Another year, another J-fashion convention worked in a small hotel in San Francisco Japantown! Here’s my fairly delayed recap of the 2025 experience (but hey, any sooner and there wouldn’t be Professionally Edited Photos).
Before The Drive
Due to Life Stuff, I was fairly pressed for time in terms of pre-con prep. Luckily, I had already conceptualized two of my coordinates much earlier in the year, so I just had to figure out Friday’s fit and put everything together.
Usually, I take advantage of the cooler weather (Socal is increasingly a neverending level of hell temperature-wise) and the winter holiday theme to do some Hardcore Heavy Layering. But assembling, putting on, and wearing such outfits is fairly physically taxing for this chronically ill queen, so I went a bit lighter this year.
My main efforts were spent on completely cleaning off the disaster that is the top of my Big Dresser in an attempt to find a piece of chunky costume jewelry that I misplaced some time ago…to no avail. I consoled myself by finally setting back up my stuffed animal display, but I really would like to know where that necklace went, as I purchased it over a decade ago at the Betsey Johnson store in Union Square when a friend worked there. (Also, it’s just a cool necklace.) I actually stopped writing this blog post for a solid half hour to browse The Big Auction Site to see if I could find it on there, and while there’s definitely no shortage of cool statement necklaces on offer, I only could find ones similar, but not quite, like the one that’s currently missing. Sigh.
Anyways, the coordinate that necklace was destined for turned out fine without – at least I had Statement Boots
Yes, they’re real leather
I actually bought these off a friend over a decade ago (a theme with this suspenseful story) solely because they looked straight out of a Range Murata artbook, but I don’t end up wearing them much – they’re fairly comfortable as far as platforms go, but like, I wouldn’t want to drive in them. Their most notable outing was as part of my Xerneas coordinate for an OTTea party back in the olde days (that I might try to reprise at this year’s Fanime, we’ll see).
Held together by safety pins. I think I can do a better job with the janky layering
My other pre-conceptualized coordinate involved…yet another friend purchase, namely, Summer Fairy’s Limited Menu / Limited Set / you know, the burger dress.
Oh, this old thing?
This too, had a statement accessory I gave up on – I was planning on making a hat to wear with it a la Mall Food Court Chain Hot Dog on a Stick, but the double whammy of Increased Responsibilities and the fact I could no longer just go to my local Joann’s to find materials put a pin in this pipe dream. (I was going to try to connect that metaphor to hot dogs. Pretend I was successful.)
Even without the hat, I figured people would get my carnival concessions girl concept, and trudged forward to Friday’s fit finangling.
For the last coordinate, I used my tried and true method of “what haven’t I worn to an event recently” and settled on a fairly recent MILK purchase. The dress reminded me a lot of what American Girl Samantha wears – it’s not like, the exact dress or anything, more the overall aesthetic. This only really served as inspo for how I was going to do my hair, however. I kept coordinating this simple (well, by my standards), and boom, all three outfits done.
Pre-Con
Anyone who read my FanimeCon recap might remember I got last-minute invited to a River Cats A’s game the day before I left for San Jose, where I was mainly excited just to walk past the glory and triumph that is the Ziggurat.
This year however, there were no such festivities in store. As soon as I opened the door to my friend’s house, she turned to me and said “Are you ready to Never See The Sun? Cause it’s been THREE WEEKS!”
Hashtag just little Central Valley things
Indeed, it was a sunny 80F December day when I drove out of Los Angeles through the Tejon Pass (I wasn’t kidding about the hell joke earlier), and as I descended into the Central Valley, I drove through a layer of Tule fog that resembled the layer of fat on a properly-made ramen broth that’s been left in the refrigerator. A near immediate 30 degree temperature drop accompanied the descent, and my entire car fogged up like that spicy scene in Titanic. Luckily, I was already planning to pull off to get gas around then, so the sudden severe lack of peripheral visibility wasn’t too much of an issue.
The refrigerative power of Fog
This level of fog isn’t that unusual, especially that time of year. Indeed, as of writing this, the fog was back to its usual chaos. (To be fair, the problem is people – most drivers on the road don’t adjust for the low visibility, and anyone on 99 is likely to be long-haulin’, i.e., they’re haulin’ ass. Until they slam into a disabled semi.)
What was unusual, was that this particular spate of fog had been unbroken for so long, causing record low temperatures in many areas of Norcal. And also, luckily for me, the fact that on that particular day, the fog kept to a relatively high elevation, meaning road visibility was perfectly fine. See, Tule fog is known for swirling about your feet a la stage production of Phantom of the Opera…or at least one that sprang for the fog machine.
In a way, it was actually kind of nice out?
Due to some scheduling shenanigans, I ended up on the airbed for a night, and discovered that, unlike traditional mattresses, sleeping on top of a bunch of air has an inherent cooling effect. Something easily solved with an additional blanket, or even just bumping up the thermostat a bit, but my sleepy brain kept thinking Conditions Would Change, Somehow. Anyways, I got to a bit of a late start on Friday, but as both Bay Area traffic and weather were good, it wasn’t really an issue.
Various states of coping with the winter blues
Friday
Driving out, it was actually sunny on the peninsula! But otherwise, not much happened.
When I tried to resize this, the houndstooth got Weird…well it still is, but Less
I wasn’t scheduled to work so much as be available to work, so I mainly milled about chatting with people (and of course, making sure they didn’t need any additional assistance).
Proof I did do some work directing people down a hallway, courtesy of @bon.komera
I got myself an ice cream crepe.
This might have been my first major meal of the day – don’t emulate me, kids
I ended up at Karaoke. I danced to YMCA. I closed out by singing a song that I doubt anyone in the room had ever heard of.
I think what the kids call bisexual lighting here is making me look a little jaundiced
(photo by @bon.komera)
Saturday
The big day, historically. I was scheduled to be either downstairs or offsite, so other than a quick look-see, didn’t really have the opportunity to do any on-site shopping. Which was just as well, as the day before I had witnessed a fellow staff member come back from Baby SF with a newly purchased Egyptian Chris, a rare Alice and the Pirates release in the sense of it being a new print that I actually really, really liked, and was sad I had just missed the reservation period for. (I’m not really on social media all that often these days, so I am generally out of the loop, including when it comes to new releases.)
I would die for Medjed Chris- well wait, I think that’s actually how that works normally
Due to the influx of fashion-minded visitors we bring in that weekend, shopping at Baby SF switches to appointment only, and the earliest one they had was for Sunday. So if Egyptian Chris was still there in a cut and colorway I liked, well, that was basically my Santa Day budget blown for the weekend.
Don’t worry, I did manage to get a crepe between shifts
Typically I go dissociate at our Game Lounge (well, and help, if need be) on Saturday, but as I was working a different door around that same time, I instead actually ended up attending the ball this year.
Said door, on left
(photo by @bon.komera)
I mainly sat and chatted with some old friends near the dance floor, but I did stumble my way through the Lady Gaga Abracabra-themed line dance, only after which did I learn what a “paddle turn” was. To be fair to myself, besides not attending the lessons for the dance, I have trouble with my left and right, and there was more turning involved than say, the Macarena, so that didn’t set me up for success.
(1) my unpaid job boss, (2) a friend with an interesting paid job, (3) another unpaid job boss, and (4) a complete stranger
(photo by @bon.komera)
I tried
(photo by @bon.komera)
One quarter T-pose, one quarter deadge, and one half that meme with the solider protecting the sleeping kid from missiles
(photo by @bon.komera)
Afterwards, I helped with cleanup, eventually getting back to my hotel room at around 1am. There I discovered my tights were oddly glued to the soles of my statement boots at where the ball of your foot hits…Future Kelp writing this thinks that this was maybe residual shoe polish(??) from having taken them to a cobbler many years ago to get the soles reglued. The tights in question were Fancy, so I was a bit worried, but not too much, cuz hey, it’s the very bottom of the tights, no one sees that except Your Pet, Your Partner, and Your Deity of Choice. One stain treatment and run through the washer later, and most of the Black Gunk is gone, but I’ve made a note to myself to wear protective legwear next time in case it happens again.
Sunday
Sunday’s big draw is the Swap Meet, and this year, it was a bigger draw than ever. So much so, that I needed approximately three additional people to manage the line to get in, for several hours. I’m kind of the Line Management Lady at this point, so I know the vagaries of the job, but as the day went on, I was fairly fatigued and had already recruited the few extra people around, leaving me with no quick and easy options for a replacement.
Please direct your attention to the big-ass line
(photo by @obtuse.microwave)
Luckily, the line finally died down right as the source of my fatigue presented itself – nope, not my late night, but my period, which I honestly had been waiting all week to show itself. If anyone following my Instagram stories was wondering why there’s zero (0) posts from Sunday, well, now you have your answer. I spent most the rest of the day sitting and slowly eating…well even slower than I usually eat. I did manage to have a look around the Swap Meet towards the bitter end, as well as our new Cosmic Carnival event, where I realized I had a slight shoulder sprain as I went to do the ring toss.
My bangs freed from the unnatural high gloss finish of being cemented into a curl with göt2b glued hairspray
(photo by @bon.komera)
♫Can’t read my, can’t read my poker face♫
(photo by @bon.komera)
But what happened to your shopping appo, my imaginary reader with excellent short-term memory exclaims. Don’t worry, that also coincided with conditions calming down, and when I walked across the street over to the New People building, they did indeed have one (1) Egyptian Chris skirt left in the Black colorway. I wasn’t sure how the pricing was gonna shake out – as any international shoppers know, the yen has gotten incredibly weak against the dollar nowadays, but import costs have shot up. Combine that with SF’s 10 percent sales tax rate and there’s a lot of variables in play. But the weak yen prevailed(?), with my total being $228 for a skirt priced at ¥29,480. I usually set my fashion budget somewhere around $250 for the weekend, so, goal met?
The Aftermath
I drove back to my friend’s house and went to meet up with some Sacto friends the day after. Their young offspring didn’t remember me from last year, but was absolutely delighted to meet me, as my name is apparently close to her favorite children’s show character. (Given how unpopular I am with my sister’s kids, I’ll take what I can get.) By the time I drove back down to Socal, the fog forecasts had given way to rain, but nothing major, and the drive was blissfully uneventful.
Predictably, it’s coming up on two months and there’s still one bag I haven’t unpacked, but it’s the miscellaneous bag, so that’s worth something, surely. If anyone reading this attended Ursa Major, thank you for your support, and I hope you’ll visit again next year.
kelp 