New month - new me

Hey there everybody.

I hope you are all doing well and that the week has started on a positive note for you.

I am sorry that I was offline these past couple of days.

My battery was completely drained once I finished the wards and shipped them off. I had some health issues as well - my hand got swollen up from the intense crafting. 

On a side note, the wards arrived safely, and to my knowledge, they were able to set them up and were able to record their videos.

And here are some news from Saudi Arabia. To be honest, it is hard to explain the experience there with any word than stressful. Starting from the super long layovers at Doha to sitting in a costume for 15 hours, it was for sure a physically and mentally demanding experience.

Our program usually started with us going down to breakfast at around 8 am. The breakfast was a full continental and was super nice, and probably funny enough, the best part of the day.
Then, they would board us on buses and drive us over to the venue. The first day was quite stressful for all the cosplayers as the Saudi Arabia organization had brought the wrong bus to transport all of the props. Needless to say, this left all cosplayers furious.

Upon arriving at the event, we had to immediately start getting prepared as we had to start going out on stage for the performance and to make sure we tested the stage, audio, and everything accompanying our skit.

Now comes one of the most frustrating points of the entire trip.
This was the fact that there had to be quite an outrage towards the SA organization about food and water. Due to the fact that they ate only one big lunch and practiced fasting for the rest of the day, we had no food that was organized from the beginning of the event. Everybody started to get quite frustrated with this, and in the end, we were brought catering and water a few hours later. Now, this was all fine, despite the fact that the food came at a time when either people were just getting off the stage or were about to go on it. This meant that there was either not a lot of food left for the rest of us or you had to go out on a full stomach, which was not very opportune. It was quite hard for me because I am not the greatest when it comes to a lot of herbs and spices and most meals were quite heavy on them.

I think our performance went well, and we were happy to have gotten out on stage and had the opportunity to compete with some of the biggest people on the scene. 

Team Indonesia pulled off a deserved win with their DBZ skit, which was top-notch, and their costumes were, of course, top quality. I ended up meeting quite a lot of people there from the previous year, and it was so nice to reconnect with all of them, and it was really motivating and uplifting to be doing this again.

The rest of the days continued with a lot of hot weather, food that my body could not handle, and a lot of cosplay-themed events. It was hard and stressful, but I am thankful for every opportunity as a creator.

On a little side note, the rest of the program was at a place called Japamura, which was a great little venue, stylized as a Japanese street with a lot of thematic rooms ranging from scary rooms to ramen places, to toy shops.

In time I will tell you even more about it, but for now, this is a lot of the key information regarding the event and my experience there.

Have you guys ever had a similar experience while traveling? Let me know in the comments!

xoxo