2011: Part 12 - Finishing it all off

 Part 12 - Time to wrap up 2011

So the last month and a bit of the year was an interesting one, we've finally seen Tokyo Hardcore launched and while a bit slow at first we started getting people coming in via the Neko Nation ticket sales, the next Neko Nation was in the works and my god this was going to be a big one.

Neko Nation Adelaide - Finale!
This was going to be big, 14 DJ's, 8 catgirls, 10 media staff covering the show, including AV-Con and I Got Superpowers, I absolutely decided to re-write the show in regards to the final Neko Nation aiming to take it to the next new level, with a big new stage, lighting, sound, projections, music format, catgirls and X-banners (plus a massive one which didn't make it in time, >.<).

Anyways, it was a tricky show to manage (having 30 people under your control is a bit tricky to manage even though I had most of the planning done beforehand), just lots of last minute nerves but we got through it in the end and I just couldn't believe how spectacular and how much fun the show was when I actually managed to chill out and enjoy the night.  I honestly believe the setup actually made it feel like a pretty big deal and a really special night that people are going to remember for a while and to be honest, this was the best way I could have ended the year with Neko Nation, then the videos came out to top it all off.  Seriously I'm excited for next year although a show like that won't be seen for a while, probably next Adelaide at this rate!  Not to say that the other shows aren't fun or awesome but Adelaide just has an incredible buzz and vibrance to it which the other cities just can't match.

Friendship
I have to admit I was finally finding friends in Adelaide and starting to gain a bit of fame and popularity in Adelaide, I have to admit it was certainly a really nice feeling to start feeling accepted and like in Adelaide.  I was actually starting to have a bit of a group to hang out with, if it wasn't very often due to my work schedule but still this was one of my biggest problems and fears in Adelaide and it's finally being put to an end somewhat.

Overdrive
However the one big thing that stands out over 2011 was my workload, December was a nightmare, with a store open, the next stage was opening up the website with that done, there was Neko Nation, on top of this I was pretty much juggling all my housework and work at ANZ to try to get through the month and I finally reached breaking point at the end of the year, proving that I wasn't as invincible as I thought I was, with a lack of motivation and an inability to work, it looks like I've got some new priorities for next year at this rate.

With that said, it was a year where an epic amount was achieved, it went way off the plan but I ended up with the success of Neko Nation and a sexy catgirl so I can't really complain about that.  How can next year get better, we'll see, however that's for another post, 2011 was possibly my best, biggest and craziest year yet, bring on 2012!

2011: Part 11 - The Fight for Glory

Part 11 - Launching a business can be an exciting time but it comes at a cost, not just financially, possibly something that was invaluable.

Manifest proves to be a success and we have a decent time at mini-AV Con as well and after that it was time to get the store started for real, unfortunately it wasn't going to be that easy, with numerous and multiple delays on the store launch, the budget blowing out, things were proving to be a nightmare to deal with and in a sense, each week that passed, was another week of rent to pay and there was no store to sell anything, it was going to be a tough time.

Then came me and Susannah's 8 month anniversary, by far my least favourite anniversary in any relationship since the past has always proven that this is where all relationships end up going to shit and well this wasn't any different.  There was insane amounts of stress on both ends, the store was looking borderline to happen, I had an insane amount to deal with and we struggled to come to get along in our relationship this week as our lives ended up suffering and suffering.

Somehow in the end, we managed to sort it all out and got opening on the 29th of October, to a huge crowd which ended up packing up and filling up the whole store filled with frilly lolitas, it was quite a sight, to finally get this open was a huge relief and a massive step forward for us and the start of a new future.

With that said, it changed things a lot, my working week was now averaging 50-60 hours a week and I wasn't taking any money from Neko Nation or Tokyo Hardcore, so it was going to be a lot of work and very little to come off it but we head into Christmas hoping for bigger and better things to come.

2011: Part 10 - Neko Nation vs. Australia

Part 10 - Neko Nation finally went for three shows over five weeks, the results ended up being quite interesting.

Adelaide
To be back for a second show was going to be interesting we were expecting some pretty epic success due to the number of tickets we sold at AV-Con, it was great to be putting another show on in Adelaide with the success of the last one and this night we believe we had somewhat gotten to work better overall.

For me the highlight was just the fact it was the first Neko Nation night I could enjoy, it ran rather flawlessly in terms of me needing to interfere and I could actually enjoy the night as an actual punter for once at the event which was a lot of fun.  It was after this night I realised that we had something pretty special here that we could really start taking around Australia.

While the night went really well, the only downside was dealing with the venue which meant we were forced to move to a new venue for our next Adelaide show.

Perth
It was awesome to be back in Perth to launch the tour and to launch the first v2.0 show, this was our first show with the stage and projector setup (which got brought to a whole new level at the Adelaide 2011 finale).  It was by far our best show yet in terms of production quality and it was one blast of a night, including our first after party as well at Game City which was quite fun while I was awake.

The rest of the Perth trip was fun, Susannah had a pretty sexy photo shoot with Kerry Anne which was great, we had meetings with Attitude Oz to get involved in Miss Alternative and got invited to a Wai-Con meeting, so we were more than certainly having our hands full, although I really enjoyed the catch ups with Eugene and Arty though which was really sweet, there was dramu on the last day but overall Perth was fun even though I had no free time to hang out with my Perth friends though.  X.x

Melbourne
Me and Melbourne are never going to get along and the last trip really proved that Melbourne has this habit of wanting to eat me alive.  Anyways, arrived in town after a pretty horrific drive which saw driving in low light with monsoon like weather, understeering and honestly, I think we were pretty luck not to crash, not that Melbourne drivers weren't trying to run into me, my god I didn't think any city could drive worse than Perth but I was proven wrong.

Neko Nation Melbourne flopped hard, a lot of things went wrong but overall we just had low attendance figures, which started a lot of problems in terms of the night being shut down early and causing a lot of problems.  Unfortunately to this day while we've worked out a few things we can do to help make it work better next time, unless I'm seriously proven wrong, Neko Nation just doesn't work in Melbourne.

In short, I don't hate Melbourne for everything that has happened to me but I obviously can't get excited due to all the problems and bad trips I've had there, I won't go on and on but bad shit always happens to me in Melbourne and I just haven't exactly seen what all the hype is about with Melbourne since all the best parts people tell me about Melbourne I've seen and done in Asian cities, such as the shopping and general exploring and wandering around.

2011: Part 9 - A new start

Part 9 - Finally adapting into Adelaide, it took a while to get used to this place, with all the slow speed limits, confusing roads, lack of old friends and just in general adapting to a new place but in the end I eventually got there, although the same can't be said about Melbourne though.


Adelaide
I managed to finally re-adjust and settle into a new job, new surrounding but not everything fell into place, I barely still knew anyone here and it was a nightmare to find another job.  I tried getting back into uni but the University of Adelaide was having none of it with constant delays, pass arounds and in general nobody knew how to handle my application, despite high distinctions all around in my previous university they were unsure if it meant anything, confused?  I was and so were they, it was a god damn nightmare, so things quietened up for a bit.

Tokyo Hardcore - A new beginning
 However not for long, Tokyo Hardcore would start kicking back up into swing, especially as we started getting ready for Manifest, there was an insane amount of planning, budgeting, forecasting, legalities, pricing and accounts to get organised and get this show on the road and it wasn't long till we signed a lease and got a booth at Manifest.

Manifest was good and bad, good in the fact that it was an interesting experience and a huge success, especially getting a huge order of Angelic Pretty by literally running underneath a Post Office, by sprinting 500m through a shopping centre, it was a pretty epic sprint to make it down, however bad because it was draining and I spent most of my time on a never ending fetch quest.

Manifail
Overall a fun experience but what I couldn't get over was how bad of a con Manifest was, when one of the the people on the board straight up admits to you, "we don't bother with organisation, everyone knows it's going to be way too much work to fix this."  Seriously, the organisation was shambles, from the late replies to e-mails, to not getting all our staff passes, the joke of an option and how far apart everything was.  I could not believe that a con like that could exist.  It was merely another mark on my lack of love of Melbourne.

2011: Part 8 - Let's try that again

Part 8 - So last time I went to live in Adelaide I got spat out and spewed into a plane to Japan, well Sydney then Japan.  Anyways, this time it was moving into Adelaide for reals, well not really.

Roadtrip!
I've never had a change to go on an epic road trip but now was the time to properly pack up back at home and head over to Perth by car to drop of all my gear for real, as for why this wasn't done right before I moved, there was the intense timetable for Japan which Susannah had booked and then the ash cloud incident earlier in the year fucked things up.

Anyways, it takes around 2 days to get from Perth to Adelaide and we got to check out the sites along the way but unlike the beautiful mountain roads you see in Europe, it's just mostly dirt and a tiny town every 50kms or so, the actual driving is insanely boring as hell but Susannah was good company and we got to have a nice long talk about lots of little things, more or less confirming whether we were really perfect for each other.  We managed to make the trip within around 46 hours including a sleep at the border, which was really nice after being awake for around 18 hours or so and driving for the majority of it.  I also learned about the horrors that is Eyre Highway, aka. Nullabor, a 1200km road, it was boring as hell especially when Susannah slept a fair few bits throughout the trip.

AV-Con
I was preparing for things to get interesting here since AV-Con is known as one of the biggest and best cons in all of Australia, it would be interesting to see if it did live up to expectations and even though I was stuck in the Tokyo Hardcore booth for most of it, just wow.  It's mindblowingly big from what I've been used to with Wai-Con and I had a bit of fun in the short time exploring it, especially PWNing DDR in trap mode was lots of fun.  XD

Tokyo Hardcore
The reality was at AV-Con it was all about Tokyo Hardcore's soft launch, we had a good trip in Japan although nothing in terms of the brands was going to arrive in time so we just had to go buy what we actually bought in Japan and building up hype, it was a successful outing, in terms of making enough to start get some actual lolita brands in and preparing for the next phase of the launch at Manifest.

2011: Part 7 - Nippon, Otaku, Desu

Part 7 - Japan, got lazy and decided to copy and paste the old post I originally wrote.

Shinjuku

This is where we ended up staying, on a lot of train lines including express services, our hotel was so close to the train station and there were lots of shopping to check out in the local area.  Marui One stood out as a highlight, while I was aware of all the lolita and goth brands before coming to Japan, actually going and seeing the stores located in the building was absolutely mindblowing.  All the brands have their own stores, while all the stores are tiny their size and decor really amazing, none of the stores allowed for pics so I can't exactly put anything up.  It was a good introduction to properly seeing what all the brands in the Tokyo Hardcore store were going to be like in person.

Walking around and exploring was a lot of fun which included checking out some of the interesting arcades, some of the amazing food they had around the area and looking out for all sorts of fun things and general exploring around of the place, thankfully I had Susannah who made sure I didn't get lost because even once I found my way around Shinjuku the subway was definitely going to prove more confusing!  Also note the picture where Susannah is at the temple, our translater Naomi kept joking that the big wooden part is a penis, once seen it could not be unseen!

This was my favourite highlight from Shinjuku, you can hear me nyaaing near the end.  XD

Harajuku

This is one of the places which is absolutely amazing for shopping and to look at but ironically it was the place where we got the least amount of photos.  However it must be said the main reason why you go is for two reasons, the shopping which was amazing yet the downside here is that you are not actually allowed to take photos in any of the stores and also the fashion and the people, we saw plenty of interesting looking people, we didn't feel the need to stop any person in particular since there were way too many well dressed people me and Susannah were absolutely amazed by.

If anything stood out it was actually going to Takuya Angel and actually getting to meet him in person, he was actually a really cool guy to talk to and we've got a good potential business relationship here for multiple reasons actually now!  His store was great but actually insanely small, shopping would have been fun but we were on a tight budget here due to the nature of the trip in general so I have very little to show from my time there but even so, just going around and exploring was a lot of fun.  Personally I found Putumayo definitely a personal fave, they had did a punk collaboration with Vocaloids.  Which meant there was a punk Hatsune Miku outfit which I would have so needed if I was a girl.  XD

Shibuya

This was fun but I barely got to spend much time here.  From my end I didn't go away with much of an interesting experience since I feel like there was a lot to offer here but barely got to check much out overall.  However, the scramble definitely provides one hell of a highlight though, which is fun to look at but actually crossing the road is not fun and is actually kind of scary when you're down there, you're trying your hardest not to bump into someone every second!

I personally got to check out the Guhroovy store which was by far one of my favourite stores to check out.  It's essentially a store that's considered the rave capital in Japan, owned by Guhroovy and M-Project, it features lots of interesting rave CD's across a variety of genres by rave DJ's in Japan.  While I couldn't find my most favouritest of J-Core CD's they had an awesome variety of some really good CD's worth checking out and you can get a variety of rave fliers which included a few interesting events which I missed out on and possibly one of the best fliers I've seen in the rave scene for a CD, check out the detailing mp3 buttons on the cover girls breasts on the picture below!

Akihabara

Absolutely awesome, Akihabara is the nerd/otaku/anime mecha of the world.  Featuring many 8 level buildings dedicated to arcades, cosplay, video games, anime, merchandise and maid cafes, it was just pure heaven!  Sadly I barely got much time to check out the place and neither did I get much photo-wise.   We found a very detailed naked Hatsune Miku model in a store for around $350, it was really impressive but we just weren't perverted enough to buy it, nor did we get around to buying much tentacle rape. XD

The streets are lined up with maids everywhere shouting at you to come to their cafe, even just taking a flier makes them insanely happy and they're even happy to walk you to a cafe.  The cafe we decided on was one Susannah went last time and it was an RPG tavern themed place which had all the prices listed in gold rather than Yen.  I decided to order  custom maid cocktail which actually saw a maid making up a cocktail depended on what you liked right in front of you, it was very cute and so were the maids in general, we spent our night getting 'drunk with maids!'  Checking out the maids together the entire night.  I guess the other highlight was the arcade, which saw most of the games abandoned until I went upstairs to find a huge line for the vocaloid game which Sega recently released, it's a simple rhythm game but my god I need it, especially for days when I can't get to an ITG machine which will be very hard now that I'm in Adelaide and don't have much time for it these days too!

Osaka

Got to hang out in Osaka for a day, it was a long 4 hour train trip and we only had one day which we could go due to our business meeting schedules, however it was well worth exploring and even from a business perspective the way that meeting went was completely worth it!

Osaka saw a lot of random exploring including probably the most craziest variety store I've been to which included alcohol you could drink out of a shoe, food products from all over the world, including Tim Tams which Susannah bought to show our translator Naomi what Australians eat.  We got to check out many wonderful sites such as Takoyaki everywhere which is Japanese for octopus balls, it just seems they love to get tentacles inside them here in Osaka!

We had a blast over here checking out some interesting stores that we have known about such as Angellic Pretty and some new surprises such as an awesome cyber store we found here called Qutie Frash, the shopkeeper looked pretty awesome and I've been looking for something interesting and unique like this for some time and Osaka really springed a surprise there, so I've got a new outfit for DJing at the next Neko Nation now!

Definitely a huge highlight of the trip and even the train ride where I got to sit back and watch Japan go past was really enjoyable, being able to see the different areas of Japan from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo to the quiet and peaceful Japanese country side was a wonderful an amazing way to see Japan.

Overall it was one hell of an awesome trip but one week to explore the place definitely was not enough, we were there for almost two weeks but one trip was mostly for business and didn't really count in terms of exploring.  It was a wonderful an amazing trip which I'll definitely be going back to Japan in the near future and will have lots more pictures and stories to tell soon.

Also there will be more updates on my other blogs too!

2011: Part 6 - Finishing Off

Part 6 - It was soon to say goodbye to Perth, but not before finishing a few things off.

University
So the one last thing that was in the way was exams and this time it looked like I may have timed my exams perfectly in terms of my study.  I had a good timetable overall with my weakest subject leaving a lot of time to study for but overall I juggled my final Hairlucination commitment and to an extent some preparation for the move to Adelaide ok on top of my two jobs.

Rewind to last year, I tried to juggle my first stall at Supanova or any con by donig all the prep while my exams were on, it was a nightmare, the next semester I had nothing on and found myself refusing to study on various days because I memorised too much off by heart and if anything it would have a backwards effect by making me concentrate on certain areas too much and forget other areas, this time I timed it right and my grades were pretty decent in the end, even if a distinction average wasn't mindblowing for me I was quite happy overall, especially getting a high distinction in Entrepreneurship.

A flimsy farewell
For a guy who can get pull a few hundred people to pay to go to his parties, you'd think he'd be insanely popular and have a pretty epic farewell, it's actually quite the opposite, I actually struggle to get people to hang out with me and it's happened with all the parties I've ever been involved in.  my final farewell picnic saw something like 4 people, which was quite disappointing over all but things like this happen and there was a fun day had, especially since it ended with an arcade.

Finally farewell
The reality is at the time, besides Susannah there was virtually little reason for me to enjoy Adelaide more than Perth and I was leaving a lot behind, it was going to be really sad to leave a lot of things such as my old place, extremely awesome arcades, amazing friends, really fun raves, alternative events, Wai-Con and honestly there were a lot of good memories I was going to miss.

While I did miss Susannah and really wanted to see her and be with her soon, I have to admit this was one of the parts of the year which actually broke me.  Susannah's plan for Tokyo Hardcore definitely got straight to the point but didn't waste anytime, in the end, I was literally packing my bags as soon as I arrived back home from my exam, I was in on a plane to Adelaide and I would have to repack again for Japan and spend my first day in Adelaide getting ready to go to Japan.

Excited?  My god, I was so insanely sick when I got off that plane from exhaustion...........

2011: Part 5 - New Founded Success

Part 5 - With the struggles of April out of the way, it was finally time to taste success once again.

University - Scoring with Susannah for a High Distinction
It was strange but things finally started working out, I managed to understand almost all of my subjects and found a horrible but harsh way of studying that worked for me (repetition overload) and managed to get good marks.  My grades were boosted for all my subjects that a high distinction was possibly in all my subjects except for my weak subject which I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised I was sitting on such a good mark as well.

My favourite class was entrepreneurship, our assignments involved interviewing an entrepreneur and I had a sneaky trick of interviewing my girlfriend however it turned out that my both me and my teacher believed that she was quite a highly qualified entrepreneur and worth interviewing, despite the high levels of success the other entrepreneurs have ended up achieving in comparison, we did a presentation together for our last assignment about what she has done and both my teacher and class were quite impressed and quite in awe at her achievements, it was kind of a cheat in the sense that Susannah ended up doing a lot of the talking but those who know Susannah wouldn't be surprised at that!

I was about to go into the final exams with quite a fair bit of confidence to get some pretty good grades and get those High Distinctions I wanted.

Neko Nation Expansion
Neko Nation was no longer a small side project, it had become a bit of a big thing as we were about to learn with the next two shows.  Susannah had some pretty big plans for the her show in Adelaide which saw two rooms, a huge new venue, a massive line outside the front for our first show, lots of DJ's and catgirls, this was going to be huge.  The end result was insane, it absolutely owned the first show in terms of numbers and the fun I had in terms of dancing on the night, there was a lot more, this was a spectacular night which went just so mindblowing well, the Adelaide crowd was really something else, I'm not hating on Perth but seriously the Adelaide event is where it is actually at.

We then took the show back to Perth hoping to somewhat match Adelaide and well while the show wasn't on the same level, we hit venue capacity we had more DJ's, more variety, more catgirls and while it fell short of what Adelaide achieved, Perth had grown a lot since the first show and I really felt that Neko Nation was really going somewhere.

The final engaging victory
So after Neko Nation Purrth, we ditched the after party due to the intense aggression outside the after-party, we chilled out and relaxed in Kings Park where we were chilling out happy with our success and feeling happy about our future together, it was here that I finally popped the question (although Susannah actually was joking about it minutes before I asked seriously) and we got engaged on the morning after Neko Nation Perth, we woke up the next day seeing if either of us came to our senses and we were both happy that we were intending to spend the rest of life together.  (That's the plan for now anyways, XP)

Trap-tastic
So Susannah has this huge thing for dressing me up as a fem-boy, so I went down this route and it's kind of bizarre the reactions in Adelaide, if anything I got a lot more famous for a lot of my trap-tastic adventures which saw a lot of fans in Adelaide, it was kind of bizarre to go for years without a massive amount of demand for me but it turns out that I ended up getting a lot of fans who were quite interested in me and a fair few crushing on me.  In the end I felt like I've ended up with the best partner by far of course.