So the first thing we did after getting to Seattle and the US ironically was to leave the country for Canada on a little voyage to Vancouver. Border control to get into Canada was out first worry given the usual fun you can expect from a trip through customs, although any fears we may have had were instantly quashed with a 5 minute stop of the coach and a brief chat with the Canadian guard about UK football seeing as he seemed to know about Leeds United. That was it. We got back on way and in spite of the ever deepening rain and low visibility still marvelled at the amazing scenery heading in towards British Colombia.
Arriving in Vancouver I quickly realised that this is a city I could happily live in with no question at all. It had everything I’d ever want; great atmosphere, stunning scenery, clean air, loads of great stores and things to do as well as some great places to eat. We found on the first street we were at had Rock shops, a 6 floor music instrument store, several arcades and a great restaraunt which we promptly visited to stave off the hunger from not having yet eaten since the night before.
We spent the rest of the day wandering the fantastic city before eventually prising ourselves away for the return trip. This was more of an experience with customs than the Canadian side taking somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour with aggressive questioning and thankfully lacked the rubber glove and table I began to fear so much. I think they were genuinely confused with us entering the US for one night then heading out to Canada the next morning and then returning the same day.
So to sum up, Vancouver was as awesome as people had previously said to me and I need to work out a way of moving over there.
Next stop – PAX
We met up with the ever –awesome MC Wilson for some breakfast in Pike Place Market before heading out to explor some of the local Seattle area for a while. I was happy to find a store that sold a variety of different Jesus action figures as well as some special toilet tissues for when you need to wash away those sins. I was also happy to discover the very first Starbuck’s and even happier that unlike some of the others I’d visited didn’t seem to have any issues with giving me a coffee with extra shots of coffee. Add to that a crazy dude with a banjo playing outside and it was a recipe for awesome.
The PAX hall was next up and we became very familiar with queuing throughout the rest of the day. I met a dude doing a most excellent Captain Falcon cosplay and had to get a photo given that I’m a self confessed F-Zero whore. I was immediately struck by the difference in attitude between PAX and E3 – people were chilled out, DS games were beeing played everywhere, there were tournaments of people crashed out on bean-bags on the floor constantly. Overall the atmosphere was far more focussed on being part of a community of gamers- most surprisingly this extended to the actual Publishers displaying games too. We went to a few different panels throughout the day including the QA with the Penny Arcade guys which was hilarious. Red vs Blue was after that and they showed off a new show they had been working on which was a fully animated version of the RVB show which looked to be really freaking awesome.
The highlight of day one for me had to be the concerts though. The One-Ups were simply phenomenal, creating an display of mucisianship, funk and videogames playing a set of 13 tracks from their new CD which thankfully was available to buy after the show (and autographed too!). The selection of songs they played was quirky and beautiful ranging from Star Fox’s Fortuna Theme to Super Mario Bros 2’s Cave theme to Chrono Trigger and Street Fighter 2’s Sagat Stage. There were a couple of techinal hiccups on the visual part where the wrong video would be shown for a few seconds but the band were flawless throughout. I can’t say enough to really sum up how great their arrangements of these classic tracks were. Fantastic.
There was another band after that but I headed out to get some food and drink coming back to see Johnathon Colton at the end of the show. He was pretty decent but to be honest after a few songs I was getting a little bored. He did a couple of really standout peices though obviously including the portal song.
PAX day one was really fanatastic, hopefully days 2 and 3 will hold up just as well.
