Comic Con - Wednesday

First day of the Con!

We slept in a little, due to all the travelly goodness the day before. We had breakfast at the hotel that day - the only day I actually did so, despite it being covered in our room rate. Didn't really excite me much - and I'm not much of a breakfast person anyway.

We decided to go to Balboa Park for the morning. And we decided to walk. NOT the best idea. It was about 2 miles to get there - a good portion of which was uphill. Yeah, we were sweaty and tired when we got there! We actually walked by the hotel we stayed at last time on the way there. It is no longer a Travelodge - obviously it is too crappy now to even bear the name any more. I am SOOO glad we're staying where we are.

The only museum we went to was the Air and Space - for "Star Trek: The Exhibit". Geeks on a geek vacation must do lots of geeky things. The exhibit was kind of fun. We got our pictures taken on the bridge (replica of TOS Enterprise), but at $25 a pop, we didn't buy them at the end (though they did turn out well). You could also get your picture taken with the Guardian, or on the transporter. I guess they gotta milk people for all they are worth - amateur photography was not permitted at all in the exhibit. I would have loved to have taken my own pictures, but whatever.

After that, we did quickly walk through the park, beside some other museums. Architecture is cool looking, but I didn't feel like shelling out more dough to wander around museums, and we were running short on time anyway. So yes, we *walked* back to the hotel. Man, I did lots of walking on this vacation! So I did have a wee rest once getting back to the hotel.

Headed off to Con registration at about 2:00. Planned to stop and get lunch - but it was hard to find anywhere. A lot of the patios along the way weren't open for lunch that day it seemed, or they were full, or ridiculously overpriced. So we ended up at Subway. But hey, at least they don't skimp on the bacon down there! Yum. Bacon.

Last time, registration took forever. Like an hour or so of waiting in line. This year - it took like 2 seconds. They had SOOO many tables open. Just gave them your piece of paper with your reservation confirmation on it, a piece of photo ID, and VOILA! All done. Eric and I were floored, because now we're like, "now what"? So we decided to wait in line to be first on the exhibition hall floor - because I wanted my toaster dammit!

So a couple of hours of sitting in line on a cement floor is always SOOO much fun. Whee. I swear both legs went numb at some point. I really need to get a Nintendo DS though. It seems as though everyone and their dog has one. Not that there were dogs attending.

So right at 6:00 - the doors opened, and the line started in. My GAWD, the Con floor was packed for preview night. I didn't think that many people had gotten in in front of us, but apparently, a lot had! I made a beeline for the SciFi booth to get my toaster - only to find out they were already all gone in the time it had taken us to get in and get there. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? They were only bringing in a certain amount per day, so I was told I could try back another day. With lines like this, I didn't really see it happening. Oh well. I picked up my Cylon Centurion from Diamond Select, and the variant Serenity cover from the Browncoats booth. So I did get some stuff. If preview night was *this* busy - I was worried about the state of the rest of the Con.

Anyway, when we got back to the hotel, we just decided to get Chinese take out, as we were hungry, and sick of walking (though, being on the shuttle route was a GODSEND at the end of the day). Got a menu from the front desk, and were told it was really quite good, and they usually order it every Sunday. Yeah, not good. I have yet to have good Chinese take out in the States, though I do love the little cardboard boxes it comes in. Seriously, is that the standard of Chinese food down there? Yikes. MALL Chinese food up here tastes better - never mind the *good* restaurants.

Dangit. Now I want tan tan noodles. Yummy.