03/07/13 - Los Angeles Day 1

Hi everyone!

This blog post is loonnnngggg overdue! Things have just been so busy for me that I haven't really had time to sit down and go through my photos from my Los Angeles trip last month :(

For those of you who didn't know, I went to Los Angeles last month for about 5 days to work for Liz Lisa at Anime Expo 2013! This was the second time that Liz Lisa has travelled overseas (last year was San Francisco!) You can read those blog posts here. I was glad that Liz Lisa let me travel again, I really wanted to go back to the US since I was only there for 3 days last time!

So today I'm going to blog about my first day in LA! I didn't do much since I arrived in the afternoon, but here we go~!

I left Perth at night time, it was pretty bad because I went out with Eric for dinner, and it was still early so I went back to his place to rest... except we both accidentally fell asleep LOL. He woke up about 1.5 hours before my flight so we quickly rushed to the airport. I was the last person to check in but thank god I made it in time hahaha.

I had to take 3 flights to get to LA... Perth to Singapore, Singapore to Tokyo, then Tokyo to LA. It was going to be a looonnngggg flight..

but luckily I flew Singapore Airlines, my favourite airline so the flights weren't that bad!

Singapore Changi Airport! My favourite airport in the world


I didn't take any photos whilst I was in Tokyo Narita Airport since I was only there for about 2 hours, and I was busy shopping there for last minute things I forgot to bring from Australia. My flight from Narita to LA was around 11 hours, but I actually slept through most of my flight which was great! Usually I can't sleep on flights, but this time around I slept about 80% for most of my flights so they went by quickly!

I arrived in LA at around 1pm... I have family in LA and they were going to pick me up from LAX and take me to the location Liz Lisa wanted me to meet them but I have to say.. LAX airport is the most unorganized airport I've ever been to, seriously. I thought that since it was one of the busiest airport things would be better, but I was waiting for nearly 1.5hours for my luggage to come out.. ridiculous -__- I left the plane really quickly because I wanted to go through immigration as fast as I could, so I wouldn't have to keep my family waiting, but yeah the waiting around for luggage didn't make a difference. Also the free wifi wouldn't even work from my phone so I couldn't even contact my family =_=

Anyway, I met up with my family when I got out ok, I was a bit worried since I've never actually met them before but my aunty recognized me straight away. They took me to the convention center where AX was being held~


The freeway is crazy in LA, where I live, the freeway is just... one straight road lol. There were crazy bridges and stuff everywhere, not something I'm used to seeing haha. By the time I had left the airport it was already around 3pm, so there was quite a bit of traffic, but seriously, no-where near as bad as Perth traffic (Perth drivers suck at merging and traffic is literally at a stand-still lol).

I got to the convention center fine, but Liz Lisa didn't give me any specific instructions, except to call one of the staff when I got there. Unfortunately that person didn't pick up their phone, and I had no idea what I was doing so my aunty had to end up driving around the convention center in circles for ages :( Eventually I just said I'll go inside and just tell the staff that I needed to be inside there to set up. Luckily since I had all my luggage with me I got in easily (and probably my Australian accent, they knew I wasn't from that area hahaha).

Setting up took quite a while, but we were finally done at around 7pm so went out to have dinner~

We had 2 staff from MARUQ come along to work with Liz Lisa as well, and they had a car with them so we all went out to dinner together!




One thing I have to say about LA..
SO.MANY.PALMTREES!


Getting dark.. But one thing I liked about LA, is that around 7.30-8pm it wasn't completely dark! The sun didn't set until after 8 if I can remember correctly. I miss daylight saving time in Perth, they should bring it back =__=

The staff from MARUQ took us to this really famous Korean restaurant! "Road to Seoul" BBQ. There was a wait but it was worth it!


Aino-san (from Japan!) and I!
She came to San Francisco with me last year~


Aino, Kim & Tiffa from MARUQ



OMNOMNOMNOM







I love Korean food :D

I was pretty exhausted after dinner because I did fly for around 24hours total on an airplane, so Kim from MARUQ drove Aino an I back to our hotel to check in.

Crappy photos I took while driving back




Anyway, sorry for the not-so-interesting blog post, it was pretty me complaining the whole time haha.

And I haven't really posted this much, but some of you might already know that Liz Lisa is going to PARIS next month!! I'm also going so I can't wait, this will be my first time in Europe!