ICDS and Natsumatsuri 2015

Wow. It sure was one tiring weekend. I attended 2 events back to back. For someone who rarely ever used to go out, that is a pretty big feat. By the end of Sunday, I was totally shagged out. In fact, the hangover effect spilled over to Monday as well, and I was practically a zombie that day. Then I somehow slept late on Monday too, so Tuesday GG. Luckily I went gym and slept slightly earlier yesterday, so I'm still alright today. But enough about that, let's talk about these 2 fun filled events.

First up is the natsumatsuri (or summer festival) that I attended on Saturday. It was held at the Japanese School Changi Campus. It's a yearly event where Japanese all around Singapore, and fans of J-Culture, gather to celebrate the traditional japanese festival. Every year, there are at least thousands of people attending the event. We reached there like 30 mins early, and the queue was already snaking like crazy. It would do you well to pre-order the tickets. Otherwise, you will have to wait 1hr to enter like we did. Still, it was worth it! :D

Hmm, how should I describe the event? It's like a super big food fair, plus picnic, plus carnival games, plus kimono wearing festival. Yeah that pretty much sums it up. There are loads of food stalls, some run by Japanese others unfortunately not. It's a bit like the school fundraising type, where the food seems rather overpriced. I wonder if part of the proceeds goes towards some cause. Either way I didn't eat a lot, didn't try every stall.

I guess the fun part for me, is to be around so many authentic japanese people. Honestly for awhile there, I strangely felt like I had travelled back to Japan for a bit. But then after awhile you see so many chinese there and then you get brought back. lol. Still a really interesting and fun event for me. An eye-opener for sure.

The highlight of my day there, was waiting freaking 3 hours to get my portrait drawn! Holy shit she is popular, and talented as well. But I kinda pity Zunko, it seems like she basically sat there for 6 hours straight drawing people nonstop without any rest. I mean, you can clearly see she has packet food placed behind her, but obviously no time to eat dinner. The event opened at 4:30pm, and I was one of the last handful of customers at 10:30pm. She was still going strong! The money is good, but honestly must be real tiring! Anyway lesson learnt, I shall queue for this first the next time I go. Like that I can be done by 7:30pm. HAHA! :P

The next event on Sunday, was International Cosplay Day Singapore (ICDS) 2015. I had arranged with my best pal Shaun to head down and check out the event. He has been my friend since primary school, and is a veteran of these type of events. I'm honestly still just a noob. Overall, it was a fun event as I got to talk to some old friends, and take quite a few cosplay pics here and there. It's not just the event, but the people you are with that matter.

I still find it inspiring, that so many young people actually put in a bunch of effort into doing up their costumes and dressing up for the event. Singapore's weather is not exactly forgiving either. Even if I don't really have anything to buy, I would still go there to just take a look and take pictures of all the interesting costumes around. I just like it when people actually make cool and cute stuff.

You know, I actually met more people I knew than I expected to. Firstly, I met up with Shaun, that was planned for. Then when I watched the cosplay judging competition, I met Jacqueline whom I somehow know from one of the meetings at work. I didn't really say hi because I am technically "not supposed" to know about her this hobby. But her colleague Hayden had already leaked it previously. lol. Anyway it was really crowded, so getting to meet her was tough.

Lastly, I met my JC friend Wai Keat and we chatted for a bit. Unfortunately, he has had some bad blood with Shaun in the past, so the 2 of them don't quite hit it off anymore. Not too sure what's the deal and what happened between them in the past. Apparently it's over some girl or something. Yikes, it's complicated. I wanted to probe further but decided maybe now was not the time for that. I'm just glad that I got to meet a bunch of friends at the event and that it wasn't just boring ol' me walking around taking pictures. Slightly better than EOY I guess.

Unfortunately due to the crowd there, and the squeeze with other photographers, I realized that most of my pictures were taken in portrait mode. That means putting a bunch of them in this post would greatly extend the height of this post and a large amount of scrolling. Anyway, I have already uploaded all the pictures I have for both events onto my Facebook. You can slowly check out all the pictures using the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153216117888337.1073741857.704973336&type=1&l=a72d8467c4

Hopefully I get to meet more friends again at the upcoming events! The next one I will be going for is GAMEX which is basically held together with COMEX the computer fair. So, if you are going do let me know! We could meet up for drinks or just to say hi! :)