It is not easy or possible to meet someone in real life when people have been friends online for 2 years. I met this guy, his name is Arturo. His name online is Sabin and I met him in a chat room a couple of years ago. I remembered that we talked about videogames in the room and eventually we started to talk on MSN often. We spoke on many topics, from movies, to the news that goes on in both of our countries, relationships, to the videogames that we play. We did this for a long time online.

I eventually planned to go to the United States to see my friend in Ohio, and I decided to see Arturo as well since I was going there anyway. When I arrived at JFK airport, my first situation that I faced in New York was when I found a Japanese girl named Emi. She was in trouble with meeting her boyfriend in NY because she couldn't contact him and had no place to stay. I helped her with her English. (She couldn't speak English well). I was able to help her a bit because Arturo was late to pick me up. When Arturo finally came to pick me up I was surprised to know that he was just like the person who I had known online. He and his friends took me out to the arcade and we took Emi along with us. We went to China Town Fair. It was fun and we saw amazing people playing games so well. They were not just playing the games; I could tell that they were having a real fun time with their friends. Also I could tell that they really loved the games, they just played games whenever they had the time. It kind of reminded me of the arcades back home a bit but not as much. Fighting games wasn't my favorite though I played those kind of games sometimes and I knew how it worked. We went to other places like Ground Zero, Central Park and Metropolitan Museum. Arturo wanted me to meet someone so we waited at Time Square. That is when I saw Triforce for the first time. From what I knew he was on his way to work for some company that had him testing a videogame for Microsoft. We met briefly and he welcomed me to America, then he left to go to work.

Arturo, Emi, and I hung out for the rest of the day, and later on Triforce caught up with us and he brought a friend with him. I found out later that his friend was Justin Wong. We walked around and went to Justin's house and watched him beat up on Arturo in Marvel. It was funny because the buttons were making a lot of noise. Emi and I were getting tired so we told Arturo that we wanted to leave. Fortunately the Empire had rented a hotel for us to stay at so Arturo, Emi, and I left to go back there and we retired for the day.

The next day we met my friend from Ohio State, Megumi. The good part of my visit was that I was able to meet my friends. In the middle of the day Emi left to go back to Japan. We met Jae later on during the day and we went out all over the place and hung out with Jae for the most part of the day until he left. After that Arturo picked up his friend Andrew and we went to Applebee's at Time Square later that night. We were waiting for our food and then later, Triforce stopped by to meet Arturo and he brought his friends GamingKnight, and Kreymore. I heard about something really disturbing. It was about some guy who fought his girl in public. She punched him in the face and he fought her back. I was like "oh no". Some guy stepped in and the boyfriend shoved him, then the two men got into a fight. Over all it was really funny. I was just glad that no one got hurt.

Regarding Empire Arcadia and my gaming life, I've been playing major RPG games such as the Final Fantasy series yet I played most kinds of games in my life.
Arturo knew that I liked games so he told me that getting into videogames would be a good job for me. He had mentioned that before and he was going to make it real for me. So that is when he brought me to Triforce again (who seems to be the leader and organizer of the Empire) and I agreed to sign up on the application and join. I would be in a role of dealing with Japan, translations and getting them updates on videogames since I can speak both English and Japanese. I also can contribute myself for my fan drawings and cosplay. I used to go to conventions and did these things all the time in Japan. I am really looking forward to come back to America and to the Empire State. I want to go to ECC9 in late May and hang out with the guys and play games. I plan to bring the rest of my girlfriends so that all the guys in the Empire can meet them. I will do what I can for the Empire.

Yoko "Haz Tak"
Writer.