I'm back from the Expo now! My whole body is killing me from all the dancing and walking around and I think I may have caught a cold but it was worth it.
So the day began at around 6am. Before the train came my mom and I went into McDonald's and there were these two guys there who kept asking us questions and saying the strangest things but anyway, after we'd eaten we left and made our way to the train station. When we got on the train I pretty much just spent the time going over my performance for the masquerade in my head and spotting other cosplayers that got on the train.
When we arrived in Manchester we asked some cosplayers for directions and we found the place pretty easily. Luckily we pre-booked tickets this time so we got inside quite quickly. I heard people passing me in the queue saying things like, "Oh my God! She's from Glee!" which made me smile.
When we got inside we looked around the dealers' room for a bit then I went to confirm my place in the masquerade. I saw gasgirl345 there too. There was a problem with my music - the song I was using was 3:30 but for some reason it was showing up as over 18:00 on the computer so that stressed me out a bit but we managed to fix it in the end.
After that we went outside and sat around for a bit. 333hf333 eventually text me, telling me that she was inside the Expo now so I went to meet her. It took us awhile but we eventually found each other and she ran up to me and gave me a big hug >w<
My mom then left us and we walked around the dealers' room a bit. I ran into some of the other YouTube dancers and said hi to them and took a photo of a Kurusu Syo cosplayer. After some more aimless walking around we went back outside.
The dance meet started soon after at the top of the stairs but then we moved and joined some other dancers who were doing PONPONPON at the bottom of the stairs. The dance meet seemed to be mostly K-pop orientated this time and I don't know any K-pop dances so I only ended up joining in with Cirno's Perfect Math Class, Love & Joy, FirstKiss! and Happy Synthesizer. When we weren't dancing Helen and I were taking stupid seflies. It was still nice to hang out with the other dancers and we got quite an audience for some of the dances we did, haha.
A Nanase Haruka cosplayer appeared at one point and anyone who knows me knows how much I love Haruka ~_^ I got really shy for some reason though so I had to get Helen to ask him for a photo for me. Gahh selective mutism. But at least I was able to say thankyou to him afterwards. Then someone came up to me and told me that they were obsessed with Glee and asked me for a photo which made me happy ^^
After FirstKiss! which was the last dance I did someone else came up to me and told me they loved my cosplay
We were just hanging around for a bit after that and someone ran up to the Haruka cosplayer and proposed to him and Helen yelled, "NO, HE'S SOU'S!" which is probably my favourite thing that happened that day.
So yeah Helen wanted to go back inside so I said goodbye to all the dancers then we went to find my mother. I had something to eat then Helen and I went off again. I bought a Len plushie and I was considering buying a Rin T-shit but I didn't in the end. While we were looking around the stalls I heard some girl saying mean things about my costume right in front of me which kind of annoyed me but straight after someone else came up to me and told me they loved it which made up for it.
After taking some more photos and looking around we then made our way backstage for the masquerade. Helen had to go but I sat with the girls from Berry Pop Project, the Otaku Owls, Emmma360 and a girl called Lauren. They all practiced the dances they were doing and Abbie (Owls) let me borrow her speakers so I could practice mine. All of the dancers were all really friendly and nice to me, I hate being so shy ><
When I had signed up I hadn't been aware that there'd be 61 people entering so I'd requested to be near the end. Waiting in the queue to go on was annoying but being right after Berry Pop Project kind of worked out in the end. I didn't win - Lauren did - but when I heard her singing I knew she was going to win anyway.
So after the masquerade ended I told Berry Pop Project that they'd done really well performing then went off to quickly buy a Len key ring from the Tokyo Toys stall. Then we left. Unfortunately our train was delayed due to an accident but we arrived home safely c:
And that's it. I'll upload photos later and I'll have videos of the dance meet and my performance on YouTube soon.