VanaFest2010 was held at Tokyo's Seinenkan Grand Hall over the weekend and it was truly an epic experience in and of itself.  Just as fun was the trip itself, which we chronicled through CoverItLive.  During the days surrounding the event, Corinth and myself posted pictures and interacted with other Final Fantasy XI fans in preparation for the exciting announcements yet to come.  Of course, I must also acknowledge Pikko's great efforts in keeping the conversation running while we were all on the move.

Despite the overwhelming crowds, Tokyo is one of the must-see places in Japan.  Trips to VanaFest or Tokyo Game Show give us the perfect opportunity to let forum-goers travel along with us and see the sights we see.  Living in Japan, you tend to take your surroundings for granted after a while, and sharing with people overseas lets us all see our home away from home in a new light and brings a refreshing excitement to what has became daily activity.

It's great to see so many people enjoy riding along with us, and I want to thank everyone who participated!  Now, on to the recap!

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Right when the live blog first started Saturday morning, we had a request for "moar pictures!" so I tried to deliver.  I took a total of 129 shots on my iPhone alone.  I traveled with Naomi from our home in 浜松 (Hamamatsu), a city on the east coast of Japan.  Our first stop was in the train station, where we picked up our tickets for the 新幹線 (shinkansen), or bullet train.  Usually, I will get tickets for the next ひかり (hikari) train, which means "light" and is the fastest of the bullet trains.  This leaves me with some time to get lunch.

Stopping in the station's sushi restaurant, we got some of the sushi you see above.  The pinkish fish is 中とろ (chuu toro), tuna with a medium amount of fat.  The orange fish is salmon, which this particular shop makes especially well.  In the right picture, you can see うなぎ (unagi) eel.  The unagi is lightly cooked with a small torch, which is why it looks slightly burnt.

On the train, I passed the time by writing out some FFXI terms in Japanese and posting them to the live blog.  The ride to Tokyo is a little under two hours, but it just flew by.  There are lots of tunnels along the way that will cut out the 3G signal, which can make it difficult to upload comments, let alone pictures.  Usually Mt. Fuji is visible out the left window, but the poor weather obscured the upper half of the mountain.  The 2008 trip to VanaFest allowed for a much better shot.

Our first stop upon arriving in Tokyo was the city of 神田 Kanda.  You can see especially from the overhead shot just how densely packed Japan can get.  From the eighth floor, the city almost looked like a box of toys, with everything neatly placed side by side.  Despite the look from afar, the streets were actually fairly spacious.  Naomi and I had met up with Corinth at this point, and the three of us had little trouble getting our luggage around and into the hotel.  Once we got settled, we took our first bunch of comments from readers.  However, there was little time to rest because...

... as followers of the blog know, we made it our first mission to get to the Square Enix store before it closed.  The Square Enix store is located in 新宿 Shinjuku and usually has limited hours of operation.  Luckily, we arrived around an hour before closing, so we had plenty of time to browse around.  At this point, SteveManly of FFXIVCore had joined up with us, so there were three of us nerds loitering outside the door snapping photos.  They probably get that a lot.

For any Dragon Quest fans out there, they had plenty of slimes in stock.  The metal slimes were especially cool, coming in all sizes of plushy, and also as small, metal paperweights.  There are even rubber slimes filled with plastic gel and small soft slimes attached to a DS stylus.  Many of the other trademark monsters were also present as plushies and figurines.

Final Fantasy fans would be in heaven as well, as the store is stocked with all sorts of toys, games and accessories.  On the main floor, you can find much of the less expensive stuff animals and key chains.  The Black Mage Chocobos are from the Chocobo Mysterious Dungeon series, while the other rows of characters are mainstays of the numbered series of Final Fantasy games.  The moogle however, appears to specifically by one of Lulu's dolls from Final Fantasy X.  A random thought but, the Cactuar dool I have has more angled arms.  The newer version does not bend the arms as sharply and it looks like it's disco dancing.  Across from those, they have plush keychains and plastic cell phone straps.  The cell straps work just as well as keychain decorations, so I picked up a Sabotender and Tonberry.  

Big spenders will want to head to the upper floor where they keep all the high priced figures and jewelry.  It's like walking into a Tiffany's store; all the display cases are just filled with sparkling rings and necklaces and other trinkets.  The accessories are from all sorts of Square Enix titles, including other series like Kingdom Hearts.  Many of the FFXI products we have seen announced in the past were available here: nation rings, business card cases, metal keychains and the imposing Shadow Lord statue.  One line of items I had never heard of were the Final Fantasy tumblers.  These were plastic thermoses, the very size and shape as you would find at Starbucks, designed with themes featuring popular characters.  I picked up Tonberry for myself and Moogle for Naomi, though we have yet to find the time to take them for a "test drink."

Once everyone was finished geeking out, we headed out in search of meat.  ç„¼ãè‚‰ Yakiniku, literally, grilled meat is a popular dish in Japan.  At most yakiniku restaurants, there is a grill embedded into the table, or in this case provided for us.  Customers then order the meat and vegetables they want and they are delivered raw to the table.  The cooking is all done by the diners themselves.  With friends, it turns dinner into more of a social activity as everyone shares in the spread of food as well as the process of cooking it.

The final event for VanaFest Eve was meeting up with the overseas Community Team for Final Fantasy XI.  Devin and Matt from the North American office and Kohei from the European office were in attendance.  We discussed the recent explosion of social media activity and the push to connect with the players.  Once we receive final approval, we will be sure to share their comments with you.  They also hyped up the next day's VanaFest a bit, promising big surprises.  After witnessing the event, I have to say they did not disappoint.  We'll get into that in the next article...