Asian Ball-Jointed Doll Meet-Up, Baltimore, Maryland,
January 21, 2006

(Originally written on January 22, 2006)

Yesterday I went to the ball-jointed doll meet-up in Baltimore. I first learned about this meet-up through the Den of Angels forum. At first the meet-up was originally scheduled to be held in late December and I was thrilled when it got pushed back to yesterday because I was out of town during one of the original scheduled dates. The only major hassle in making this meet-up was this lingering cold that is still hanging around for almost a month now. (I first came down with it somewhere around December 22 and I suffered through it for the next two weeks. I began to feel better last Saturday but then the weather abruptly got colder and I suffered a relapse last Sunday.) I took a bunch of photos at this meet-up, like usual. (Click on any of the photos in order to see a larger version open in a new window.)

Even though I'm slowly starting to feel better, I wanted to avoid a second relapse so I took steps to preserve my health. Usually whenever I go to Baltimore, I would drive my car to one of the light rail stations, take the light rail to the Convention Center stop then walk down Pratt Street to the Inner Harbor. Well, everyone had decided to meet at the National Aquarium at 10 a.m., which would've meant an even longer walk past Harborplace, the World Trade Center, and the Power Plant. If my health had been stronger, I would've gone through the long walk because it's way cheaper to travel by light rail than to drive into the city and park in one of the parking garages. Instead I drove into the city and parked in the Pier 5 parking garage, which is located next door to the Power Plant and the National Aquarium was just a five minute walk. The only bad thing was that the parking was expensive and I ended up paying the daily maximum fee of $15.

I took my Dollfie Dream, Sakura, and my Soom Mini-Gem Uyoo with me and walked into other people who were holding their dolls as well. We all chatted for a bit and compared dolls while we waited for others to arrive and purchase their ticket for the National Aquarium, which charges $21.95 per adult (those expensive ticket prices are the main reason why I rarely go to the Aquarium).

Other people brought one or two dolls as well. The majority of dolls present were Korean-made (such as Luts and Customhouse) and 16-inches tall (which made them the same size as Volks Mini Super Dollfie). My Mini-Gem Uyoo got a lot of attention because she's still a relatively new doll that was just released late last year and she's 1/6 scale. Even though Uyoo is made out of resin, I had no problem with hauling her around because Uyoo is only 12 inches tall and her tiny size makes her far lighter to carry than the 16-inch resin dolls. I also had no problem with carrying Sakura because she is made out of vinyl, which makes her far lighter to carry than a resin doll despite the fact that, at 22 inches, she towered over most of the other dolls in attendance. As for other people, many of them were hauling heavier dolls but they didn't complain too much or anything like that. (I wonder if carrying big resin dolls on a regular basis leads to stronger arms.)

We had somewhere between 20-30 doll owners in attendance. I met a few of them previously at Katsucon, Otakon, and Anime USA so it was like a reunion for me. I also met plenty of new people for the first time.

Once we all got our tickets, we entered the Aquarium and we waited in the lobby while some people decided to check their coats. (I ended up wearing only a sweatshirt because the weather has been unseasonably warm lately.) In the meantime, we got attention from other people who saw our dolls and they were curious about them. We ended educating quite a few curious people throughout the meet-up.

We went through the Aquarium and checked out all the exhibits.

I hadn't been to the Aquarium in a few years and there were new sections that were opened since my last visit (such as the Australian exhibit that recreated a typical wooded area in the country's northwest region complete with high humidity and native Aussie birds and lizards scurrying about in native Aussie plants, grasses, and trees).

We also checked out the dolphin show and a new exhibit on frogs that turned out to be far more interesting than I expected.

There were times when we scattered about but then word got out that we should meet at the nearby Barnes & Noble around 2 p.m. (I arrived with a few people around 1:30 p.m.) At first I thought we were just going to gather in the cafe part, decide where to eat, then go to one of the other nearby restaurants since the bookstore's cafe's menu tended to focus on coffee, tea, soft drinks, cakes, cookies, and pastries. But, for whatever reason, most of the meet-up people wanted to just stay put. (I think some of them mentioned that they were too broke to consider the other restaurants since we were in the tourist area of Baltimore. I know of cheaper food that could be purchased at Lexington Market but it is located several blocks north of the Inner Harbor and it would've been a hassle for a large group of doll-toting people to travel there.) So we initially started putting up our dolls until one of the store managers came to us wondering what on earth we were doing. So one the attendees ended talking with the manager and we found out that the manager was concerned with the noise level and with blocking the flow of traffic as other customers were coming and going from ordering stuff at the cafe counter. We came to a compromise with the manager and we moved to some tables in the back of the cafe while a few staffers put some smaller tables together for us and we promised not to make very loud noises. Well, anyway, we all set our dolls together, took pictures of them, and talked about dolls.

We also attracted lots of attention from other people who were fascinated by our dolls (such as the little girl in the above photo) and many of us ended up having to explain what they were, where one could buy them, and how much did they cost. I think we gained plenty of new admirers that day.

I was worried about becoming tired out but I was surprised at how I was able to have just enough stamina to go through the National Aquarium (which required lots of walking and standing around). I think that had I opted to take the usual light rail and walking I probably would've tired out much sooner than I did.

Most of the people who attended the meet-up were women, with the exception with one male ball-jointed doll owner whom we welcomed with opened arms. There were a couple of boyfriends of doll owners who only tagged along to go to the National Aquarium. During the time at Barnes & Noble, they went over to the other parts of the store (most notably the science fiction section) because they were not into dolls as much as their significant others.

During my visit I got to see two very hard-to-find Unoa Light dolls (one male and one female), which are 1/6 scale versions of the Unoa Qluts. We compared my Soom Mini-Gem Uyoo with the Unoa Lights and I found that the Unoa Lights are only 10.5 inches while Uyoo is an inch-and-a-half taller. But the Unoa Lights have the eye moving mechanism (like their bigger counterparts) and their eyes move from side to side whenever you move their heads. Here's a comparison of Uyoo with the Unoa Lights below.

NOTE: This particular photo was taken by Ashbet. (Check out her gorgeous art website at Mater Metis and her equally gorgeous doll website at Ashbet's Dollhouse.) I'm only posting her photo because she managed to get such a good comparison shot of my Soom Mini-Gem Uyoo with her two Unoa Lights. All other photos posted on this page were taken by me.

I also saw plenty of the Korean dolls and I found that many of those dolls look far better in person than the online photos at the manufacturers' or the doll owners' websites suggest. I'm not trying to say that they are ugly online but these dolls don't look as striking in their digital photos as they do in real life. I think it may be because many of their owners give them a faceup (or hire someone else to do so) that are improvements on the original faceups from the manufacturers.

I also saw the limited edition Mini Super Dollfie Toppi in person. She looks just as cute and adorable in person as she does in the photos on Volks' site.

There were so many dolls that if I didn't have my digital camera with me, I would have a hard time remembering them all. I remember the one doll that had elf ears and she looked really cute. There was another doll whose dressed was croched by her owner and she did the crocheting without using any patterns and she used special yarn that had small string fringes woven throughout and she even incorporated feathers. The results were stunning.

At one point I felt hungry so I left my two dolls with the others, went to the cafe counter and purchased a Diet Pepsi and a Rice Krispie marshmallow bar to tide me over for a while. Basically I stuck around until I became very tired around 3:30 p.m. (a few other people had to leave earlier than I did) but the meet-up was still going strong when I left. I briefly ate a hot dog at a nearby fast food place (still hadn't eaten lunch) then walked over to the Pier 5 parking garage (which really made it convenient for me given my current state of health), paid the $15 fee, retrieved my car, and left for home.

I really enjoyed the meet-up and I really liked that, for once, it was a meet-up that was not connected to any anime convention. The people there were really nice to talk to. I hope we can pull off some more meet-ups in the future.

Back to Adventures With Dolls Index

Back to Dolls Index

Back to Home

Copyright 2009 Kimberly Keyes Stark. All Rights Reserved. None of the content on this site may be reproduced anywhere else (including eBay auctions, Etsy stores, or other auctions/sales sites) without written permission.