things like that. 

  Looking at Anime Expo’s attendance numbers, you wouldn’t guess that there was actually a period of time where the anime industry was kinda shaky. Right around 2006. Anime companies were launching 24-hour on-demand video channels, they were partnering with Japanese companies to directly license and distribute anime, they were expanding into more and more retail locations, and then… the bubble popped. The home video market went from $375 million in 2005 to $316 million the next year. By 2010, it would only be $200 million. Lance pins the exact apex of the bubble to the first ever North American Anime Awards, hosted in February 2007 by ADV.

  Heiskell: That’s when ADV had all the Sojitz money. It’s 2007, and that’s when ADV spent so much money on that event, because it’s New York, you have to hire union camera people, that was just this big thing, and their network was really popular, they had all the Sojitz titles.

  And then came the music store closures. 

  Heiskill: Like 2006, around September, because Funimation launched the anime online website in 2006. In 2006, Suncoast and Sam Goody had major store closures, and that was like the first cripple, because that was Tokyo Pop and it was also Pioneer, with a lot of returns. And then February was American Anime Awards, then one month later, it was- Geneon closed one month later. I mean, the bust was the music industry. The music industry crippled the anime industry. A lot of manga, and a lot of anime, was in- this was in the era when Suncoast was the number one anime retailer. It wasn’t Best Buy, it wasn’t Amazon, it wasn’t WalMart, it was Suncoast. And Suncoast was built on music. And Suncoast was Suncoast and Sam Goody and FYE and it was all the malls. And so this is when malls were still popular, but then you had some of the department stores kind of teetering where malls were still popular. And all the Suncoasts were in the malls. But then when you had the iPod, and you had iTunes, and then you know, you had just everybody shifting to digital on their music, that’s when all these stores kinda needed something else. And so they brought in- they always had anime, but they brought in anime more. And whenever manga got popular, they brought in manga. It’s very similar to when Gamestop brought in toys. Because Gamestop brought in anime around the same time, too. Because they thought it was cool. I mean even Hot Topic- and also they had Fafnir T-shirts at Hot Topic around this time. Fafnir. I saw it with my own eyes, I should’ve taken a picture for evidence. But yeah, so whenever the music- whenever Sam Goody would close a store, then everything in the store would have to be returned. And so this was a lot of manga, a lot of anime, and if you’re closing half your stores and all the anime companies would sell in a lot of product, and it was all- you could all be returned. So if you sold in 10,000 units to Suncoast, and then around that same time their stores closed, then they could say “hey, I need a refund on 8,000 of these,” and if a company just doesn’t have the money, then the anime company is on the books for it. So they owed a lot of debt to Suncoast, and Suncoast and Sam Goody and all of those kept a lot of stuff in their warehouses that they would just do these random returns. And so it was capital, it was cash. And it was the music industry that really hurt the anime industry. It wasn’t streaming, it wasn’t digital downloads, it was the music industry. 

  Over the next several years, the anime industry went through a lot of changes. Companies like Geneon Entertainment and Central Park Media closed, while others, like ADV, restructured and completely rebranded. Publications like Newtype USA and Anime Insider shut their doors for good, followed a few years by the closure of Borders, which is literally where I used to buy ALL of my manga. Any manga I ever read as a child: Borders. That’s where it happened. Even Best Buy, once a mini-haven for anime fans, slashed their inventory across the country. Now they got that little DVD section that’s only there to sell TVs and Playstations.

[Lofi music]

Somehow, throughout all the chaos, anime conventions kept going strong. Anime Expo kept getting bigger and bigger, hitting nearly 50,000 attendees the same year Bandai Entertainment announced it would stop producing and distributing new titles. The American anime home video market had taken a nasty beating, but fans still wanted their anime, and they still wanted to go to anime conventions. By the late 2000s, it was no longer about marathoning anime in video rooms—fans could already stream anime online, both legally and uh… less legally. Anime was everywhere. The rise of online retail meant that fans didn’t even have to go to dealer’s rooms anymore to get their merch.

  What the internet couldn’t provide, though, was all that stuff that’s brought fans together for decades, even back in the early sci-fi days. Just hanging out, meeting people who share a common interest, and also cosplaying. 

  Okay now, I know what y’all’re thinking. Y’all’re probably thinking “Hey! Hey- hey but, isn’t- isn’t cosplay from Japan? Everybody knows that the world ‘cosplay’ comes from the Japanese portmanteau for ‘costume’ and ‘play.’” But people have been going to conventions and dressing up as their favorite characters as early as 1939, when science fiction editor, writer, and superfan Forrest Ackerman rolled up to the first World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon for short) in what he called “futuristicostume”, a VERY dumb name.

  Everyone was presumably delighted and not weirded out, because the next year, WorldCon had its first ever official masquerade, a tradition that has kept up even until now. The idea of dressing up rippled through different fandoms, from the earliest Star Trek conventions, to San Diego Comic Con, which began hosting its first official masquerade in 1974. Whether or not American science fiction cosplay inspired Japanese fans is up for debate, what we do know is that the word “cosplay” itself was coined by a Japanese writer named Nobuyuki Takahashi in 1983.

  But by then, dressing up had already been a popular part of Comiket and local Japanese community gatherings and conventions since the 70s. Whatever the origin, though, the word “cosplay,” it blew up. It’s in this podcast, it blew up. Y’know, this podcast, the pinnacle of fame. Everyone knows what it means, regardless of anime fandom or even comic book nerding, at all. Everybody knows cosplay.

  These days, you can hear it on mainstream TV shows, or as the punchline to late-night talk shows. It’s so popular, you can go to your local JoAnn Fabrics, turn the aisle, and see entire displays devoted to cosplay, complete with commercial patterns that look suspiciously like Sailor Moon and Vash the Stampede. Fans who don’t want to sew can even buy entire costumes from overseas retailers or wigs pre-styled for a certain character. Because as I said earlier; these kids are spoiled. They don’t work for shit. Make them do stuff. They all on TikTok. Tiktok? Doin’ the dances.

  To get some insight on the ever-evolving cosplay scene, we talked to Charlene Ingram, who’s worked in the industry for 10 years as a marketing director for companies like Funimation, Viz, and Capcom. But some fans may actually know her by another name: Tristen Citrine, a celebrated cosplayer whose impeccable handiwork and love for the craft made her a frequent guest at anime conventions around the world. Her first anime convention was Anime North in 1998, in Toronto.

  Ingram: I didn’t even know, honestly, at first, like I heard that they had a masquerade, and I participated in it, but I didn’t know it would be like, such a stage production. And I had from my internet browsing, and this was I mean, this was early late 90s. I had seen some of the earlier cosplay postings and message boards. I remember American Cosplay Paradise was around way back then, Tokyo Cosplay Zone, all of the almost UseNet-looking boards that the Japanese cosplayers would use, I remember looking at their pictures and seeing what they were doing and seeing how they posed and everything like that. But there was nothing like just being there and seeing it. That was… that was the real epiphany that not only were people dressing up, there was the beginnings of kind of a stage production. And it was very, very rudimentary back then. It was a lot of “walk on this stage, and pose” and the MCs back then were more akin to things like something out of like Vaudeville, where they kinda riffed with you and it was very tongue-in-cheek. There wasn’t a lot of huge theatrics, like sometimes people would maybe try to recreate a little bit of a sword fight, or something from a scene of their favorite shows, but it’s close to unrecognizable to what we have today, how much it’s grown and how much it’s matured. 

  Competitive by nature, she was drawn to the world of masquerade contests. Her turning point was Anime Expo [crowd cheering] where she experienced for the first time fans cosplaying and singing from the Japanese Sailor Moon live action stage plays.

  Ingram: There was a Sailor Moon skit, and it was based on something that I hadn’t even heard of at that time. I didn’t know that Sailor Moon had musicals in Japan, and they’d had them since like 1994! And that was amazing, like I didn’t even know it, and these girls were on stage and they were dancing to one of the theme songs from that, and they had all the Sailor Guardians, well not all of them, they just had a few of them, but it was like nothing else in that masquerade. In that Anime Expo masquerade, it was a lot of like what I had seen at Anime North, but to see that singing and dancing, and then all of that glitter and splendor, I knew. I was like “This is the type of masquerade I want to be in, I want to be- like I want to perform, I want to have these big, bodacious things, and I gotta meet these girls.” And I didn’t get to meet them until it was a month or so later, at San Diego Comic Con. I met them, and we started chatting on the internet, and we started laughing and sharing our interests and our love for Sailor Moon and my love for anime and being this new girl on the West Coast because just like moving to Los Vegas, I was very much like a fish out of water, and I was very intimidated by folks from California because growing up, California was this magical wonderland where the best and the brightest and the most beautiful hung out, and I would never be good enough for that. So, just seeing this, just hanging out with these girls and eventually, them inviting me to be a part of the group and learning that I have this sewing ability and all these dreams that I had, it was really, that was really a game changer like I really bonded with these girls and I wanted to do something great and celebrate Sailor Moon together. 

    Before long, her talent and craftsmanship were being recognized, and she was getting invited to anime conventions as a special guest. 

  Ingram: Because I really took the bull by the horns, I was very passionate about it and I really wanted to show off my sewing ability with this new genre I was really into. And it started in 2000, and I remember that was my first time I had a guest appearance was AniMagic 2000, and it was in October of 2000. And this was a convention that happened at the end of convention season, when there was still a convention season, and it was a place for everyone to kind of chill and it was out in the middle of nowhere, it was in Lancaster, California, and it took place at this hotel that all the rooms were centered around this pool. And they did the masquerade poolside, so it was very nice and casual, it was kinda like anime camp. And that was the first time I was a guest at a convention. And then I was a guest at Anime North, and then Project A-Kon, and the list goes on and on. But really starting in around ‘98, like actively with cosplay, to get to that point was probably really unheard of by today’s standards. 

  Busy as she is with work, Charlene still tries to find time to cosplay, though she says that some things haven’t really changed.

  Ingram: If you look at a lot of the costumes from back then, the really well made ones, and some conventions now even have exhibits for cosplayers’ costumes, especially from the past and currently. Good sewing techniques have not changed all that much over the years. The process for making things and making things well, especially with fabric craft, hasn’t really changed all that much. Your fundamentals are still your fundamentals, you just have the advent and introduction of a lot of materials, especially your themal plastics and your EVA foams and stuff like that, that have been invented that make different types of things easier. And that’s really cool, I do have a lot of fascination with the new materials as they come out, I always like to buy them and play with them and see what they’re all about, and I do like working with EVA foam, but I just feel like… I almost feel like a soul bond when I’m working on something that is fabric-based. 

  One thing that has popped up in the last several years, though, is the advent of the professional cosplayer. If you just Google “professional cosplayer,” you’ll get a torrent of hits. Everything from cosplayer influencer salaries, to dozens of “what is it like?” articles, to message boards filled with fans wondering how to break into the career. It’s another side effect of conventions—and cosplay—reaching a high point in mainstream culture. But for Charlene, it’s all signs that we’re living in a magical time.

  Ingram: And it is very wonderful that some cosplayers can actually make a living at dressing up and going out and doing events and working events, that’s really rather magical and I really love that side of things. And I’ll say that I love all sides of professional cosplay, be it the spokesmodel type, the event worker type, the just the person at just like you go to Comiket or Tokyo Game Show and there’s a line forever and they have to bring extra security. I love that person. I love the professional cosplayers on Patreon that do pictures and chats and stuff with their fans, and they make their living that way. I even love the cosplayers that are cam girls. I love them, they’re doing- they’re living their passion, they’re living their best life. 

Cosplay is now more accessible to everyone than ever before, but it also means that conventions have needed to step up in another way—by making it safer for people to be in costume. In 2014, New York Comic Con became the first major convention to publicly post signs with four simple words: Cosplay is not consent. One of its primary pleas: “Keep your hands to yourself.” No touching, no groping, and please, no gross propositioning in elevators. Basically, don’t suck, don’t be a shitty dude, and remember that under every costume is a fan just like you and me. At its core, the Cosplay is Not Consent movement is about the basic tenets of respect and personal safety. Luckily, it’s grown over time, with more and more conventions adopting their guidelines and declaring their support by posting information around the venues and in guide books. It’s hard to know for sure exactly how much it’s helping the cosplay community—only time will tell—but convention organizers hope it will at least embolden cosplayers to speak out for one another.    

  Ingram: But the cool thing is now, we have these signs at conventions that say “cosplay is not consent,” and we have this culture where people will say “No!” or people will call it out, or like people will correct each other and that’s really cool. And people will ask for hugs, which is also really cool. Or people will ask what your name is, and not just talk to you like you’re the character. There’s this understanding that there is a human underneath the costume that wasn’t always there before. And I think in that way, that’s also making cosplay a lot more welcoming for folks. 

[Lofi music] And she is right. We’re growing and evolving, and so is fandom. As the convention scene gets bigger, our expectations for them are growing, too. Like demanding safer environments for attendees, purging counterfeits from dealer booths, and just holding everyone to higher standards. Anime fans have become a global powerhouse-- driving a market worth $18 billion worldwide.  So it’s no surprise that anime conventions have grown with it. What once was just a chance for fans to cluster around a TV and watch Star Blazers is now its own ecosystem, with thriving cosplay scenes, world premieres of brand new anime titles,, concerts with the kinds of mega-stars that sell out baseball stadiums in Japan, dealer rooms the size of those stadiums, and fans who will cross continents and oceans just to hang out with their friends at these events. 

  There are so many anime conventions that now, instead of just going to the nearest one, fans can even decide which one they want to go to based on their vibe. Like… Anime Weekend Atlanta if they’re really into anime music video contests, or Dragon Con if they want to see some really intricate costumes across different geek genres. Or local hidden gems like Anime Los Angeles, where all the California-based cosplayers debut some of their newest builds. Or… Crunchyroll Expo, shameless plug, where you can be amongst the first fans in the world to check out new titles. From Crunchyroll. By the way, Crunchyroll Expo. Gang? Gang, gang. Squad. Yes. Do it.

  Anime has also carved out increasingly large spaces at comic book conventions like San Diego Comic Con and New York Comic Con. There are video rooms that run around the clock, giant publisher booths, autograph sessions, and cosplayers galore. What once was a space carved out at these conventions by dedicated fans, is now a draw to pull in more attendees. There’s even a cosplay contest at South by Southwest, which most people probably know more for its film and music programming. 

  That’s not to say that anime conventions have fundamentally changed over the years. They haven’t. We just expect more from them now. Here’s Adam Sheehan again, who’s been doing this long enough to really track all the little, subtle changes. 

  Sheehan: Yeah, the expectations have definitely changed in that, as I mentioned when I found out AnimeCon, I had no idea what it was or that it even existed. But now it’s like you have your shopping list. You got the schedule ahead of time. If you’re looking for something new, you’re aware before you walk in. You’re like “oh, there’s a premier of this show I’ve heard about, I want to show up for that because that sounds neat.” It’s not about walking through the door and going “there’s a bunch of rooms, a bunch of people, let me figure it out.” Because of that, the expectations of what people want are different, almost based con by con. You bring DragonCon up. They do panels, they have what are called dealer’s rooms there, too; but what they’re mostly known for is the cosplay, then evening events. Everyone gets their own theme about it. Expectation for an event level is almost along that line. It’s like Anime Expo, San Diego Comic Con, you know you’re going to get some big news, some big guests showing up. Local con in Florida, you’re maybe not as much, but maybe you were expecting to go and buy stuff. And see, they’re friends, so that basically is almost an event level what people are expecting, so the exploring, if anything, basically has changed from “I don’t know anything, walking in the door, surprise me” to “I have expectations, but there’s still a chance to blow it out of the water by who’s the guest? How good’s the show? How much fun do they have with their friends?” So all those things mixed together is basically what some of the big changes are. It also helps now that anime’s mainstream, it definitely was not mainstream in the 90s, us nerdy little kids in the corners in the clubs had to basically educate other people and say “no, this exists!” Where now it’s like it’s either mentioned like on the Big Bang Theory, or there’s movies about cons, or it’s mentioned like that, so people get the general idea that a convention exists and people go there and that they buy stuff and they meet people and they dress up. So that base knowledge is good for the casual goer, even if it’s just a parent bringing a kid to their first con, they’re like “oh, this is generally what they’re going to walk into.” But you never quite know what you’re going to see. The trends I’m seeing across that since AX’s growth has been just around the overall trends of the anime world. Merch getting better, technology getting faster, or I guess more easier access to, as well as just the overall growth of anime. Like almost every single convention around the nation over the last five or six years has had either stay the same or an increase, there’s been very few that have actually gone down, because anime fandom has just been growing. And we joked at one point--God this must’ve been like four or five years ago, at one point?-- that we were looking like, we did the math and said “oh, if you take every convention around the country, small, large, no matter what size the event, there’s a con every single weekend of the year, including Christmas and New Year’s that you can go to.” So basically if you want do the full otaku livestyle, you could be at a con every single weekend for a straight year, and never stop.  

    Where are anime conventions going to go from here? Only time will tell. But even during the short history of anime in America, they’ve changed so much that it’s hard not to be excited about their future. So the next time you go to a convention and you’re just standing around, waiting for an autograph from your favorite director or voice actress, take a moment to look around and think about the humble origins of anime conventions. And how it all started with Star Blazers.

  Peace.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[animalsoffarmsanctuary]

Farm Sanctuary’s Annual Hoe Down Returns to Our New York Shelter

Last weekend, guests from far and wide joined us to “party ‘til the cows come home” at the beloved annual Farm Sanctuary Hoe Down event, held at our New York Shelter! The Hoe Down is a wonderful way to slow down and take stock of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going — not just as activists and allies, but as individuals. As guests pitched their tents and greeted friends new and old, we excitedly began another memorable weekend filled with hope, love, and dedication to making the world a better place.

Happy Hoe Down! Gearing up for a compassionate weekend ahead.

For many, the Hoe Down is not just an event, but a feeling — a way to communicate, without explanation, the power of community in making a difference … and it’s a community where everyone has a place, no matter where they are on their compassionate journeys. 

Here’s a look back at this inspiring weekend!

This way, please! Paving the way for a compassionate journey ahead.

We kicked off the weekend with greetings from Farm Sanctuary President & Co-founder Gene Baur, Director of Visitor Experience Michelle Waffner, and a rousing welcome from this year’s emcee, Cam F. Awesome.

Cam F. Awesome gets the show on the road!

As guests took their seats, the air filled with anticipation.

First to speak was Lori Marino, founder and Executive Director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy. Lori spoke about her work, in conjunction with Farm Sanctuary, with The Someone Project: a research-based initiative documenting farm animal sentience through science. Together, we’ve published peer-reviewed journal articles and white papers about pig and chicken intelligence, and will be working our way through the other species who call Farm Sanctuary home. Through this project, we’re establishing a scientific basis to support what we’ve known all along — that farm animals are each someone, not something, and should be valued as such.

Next was the much awaited and beloved presentation from our very own Susie Coston — Farm Sanctuary’s National Shelter Director — about the animals who call Farm Sanctuary home. As Susie reviewed the various rescues we’ve conducted over the past year, she gave the audience an in-depth look not only at the circumstances from whence these animals came, but the incredible individuals they are. Despite all they’ve gone through, many learn to love and trust again — and there wasn’t an individual in the room who didn’t feel inspired by the transformative power of love and kindness. (Watch video of Susie’s presentation here.)

A compassionate spread to fuel the day ahead!

Afterward, guests convened on the lawn for lunch – one of several compassionate meals catered by Manndible Café, based in Ithaca, NY. With a choice of curry or herbed Beyond Meat “chicken” strips, greens, and potato salad, this was a wonderful way to reflect and relax after the morning’s talks!

And of course, some delicious vegan sweets.

After fueling our bodies, it was then time to fuel our souls through some quality time with our rescued residents! 

Guests excitedly greet Faith cow.

Sharing a moment with Moo steer.

Caregiver Amy Gaetz introduces friends to Valentino steer.

A guest shares a hug with Stella cow.

Young Jack sheep….

…and his twin brother Bob Barker greet their human friends.

A guest shares a smile with Joel sheep.

Dana goat joins a friend for a smile and a selfie.

Speaker Lori Marino enjoys some downtime in the sheep barn.

As we learned this weekend, it is extremely important to focus on self care in order to sustain ourselves within this compassionate movement. Here, Caregiver Maddie Cartwright enjoys some quality time with her friends in the sheep barn.

Panza, Shannon, and Clarabell goats enjoy a peaceful moment in the barn.

Kagen goat receives a chin scratch from Tour Guide Kelsey Bomboy, who staffed the goat barn during sanctuary time.

And for Kagen (and all of our rescued residents), there is plenty of love to go around!

Farm Assistant Jason Klein offers Olive goat some tasty leaves.

Meanwhile, Photo Intern Christa Lam checks in with Olive and her daughter Maggie!

And after getting her “close-up,” Olive gets up close and personal with some of her adoring fans.

Tatiana goat is also feeling the love!

Guests also greeted goat pals Benedict, Chucky, and the rest of their chicken and turkey friends in the turkey barn.

Quality time with Joan pig.

Safe and sound, each resident is free to enjoy the peace of sanctuary.

Cameron pig celebrating his second Hoe Down.

After sanctuary time, we reconvened in the Visitor Barn to conclude the first day’s presentations. 

We next heard from pattrice jones, cofounder of VINE — “a LGBTQ-led refuge for farmed animals that works within an ecofeminist analysis of animal exploitation.” Through her work, pattrice demonstrates that we are all in this together — that it is imperative for us to understand how interrelated all beings truly are. She explains that it is negligent to address and fight for one social justice cause — animal rights, for example — without also acknowledging how oppression against one group is not limited to just that group … that in order to create a compassionate world for all, we are obligated to stand against oppression in any and all forms. 

As important as it is to address the strategies and tactics we need to improve, it is just as valuable to acknowledge and celebrate what we are already doing. After discussing the atrocities farm animals experience and our duty, as activists, to work to stop them, we switched gears to a different topic: self-care. As compassionate allies, we strive to change hearts and minds about society’s relationships with farm animals — but sometimes doing so may take a toll on our own hearts and minds.

In working to stop animal cruelty, burnout is unfortunately common: many of us feel that we owe it to the animals to give it our all, but in doing so, we might give more of ourselves than we can afford. Dr. Melanie Joy, founder and president of Beyond Carnism, discussed the toll that secondary traumatic stress can take — and how important it is to give ourselves permission to heal, not just for the cause we are fighting for, but for ourselves. In her inspiring talk, Dr. Joy explained how it can be difficult to distance ourselves from the injustices we seek to overcome — to the point at which we may even place blame on ourselves for not doing what we perceive to be “enough.” But we need not allow our own needs to fall by the wayside out of obligation or guilt — and in fact, we can do more for the animals by understanding our limits and offering ourselves the love and care that we give to others. We can be more sustainable in our activism by focusing on the good we are already doing. In this way, we may put our efforts into perspective and celebrate the changes we make by putting compassion — for all, including and especially for ourselves — first.

A compassionate spread courtesy of Treeline Treenut Cheese.

Afterward, we assembled on the lawn for cocktail hour — a wonderful opportunity to mingle with fellow guests and speakers and to sit back and relax after a busy day!

Guests and speakers interact during a special book-signing opportunity.

Gene and speaker Stephen Ritz!

Photojournalist and animal advocate Jo-Anne McArthur introduces guests to her latest book, Captive.

Staff members Kameke Brown, Erin Dansevicus, and Sam Goldstein serve dinner in style.

During dinner, guests assembled in the Visitor Barn as Gene wrapped up the day’s events with an inspiring talk on the power we all have to make a difference, each in our own way. Since Farm Sanctuary’s earliest days, Gene has interacted with people from all walks of life — and the most important lesson he’s taken away from all of this is that no matter who we are and what we believe, we all deserve to be met with kindness. We each have something to contribute to our shared planet, no matter where we are along our own personal journeys — and Gene drew upon lessons imparted from the other speakers that day to emphasize the power we each have to support a more compassionate world for all. (Watch video of Gene’s presentation here.)

Gene often says, “If we can live well without causing unnecessary harm, why wouldn’t we?” By celebrating the good that we are all capable of, we can help more and more beings live well and enjoy the beautiful lives we all deserve.

No matter who we are, we all deserve to be loved. Here, some of our resident pigeons share a sweet moment.

Next, we cleared the barn for one of the most anticipated parts of the weekend — the traditional barnyard contra dance! 

As we tapped our feet to the beat of the fiddle, we all let loose and celebrated. As the room roared with laughter, we joined hands and danced to our heart’s content.

Farm Sanctuary staff members and volunteers take a selfie with Cam on the dance floor!

The party continued with a fun DJ dance under the tent, while others roasted vegan marshmallows around the bonfire. Then, it was time to turn in for the night to get our rest for the next eventful day! 

A guest runs alongside Gene, taking steps towards a more compassionate world for all.

Some started Sunday off with a bang by joining Gene on a 5K fun run, while others eased into the morning with a peaceful yoga session at our Rainbow Bridge Memorial garden. Then, it was time for breakfast to get our minds ready for another inspiring day ahead!

Australian activist James Aspey kicked off the morning with an inspiring talk on how we can all speak out and make a difference in our own unique way. We were all on the edge of our seats as James described his journey — from being someone who never quite connected with animals to his incredible discoveries of the connections we all share. Interestingly, James found his voice by taking a yearlong pledge of silence, a way to speak out for the beings whose voices typically go unheard. Through this empowering talk, James emphasized the importance of finding our own voice, in our own way — to develop the strength within ourselves to help others find their own.

Next, Dr. Michelle McMacken discussed the health benefits of adopting a plant-based diet. Interestingly, Dr. McMacken, a vegan, made the switch for ethical reasons — even as an MD, she was unfamiliar with the preventative and restorative effects of reducing or eliminating consumption of animal-based products. (Sadly, most medical professionals typically still receive little nutritional training as part of their required coursework.) As Dr. McMacken learned more and more about the health benefits of choosing plant-based meal options over animal-based ones, she underwent and conducted trainings to get more medical professionals on board. Throughout her presentation, Dr. McMacken discussed just seven of the many positive things that happen when people stop consuming animal products — and through her ongoing work, she is helping to change the medical culture from treating diagnoses to treating individuals.

After a short break, we reconvened for a thought-provoking talk by lauren Ornelas, founder and executive director of the Food Empowerment Project. lauren emphasized that as we fight the good fight for farm animals, we must also remember our fellow “humanimal.” Those embracing a plant-based diet often do so to minimize harm – but lauren stressed that just because a meal is plant-based doesn’t necessarily mean that it is cruelty-free. Sadly, workers across the country and the world receive inadequate wages for toiling in inhumane working conditions. lauren advocates that those aligning their actions with their values do their research and support alternative, compassionate practices instead. Through the Food Empowerment Project, lauren and staff also work to develop community-based interventions for and by the community members themselves, in creating culturally appropriate and practical solutions to help everyone enjoy the healthy, happy lives we all deserve.

Next, Stephen Ritz energized the crowd with an inspiring talk about the power of plants! As the founder of Green Bronx Machine, Stephen empowers students to take ownership of their communities. By transforming urban junkyards into lush garden landscapes, Stephen excitedly encourages people to treasure the beauty that lies before and within them, when they take the time to plant and nurture seeds of compassion. 

Later, some of our speakers participated in a round-table discussion, answering questions from our guests about how they can channel the lessons learned over the weekend in their own daily lives.

Staff members Erin and Sam enjoy a quiet moment with Adriano and Francis sheep and Erin lamb after sanctuary time on Sunday.

Our Hoe Down events are a wonderful way to see eye to eye with farm animals like new resident Nancy cow.

After a delicious lunch and more time with our rescued residents, it was time to conclude this year’s event and begin looking forward to the next. As hard as it is to part ways, we do so with renewed inspiration and commitment to taking these lessons home and aligning our actions with our compassionate values.

A young guest greets goat friends Halbert and Darius! 

Huge thanks to all the guests and speakers who joined us this year; to Manndible Café for catering a truly delectable weekend; to our event sponsors for helping to make the Hoe Down a success; and to Farm Sanctuary photo intern Christa Lam and photojournalist and activist Jo-Anne McArthur for their beautiful photographic contributions, including some of the photos you see here.

For more Farm Sanctuary updates, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. You can also tune in live on Explore.org to see what some of our rescued cattle, pig, sheep, goat, turkey, chicken, and alpaca residents are up to in real time! Want to meet our incredible rescued residents in person? Learn how to visit here. Want to help? Your support makes our rescue, education, and advocacy efforts possible. You can also help by sharing our residents’ stories to spread the word that farm animals like them are each someone, not something. A compassionate world begins with you!

[airbnbfestivals]

Right before check in Sunday evening, host messaged me that the furnace isn't working and still isn't. Recourse?

I booked a private room in a big house where the hosts live part time. Sunday morning they messaged me encouraging me to check in the evening because they had guests who had booked the entire place for the weekend checking out late. No problem. Then to my unpleasant surprise, at 10:30pm , I got a message saying that they were having trouble with the heating system (again, last time the oil furnace conked out for 2 days and we had to make due with space heaters.) The host added that they would have a furnace technician come at the earliest convenience Monday, they left me an extra blanket and that the heating should be restored by Monday evening. Well guess what? It wasn't restored and Monday night was below freezing outside. The space heaters are inadequate to heat the large space, I have 2 in the bedroom and 2 blankets, and it's passable. Last night the living room thermostat showed only 52 deg. F!! (I'm in the basement where it's even colder) . Plus there was some intermittent chirping from an alarm all night long making it hard to sleep without earplugs. The chirping continues. This morning the room temperature was down to 49F :( Needless to say, I've been lying in bed and otherwise wearing a jacket indoors. Brrr..

Since I'm 2 days into this stay, what are my options if any, beyond waiting it out? The host has not been very communicative with updates. When I returned to the space last night, I messaged them at 1:00am and it took until 11:30am for them to respond that yes, they'll let the furnace tech know about the chirping and that the heat still doesn't work....OK ... so am I supposed to continue suffering in this cold or leave the house to go hang out in a mall / library where the heat does work?

I understand I'm supposed to call airbnb within 24 hours of an issue but I thought the heat would've been fixed by Monday as the host suggested, not continue for 2 nights.

Original post here =+-+= Get $20 off your first AirBnB stay.

[fgdgdsh-blog]

Adventure Island Belize – A Private Island Resort, photo by Clayton Anderson

If you are planning to visit Belize, likely you have around 8 or 9 days to spend on your vacation. Most people like to do a combination of island and inland. Then they get the best of both: incredible Caribbean island with white coral sand and tall, shady palm trees coupled with deep jungle full of tropical birds, exotic flowering plants, and Mayan ruins.

Our island packages to Long Caye are some of the best no-hassle all-inclusive adventures you can find. I find that people often like a combination of a set package with some Belize- on-your-own so that they can spend part of their week just winging it, and part of the week on our island on a no-brainer tour where everything is within paddling or swimming distance of our shore. No packing and unpacking, no figuring out where to eat or where to stay, and since it’s all inclusive, no surprises on the final bill.

Our Adventure Island at Glover’s Reef First Half package is a 6 night package, 4 on the island, and the first and last in Belize City. This will dovetail perfectly with a trip to the Community Baboon Sanctuary (Howler Monkey preserve) for 2 nights. This 8 night itinerary is mid-week to mid-week, designed especially that way so that you get the best rates on air tickets. Everyone wants weekend to weekend, so if you can do the opposite, you might save as much as $1-200!

The inland part of the itinerary takes in a wildlife preserve, a birding preserve, a Mayan ruin, the Belize Zoo, and our favorite restaurant! With this short trip itinerary, you will get to see a huge selection of the best of Belize.

Here’s the itinerary with links and pricing (all rates in US$). We start out the trip by renting a car and transferring to the Howler Monkey Resort. Although simple, it’s budget friendly and in a fabulous location.

Howler Monkey Lodge

Day 1 – Fly to Belize and transfer to Howler Monkey Resort

Wednesday – fly to BZE. You will probably land sometime in the early afternoon. Go through customs and immigration and meet your rental car pickup from CarOne Rental Belize. They will drive you 15 minutes to their office which is almost directly across the highway from the Biltmore where you will be meeting us on Friday, so it will be a cinch to return the car at the end of the trip (and their airport pick-up will save you $30 on the cab ride into town). The cost for a Dodge Avenger is $60/day, and you will need it for 2 days.

Once you have your car, drive back toward the airport and beyond to Howler Monkey Resort. Located in the heart of the Community Baboon Sanctuary at the village of Bermudian Landing, you are guaranteed to see more Howlers than you have ever seen in your life! This simple jungle lodge is the perfect place to spend the next 2 nights, and it’s a great deal at $100 – $140/night, depending on room chosen, and this price includes breakfast and dinner!

Northern Jacana, Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, photo by Patti Bleifuss

Day 2 – Driving tour on your own, birding at Crooked Tree and exploring Altun Ha Mayan ruin

Thursday – Before your trip, make a reservation for an early morning birding tour with the Birds Eye View Lodge at Crooked Tree. This inland lagoon is located about 45 minutes from your lodge. Drive out past the Community Baboon Sanctuary and back to the Northern Highway and turn left (north). At the village of Sand Hill, continue on the Northern Highway (left fork). Drive another 10 miles to the turnoff to Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary and follow the signs to Bird’s Eye View Lodge. You’ll have to get there early, tours start at 6 or 7 am. They take you on a boat into the secret, marshy parts of the lagoon. During this 3 hour tour you will likely see 30 different exotic bird species or more. The birding tour for 1-3 persons is $125, each additional person is $35. After the tour, return to the lodge for lunch, which is $15 per person. Their food is delicious! Make sure they know that you plan to have lunch there after the tour. Visit this blog post to learn more about the best birding tour in Belize!

After lunch, drive to Altun Ha Mayan ruin. Retrace your route back to Sand Hill, then take the other fork, which when coming from Crooked Tree will be a left. Go about another 10 miles to the turnoff for Altun Ha. The entrance fee is $5 US per person. It’s possible to tour the ruins without a guide, but we do recommend you hire one right there at the gate. We don’t know the exact rate, but it will be very affordable and will increase your enjoyment of the ruins. Return to Howler Monkey Resort after the ruins.

Black Howler Monkey at the Community Baboon Sanctuary, photo by Patti Bleifuss

Day 3 – Driving tour on your own, Community Baboon Sanctuary, Belize Zoo, and Cheers for lunch!

Friday – This morning you will first move out of your rooms because you won’t be returning to the Howler Monkey Lodge. After breakfast drive just a mile or less to the museum of the Community Baboon Sanctuary. This cute little homegrown museum has a lot of great info, and it costs just $3/person to get in. Be sure to hire a local guide who is probably hanging out right there to take you to see the monkeys. They will walk you the equivalent of half a block to where the monkeys are right by the path. They are always knowledgeable about the monkeys, having grown up there with them nearby all their lives.

When you are done at the museum, drive back towards the highway, but take a right turn toward Hattieville at the village of Burrell Boom. This will take you through a part of Belize you have not seen before. You’ll pass the prison. Don’t stop there! At Hattieville you will hit the Western Highway, turn right toward the Belize Zoo, which is about 15 miles from this turn off. The Belize Zoo is internationally famous. All animals are rescues and all are native to Belize. It’s a fantastic zoo and you’ll get to see jaguar, jaguarundi, tapir, and other animals you may never have even heard of. The entrance fee is $15 per person. Before turning into the zoo, decide if you want to have lunch now, or several hours later. Cheers is our favorite restaurant in the whole country, and it’s just a few miles more on the left (the zoo is on the right). Drive past the turnoff to Dangriga (the Coastal Road) and look for Cheers, you can’t miss it. Lunch will cost you about $10-12 per person.

Spend several hours at the zoo, it’s incredible. Just make sure you have enough time (to be safe, leave by 3:30 pm) to drive back to Belize City, drop everyone and luggage at the Biltmore, while the driver turns in the vehicle at CarOne Rental just a few blocks away, walking back to the Biltmore. Check in and be ready to meet your Slickrock guide at 5:30 pm for your trip meeting, shopping trip to nearby Brodies for last minute items, and dinner at the hotel. We go to bed early because we are getting up early to catch the boat to the island! Once you meet us, everything but your bar bill is covered: lodging, dinner and breakfast the next morning at the hotel. The cost for the Adventure Island at Glover’s Reef 6 night package is $1675 per person although if you have a group of 4 or more, you will get 10% off for each person!

Belize cabanas – Long Caye at Glover’s Reef, photo by John Holder

Day 4 – Transport to the island, move into cabanas, go snorkeling!

Saturday – After group breakfast walk to our private dock two blocks away. Your luggage is driven. From here we travel three hours by boat to Long Caye (65 miles). After lunch, move into your cabana, explore the island, and snorkel right off our shore after the snorkel orientation. Every night we have happy hour, appetizers, and volleyball before dinner and socializing after.

Kayak snorkeling at Glover’s Reef, Belize, photo by Victor Myers

Day 5 – Sea kayak orientation, snorkeling out of the kayaks, learn to windsurf

Sunday – Our sea kayak orientation is this morning: we cover paddle strokes, entering and exiting the kayak, and rescue techniques. Both this and the snorkel orientation the afternoon before are required, as we don’t offer these again. Starting in the afternoon, the itinerary is open. Several things are offered at once and you can choose what you wish to do. After lunch one guide takes a group paddling to a nearby patch reef to snorkel from the kayaks, while another guide offers windsurfing instruction. Certified divers may also begin diving.

Surf kayak our wave at Glover’s Reef, Belize, photo by Bryony Swan

Day 6 – Learn to dive, kayak surfing orientation, paddle around the island

Monday – The first Discover Scuba/Resort course is often offered this morning for beginning divers. Others enjoy a morning paddle around the island or go diving. Both windsurfing and kayak surfing orientations are offered in the afternoon. You may join one or both, then continue to practice these sports with or without a guide for the rest of the week.

Snorkel Glover’s Reef, photo by Keith Fialcowitz

Day 7 – Paddle 5 miles round trip to Middle Caye, snorkel, island time

Tuesday – Paddle your kayak or your paddleboard five miles round-trip to Middle Caye to tour the Marine Research Center, home base for marine biologists. We go for a fabulous snorkel while we are there. You may also choose “island time” and stay on the island. You can sea kayak, snorkel, dive, surf kayak, windsurf, or just relax.

Day 8 – Snorkel The Wall, return to Belize City, overnight at the Biltmore

Wednesday – One final dive or snorkel to “The Wall”, where the ocean floor drops from 40 to 2,600 feet in under a mile. After lunch we return to Belize City. Our arrival time cannot be predicted since it depends on factors we cannot control. Therefore, guests should not make other plans for Saturday night. After checking into the Biltmore, guests are on their own for dinner.

Day 9 – Fly home

Thursday – Earliest day to fly home, or continue to other spots in Belize for the rest of your trip.

Summary of all costs

RT Flight to Belize $300 – 700 per person Rental Car – 2 days $120 for 1-4 Gasoline $60 for all (estimate) Howler Monkey Lodge, 2 nights includes dinner and breakfast $200 – 280 for 2 Birding Tour $125 for 1 – 3 Lunch Birds Eye View Lodge $15 per person Altun Ha Entrance $5 per person Altun Ha Guide $25 for all (estimate) Community Baboon Sanctuary Museum $3 per person Community Baboon Sanctuary guide $10 for all (estimate) Lunch Cheers $12 per person Zoo Entrance Fee $15 per person Adventure Island at Glover’s Reef adventure tour, 6 nights, includes 6 night lodging, transport to and from the island, 3 meals/day, unlimited beer and soda, national park fees and fishing license fees, and complete use of our sports equipment, instruction in all sports, and daily guided activities all day long: sea kayaking, snorkeling, windsurfing, kayak surfing, sport fishing, kayak fishing, stand-up paddling, and board surfing. Scuba diving and kiteboarding are at an additional cost. $1675 per person Total 8 nights, for 2 persons Approximately $2250 per person or about $285 per day all inclusive, including air.

The post Belize 1 week itinerary appeared first on Slickrock& Adventure Island.

[tripinsingapore]

Top 10 reasons to visit Marina Bay Sands when travelling to Singapore

When you’re in a temperate climate like Singapore, it can rain anywhere, anytime. You were probably considering a full day at Gardens By The Bay or perhaps at Marina Barrage, to be greeted by a torrential downpour as you exit the station and now you are stuck at Marina Bay Sands with no idea of what to do.

West End musical in Singapore

Let’s watch a show or two at the Mastercard Theatres if the weather report states that the rain isn’t looking to stop anytime soon. It regularly hosts world-famous musicals and performances such as Singin’ in the Rain, Wicked: The Musical, Cirque Adrenaline, The Lion King.

Look out for pre-show menus before you head to the shows. They are often offered at some of the restaurants in MBS. As pre-show menus are different from the shows, check out the website for the list of restaurants at the Marina Bay Sands 

Ice-skating rink with no puddles

The ice-skating rink really isn’t ice at all! Don’t be fooled by the “fake” ice though – we hear it’s way more slippery than the real thing! You’ll be glad to know MBS’ state-of-the-art skating rink about one-third the size of an Olympic rink is made out of high-tech plastic pseudo-ice that feels like ice and even looks like ice.

At just S$10 for adults and S$8 for a child (inclusive of skate rental), you’ll get an hour’s worth of ice-skating fun! It is in the middle of a high-end mall like MBS but as you can see, is not as expensive as you think. 

Location: The Shoppes, Canal Level, B2

Operating hours: 11:30am – 8:30pm (Closed for maintenance from 5pm – 6pm)

Prices:

Admission (per hour) – Adults: $7 Child (aged 12 and below): $6

Additional hour – Adults: $5 Child (aged 12 and below): $3

Skate Rental – $3

Socks – $6

Play with food at FabCafe

Sitting right at the entrance of the ArtScience Museum lies the FabCafe. Aside from their food items like laser-cut macaroons, FabCafe also hosts regular programs, workshops, and lectures that encourage people to come together with their well-prepared creative juices and learn more about as well as experiment with the cafe’s 3D printing facilities and digital fabrication tools.

The place sells small bites and lattes, just like any other typical cafe you could find. It will enhance your whole Art-Science experience because the items on this menu manage to combine art, technology and of course, food, into delicious bite-sized delights. Must-tries include their very photogenic rainbow cheesecake and their lattes, which are popular even at the FabCafes overseas, even as far as Barcelona!

Location: First level of ArtScience Museum, right in front of the lift lobby.

Operating hours: 10:00am – 07:00pm daily.

CÉ LA VI Singapore

CÉ LA VI boasts a restaurant, bar and nightclub. It easily became Singapore’s Best Nightspot in 2016. Everything here is amazing, and what’s there not to be when you’re on the 57th floor of a luxury hotel?

Some facts: It is formerly known as Ku De Ta. And it is exactly the kind of restaurant you would go to, eat and write about afterward. If you’re looking to just admire the views, you can head directly to the Skypark if the rain stops!

Location: SkyPark at Marina Bay Sands, Tower 3

Operating hours:

Lunch: Weekdays: 12:00pm – 03:00pm (last seating at 2.30pm), Weekends: 12:00pm – 03.30pm (last seating at 3pm)

Dinner: Sundays – Wednesdays: 06:00pm – 11:00pm (last seating at 10.30pm), Thursdays – Saturdays: 06:00pm – 11.30pm (last seating at 11pm)

Club: Weekdays: From 11:00am, Weekends: From 12:00pm

What’s more? professional DJs come down regularly to make your experience all the better. As if the food and 360-degree views of the city weren’t enough!

Do not forget to reserve a table during the evening to get a magnificent view of the sunset to accompany your meal!

MBS Sampan Ride

For the ones who can’t afford the very expensive plane tickets to Venice, head over to B2 for a local twist of the romantic gondola ride, the MBS Sampan Ride. With a little imagination, Venice doesn’t seem that far away anymore!

It’s interesting to know that the Sampan is actually one of the earliest forms of transportations in Singapore! Here visitors can hop on a 20-minute ride and the ever-so-friendly uncle will paddle you through the canals. 

Location: The Shoppes, Canal Level, B2 (Ticketing counter: B2, Retail Concierge)

Operating hours: 11:30am – 8:30pm (Last ride: 8:15pm)

Price: $10 per person

Celebrity chef restaurants

There are award-winning celebrity chef restaurants such as CUT by Wolfgang Puck (that serves some of the best steaks around if you’d ask me), db Bistro & Oyster Bar by Daniel Boulud (perfect for the seafood lovers) and more are hard to miss, and definitely worth the splurge.

It’s amazing to witness a gathering of Hollywood’s best celebrity chefs under MBS’s roof!

And good news, most of these restaurants have amazing lunch deals daily that are surprisingly affordable, so do look out for them!

ArtScience Museum

The ArtScience Museum is the world’s first art and science museum and even snagged a feature on Telegraph’s list of The World’s Coolest Design Museums.

Picture-perfect ops in this exhibition include the Light Ball Orchestra, where big lighted balls change sound and color every time you touch them (as you can imagine, this is a huge hit with the kids) and the main star of the exhibition, Crystal Universe. Since this is the most popular part of the exhibition, be prepared to wait to take a good picture. Who wouldn’t want a picture of themselves surrounded by thousands of dazzling lights?

Local food to satisfy your stomach

MBS has a ton of food options and a fair share of which serves amazing local cuisine. You should try the traditional local twist of the American favorite: Eggs & Toast to Singaporean delights like Nasi Lemak and Laksa, you’ll get your local food fix in no time.

If you want cheap options, head over to Toast Box where you can get the best local breakfasts. Must try? Their Thick Toast Sets that will have you craving for more even to the very last bite!

Have your table filled with a whole bunch of local delights from Mee Rebus, Nasi Lemak, Chicken Rice, Nasi Padang at 1983 – A Taste Of Nanyang. And of course, be sure to complete your meal with the satisfying Nanyang Coffee, for which the cafe is known for.

Toast Box

Location: The Shoppes, Canal Level, B2-62

Operating hours: Sundays – Thursdays: 7:30 am 11:00 pm. Fridays – Saturdays: 7:00am – 11:30pm.

1983 – A Taste Of Nanyang

Location: The Shoppes, Galleria Level, B1-01

Operating hours: 7:00am – 11:00pm daily

ArtScience Museum

Showcasing over 200 artifacts and replicas of all things space-related, this info-packed exhibition will have even non-space lovers entertained.

The good news is that the guests can get up close and personal with the stories, achievements and even the people and their imagination that were behind some of history’s biggest accomplishments. But remember to look out for “astronauts only” items like the space food, space suits, and even space cameras! 

1001 luxury shops under one roof

Currently the most luxurious mall in Singapore, MBS houses top international names like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Salvatore Ferragamo. Truly a shopper’s paradise, if you’d ask me. It’s literally impossible to ignore the temptation in the bright glass windows calling out to you every time you walk past.

MBS offers personal shopping services for the fickle-minded ones, or for the ones who just want a second opinion on what to buy. As it knows that with so many luxury shops under one roof, a personal shopper could be what you need.

However, if you’re looking to spare your wallet some damage, choose from a handful of more affordable alternatives like Zara, Bath & Body Works, World Of Sports Victoria’s Secret and more!

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[i-traveller]

Hotel Louis Ivi Mare, Paphos

Monday 7 October

We haven’t really had a holiday since our cruise for a number of reasons and as we had originally meant to call in on Cyprus on our cruise earlier this year (the port was dropped from the itinerary a month or so before we set sail) we thought we should give it a try as we had never been there.

After our weekend in London with the family and a stay overnight at the Holiday Inn at Gatwick where we could leave our car we utilised the services of Special Assistance as we both are suffering from walking issues at the moment.

Whilst the Special Assistance service is good at Gatwick’s South terminal as well as at the airline (BA in this case) there appears to be little joined up service between the two so you have to ask twice.

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Hotel Louis Ivi Mare

Inside the Hotel Louis Ivi Mare

This is the first time we have flown BA with the newish catering arrangements and although we noticed the M & S food was not particularly pricey on the plane, it certainly was cheaper land side.

Our flight to Paphos left from Gate 38 so we were grateful for the Special Assistance team and their mobility carts as Gate 38 is just under a mile from the main seating area of South Terminal.

Our four hour flight was on time and the only issue I had was with coffee – a coffee bag you put into a cup of hot water – which ended up being a bit of a “bitty” drink. The assistance at Paphos was made stress free with their assistance although the car rental was slow.

I was not sure about how I would get to the hotel as my Sat Nav didn’t cover Cyprus and it was dark when we arrived but armed with directions to the hotel on my phone and a good sense of direction, we only had one hiccup as one road was closed which caused a slight diversion.

We are staying this week in the Louis Ivi Mare Hotel which is modern and only opened in May this year. First impressions were favourable although it was in the dark.

Avios Georgia Church

Latsi Beach

Tuesday 8 October

We drive out today after a very filling breakfast to Avios Georgia’s church for a drinks stop – iced coffee – then on to Latsi Beach for lunch and ice cream.

Just because it is there, we take the long drag up to Kathikas from the coast road and are rewarded with some lovely views, some very quiet areas and lots of banana trees.

We are on half board and the buffet tonight has a Greek theme and there was nothing wrong with that especially as a glass of wine is included along with a bottle of still water.

It was quite amusing to hear a waitress struggle with a fellow guest and his Vegan dietary requirements.

This is not a hotel just for the British, many languages are spoken and all age groups (except school aged children as it was during school time) represented.

Louis Ivi Mare Pool

The pool is almost a boomerang shape and does have a life guard although he doubles up as a towel provider setting out the towels in nice neat rolls for the many loungers (there seem to be ample) around the pool.

Being new, the privacy between the pool and the beach walkway is non existent at the moment but the planting has been done and within a few years a nice hedge will separate the walkway from the hotel grounds.

An uncrowded pool

Wednesday 9 October

Today we head out towards Larnaca stopping for a photo at Aphrodite’s rock, find the hotel that our friends Pete and Lorraine stay at and have a lovely coffee at the nearby old village of Pissouri.

Pissouri Village

Back along the Motorway towards Paphos to find the old town but there are so many roadworks and limited parking we only manage a 30 minute stay and a brief look around some of the shops.

The buffet section at the hotel for dinner is excellent again tonight which is why it is always the most crowded, our advice: get there by 6:45 pm to get a good front row seat to watch (tonight anyway) a fabulous sunset.

Sunset from our dining room table

On staff recommendation watch a jazz band in an upstairs lounge – they were good.

Thursday 10 October

A lazy day with only a longer visit to Paphos for a coffee and a brief walk to Agia Kyriaka Chrysopolitissa church (our friends’ son was married there a few years ago).

Agia Kyriaki Chrysopolitissa, Paphos

The church is one of the earliest Christian Churches, dating back to the visit of St. Paul in AD 49. One of the pillars outside the church is Paul’s Pillar where he was scourged.

The present Church contains beautiful icons, it is used by several denominations including Catholic and Anglicans.

The heat is taking it’s toll on us although I do manage a swim again and a dry off in the sun.

Dinner in the buffet section tonight followed by a walk to St Thomas’ Church at the end of the walkway.

This is a recently built church but with old features so that it looks as though it was built many years ago.

The ceiling in particular is spectacular but so difficult to photograph as I didn’t have my wide angle lens.

Outside and the ceiling inside the church

Friday 11 October

Not so sunny today to start with but better later as we venture into the mountains with a drive up to Troodos with a stop in the pretty but popular (with tourists) village of Omodos for lunch and a brief look around the Timios Stravos Monastery intermingling with a French speaking tour.

Omodos village

Timios Stavros Monastery

On the way down from Omodos and the Troodos Mountains, we miss the turning back to Paphos as many of the non motorway roads have little pre turn signage, and our detour takes in some new sights and villages not seen before we get back on the road to the Motorway.

Toodros Mountains

Saturday 12 October

Our last day in Cyprus with just some pottering around but with temperatures now up to a lunchtime 35C, it was too hot to do very much other than a cool walk around the market with some discount on some beauty products ( €75 down to €25 ).

Assistance at Airport again excellent, flight again full and on time and whilst assistance at Gatwick was good, we were abandoned by the assistance support at Baggage reclaim. We had to make our own way to the hotel bus which thankfully came along quite quickly.

A bit of a shock to the system (35C in Cyprus to 11C when we arrived in the UK).

Sunday 13 October

A drive up to Nick & Ute in Cambridge for a lovely lunch and catch up and a drive to the Crowne Plaza at Stratford upon Avon in much improved weather. Hasn’t their son, Paul grown!

We booked on the assumption we would get there late and so included access to the Club Lounge which came with some drinks and snacks, useful for tonight and breakfasts.

A paper bottle of shampoo

It is nice to see that the hotel chain has ditched the individual plastic bottles of toiletries for a cardboard based one although single use water bottles are still used – it is a step in the right direction though.

Monday 14 October

A tradition for this day is to meet up with Phillip & Sylvia but they were not able to meet up until lunchtime which left us time for a short walk before it started to rain quite heavily for the rest of the day.

Dinner in The Lamb Restaurant conveniently situated a few roads away from the hotel in Sheep Street.

Tuesday 15 October

Ferry home to have a week in order to prepare for a week in Jersey with the family looking after our grandson, Harry after our visit to our 19th Country of 2019.

Cyprus Monday 7 October We haven't really had a holiday since our cruise for a number of reasons and as we had originally meant to call in on Cyprus on our cruise earlier this year (the port was dropped from the itinerary a month or so before we set sail) we thought we should give it a try as we had never been there.