So...
After writing my previous post we got our taxi reserved for that night through the hotel front desk (leaving 3AM) and got a shuttle back to Charles de Gaulle airport for Morning Musume's arrival. I ended up going for my full gear, might as well go all out if you're gonna go at all :P
Once we arrived at the airport we figured out where MM would be arriving and made our way there...I think we got there maybe 2 hours ahead of time? There were already about 20-30 people gathered, and we met our French friend Michael for the first time (who we called by his online name, Natsugaya - he isn't even a big fan of Momusu, likes a different j-pop group and just went along cause MM's France performance was so close to where he lived...a few days before Japan Expo, he just randomly popped into a chat room some of us hang around in and offered to help during the convention...super nice guy...), who would be our navigator/translator/all-around helper for the trip haha. Shortly after Natsu, Steve arrived...who's from China, raised in Indonesia and now lives in Houston? Although he was in Bali before the convention and headed to Germany afterwards...hence why I just said he was Chinese lol, simplest option. One German fan, who I later recognized as someone I kind of knew lol, brought a big banner he had gotten professionally printed that said "Morning Musume, Welcome to Europe!" in Japanese ("モーニング娘。、ヨーロッパへようこそ!") that we hung on the big glass fence/barrier they had in front of the doors MM would walk through, so they could see it nice and clearly. A lot of fans had also brought towels and so forth with their favorite members on them, or the group's name, etc, and we hung some of those as well. I managed to get myself a spot right up front, obviously I had gone to the trouble to "dress up" for the occasion so I wanted to make myself visible :P
At this point there was a lot of waiting, I ended up meeting all kinds of people I knew or had heard of online, which was pretty cool...folks from Germany, England, Canada, Scotland, etc...honestly that became a pretty regular thing throughout the trip, and it never really seemed unusual or odd to me to have people from so many different countries together. Only when I really considered the situation would it hit me.
Anyway, everybody was in pretty high spirits...while waiting we would often cheer for random people who walked through the doors, or for people who would give us funny looks or take pictures or basically react at all...there were some of those official-looking escort people holding signs with Japanese names on them waiting for people to arrive, too, and they seemed pretty entertained by us as well lol. Shortly after MM's flight was scheduled to arrive, Japanese people started walking through the door and there were a few who went "...Morning Musume? Here?" and we'd all cheer, etc...some took pics with their cell phones...a couple of them even hung around to see the group arrive haha. There were some fans who noticed that Morning Musume's event coordinator from last year was already there, along with a Japan Expo escort who we assumed had to be for MM, which was a good sign as it meant we were in the right place :)
At this point the crowd of fans had grown to maybe 100 people, I can't say for sure cause I'm bad at estimating that kind of thing but there were a LOT haha
Photo 3
Then came the moment we had all been waiting for, in walked Morning Musume in all their tired after-plane-ride glory lol (Aichan somehow still managed to look great though, she's so amazing~). We all made lots of noise and waved, yelled our favorite members' names...I got quick eye contact and a wave (or two or three? I don't know, she waved the whole time lol) from Aichan, which was awesome. Then everybody followed them out to where the cars they'd leave in were...I actually hung around a few seconds longer than everyone else before I realized what was going on, but caught up just fine...then Carlos and I (I think it was us two?) ended up running past their cars and had to turn around when we saw the crowd of people behind us waving lol. Once we got back to the cars the girls were walking through the parking area, still waving as they got into their cars haha...there was a bit of confusion about which cars they got into for a bit, somehow, as every car there seemed to be the same. Eventually we found the cars they were in and all the fans continued to cheer and wave, and the girls all waved backed and a couple even took pictures of us with their cell phones. Everybody continued waving and cheering until their cars left the parking area and drove off.
Video of the arrival here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TxfrNQYVuw
After that, we all went inside and figured out plans for the evening. A few Japanese fans had arrived shortly before Momusu did, so we chatted with them for a bit (or, rather, one or two people chatted with them and everybody else talked amongst themselves or just stood and listened). At this point everyone was pretty hungry, so we asked our French friend Natsugaya for a good place to eat...he recommended a restaurant called "Hippopotamus" (strange name O.o), which is apparently a common reasonably-priced French chain restaurant, which happened to be right in the airport. He said it was good because their prices were usually the same, even in airports, so we took his advice...but first we needed provisions for the next day. We planned to be in line for about 8-9 hours and would need things to eat, etc, so Natsu directed us to a kind of convenience store/grocery which was also inside the airport. We went for croissants, Tam Tams (some kind of sweet pastry thing), and LOTS of water. Oh, and beer. The bare essentials :P (I had Natsu recommend a French beer for me, 1604 I think it was called...turns out you can get it here too, actually, but it felt "special" at the time)
Also, in the convenience store, Steve and I asked Natsugaya if you could drink alcohol in the streets in France, and he gave us a dumbfounded "...yes...can you not in your country?" and we both practically jumped out of our shoes hahaha, for people who live in America obviously that's a big deal. Natsugaya laughed and said "of course you can, this is the country of freedom!" and we all had a good laugh. Steve and I were pretty damn excited to open our beers after the meal lol
For dinner at Hippo, I believe we had...eight people? Me, Jim (Canada), Carlos (Mexico), Manuel (Germany, guy with the banner), Ed (London), Steve (China/Indonesia/who knows), Natsugaya (France)...and one other person who I can't remember for the life of me (we may have only been 7, who knows). The menu was all in French, so Natsugaya had to tell us what everything was, and even then most of us couldn't pronounce what we wanted. Ordering took a long time and the waiter seemed annoyed, to say the least :P
At the beginning of the meal we all had a toast to Momusu, "kampai" ("cheers" in Japanese) all around with our wine glasses filled with water lol, and then we got to eating. I had some kind of steak that came with fries, it was very good but the sauce it came with was better...some kind of buttery garlic stuff I think...and ice cream for dessert. Also, reasonably-priced in France turned out to be about 20 euros? Not so cheap, but I didn't really care haha
From there we made it back to the hotel, I opened my beer as we walked through the airport and had a grand time enjoying that without any worries :P Steve opened his beer once we got outside...honestly they were a bit gross from sitting unrefrigerated during the meal, but we didn't care....country of freedom and all that haha, had to revel in the moment.
Upon arriving to the hotel we changed our taxi reservation for 1:30AM...found out some people had lined up as early as 6:00PM the night before, so we had to adjust accordingly. From there we all headed off to our rooms for some sleep, and thus concluded day one in Paris.
Next note will include the first sign session and the rest of day two :P
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