Day 0 in WCS 2013 (Tour day)

Hi guys, wanted to do this post earlier seriously but was just busy with other stuff here and there and couldnt get down to typing it all. (Not to mention half felt like i already did the post since its up on FB and all, but figured that a review post would be good for me to remember the stuff that happened)

Be prepared though, lots of photos coming up, since alot of stuff happened so still gonna be brief about it, enjoy~

*Proof that I was here lol

So the trip got off to a bad start. Basically my plane leaving Singapore was delayed due to mechanical issues for about an hour, and i missed my connecting flight. From having only 1 hour transit for Japan and another hour or so to transit in San Francisco, it became 3 hours of transit in Japan and 5 hours of transit in Hawaii. Well, didnt wanna waste time so decided to walk around~

Went outside of customs for my new boarding passes and realised that Cospa (Anime related goods shop) opened a branch in the airport! Headed over there, though it was a pretty small branch, so nothing very exciting. Just brought a Dragonball t-shirt for myself just for kicks and left.

The mandatory food photo lol. Walked around the airport, but nothing much of interest that i wasnt familiar with, so time to get the good old lemon water while grabbing some lunch.

After another butt aching plane ride of 7.5 hours, finally arrived in Hawaii! My first time here, but well, lets just say i underestimated the bus ride to Waikiki beach. Thought the bus driver meant 20mins ride, but suspected something wrong about 30 mins in, then checked and he clarified it was 1 hour 20mins ride! (Checked with a cabby later and confirmed it was only about 20mins by cab)

Ah well, decided to just drop off nearby at Chinatown, went to get my sim card so that i could get internet on my iPad, walked around to check out some sights and stores before heading back to the airport couple of hours later. Have more photos if you are interested, though may not be very exciting to our TCG readers?

And finally after a very tiring 30 hours worth of flight and transit later (20 hours by plane, 10 hours of transit or waiting), finally arrived in Vegas! By the time we arrived it was almost midnight, much later then my initial timing of 3pm. With my plans ruined for the day, headed off to Ballys hotel where the event was at~

 

Our room, honestly pretty spacious. If anyone is in for the event and are interested to drop by, just comment below and let me know~

Some supper at the nearby 'food court' in the hotel. That was 1 huge pizza for $5, seriously tummy filling.

Finally, just before hitting the sack after walking around for about an hour, headed to the event site~ Place was locked up as expected, but there was this pretty nice billboard outside!

Its morning! Though it was kinda sad, first time at a major tournament and breakfast was actually not provided by Konami for all days! Though Ballys didnt allow reservations with breakfast at all so understandable but... Anyway, headed to the hotel's breakfast restaurant for this pretty pricey $12 buffet plate thing, though i over piled and got stuffed with just 1 plate lol

The staff room was open at 9am, so headed there to find out more info on the shuttle bus arrangements for the day. Also got my staff badge too!

And the bus is headed off! Managed to get on the first shuttle at 10am sharp~ Bus was small though, so it could only fit like a few of the groups.

Tour for the day basically involved shuttle buses between Ballys, Game World Associates, Walmart and Target. (Walmart and Target were basically a major and smaller supermarket)

 

Got on the shuttle bus at 10am and reached Game World at about 10.25! Though suspected we might have a problem later at this point of the trip already, since Konami's schedule was set as arrived by 10.15...

The store was huge! Basically 3 main sales areas, selling video games stuff, magic/other card games, then a pretty big Yugioh area with some Vanguard stuff. The store also had 2 large playing areas, which was really cool, since the typical Singapore store's size in total was like, equal to just 1 of the playing area size lol

We were here very early at about 10.30 though, so no chance to see any players anywhere...

Quick shot of Ron, the store manager and YGO in charge for the place. He's quite a nice dude so if you are ever in the area you should check this place out.

Some quick photos of players shopping around while our SG rep William gets in contact with the Korean reps~

And also just to quickly post on the nice Korea limited accessories i got from Kyu-Seong Shim, thanks alot!

Next stop, Walmart! Though expected, we got on the bus only like 30mins late, started to worry what it would be like after Walmart, but really wanted to just see the place plus i had a few daily necessities stuff to buy.

After a quick walk around, noticed all the players around 1 spot. True enough, the YGO stuff was sold there lol.

Having a quick long break while waiting for the bus. Had a good talk with Kron-san and Joker-san while waiting, though it was talking more on the meta and the tournament. The bus as expected came like... 2 hours late... Was supposed to be back at the hotel by 1pm but ended up back only about 3pm, quite a waste of time...

Finally on the bus after a long wait! Here are the South American dudes as well~

 Quick break while our SG rep writes his deck list in the hotel...

And we headed out to another card shop, Wii Play Games! This was the place we were actually gonna go yesterday afternoon and try to join a sanctioned tournament, but too late. Took a pretty expensive cab here, but didnt really wanna waste time on the bus.

Place was smaller then the previous one, but it had quite alot of stuff too~ Finally spotted some local players as well, though not as much as i would have liked. Would have love to see everyone interacting there.

 Some players playing their deck and stuff, everyone's pretty nice here~ Well, another bad part of the day started here though. Long story short, cabby that dropped us off told us to call him to pick us back up. Then after a couple of calls of will call us back and trying to hail a cab but not even seeing one, headed in to the store and got the manager's help to get a number and called a cab back~

 Back at the hotel, checked again and more decorations were up, those pillars look pretty cool in that lighting~

 My fellow asians all finally arrived here, which was around 6.30pm already by then. So basically did some hi-his, then they had to rush up to the room and fill in their deck lists

In the mean time, since our SG rep already filled his up, he took the chance to clarify some rulings with the judges at the Q&A segment of the programme.

Then finally, its dinner time!  At the start of the dinner, all reps had to immediately submit their deck lists and collect their goodie bags! (Super tempted to randomly submit a deck list and see if i could get 1 at this point.

Ok, basic laundry list of contents as follows.
1. WCS 2013 Poster
2. DM keychain
3. Pins of monsters
4. WCS 2013 Score sheet
5. 2014 monthly calendar
6. Battle pack starter kit
7. OCG Shadow Specters x 1 box
8. TCG Judgement of the Light x 1 box
9. 2 nice playmats of Legendary Magician of Dark and the new champion card, Grandopolis
10. And of course a bag

 And also of course their representative shirts. Shirts were nicely done though they also gave a Kuribo shirt which did not seem to take the sizing into consideration...

 Some fun at the token machine, provided first time at the dinner! All reps had to make 1 in their rep shirts though, hmmm

 And finally a short but informative opening address~

 Here are our 26 main event reps~

 And also not forgetting of course, the 12 Dragon duel reps too~

So basically that was it after the dinner. Made some arrangements with some other players to meet up in the room, but either they never came, or they came when we headed out for a short walk. Ah well... We asked them to meet up but never set a time so... GENIUS!

 And finally after waiting around with not much happening and not finding anyone, we headed over to the event site again. There was supposed to be a room here for only reps and staff wearing the tags, but nobody was in the room. Instead, met a few interesting people outside the room, including a dude with a over 2,000 card album collection, and also a female player who was super excited about meeting Dan Green. Best part of all, they will be cosplaying as Yuma and Yugi respectively tomorrow! This should be interesting, hope to get a shot of them tomorrow~

And thats about the end of the day. After that it was back to the hotel room to do up FB and type up this post. For now... Off to bed! Just about 4 hours to sleep before having breakfast and meeting up at the event site. Players briefing and rehearsals start at 7.30am ugh. Oh well, see you guys tomorrow~~~