Sunday 28 August 2011

Penguins, theatre and Abunai!!! (With pictures)


Dear readers,

Well this sure was a busy week for me, so prepare yourself for a long blogpost! :D

On Thursday evening, after work, I met up with my fiance and we had dinner with my mom and dad at my place. Subsequently we went to the cinema for a lovely date. We watched the movie Mr. Poppers Penguins. I have never really been a big Jim Carry fan (the only movie that I really love is The Gringe that stole Christmas), so I did not really have high expectations for this movie... and I ended up being pleasantly surprised! This movie truly has a bit of everything. It is romantic, touching, but most of all hilarious. It was quite a relieve to find that this time the humor in the movie was not rely entirely on the strange faces Carry makes or just plain (and sometimes rather obscene) jokes. Instead the humor is based on the funny situations that one could find himself in when having to deal with 6 penguins, but also just on situation that might easily happen in everyday life. The comical timing of Carry is absolutely superb. This is thus definitely a must see.


The next day I went out to dinner with my mom at an Italian Restaurant called Trattoria Fantasia; a small restaurant near the Leidseplein. The owner was very friendly and the food was exquisite (had a dish called scaloppine al pesto, beef with basil sauce) and not too expensive. So if you are looking for a good place to eat you should definitely try this place :D.
After dinner we rushed over to the other side of the street where the De La Mar theatre is located. There we watched a show by Simone Kleinsma called Songbook. We honestly had a great time. Simone was fantastic! The show was very amusing as the songs that she sung were alternated with stories about her childhood. The songs really worked well with the stories she told and she really had chosen the songs that plaid to her strength (most of them were covers). So the evening was a big success.

The next morning I had to get up really early because I was going to Abunai with my fiance. Abunai is an anime and manga convention, which this year was hosted in the NH Hotel Conference center de Koningshof in Veldhoven. The last time I had been there was 7 years ago, so I was really looking forward to the convention. When we arrived there, there really was quite a large line of people waiting to be admitted to the event; I think we had to wait in line for about 30 minutes (partly, because they seemed to have a bit of a problem with the computers lol). Once we finally got our Abunai wrist band, we were, unfortunately, still not ready to walk around there, because my fiance had forgotten to withdraw money from an ATM, expecting there to be an ATM at the conference center. Well, when we found out that there was no ATM there, we had to take a 15-20 minute walk to the nearby village in search of an ATM hahaha. By the time we got back it was past 12 o’clock. As a result we missed the Lucky Stars workshop that was hosted by MostCutest (they would have a stand there with cute things that you could buy, but I am sure that I will get to go to the stand at the next event) as well as the Cosplay Act competition (which is always the most hilarious part of the conference). However, we had a great time strolling through the dealer room; in comparison to Abunai seven years ago the dealer room had pretty much doubled (YEAY FOR MERCHANDISE!!!!). Afterwards we had lunch at the food court; rice with sate sauce in an original Chinese takeout box (:D which was very fun, but harder to fill than it looks hahaha!). The workshops and lectures were really crowded so we spent most of our time in the dealer room.

I bought 2 dvd’s that I had been looking for since a very very long time. One of them was ‘Gundam Wings Endless Waltz’. I used to be a big fan of the Gundam Wings series when it was still being showed on Yorkiddin and ever since they broadcasted this movie I really wanted to have it. I once managed to find it online, but I was not exactly prepared to pay 30,- (excl. shipping costs) for it lol. The other movie that I bought was 5 centimeters per second; a movie which is centered around three different stories. I have seen one of the stories on youtube and it has been beautifully drawn and the story was really deep. I have been wanting to have it ever since, but again was not prepared to pay 30,- for it haha. :D So you can imagine how happy I was to be able to buy those.

As in any good dealer room they of course sold cat ears hahah. My fiance told me to put a pair of them on my head and ended up buying them for me. He even bought me an additional rather huge ass bell necklace to go with it hahaha. I had a lot of fun with this, because the cat ears themselves also had little bells adjusted to them.... So I was happily ringing along hahaha (me had bells is a bad combination :P)



I also came across a really lovely stand which specialized it handmade Gothic Lolita accessories and clothes. The brand is called Fly Away Fashion and the accessories as well as the clothes are very affordable; http://www.flyawaydojinshi.nl (unfortunately you cannot find everything in their webshop, but they do have a physical shop in Houten; I am sure I am going to be a frequent visitor there! :D). I ended up buying this really beautiful straw hat (I had been looking for one for ages). It only cost 12,50! (A brand Gothic Lolita straw Hat with just a simple bow usually costs around 90,-). :D So I am really really happy to have found this one!

My pretty new hat :D.

And that’s not all; because my fiancĂ© and I spent 30,- at a stand, I got a free pair of earplugs! :D Yeay for Chugo Chara earplugs :D WHOOT!!!



And as if all this did not make my day; I got an early birthday present. Say hello to Bun-Bun from Ouran High School Hostclub!!!
:P Everyone was soooo jealous of my huge, pink bunny!

After a while we really needed to sit down, so we went to one of the video rooms and watched a movie called ‘Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha 1st’ (or Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha in English :D). I really liked the movie; my fiance on the other hand had only had three hours of sleep so almost fell asleep haha. It was really nice to be able to sit a bit though; our feet were starting to hurt. Afterwards we went to have dinner at the Binnenhof restaurant where there was a buffet (only for those who had booked dinner before hand). The food was great, but to my opinion it was as bit over priced. So for next year it might be a better idea to just have dinner at the a la carte restaurant (especially since drinks are not included anyway). Subsequently we went for a final sprawl through the dealer room and I got my portrait drawn :D. This is what I would look like if I were a manga character.

O.o omg I am so pretty!!!

I had a really really great time at Abunai and am currently contemplating on going to Tsunacon; a one day convention which will be held on February 12 in Rotterdam (:P a lot closer than Veldhoven haha).

Well that is it for now. ;) Hoped you guys liked my blogpost.

Love,
Blacky.

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