Cos-trip (Super Late Post)

Posted on June 24, 2013

I’ve always wanted to a place far away where I don’t know anybody, see the sights, make new friends, have a drink or two, do something fun, and meet a new girl you’d never end up with because you live so far away from her. For the first time in my life, it has finally happened last Saturday, and it stayed faithful to how I have envisioned it.

It all began when my editor told me to the Subic Freeport Area to cover this cosplay event called Cosplay by the Bay. It’s an important event because it’s one of the qualifying legs for the most prestigious cosplay event in the world – the World Cosplay Summit, which will be held in Nagoya, Japan. Well, honestly, as much as I love my job, covering the event was only secondary to my true purpose – going off on my own personal solitary adventure.

I left home at about 730AM for the Victory Liner terminal with nothing but a messenger bag containing my IDs, my wallet, a few wads of cash, my digicam, a notebook and a pen for the interviews, and a copy of An Abundance of Katherines by John Green as well as Stone by Shin-ichi <> to serve as boredom beaters during the trip. I got there a few minutes before 830, just in time for the last bus to Olongapo, so I quickly boarded. As I waited for the seats to fill, I secretly hoped that some beautiful stranger would sit beside me and have some conversation that would turn to something else, just like the movies. Of course, it never happened, it was real life after all. The bus went on its way, and I wished that Lin and I would’ve ended up with each other so that we could’ve been in this trip together and do things couples do when they go out of town, but that wasn’t the case. I also thought I should’ve taken brother, Andrew, or Fernan with me, but I know brother wouldn’t come with because he isn’t as much of an otaku as I am, and Andrew and Fernan would not come on such a short notice. Thus, it was just me, my things, the road, the destination, the journey, and the wind of adventure that blew so refreshingly strong even though the windows were up. The wind of adventure blew stronger the lesser souls I took with me, and I took none…

It was delightful to watch the scenery shift from urban jungle to sunlit verdant meadows, it’s almost as if I could breathe the fresh air through the closed windows of the bus, but my delight reached its peak when I laid my eyes on the Subic Freeport Area for the first time my entire life – a seemingly pristine-white big city with not-so-tall buildings beside a shining sea, reminiscent of Al De Baran in Ragnarok Online, and I couldn’t wait to directly step on its paved roads, so I went down when the bus reached Harbor Point, Subic Freeport Area’s Ayala Mall. Honestly, I wanted to have a personal tour of the spiffy-looking mall, but I thought I was going to be late for the event because the online poster said it starts at 11AM, so I took a cab to the Subic Bay Exhibition and Convention Center.

Located far from the commercial and suburban districts, there was no food shops anywhere near that mini-CCP, so I pretty much had no choice but to wait until the event is over so that I could catch some grub. Although honestly, I didn’t really mind that fact, as long as I could get a good shots for the event. Now the only problem is being alone, which turned out to be not a problem at all, as I found Master Gibs, the one who made my Dominator and Lin’s staff – the very reason how the two of us met, outside the event area, wearing his trademark Kamen Rider Oz Armor as he talked to Lyron in his Bunny Suit (from Tiger and Bunny, not the bunny suit you guys probably think of). And there’s also another familiar soul – Miss Ae Ri, a well-known cosplayer in our circles who kind of looks like Christina, a crush of mine from college. I don’t know about Miss Ae Ri, but Master Gibs and Lyron apparently lives near the area, with Master Gibs pretending to boast that the Subic Freeport Area is his turf. Well, I guess the world gets a little smaller when you live in the border of reality and fiction.

The event, even though a small one, was definitely much more traditional than the events usually held in the Metro, as the cosplayers who joined the competition really had class-A costumes that were mostly armor. Heck, the event even had a Q&A to make sure that those who joined actually know their character and made their costume. As for the international guests, their performances and costumes are nothing short of spectacular, with the armor-clad duo Team Thailand beating each other up and breaking fake walls, while Team Korea swashbuckling in their flashy armor and glimmering blades, LED lights, not to mention having a pretty flirty-looking girl with a slim and sexy body holding this really long rifle for a centerpiece. But how can I forget the King (or Queen) of Knights in all her glory?

She wore her blonde hair in a bun, had her royal blue dress underneath shimmering plates of armor with a majestic feathered cape on her back, wielded the legendary Excalibur with two strong hands wearing greaves that shone like chrome, and had a resolute look on her beautiful and clear face, especially her glassy emerald eyes shaped like crescents. Her name is Christy Belle Goh, hiding behind her cosplay screen name “Liberifatalis”, cosplaying as Servant Saber/Arturia Pendragon from FateStay Night and Fate/Zero. I knew that she was special the moment I saw her, and it’s not just because she’s from another country, for there was something in the way she moved with such elegance and poise under such a heavy weight. And I knew, just like Emiya Shirou and Saber, we were fated to meet…

But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t notice the girl in a sexy Officer Caitlyn uniform who bared her soft and smooth fair skin on her slim midriff, sizeable breasts, and taut legs, all while acting like a totally flirtatious cutie. I don’t know her real name, but her cosplay screen name is Ekiholic, which is probably a derivative of ecchi + -holic, a perfect description of her. And damn, the boys definitely love her, fawning over her wherever she goes. But despite her charms that appeal on a man’s most basic drives, I prefer Christy over her, as she comes off as an image of a proud, strong, and independent woman that needs not show her skin to command the attention of men. Still, my goodness, those breasts, hips, and calves…

Apparently, I was having too much fun and was starting to forget that I was there on official business, so it was time for me to use that official business to interview Christy for the magazine as an excuse to talk to her. I asked her questions as I looked deep in her crescent emerald eyes and listened to her answers in a gentle Chinese accent, an accent that sounded like a serenade even though I have heard it a thousand times from a thousand others before. As we talked, there was no time, no space, and nobody else. It was just us, and I melted away into weightlessness and nothingness with the ecstasy of her beautiful face and voice, only to return to my corruptible corporeal state when I realized that I was out of “professional” questions and had to say goodbye to her. Oh Christy, you are definitely sublime, and it’s such a shame that we had to part ways. But to meet a beautiful girl in Subic, is that not what I wanted? I guess I got my wish and expectation, there’s no point in asking for too much…

I have already talked to the wonderful, wonderful Christy. I should’ve called it a day and went home to rest. But I didn’t want to; for there was another beauty I wished to see – Subic Bay’s. So when they announced that there was going to be an afterparty, I thought that it was finally my chance to see Subic Bay’s renowned nightlife, not to mention another chance to talk to Christy…as if I haven’t been drinking for two nights straight. Problem is that I don’t have anybody with me, or do I? Apparently, Master Gibs and his cosplay crew Red Factor will be going as well, so I tagged along with them. Although being alone has its own kind of fun, meeting new people is fun as well, not to mention much less boring.

After riding along with them in their van, I passed time with in their workshop that looked both like a haven of otaku-related goodies filled with action figures and mecha models ranging from Evangelion to Gundam to Iron Man as well as a forge filled with armor parts crafted out of rubber sheet as well as swords hanging on their wall. Outside the house is a big tarp with a fanart Vocaloid cast in maid getup, just around the corner is a man they all know, probably the town’s “oyaji”, painting something that looks like a part of a cosplay armor, and in the neighborhood they got friends who want to see the pictures of sexy little Eki. Damn, I like this place, and I swear, being there gave me such a geeky amazement I could not find any words to describe it.

Finally, the afterparty. Everybody was there, especially Eki, who still wore that sexy Officer Caitlyn costume that seemed perfectly appropriate and was still being fawned over by the guys, considering that there are fewer guys now. And Christy, she was there, in her true and natural form – chocolate drills touching her shoulder, cloudy and hazy black eyes, and a black party dress short enough to be modern yet long enough to be classy.

I sat beside her in a square table, talking to her about how a Singaporean girl like her ended up in Korea, where she is studying, how she is finding the Philippines and Korea, how I found Singapore to my liking and wanting to return there someday, and how she should stay longer because she’ll be loved in our country, especially with those hazy chinita eyes of hers. But apparently, she doesn’t understand what “chinita” means, so I had to explain to her that it was originally a Spanish word that used to mean an Asian girl but is used by Filipinos to denote a pretty girl with eyes characteristically reminiscent to that of East Asians, and thankfully she liked it. It’s such a shame that the damn organizers had to rearrange the tables, thus tearing me away from Christy’s side. This time, I faced her beauty, but I could no longer talk to her, as the other guys were having the usual boisterous drunken laughter. All I could do was look at her hazy chinita eyes while my own judgment is being hazed by the alcohol. We all drank while she drank her mango juice that had a slice of the fruit wedged on the glass, on which she suckled on with her glistening lips that glistened even more because of the juice.

Everybody got drunk to a certain degree, especially the cute little moe-moe blonde Korean girl Eki, who was almost dancing with the way she walked. She was telling us something, but Christy didn’t want to have it translated and told us that she’s too drunk she doesn’t know what she’s saying, so Christy took her up to their hotel room to sleep, obviously meaning that Christy was leaving as well since she wasn’t drinking anyway, thus severely dampening my enjoyment. Sure, it was fun talking to the others, be it the Cosplay Network PH staff, cosplayers from Subic, as well as Team Korea and Team Thailand, who I just made friends with over the drinking table, but there was definitely something with Christy. She held a certain magic, a certain fascination not just as a cosplayer or otaku but as a pretty, smart, and charming lady.

But of course, it wasn’t only Christy that I got to know, but Xidge, Carl, and Kim as well – new friends I made in Subic. They showed me what Subic looks at night – a shining city filled with neon lights that doesn’t have Manila’s grime and thick polluted air – complete with scantily clad girls walking along the avenue strewn with clubs, then we ate at McDonalds and asked them about their town, its sights and sceneries, and the cosplay community in it. After that, they took me to the Victory Liner station, where I rode a bus on its way to Manila at 3AM while I was half-drunk. What a way to end an adventure.

I woke up at a cold and dark dawn inside a spacious moving vehicle. I look outside, and I’m somewhere in Central Luzon, travelling a path southbound. The first thing that came to mind was Christy. I wondered where I was and how I got there, and I remembered that I came from an adventure from a land I’ve never been before, where I went off alone to see fictional characters came to life, had a drink or two, made friends as I left, and met a cute and smart chinita girl from Singapore who is studying in Korea and played as the beautiful Servant Saber. I thought such a thing only happens in anime. Well, I guess it does happen in real life if you’ve been watching too much of it and have been praying for it.

And perhaps the only thing missing is that considering the Subic Freeport Area is a port town, I never got to even see the ocean, with Christy barefoot as she walks along the sandy coastline and the waves roll in and out and the sun across the horizon…