After the concert was over everyone started making their way out (which took a surprisingly short amount of time considering there were 4000 people there...I'm sure it helped that the inside of the venue was SWELTERING and everyone wanted to get outside where it was cooler ASAP lol). First thing I did was check the knees of my pants...I had been leaning against the barrier the whole time, and it was made of metal grating, basically, so I was pretty worried...but turned out they were fine, thank goodness. And there was actually grating on the floor right by the barricade...so my Aichan muffler towel got mashed into metal grating for 2 hours under my feet >.> (turned out fine after getting home and washing it though :P)
After I gathered up all my stuff, the girl to my right (not the small annoying one, but the one who was to my right when the concert started) said, in a French accent, "it was really fun doing this with you! You're really good at the *grumbling/grunting noises as she kind of pumped her fist in the air*" and her friend (who stood to my left) agreed hahaha...it was pretty clear they meant the chants etc, and I just gave a quick "arigatou!" and smiled before turning around. Then the girl behind me, who I know fairly well, apologized for constantly bumping into me during the concert lol. Honestly I didn't even notice, and just told her "s'all good"...then I found my friends and we made our way out.
Carlos had managed to mess up his knee pretty bad during the concert (he had already injured it once a while ago), so Steve helped him as we walked out. My voice was, of course, GONE haha, and I was obviously dying of thirst. Asked all the guys I was with if any of them had any drinks but no luck...somebody told me they had bottled water at the merch booth in the back of the venue, so I decided to go for that after grabbing my merch. They had a couple guys at a table to the right of the booth handling merch for people with vouchers from the MM Pack Tickets...handed the guy your voucher, told him what size t-shirt you wanted and he handed you a sack of MM goodies~
Photo 4
After getting my stuff I walked over to the booth itself to get a water or two. Of course, there was a MASSIVE crowd of people, so I accepted the fact that it would be a while, and a fight lol, to get some water...then Natsugaya walked out from the booth with water for everybody o.o There was nothing I could have done at that moment to thank him enough ;______________;
Then we made our way out...I ended up with Jim and Ed, guess Carlos and Steve got separated from us at the merch booth (likely went to find a place for Carlos to sit down and rest his knee). There was a decent-sized crowd of people relaxing after the concert outside.
Photo 1
I asked Jim to take a quick picture of me after the concert lol, commemorative photo or something...
Photo 2
Soon enough we found Carlos and Steve over on the other side of the building from where we walked out, seated near the door we entered the venue through. They were talking to a Japanese girl with a pen and notepad...more interviews! And this time I wasn't the only one lol
We took a seat next to them. Turned out she was from UFA (Up-Front Agency, the talent agency that Hello!Project is a part of - you can actually see her in the second picture of this post, to the right of Ed's yellow bunny ears...blue/gray shirt and khakis with the notepad :P). She interviewed each of us (those who could answer questions in Japanese, she interviewed in Japanese)...asked where we came from, our favorite member, what we think is special about/what drew us to MM. When she got to me I told her basically the same thing I told everyone in interviews..."I think the members' dedication and hard work is amazing...and so, I want to do my best as well", after which she nodded and wrote some things down, then I said "Especially Takahashi Ai". The other guys explained that they met at Anime Expo in LA last year and I was a new addition to the group as of Japan Expo, although I did go to AX as well haha
At the end she looked at her notepad and then at us and said "...so you're all from different countries?" and we all nodded/agreed. She looked simply amazed haha, for someone who works closely with Morning Musume I'm sure it was moving to know that the group brings people together like that...
She smiled and thanked us, then said that she'd relay what we said to the members for us (!!!). We all thanked her and she walked off.
Photo 3
After the interview, we sat and chatted for a while...eventually Natsugaya met back up with us (he disappeared after the water incident, I think). Ed recommended I change my shirt lol, since the one I wore during the concert was soaked in sweat and I could get a cold if I kept wearing it (what a good friend~)...I had a change of shirt in my backpack, but for the time being I just took my shirt off and left it at that lol
Eventually we decided to go to the airport for food/provisions/etc (even more time in line that night :P)...some people we knew told us about a bus to the airport nearby, so we went for that. I put my other shirt on shortly after we got on the bus...probably wasn't a good idea to be exposed on public transportation :P
At the airport, the place we normally went for provisions was closed...and after a bit we ran into some more people we knew lol
One girl asked everybody who they were. When she got to me I told her my online moniker (CatchFiveBats :P) but it didn't seem to ring a bell, then I mentioned my blog...and she got this "ohhhh it's you..." look on her face hahaha, and said "ah, I know you. You're very...opinionated...". Anybody who reads my blog will know why she said that lol
We probably spent a good 45 minutes or an hour just wandering around the airport trying to find any place that was open lol...this was especially annoying because everyone was really tired and hungry and Carlos couldn't walk very well -___-
Eventually we gave up on eating at the airport and decided to head back to the hotel. At this point we had a lot of people in our group, all of which were at hotels within walking distance of each other, so we decided to see if we could all take a taxi together and spread out the cost. Although this actually turned out to be quite the incident lol...
They had a big roundabout at the airport with lots of taxis, buses, etc (as they do at every airport), and we talked to a guy who helped us find a taxi...but for some reason at first we said we had 6 people? Then when we got to our taxi it turned out there were actually 8...and we were trying to figure out how we'd pay for it and just being generally confused lol...eventually the driver just said "...get in!" and we hopped in lol
This was the taxi ride that my mom posted on here about...8 people in this taxi and not a single one of them was from the same country. Scotland, Norway, Canada, Mexico, China, England, France and America...all gathered in the same place as fans and as friends...it really was incredible ;____;
At the hotel, the taxi driver stopped on the street our hotels were at...but didn't even bother to drop us off at our hotels. They all shared the same parking lot, actually, and there was a gate to get in the parking lot...so the driver just stopped in front of that gate and said "okay, you're here". Then he charged us WAY too much for the fare and kicked us out. Worst taxi driver I've ever had, ever haha...although I must admit that we weren't the easiest customers ^^'
Inside the hotel, we got a taxi reservation made (for 1AM or so? I think?), then everybody went to the rooms and took showers, gathered up the stuff we'd need, etc. I changed into normal clothes since we'd likely be sleeping outside and I didn't want to further dirty my yellow pants.
Photo 5
Jim decided not to go with us for this one, since he wanted to do some sight-seeing and the chances of making it into the next morning's sign session were basically null. The tickets this time were first-come-first-serve, and people with exhibitors/vendors/etc tickets could get into the con (and therefore line up for tickets) a good hour before people with normal tickets (i.e. us, not including Carlos lol...lucky bastard -___-). Natsugaya told us earlier that there were about 1100 early-entrance tickets in distribution for the convention, and only about 150 tickets for tomorrow morning's MM sign session...so yeah, we were pretty much going to line up for a 0.0000001% chance of getting to talk to the members...but if there was a chance, we were going...
Once prepared, we went down to the hotel lobby and grabbed a quick bite to eat. They had a vending machine down there with meals and a microwave you could heat them up in, which were surprisingly good...I probably ate 3 or 4 of them during my time in France lol
Then we went outside to wait for the taxi...but Steve managed to forget the towel Natsugaya brought us hahaha, so he and Ed ran back upstairs to get that. Carlos and I took a seat on a table outside the hotel to relax for a bit. Eventually Paul Elliott and Lampshade walked by (there was a bar at one of the other hotels and I guess they were on their way back to our hotel, where they were also staying, from that bar). We talked to them for a bit, or tried to lol...I literally just kept falling asleep where I sat (I mean, I hadn't gotten a decent night of sleep since I left the US and had been running non-stop >.<). I don't remember any of this conversation, other than Paul mentioning Peroni and me perking up a bit before drowsing back off again hahaha
Shortly after Paul and Lampshade walked off, Ed and Steve came back down...then a taxi showed up. We weren't sure if it was ours lol, cause two taxis showed up at once, but we just got in the one that signaled to us to get in. Turned out it was the same driver as the FNAC session, which was nice cause he was pretty cool. After a pretty short drive, we arrived at the con center...
Continued in the next post~
No comments:
Post a Comment