Anime North 2022

 Smiles Never Fade

      This was the first year I spent two nights at a hotel with my friends, as well as swimming at said hotel. Sadly all my photos are gone, but not forgotten. The smiles me and my friends shared on this weekend will live with me for a lifetime.

 

Friday, July 15th, 2022

      Today was the first day back at Anime North in years. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the convention was canceled in 2020 and 2021. Despite being delayed, Anime North made it's mighty return in 2022. Me and my friends got a room for 4 at the Sandman Hotel in Toronto near the convention center, although being a room for 4 we had 3 members over the "capacity" limit. My friends and I unloaded some food and beverages, as well as some sleeping bags before heading to the convention. We also delegated each bed to each person going as thus: Joey and Jasmine slept on the bed closest to the bathroom, myself and Jessica slept on the other bed closest to the window, while Alison and my sister Dakota slept on sleeping bags on the floor underneath the window. It was quite cramped in the hotel room, but we made do. We then headed into the convention center, I was dressed as Albedo from Genshin Impact, in which my sister had purchased the outfit for me off of Dokidoki. We went and lined up for our tickets, waiting until close to closing before giving up and retreating back to our hotel room. We ordered a pizza and attempted to play some games together before heading to sleep for the night. 

 

Saturday, July 16th, 2022

      Today me and my friends woke up fairly early to get dressed, waking up around 6:00am so we would be the first in line to get our weekend tickets. I dressed as I did the previous year, as Kara from Detroit become Human. When we got there, some people were already waiting so we joined the line. We sat and waited for hours before we were finally able to go inside and grab our tickets. While in line, people came around and stamped our hands after checking our COVID-19 vaccination forms. Once inside, we had to dawn masks as per the policy due to the outbreak. We shopped for a few hours, some people gave me compliments but I had little to no photos taken of myself. After spending hours at the convention center, we returned to the hotel. Me and most of my friends went swimming in the pool, we played games and tried to avoid being in the hot tub with strangers. We had a good time in the pool, but we noticed as we were getting out, that a man was recording us on his phone from the hot tub. We reported the man to the front desk before returning to our hotel room. We then realized we did not have enough towel for everyone and the pool did not provide any. So we each took turns taking a shower, as the others froze until the towels came (about 1 hour after calling for service). After we rinsed off, we enjoyed some snacks and went to bed.

 

 Sunday, July 17th, 2022

      Today me and my friends woke up and got ready for the day, I once again dawned my Albedo cosplay and we headed out the door after packing all of our luggage. We loaded all of our items into vehicles to prepare for the trip home, but before going home we enjoyed a few hours inside the convention. Looking for any items we may have wished to purchase prior to leaving the event. A dispute started not long into the day, as some started to get hungry while others wished to keep shopping. A time to leave and eat was settled between my friends after a quick dispute. Once we concluded our shopping, we all met up at the Swiss Chalet where we enjoyed one last meal at the convention before going home and concluding this years Anime North.