To get to the meet in SF, I ended up taking bart. Once at SF, I met up with the other members at Yerba Buena Park.
For some reason, there was a shirtless man dancing in the background O___o. You can see him in the top left corner of this photo. After enough members showed up at the park, we started things off as usual with introductions and ice breakers.
After we played a couple ice breakers, we went off to the Westfield Mall in search of food. However, my search for food went a bit strangely. On my way to check out the other food stores that were down the hall from the food court, I passed by a booth for portable clothes steamers. There an Italian gentlemen was passing out cards, so just out of habit I took a card as I walked by. Though then the guy started to talking me. So out of courtesy I just went along with it. So he started giving me a presentation about this portable steamer which was straight forward as you would expect. I then commented that it looked like an "interesting Mother's Day gift" and I would think about it and come back later. But then he started bagging one up and asking questions about if I were a student and what not. To which I just replied random stuff like I was a student at SF State. Then he kept telling about the pricing and possible "discounts" he could give. Then he started writing up a receipt and I was totally starting to think in my head "when did I ever agree to buy this thing?" Also at this point the guy was so like in my face that it was almost like he was "coming on to me". I just kept telling him that I have to think about this, but he just kept going on and on about lowering the price. So I eventually just said I don't have enough money for it and walked away.
With me free from that odd ordeal, I ended up getting some pork katsu at a Japanese restaurant I found there. So I got the food to go and met up with the Soompi members again. At this point, some more members joined up with us. Also I guess some of the members decided to get some cream puffs to celebrate the May birthdays in our group. They even had candles and everything, although I was horrified watching them light the candles, because I'm pretty sure I saw Karen's sleeve touching the fire of one of the candles. That and one candle was placed awkwardly and looked like it was going to fall over. However, it all luckily went down with a hitch.
So after getting lunch, we all headed back to Yerba Buena and split into two groups. One group was going to ice skate and the other was going to bowl. I ended up following the bowling group since I can't skate. However, the bowling group split into two groups of who wanted to bowl and those who didn't. I chose the later and just watched the others bowl.
After the bowling and ice skating, a number of us then made our way down to Japantown. On the car ride there, one of the girl's excitement was called into question since she seemed very monotone when she was saying it. So this brought someone to reference the MTV cartoon character Daria. Whom one of the guys didn't know who that was. So one of the girls had to explain it to him. In their discussion, the mentioned something about calling a girl named "Meirin/Vivian" Daria. Which caused me to mentally have a O___O reaction. Since on the @iamcrazymike twitter there is a girl I converse with that goes by said monikers and once had a Daria avatar.
There we waited around a bit for all the members to get there. In this time we spent it looking around the bookstore at Kinokinuya Bookstore. Once everyone that was coming arrived, we then went to Pika Pika. There we managed to take a picture of 20 of us. Originally they wanted to break the record of 30, but I guess they gave up on the idea or we did not have enough people interested. Though I will say that the booth was very hot and it felt like someone was sitting on my back O___o.
After Pika Pika, we then split off again into groups to go get dinner. The group I was a part of ended up going to a Korean restaurant across the street from Japantown. However, upon looking at the menu considering my selective tastes(I don't eat vegetables) and price (Korean short ribs cost $20) I had to respectfully bow out and find food on my own. I eventually just settled upon getting a double cheeseburger, fries, and a drink at the Burger King at the end of Japantown. After dinner, I made my way back to Japantown to wait for the others to finish. Luckily while there I ran into some of the other members, so I did not really have to search for anyone. During this time I also saw my friend Andrew's sister Charie walking in the background. I guess she was shopping or something. Though it took me a while to realize it was her since honestly I don't know how she dresses when she's not cosplaying. Once we reconvened, some went home and another group went to do some karaoke.
After Karaoke, we ended up with the odd task of transporting 11 people in two cars. Which somehow we got to work, by having someone squeeze in the floor. However, when it came to drop us off at BART, I was too focused on watching the two crammed on the side of the car closest to the street get out before the stoplight turned green to realize it was safe to get off my side. Then again it was a long day and my mind just doesn't function well in panic situations. So since it was too late, I ended up just going back with the Hayward/Union City people. I feel somewhat guilty, since I was supposed to have "escorted" the other two on BART since it was night. Hopefully they made it back to Fremont safe and sound.
So I got dropped back off at the South Hayward Bart Station parking lot, where oddly someone left a pillow lying against my driver side passenger door. I have no idea why a pillow was there, or why someone would do that, but there's really no point in questioning it. So I thanked the guys for ride, and went off to make my way home. Overall it was an interesting day meeting new people and catching up with old acquaintances. Hopefully we do this again sometime soon.
Side note: Considering this was a Soompi meet and that Soompi is a Kpop forum, there was a lot of talk about Fanime later this month.
Pika Pika photo scanned by Shirley. Pika Pika photo courtesy of Pika Pika
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