Food Excursion: Oriental Dragon

This time we visited a restaurant known for their mixture of Japanese and Chinese styled foods.  They have a reasonably priced sushi buffet to go along with that theme.  Neither of us opted for the buffet, but I did get one order of sushi rolls to try them out. Oriental Dragon Rockford Website Our order consisted of: - Chicken with Mushroom - Crab Rangoon (8 pc.) - Spring Roll (2 pc.) - Hot and sour soup - Beef with Mushroom - Spicy......

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Convention Report: Anime Apocalypse 2012

Hey there!  CVFTA just visited another convention.  This time it was a new smaller convention in Rockford, Illinois called "Anime Apocalypse" that happened from the 21st to 23rd of December at a hotel called the Clock Tower Resort.  Maybe you can see the Mayan calendar doomsday reference there?  We are still alive, so that didn't pan out for the doomsday theorists, but we did have a nice convention to attend and my photos taken......

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Vito's Ristorante Excursion

For this excursion we went to a place called Vito's Ristorante.  As you can probably surmise from the name, it is an Italian styled restaurant.  This time our crew was three CVFTA members strong!  After an hour or more of deliberation, we decided on a restaurant near Vito's, but ended up going here instead.  While both, I'm sure, would have been good options and we will probably visit the other one someday, I'm glad we checked......

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Imperial Palace Food Excursion

I'm a bit slow with articles lately, but now is a good a time as any to get caught up!  Around two weeks ago, a fellow member of CVFTA and I went to a local restaurant called Imperial Palace.  While researching restaurants, I accidentally named this restaurant as one that had a certain buffet we had heard about.  I was wrong, but it seemed like a good a place as any to check out, so we did.  Here is their website: http://www.imperialpalacerockford.com/ Their......

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Kollision Con 2012 Photos and Report

I attended Kollision Con 2012 on Saturday and Sunday (24th and 25th of November 2012).  It is a convention in my general area, more specifically it is located in St. Charles Illinois at the Pheasant Run Resort. Edit, here is a video I put together to go along with the articles: Please view this article on photographybanzai.com for technical talk. As you would probably expect, I spent most of my time doing cosplay photography, but I did......

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Spider Sushi Bar Excursion

CVFTA decided to visit another local restaurant.  This time we decided on Japanese cuisine in the form of a sushi bar that has pretty much everything from yakisoba and udon to nigiri sushi and bento boxes. The restaurant itself is easy to access off two well known streets and has a nice atmosphere inside.  They have the bar where the chef does work as well as normal 4-person tables with chairs and 2-person tables with comfy padded seats. ......

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Chicago Chinatown and Dim Sum

I went on an excursion to Chicago with two friends from my area where we met up with another group for a few hours in Chinatown.  We walked around the area for a little while and also had lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant. This Wikipedia page is helpful in understanding more about Chinatown, feel free to check it out. It was my first time visiting here, so I was going in with no knowledge of the place or any real expectations as to what I would......

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Youmacon 2012

It's been quite a few days since I got back from Youmacon 2012 and boy was it insane! I originally scrapped Youmacon from my convention list this year but added it back when a friend asked me to join staff. Although a lot of my time was spent on standby for staffing I did manage to get quite a few awesome photoshoots in this weekend. Here are just a few photos from Youmacon this year: There was a slight inconvenience for some people......

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