On Thursday morning, 6:00 AM to be exact, I headed out the door of my apartment and made my way down to the bus station where I caught a bus going southbound towards Seattle around 8:30 AM. The bus ride wasn't particularly long, but I did manage to catch some much needed sleep after spending most of the day before packing for Sakura-Con. Sadly enough, I didn't take any photos of my journey down.
I got to Seattle around 10:30 AM and bought a few snacks at Uwajimaya in the International district to last me the day. After that, I headed down to the Seattle Transit Tunnel to take a bus to Convention Place Station.
Hotels usually aren't ready to check guests in for the day until 3:00 PM or so but it doesn't hurt to check. I wasn't able to check into my hotel room, but I checked my luggage with the front desk (pro-tip for people who arrive early, many hotels will do this).
Not much was going on for Day 0 of Sakura-Con 2016 since no official activities were planned, but you could see staff members, vendors, artists, and general attendees running around the place trying to get ready for the convention the day after.
I went down to Press and Industry to check to see if our ACParadise badges were ready and I found Aniplex USA doing the same thing!
After we got our badges, I went up to meet with AGSMA Cosplay, Imari Yumiki, Everon, and Larein to drop off the badges with them. It was really good to see their faces in person again since the last time I saw them was Anime Expo 2015 :) We went to The Fisherman's Restaurant down by the pier for lunch and it was fantastic. I had a nice bowl of clam chowder and some bread (not a big fan of seafood but clam chowder is cool in my books).
Shortly after, I met up with Vexrai (my adorable 彼女) and her sister to pick up some items from them and to see them off after they got their badges.
After lunch, AGSMA Cosplay and I went to check out the Aniplex booth to see how everything was setting up. Everything was basically done except some of the merchandising as well as the Aniplex hanging banner. AGSMA Cosplay stayed behind to help out with the banner and I went to visit/help out my buds at the Logistics Department. By then, I got to see several of the booths, which had some pretty cool stuff!
Quite a few of my friends showed up on Day 0 as well just to pick up their badges to avoid the lines during con (this is generally a good idea even though registration lines have vastly improved over the years at Sakura-Con). After seeing my buds over at Logistics and giving a helping hand, I went back to my hotel to check-in and unpack. Luckily enough, I didn't forget anything! That's probably a first haha.
After unpacking a bit, a friend of mine invited me and a few other people to go to the Round 1 Arcade over at the South Center mall. The mall itself is pretty nice and there's quite a variety of stores to visit. We hung out there for a few hours before heading back to the convention area. After I unpacked the rest of my luggage, I promptly fell asleep to prepare for an early Sakura-Con Day 1!