Stuffs from the OtaKing: Lil Tokyo and OCAG Halloween!

I got an early morning call from one of my friends that wanted to take a nap over at my place before we head out to Lil Tokyo. Today also happened to be the day my anime club, OCAG, held its Halloween party and anime screening.

My friend wanted to go find pieces for her yukata and decided that we should drive out to Lil Tokyo and find the stuff she needed. I'm always down for hitting up one of my old playgrounds, so I decided to go along as well!

When we got there, we were starving!!! We were looking for places in the Japanese Village and settled for this place called Wakasaya, a place that is only a year old in that area... Walking in, there was absolutely ZERO Japanese workers working this restaurant... That should've been the first sign that it wasn't going to be good... The second sign was that there was absolutely ZERO Japanese customers... WHATSSSS??????????

Being slow from hunger... I decided to give it a try... as they say, "Never judge a book by its cover..." Well... the posters and decorations look cool... Ehh... gotta try at least once, right right?

Let's take a side step, cos I found this slightly interesting, but the girl next to us found it completely disgusting... Mayo Soy Sauce. To me, an American, yeah, at first, I was like, "Huh?" but then, when you think about it... you're like, "Hmm, alright" but when you try it, it's normal.

Ok... back on track... The service at Wakasaya, in Lil Tokyo, was a joke... the main host person was a hippy, and not like just for a costume, since it was Halloween esque... no, he was a really hippy.. slow, dirty, slow, forgetful and yeah... slow... They took forever to take our order and they never checked on us once... The German couple, next to us, got there when we took our order and didn't place an order until we finished our food. The food was, meh, nothing special. You could tell that they were trying to imitate the Shinsengumi noodles, but the broth just didn't cut it... And... I didn't understand the shrimp in the ramen... what??? The seared salmon mini bowl was... meh... When they said "mini" they really meant it... I'll even go as far as complaining about the Dr. Pepper fountain drink... Come on... How do you mess up soda? I bought a 2 liter Pepsi once from the 99 Cent Store... and never again... There is a weird taste that I can taste in cheap soda... like... I dunno... dust? Like, if you went into a dirty 99 Cent Store and you smell that icky smell and that smell leaked into the drink and fused its flavor onto it... that's what the added taste would taste like. THIS is what this restaurant's Dr. Pepper tasted like. Did I mention the service was BAD?

Ok, back to roaming around the Japanese Village, we came across two areas that still had the wish papers tied to the trees from Tanabata. Every time I see this, I get all excited and think about Haruhi! lol

Next to the trees, they had this little boulder garden.

And next to that was a little shop selling little trees lol! XD

While on the search for yukata things for my friend, I decided to try some on as well. One little shop, right next to Jungle Anime, had a older Japanese lady working in her lonely shop. On the outside, the sign said it was a Kimono rental shop for traditional Japanese weddings. I asked to try on one of the Yukata, that they sold for guys, and she put it on me and showed me how to tie the belt section. Now, I had this feeling with the other shop that had me try the yukata on, but, for some reason, while these ladies dressed me up in these clothes, I felt like a doll... and I enjoyed it... Just standing still, while they placed it on me, then, gently wrapping the waste section, it just felt natural, like I was a doll.

The Japanese lady, from that specific shop, was really kind to me and even brought me to the other places to complete my yukata set. Sometimes she would speak to me in Japanese, and I would understand very little, but I'd remind her that I wasn't Japanese and that I didn't speak. She said I reminded her of her son when he was younger. lol

We ended up spending way too much time at the yukata shops that we had to fly through Jungle Anime. I didn't see the owner there, so, I didn't feel guilty not staying long to have a small conversation with him and his convention season this year.

Time to head back to the OC for the OCAG Halloween party!

After dropping off my friend, I headed off over to my anime club's party.

At this point, I was overly exhausted and starving again... The people showed up, some in costume, and we were watching Kara no Kyoukai on BluRay! I was dressed up in my yukata and was taking pics of the toys I brought with me.

I needed to sit down, so I went to the poker room and started playing with my figures on the table with the chips... lol