East Coast Chogokin Summit 2003
Well a few days ago a few chogo-nuts got together at Josh’s house, and what happened next was one of the better experinces I’ve had in a while.
I arrived with a getter jumbo under one arm and a gundam hand in the other. I walked in to find toys strewn about Josh’s basement and a bunch of toy nuts talking about their craft..I was already in heaven.
After the giant Gundam was brought in and everyone got thier chance to examine and drool over it, name tags were handed out. we talked for a bit, and I got my chance to look around Josh’s toy room.
I was of course shell shocked, he has some fantastic pieces! Anyway, food was put on soon after I arrived and we all gathered outside for food, drink and tales of lost treasures.
The highlight was Mason telling his tale of losing out on a $60 MIB Godaikin Tetsujin 28… Poor guy! This was the first time I heard about the late “Mr.Big’s” toy store in Massachusetts, and it made me wish I was few years older and had lived near the place — it sounded like it was quite a stop for toys. The subject of discussion went between tales of old toy stores, lost treasures, and went into the area of trying to get toys through customs and airport security without being labeled a terrorist or a pedophile….at least the security gaurds didn’t take a hacksaw to poor Godzilla!
As time wore on we had to stop the talking and get going to ROBOZONE….. whoa..I’m still spinning after seeing that place, toys toys toys and more toys the place was jam packed!!! I’d say it would take someone several days to really go through that place throughly, and you’d still miss things.
I went a tad bit overboard there, quickly purchasing several items which included a Clover DX Gundam, MIB Soltic, and a jumbo arm attachment.
We all finished our transactions, and I walked away sobbing because I still found stuff after i’d spent all my cash…!
Upon returning to josh’s place more trading and talking was done, we all got a chance to see a proto type bootled GA-01 (third version i think). I picked up a few good items here, including a great set of Dragun fists (thanks Josh!!!) I’d needed for a custom jumbo project, and a nice, but loose ST Dangard Ace, just to name a few.
Later, we all retired to the living room to watch a dvd of Josh’s trip to japan, it included a few shots of shops in tokyo, and a perfect representation of what you’d see when you went into Forest Gangu….I’m still salivating at some of the stuff sitting in that place…..*cough*
anyway, because I had a 4 hour drive ahead of me I had to leave at that point. I packed up my stuff, said my goodbyes and was off… I came away from this trip with alot of things, very few of them material. Firstly it was cool to see people and attach names to faces, plus I was able to get my first up close look at a jumbo villian (thanks Dave!!!). On top of that I had a chance to be treated as an equal amongst people who would normally probably not want much to do with me. Being able to have a conversation with someone years older than me and not feel nervouse er anything was awsome.. And it was great to finally get some recognition for my gundam, after the months of work designing and building it, it was great to get guys going nuts over it…..I can’t wait till next year, I’ll be sure to save up a bit for the next trip to robozone…Thanks again for having me Josh, it was a blast!!
