Otakon

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So, before Saturday, I had NO idea about this thing called Otakon.  According to Wikipedia, it is this: "a fan convention in the United States focusing on East Asian popular culture (primarily anime, manga, music, and cinema) and its fandom. The name is a portmanteau derived from convention and the Japanese word otaku. Otakon is traditionally held on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in late summer at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland's Inner Harbor district. Otakon is one of the longest-running Anime conventions in the United States, and the second largest, averaging over 22,000 paid attendees since 2005.[2] Even so, the convention has expanded since then, with attendance above 26,000 in both 2008 and 2009[3] and attendance officially surpassing 29,000 in 2010.[3]"

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What all that means is that when we arrived in the vicinity of where we planned to park in Baltimore, we soon realized that more than a baseball game was going on.  Besides the inordinate amount of traffic, there were people in costumes everywhere. 

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It was surreal at first, because we had no idea what was going on at the Convention Center.  We'd just catch sight of a person in a brightly colored kimono or a man with pigtails, a kid with a stuffed animal on his head or a lady with oompah loompah hair.  If I had been alone, I would have worried that I'd finally gone 'round the bend.

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As the day went on, the novelty did not wear off.  As hot as it was, I just could not get over the sheer number of people in these outfits!

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No, I did not ask permission to take any of these photos.  I figured that if people were going to parade around like this, some part of them would be disappointed if you DIDN'T take their picture.  Right?  Who needs an Aquarium when there is this kind of free entertainment all around you?