my 2011 botCon tavel blog

[griffin]

The annual adventure to the BotCon Transformers Convention in America began on Wednesday, 25th of May, with last minute rushing around to get everything ready for departure early the next morning.
The Convention this year was returning to Pasadena in Los Angeles, California. An area I've been to twice now, and as such wanted to do a bit of out-of-area exploring... but since I wouldn't be having any stops before LA, I would have to go somewhere first and then return back to the point of arrival for the Convention and return home.
Demonac was planning to go this year as well, so after 2 previous 'tours of duty' together to BotCon (2007, 2009) we developed a plan that centered around a road-trip before the convention, that would initially include stops at Vegas, San Diego and the Mexican border. Vegas ended up being a casualty of sorts, and depending on time, crossing the Mexican border is a low priority at this stage.


Anyway, with the last five days having only 4-5 hours sleep a night, I had to get to bed as early as I could... because this year I would be driving around California as soon as I arrived in LA - arriving half asleep was not an option.
I had to get up by 6am, so wasn't too happy about it being 2am when I had done enough to feel comfortable having enough time in the morning to finish and depart on time.
8am was when I was wanting to leave home, to give me about an hour buffer for traffic (weekday peak), accidents, and my own inability to do anything on-time.
So at 8.35 I was out the front, hopping into a taxi for the airport, hoping that we didn't have some big accident somewhere, preventing me from making the 90-minute cut-off. I chose to go the toll road way, and it only took 20 minutes (it usually takes 35-40 minutes the non-toll road way).
It actually took me longer getting through the check-in queue, than it did getting there.
I was left with about an hour before boarding started at 10.10.

We departed on time at 11am, flying direct from Brisbane to LA, getting there about 30 minutes before schedule. Actually, out of the 7 flights I saw on the arrivals board at LA that were arriving from AUS and NZ via QANTAS and VAUSTRALIA the only one that arrived late was Demonac's...
Which meant if was a waste this time getting in early, because it just meant I had to wait longer at the airport until Demonac's flight arrived (with his family). It was only supposed to be an hour wait, but ended up being two.

On the flight itself, I managed to finally see Tron Legacy (very disappointing), and Voyager of the Dawn Treader (also disappointing).
Meals were, um, uninspiring... but one tip is never eat food in public while watching one of those Melbourne Comedy Debates (which they had on the TV section of their entertainment).

Since I had 2 hours to kill at LA airport, and was unwilling to leave the airport to find something tasty to eat, I had to resort to checking out the stores within the International Terminal. I found myself a Bear Claw (after many years of hearing the word on TV shows, and didn't know what it was), plus a toyshop. Prices of toys in airports are usually twice retail, but since this was America, the airport prices were about the same as our regular prices. I found and bought my first 3 Transformers toys in less than an hour of being in America - Stealth Force Leadfoot (RtS version) (US$19) and RPMs Minivehicles 2-pack Sideswipe Vs Wreckloose (US$13).

I finally met up with Demonac and family at 8.45 (an hour 45 since I arrived) and we went straight to the Rental Car shuttlebus pickup point. Taken to the car-yard, we got our car (despite a problem with my driver's license - I only found out it was going to expire 2 days into the trip, so had to renew it the day before I left... which leaves me with no actual license due to the new computer-chip ones needing to be posted out).

They ended up letting me take the car, and we drove to a nearby Target store for a Sat-Nav (it's paid for itself in its first day), plus some initial toy-hunting. They pretty much had the entire first wave, which I had to limit the number I could buy due to limited space in the car (all of our luggage taking up most of the room in the tiny, cheap car).

BTW, I had only realised on the plane over to LA that the Sat-Nav device I bought in Australia earlier in the year was supposed to be able to updated with new maps, but didn't think about 'updating' it with foreign maps. Checking now, I see that I could have uploaded the US maps onto my existing Sat-Nav device for AU$129... compared with US$139 (the price I paid for the one I bought in America). Ah well, it wasn't a huge wasted expense, but I will probably sell off one when I get back home and upload the missing maps to the other (for future trips to American).

We then went directly from LA to our San Diego hotel, to check in (2pm) and drop off luggage to free up space for more toyhunting.
The hotel is in a void of toy stores, so we had to travel about 20 minutes to get to the nearest cluster of stores - Walmart, Target, ToysRUs.
Also bought a Double Moon Pie, and 4 unusual burgers at Burger King (with a $100 note the cashier and manager desperately tried to verify that it wasn't a counterfeit note).

We returned to the hotel by 6pm to eat our various food items, and check out our new toys.

My *first day* haul:
Speed Stars Stealth Force (RtS) basic Leadfoot, RPMs 2-pack Minivehicles Sideswipe & Wreckloose, DotM Deluxe wave 1, DotM Voyager wave 1, Legion wave 1, Commander wave 1, Human Alliance Basics wave 1, Human Alliance Deluxe wave 1, Leader wave 1, Deluxe wave 2 (Barricade, Jolt, Sideswipe only), Deluxe wave 3 (Nitro Bumblebee, Mudflap only), Action Sets wave 1, Action sets wave 2, Activators wave 1, Go-Bots wave 1, Revving Robots wave 1, Bash-Bots wave 1, Energon Shock Sword, TRU excl Ironhide & Sideswipe, Speed-Stars Stealth-Force Deluxe (DotM) Big Hoss & Starscream, Speed-Stars Stealth-Force Cycles Knock-Out & Highwire, Lights & Sounds Big Bumblebee, Speed-Stars Minivehicles 2-pack Optimus Vs Desert Long Haul.



That was 55 toys purchased on the first day of this year's BotCon adventure, with an estimated saving of about $700 for not purchasing them in Australia.
My previous record of TFs toys purchased during a BotCon trip was 72 I believe (in 2009, with all the initial RotF toys being released in the week of BotCon), so I don't think I will have too much trouble beating that this year... but there's only about another 17 general release items I have left to purchase, so don't expect any more big hauls like that for the rest of the trip.

At least I can remove toys from packaging early in the trip and condense the whole lot now, instead of during the convention, which has little time for such a time consuming task... I still have several to remove from packaging (what it looked like after half were left to be done)

Demonac has been 'test driving' most of the my toys, which gives him a better idea of what to buy and what to avoid... and at least it gets some play out of them while I can easily exchange them, because he's found a few defective toys already.


Anyway, that was Thursday in America, my first of 11 days here.

At about half past midnight I went to bed, and I think Demonac's 3-year-old kid was suffering most from jetlag, as I was awoken by her at about 2.30, and again at 4am. I couldn't go back to sleep at that point, so got up and worked on the computer, ate left-over food from the night before, and opened up some more toys.
We had to be up by 7.30am, to be read for the day's events, which meant having enough time to go down to the ground floor for our complimentary breakfast (a standard feature for every morning, for a room that was the same price as the BotCon hotel's discounted convention rate).
They had eggs, bacon, cereal, waffle irons (to make your own waffles), fruit, bagels, muffins, yogurt, and various beverages. Mmmmm...

We aimed for a 9.30 departure, but got away about quarter past ten, for our first big tourist stop for the trip... Legoland.



I took about 190 photos, and will post up a report on the day in the Lego section... eventually (it won't be a high priority, as that's a lot of photos to process and upload.

We spent about 6 hours there, the four of us, and this was the one time I was actually glad I had let my hair grow, as it prevented my neck from getting burnt, and the hat I wear to hold it all back, prevented my face from getting burnt.

We left there at about 5pm, and went home via a Target store (didn't have any TFs, but did get some Pepsi Max, Diet Cherry Dr Pepper, and my first 2 Giant Pretzels for this year (not fresh though - they were from Target's hot-food counter).

It was after 7pm when we got back to the Hotel, and a little after 8, Demonac's wife and I went across the road to the Taco Bell to buy something for dinner (Demonac had just gone for Subway for himself.

Midnight, the others went to sleep, and at about 1.30am (in about 11 minutes time I should be going to bed too).
The alarm is set for 7am, and our second Tourist destination on this trip is to the San Diego Zoo... which is said to be one of the best (if not, the best) zoos in the world.
(and I'll try to fit in some more toy hunting as well of course)


BTW, when going through Customs, try to refrain from being funny, no matter how tempting it is. The admissions process at the moment requires you to provide all ten fingers to be scanned and your photo taken (according to the signage there)... so when I was only asked to scan 4 of my fingers, I queried it. The Customs officer said it wasn't necessary, so I replied with, 'well, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have bothered bringing the other six with me'. Fortunately he saw the humour and actually laughed... but the moment I said it, I had a chill of fear that I'd be asking for extra scrutiny for making light of such a serious procedure.

I was just lucky I wasn't asked by anyone if i had anything to declare, because I was already thinking it would be funny to reply, 'just my love for this great nation'...
(Guantanamo probably would have been my new home if I'd said that)