Arisia report, day 3

A bit over six hours of sleep, a half hour on the recumbent exercise bicycle in the gym, a shower, and I was ready to face the world. Lunch was a pair of barely warm hot dogs from a cart in the hotel lobby. The world won that one.

We then went through the art show, which was typical of the similar exhibits at regional conventions of recent years: small, heavy on prints, and largely unimpressive.

A panel on Studio Ghibli sounded promising, with a tease that we'd get to see bits of Miyazaki's Earthsea, but the audience proved to know more than the panelists, and the video was almost entirely older films. Earthsea's credits ran, and then we had to leave the room. Quite disappointing.

We prowled the dealer's alley, which was basically most of the rooms on the third floor, but found nothing we wanted to buy.

After work in the room, we joined the long line for the masquerade. The show was on par with regional con standards, but it also struck me as more proof that the days of costuming as a widely held interest in fandom are sadly behind us.

Dinner was at O Ya, a restaurant without a Web site. A fusion of sushi, tapas, and a wide variety of non-traditional ingredients resulted in a delightful meal. High points included the foie gras presented as nigiri, the tuna, and some thin, melt-in-your-mouth Wagyu beef slices seared ever so delicately. A meal at O Ya can, depending on the number of courses you choose, be insanely expensive, but in this case the cost was proportionate to the food joy.

And now writing beckons, so to it I go.