GIANT SMTOWN POST.
I basically wrote down an account of my entire SMTown experience, so you can skip to the bolded part if you're only interested in reading about the concert and dnw to read about my daytime strugs~
BUT ALSO YOU SHOULD READ THE PART LABELED "THE MOST IMPORTANT PART" BC IT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE. so even if you just like scroll through the pretty pictures you should at least read that part T u T
and yeah so this is like almost 6k words long.... oops. Anyways here we go:
This post is a bit late because I took pictures on two phone cameras and one actual camera so it was hard compiling everything;; BUT ANYWAYS HERE IT IS. As a heads up/warning, this is a very Tao-biased post. I swear I'm an OT12 stan but being at SMTown is like getting one really bad fancam of one member of your choice for four hours so take your pick;; I'm sorry I couldn't get around to making note of all the members but there was too much sensory information at once for me to process all of it.
So anyways... where do I even begin to describe this incredible experience? It was a pretty crazy roller-coaster ride and I'm really only slowly coming down from the high now, a good 24-36 hours later.
Saturday I woke up at 6am after being unable to fall asleep until 2am. Four hours. Not unheard of but man I was so riled up with excitement that I couldn't even bother to care. I met up with reiichi_27 at the Zhichunlu station and we headed over to the Olympic Park together! We saw a bunch of other fans inside the subway station and when we walked out there were already a good number of people there (we arrived around 8am). The first few things I noticed: giant yellow Luhan balloons.
Luhan's tieba baidu bars were on top of that shit. You can't see that clearly here, but they all had the character "Lu" written and an accompanying chibi Luhan or his drawing of a giraffe;; talk about Beijing represent tbh lol
We walked around the Bird's Nest and saw a bunch of other booths (they weren't exactly booths per se, more so tarps with goods, but for a lack of a better word I'm just going to call them booths) being set up. Most were member-based and most were Exo lol though there was a significant number of Cassies present. I thought it was interesting that a lot of the DBSK gear was DB5K as opposed to Homin only? Later though all the booths got kicked out of the area whoops but they all just relocated across the road. They were selling a lot of fan-made goods - posters, laminated necklace things, light sticks, LED boards, hats, banners, stickers, bracelets, etc. You name it.
We also found cardboard cutouts of everyone in SMT in their pink-themed SMart Exhibition outfits and we ran around taking pictures with those! 8D I don't want to put Sharon's up cos idk if she'd like for me to, but here is me with Joonmyun and Zitao~ TWO OF MY FAVES~~~
clearly not made to scale
Also the crowd surrounding Luhan's lol I can't
OTL
wow I'm realizing belatedly that this is going to turn out to be a very picture-heavy post. /adds warning to cut
Anyways, after that I help Sharon purchase her ticket on-site (note: this was kind of sketchy because there were dozens of middle-aged men running around with cheap tickets and it was really hard to tell if it was real or fake;;) and basically she paid 500 RMB for a 480 RMB ticket, which is a barely inflated price at all. (for future reference, 6 RMB=1 USD, give or take)
At this point I still hadn't received my ticket yet and I was kind of worried. I've actually been worried about this ticket ever since I paid for it back around August - I wired a sum of money to this noona Tao fan I met through weibo and I had her contact info and everything but there really was no way I could guarantee that I would actually have a ticket.
Regardless, we begin to shop around in the livening booth area in the grove across the street. I think by the time everything was in full swing (around 10-11am), about 60% of the booths were for Exo, about 30% were for DBSK, and the last 10% was split among the rest of the artists. And out of all of the Exo booths, I would venture a guesstimate that half of them were for Luhan;; So Luhan made up about 30% of the total number of booths there. Basically all but two or three of the DBSK booths were for Yunho though, so combined Luhan+Yunho made up over half of the total booths there.
There were also a number of goods-only booths that sold general OT12 stuff like Wolf gear or jelly bracelets or wallscrolls etc but I am not counting those in my percentages lol
Luhan fans really went all out though - makes sense considering it is his hometown. They had large inflatable giraffes and a million tarps and a million people selling Luhan LED boards and passing out free yellow banners etc.
Luhan festival!
The distribution between members in Exo was not even at all. Clearly Luhan had the majority pffft but Wufan and Jongin I'd say were tied for second most number of booths. There were also a significant number of ship-oriented booths, which I think says a lot about the fandom culture in China. I saw at least three Kristao booths, a Krisuho (wtf is that even?), a Taokai, a LOT of Baekyeol/Chanbaek, some Baekai, a Hunhan, and two Kaisoo. Also surprising to me was the huge lack of Lay booths. There were none until around 1-2pm, and even then there were only two. I had thought Yixing would be more popular, but maybe his fans were just a bit apathetic about selling this time around? I'm not really sure;; On the other hand, there were three Tao booths clustered together and they basically sold similar items and passed out similar things and they even had one chick dressed up in a panda suit! :'D This was surprising to me because for some reason I have always been under the impression that Tao is one of the least popular members by far.
I think I saw two Jongdae booths, one for Sehun and Minseok and Chanyeol and Baekhyun each, and I don't recall seeing any individual ones for Kyungsoo or Suho.
Also I had a good laugh at this:
sehun is unique
yes we know
A lot of people also took group photos holding fansite banners and then I realized that those were the pictures they end up using for slideshows or videos and I REALLY WANTED TO BE IN ONE but I was too late lol so I just took pictures.
lol'ing at the Chen stan who had her thing upside down
also yes, those are giraffes for Luhan
So yes um anyways we walked around and got some stuff for free etc. I bought a light stick and a bag and an XOXO hat and I really wanted to buy a Tao LED light board so that I could wave it around during the concert but they didn't let you buy it unless you had a ticket as proof you were going to be attending the concert;; which makes sense, since they don't want people walking away with them. They want people to carry them at the concert in support of the member. plus there were like a million laid out so I figured I'd be fine.
We wandered back over to the Bird's Nest around noon whereupon we heard loud noises coming from inside the stadium. Then... we started freaking out once we realized it was SHINee rehearsing?!?!? Fans were pressed up against the gate trying to get a glimpse of them on the screen lol and I tried to take a picture but it came out like a blob of nothing so I won't bother uploading that;; IT WAS THE CLOSEST I HAD EVER BEEN TO AN IDOL THOUGH AND SHARON AND I WERE BASICALLY MAKING WAILING NOISES AT EACH OTHER LOL attracting the side-eyes of many people around us but oh well
We saw a bunch of people lined up around the back of the stadium and later we realized they were waiting for Super Junior to show up. We weren't interested lol so instead we left so that I could go find that girl I bought my ticket from. She called me three times and I called her back at least that many, but reception for some reason is REALLY bad in that area and I couldn't get a clean call through. And the parts of the conversation I could hear, I couldn't understand;; I'm not fluent in Mandarin and she was saying so many words I didn't know so I just ended up being really useless and a little scared because we literally walked around for two hours trying to find her and I think she was fed up with me being not-fluent and my phone battery was dying rapidly and I was like WTF DO I DO NOW WHAT IF I DON'T GET MY TICKET?!??
OTL I rushed back to the Tao booth area (don't ask me why - idk I just feel more comfortable with Tao stans?) and asked a Tao noona to help me call this number and talk it out with the other girl and so she did! I basically became known as "that American girl" sigh. She typed out the address of a hotel for me and said that I should either walk/taxi over to pick up my ticket. I couldn't find it OTL but I ended up messaging another woman (she looked like she was 30+ years old, I think she's a Wufan stan?) and she ended up walking me to the hotel that the girl was at and I was so incredibly grateful that I was able to even acquire this stupid ticket I'd been worrying about for so long I nearly cried in relief.
huge burden lifted from shoulders. this was sometime around 3pm. AND SEE EVERYTHING IS IN CHINESE HERE so basically it was impossible to get into SMTBeijing unless you spoke fluent Chinese or knew someone who did or if you were like me and used a lot of Google Translate.
Anyways, my seat was a LOT farther up than I had expected, which was a pleasant surprise.
I re-met up with Sharon and we walked back to the grove area because I really wanted to buy a Tao LED lightboard;; also I wanted to thank the previous Tao noona for helping me out. However, it turns out that all of the normal sized ones that said "TAO" were sold out T A T;; I went back to the Tao noona and she said she had two left - one tiny one that you could wear on your head that was 25 RMB, or a huge giant "韬" sign for 150 RMB. I hesitated because the small one was too small, the big one was too ... well, expensive. Plus it was so big that there's no way I could take it back to America in my suitcase? So there'd be no point in buying it.
Then she told me that I could pay 150 RMB for it now and then take it into the concert and then if I came back to the same spot after the concert and gave it back then she would return my 150 RMB! I was so incredibly happy with this deal and so I said HELL YES and got it. This was also the last Tao board left, out of all of the Tao stalls. So I got lucky :D
SEE HOW BIG THAT THING IS;; ok i'm like 156cm tops but still
it also lit up ^O^
The thing is, the fansite booths that were selling merch were more so here to promote their bias/ship rather than to earn money. There were booths that were out to rip people off by quadrupling prices and watching as fangirls bought it all up anyway, but the baidu bar booths and fansite booths were all basically there because they wanted more people to support their biases. The Luhan booths were basically passing out banners and signs (or they must have been bc they were everywhere??) and there were a ton of Yunho lights being sold as well.
Anyways so the point is, acquiring a board was a success!
~~~CONCERT ACCOUNT STARTS HERE~~~
Most of you guys have probably watched the whole thing in fancam format LOL or at least the relevant bits, but I might as well just write this out since I'm going all out in this post anyway.
They opened the gates around 5pm and so everyone rushed in. The venue was huge - the Bird's Nest was built for a capacity of 100,000 people. Of course, a bunch of the seats weren't used because the stage took up about a quarter of the seats on one end and the ones directly opposite also weren't filled. However, there must've been somewhere between 10,000-20,000 people down in the middle mosh pit area. I was pretty surprised because those tickets, which originally sold for 1280 RMB, were resold by scalpers at prices as high as 6000-7000 RMB (read: $1000+ USD x_x) give or take. Also, I forgot to mention this before, but there was basically no way you could buy your own ticket from the official site. My mom tried for me when the tickets first went on sale - within twenty minutes, the top two most expensive tickets were completely sold out. Also you had to have a Chinese credit card number to buy, which we didn't have lol.
I ended up sitting next to more Exo stans (surprise!!! not) and this was approximately where I was for the concert (I ended up moving a bit forward and to the left - better view! - since people cleared out to move up to the front row which had initially been reserved for security guards).
so I was right up next to the left extension/stage, but I had a kind of awful angle of the main stage. It was kind of fun though because whenever any of the artists had a song start on the left platform, we would see them trying to sneak up quietly as the previous song was ending 8D
I moved around a couple of times and then as I FINALLY sat down for the first time all day to eat my first substantial food of the day at around 5:30pm, the girl next to me started talking to me. She is a Luhan stan and 29 years old, from Jiangsu but currently working in Beijing. She also likes Key and we bonded over that too, ehehe~ She was super cute but also seemed very mature/practical? Also when I told her I bias Tao she was like, "Wow, you're the first Tao fan I've ever met!!" and I was like OTL sigh...
TELL ME HOW SHE LOOKS 29 THO
SHE DEFINITELY LOOKS YOUNGER THAN ME
...
RIGHT?!
OTL
And on my other side was a Chanyeol stan who was wearing Channie's signature bomb cap~ I didn't get a pic of/with her but she was really nice! She was from Qingdao so she had a ~connection~ with Tao lol even though she didn't stan him. She was also an Elf lol whereas me and the Luhan stan were both kind of Shawols.
We had a lot of time before the concert started so a lot of impromptu sessions of "DONG BANG SHIN KI! DONG BANG SHIN KI!" shouting started across the stadium. Also, most of you have probably seen this on tumblr/EC by now, but the Luhan fans took up an entire section of the stadium and they simultaneously lit their "Lu" signs and it made for a pretty damn cool spectacle:
this was my lightstick!
The concert started at about 6pm prompt. This was a four-hour long concert and I'm going to limit most of my comments to Exo-related things;; WARNING, WALL OF TEXT TO FOLLOW but you can probably see that for urself so nvm
Tasty Twins started off and I think everyone was kind of ... apprehensive? The atmosphere was confused lol. I think some people in Beijing didn't know about the Woollim merger so they were really confused as to why Soryong and Daryong (?) were there. Their performances were good though, if a bit short. SM then got a bunch of solo artists out of the way (they let ZYL out of the basement! also Kangta) and then f(x) was up. Everyone got fairly good cheers, there was definitely an ~SM Family~ mentality going on. Also lol I was sitting in the second row right behind a security guard so he basically got the brunt of all my screams and cheers 8D haha no regrets.
Then we saw six figures on stage and the whole stadium started screaming and I whipped out my giant Tao LED sign and screamed right along with them. History started playing and Exo-M went first and wow I was actually really far away from the main stage so even my zoom camera didn't capture much, so I won't be uploading anything from the concert itself. M GOING FIRST MEANS EXTRA TAO LINES THO <3 /cough
ahem, so yes. Um. This was the first time I had seen the boys in person, with my own eyes, solid people (albeit tiny) in front of me. I was ... in shock. The song sped by WAY faster than it does when I'm on my laptop in my room for some reason?! But from what I could tell it was a fairly standard performance. I feel like irl they are more charismatic than they seem on camera - their formations were really clean and they were impressively in-sync. They shifted with a practiced ease that doesn't really come through on camera and I couldn't stop smiling the whole time :'D
Then they did their intros and Tao's was short, all of the K members were awful and Sehun and Jongin didn't even bother trying to use Chinese lol they just skipped straight to Korean. Luhan mentioned how meaningful it was for him to be performing here and the entire audience erupted in screams and AWWW's ;3; Yixing did a long ass Chinese... tongue twister?! In Beijinghua?! I don't even know what it was LOL but it was REALLY long and I almost doubled over laughing. The boy is SO much more lively in China than he is in Korea! He's so much more eloquent and outspoken and energetic and fun, it's lovely. Chanyeol kept up his characteristic "dui! dui!" during Wufan's speech lol and I think the Chinese audience appreciated it a lot. Wufan said a lot but it was mostly generic things I think - I didn't understand all of it. Mostly they all said about the same thing - "Are you happy? Are you having fun? I'm so happy to be here. WO AI NI MEN!!"
OTL welp I guess it's hard for them to come up with twelve different things to say.
After the introductions they did Wolf! Mandarin version, which totally threw me off because we rarely get to see that version. Boys were on point though admittM still makes them lipsync everything. I tried my best to look at them dancing on the stage rather than the giant screen in front of me since if I watched the screen I felt like I was just watching a fancam while being really cold;; so I forced myself to stare at the figures on stage instead, even though it wasn't super clear. I actually don't remember too much from the performance other than that I was surprised for a sec when Jongin did the part that Zitao normally does.
sigh I think I should go back and watch some fancams LOL even though I was there.
SNSD and SHINee did a series of performances after that. Luhan showed up to fill in for Minho in Lucifer and wow the stadium blew up when they showed him on screen LOL;;; He did well imo! But I personally don't like enjoy the Lucifer remix as much as the original. They dressed him up to match the rest of SHINee though - all white and clean slicked back hair and wow he looked really good. At least from where I was. Also Sehun did Love Like Oxygen and okay. Tokyo Dome last August, Sehun filling in for Minho for LLO. That is when I first noticed him and his stupid body rolls and his stupidly long and thin body and ugh from there it was all downhill. AND THEN I SAW HIM FREAKING DO IT IN PERSON OMFG.
Idr exactly what came after that but then during Suju's Superman (I LOVE THAT SONG) I spotted a flash of silver polygons reflecting light to my left and I whipped my head around aND EXO WAS CREEPING UP TO THE SIDE STAGE ON OUR SIDE LIKE RIGHT IN FRONT OF US
and sure enough, after Superman ended, there was a brief silence, then suddenly CARELESS CARELESS SHOOT ANONYMOUS and then I scrambled for my Tao lightboard again.
I hadn't noticed right away but it turns out K was in front of us and not M so it was fine;; but anyways ok I never thought I'd say this but WOW I MISS MAMA SO MUCH!! I sang/screamed along to the entire song in both Korean and Chinese lol (though it seems like most Chinese fans can't sing the Korean version or sth??) and also -
KIM JONGIN IS SO DAMN GOOD AT DANCING. He is one of the most charismatic performers I have ever seen in the history of ever. He outshone all of K. I don't understand?? He has a significantly more powerful presence in person than on camera. His movements are super fine and precise and he pops so well and he emphasizes every pop with a little extra feeling and it makes all the difference in the world. I didn't even look at Sehun;;; and I completely forgot about Joonmyun and Baekhyun, even when they were leading. Then it cut to M's part and K ran back towards the main stage except Sekai those lazy fuckers just walked.
Rest of Mama was normal, I screamed and jumped around a lot for the dance break and Tao's flip that we haven't seen in ages, and wow damn they had like new and improved versions of their Mama outfits and it was wonderful. <3 TAO WAS HOT
A bunch of DBSK and Suju performances then ensued.
Then Sunday Morning! It went by fairly quickly for me too and I think Jongdae wasn't feeling too well...? His voice wasn't as clear as it usually is. Kyungsoo was good though, as per usual;; Can't wait for HQ audio! wait we have that already from a Sukira radio jk
Like a G6 came on and okay.
Oh god.
Wufan. Pls.
As embarrassing as he was to watch I couldn't peel my eyes away. It wasn't half as bad as it was in the past and he does move like he's not zipped in the wrong body anymore, and even though I couldn't really hear his rapping I think it was overall fine. He has enough fandom backing him anyway lol Key and Amber were good as usual~ (ALSO KEY LOOKS SO GOOD WITH BLACK HAIR ;~;)
Then okay I was not prepared for this but they did the dance battle and Tao started it and I MISSED IT OTL BECAUSE HE DID IT ON THE RIGHT STAGE AND I COULDN'T SEE THAT AT ALL. T n T I WAS SO UPSET. I HAD TO LOOK AT THE SCREEN. Thank god for fancams. He changed up his routine and he didn't mess up or hit himself in the head and he looked super cool so I'm proud~ :'D LOL /easily pleased /biased /cough
(but actually his outfit and makeup were really hot okay)
A bunch of BoA stages, Luhan showed up for Only One and he did well!! :D :D :D I think he did a lot better than his first Only One stage lol. They must have rehearsed a lot more together because there was at least some semblance of chemistry between the two. Also BoA made Luhan look SO tall... She's like my height LOL and Luhan is actually tall-ish but the difference was striking. He came on stage and the people around me were like "Luhan is so tall??" lol
Lalala more songs, Mirotic, Rising Sun, Break Down, Sherlock, RPPP etc.
THEN GROWL WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~~~
GRABBED MY TAO LIGHT AND STOOD ON MY TIPPY-TOES actually it was annoying because it was kind of really big and inconvenient to have to hold, sigh. Plus they weren't really looking in our direction, it was more of a representation kind of thing. Growl was so much fun, the whole crowd screamed "URURONG URURONG URURONG NIII~" and the security guards were just wincing at the noise and I forgot it was the Chinese version again so I was like WAIT WHY IS YIXING SINGING IN THE FIRST SECTION lol and Tao rocked the rap/dance break and Luhan got to do the closing pose and ahhhhh the M version is so different and fun~
I think other things of note were how much Heechul was loved and missed - he cried during his introduction because of how warmly the fans greeted him. I also think this is his first stage ever since being discharged from the army? It was really sweet and touching~ I think I like him a lot now LOL like I liked him before, but this helped to cement my growing affection for Heenim.
Um wow this turned out a lot longer than I would have expected for four songs so um I'm just going to skip to the ending now;;
THE MOST IMPORTANT PART ABOUT THIS POST:
So for the ending song they all came out in their SMTown tshirts and sang along and smiled and waved and omfg this is where the extreme Tao bias comes in because I was unable to look at anyone else. He kept smiling and waving at everyone and he looked so happy and then the song itself (I think it's called Hope?) was really sweet and a little sad so I just started tearing up and staring at him smiling and waving at everyone and they came over to the left stage and I tried to raise my lightboard to get his attention but then the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and told me to put it down because it was blocking her view OTL
so I was like :(
:(.....
so I just screamed a lot at him instead;;;
He hung out with Sehun and Kris a lot at the left platform but he was facing the other way :(
and as he started walking back, the Chanyeol stan next to me shook me and was like "TAO IS COMING HE'S COMING WAVE YOUR SIGN AT HIM" because by this point she realized how much I liked Tao LOL
and I hesitated and I was like "but - behind us -" and then I thought to myself okay this is like a once in a lifetime opportunity ARE YOU REALLY GONNA PASS THIS UP so I was like fuck it i'm gonna do it
and I grabbed my sign and held it up above my head and started jumping up and down with it and shaking it around and screaming his name really loudly and then he
looked my way and then he smiled and bowed and waved AND I LOST IT
I STARTED CRYING SO HARD
TEARS EVERYWHERE
I BAWLED
I DON'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I CRIED SO HARD
I WAS SO HAPPY
T A T
I CAN'T BELIEVE HE SAW ME. I CAN'T BELIEVE HZT ACKNOWLEDGE MY PRESENCE. I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S A REAL PERSON.
so this is like one of the shittiest fancams in the history of fancams but it's all I've found so far, I'll keep looking;;;
but Tao is the one in the red pants that is closer to the left hand side of the screen
so around 4:48-4:49, it's like he noticed something and then you see him stop and bow AND GUESS WHAT HE IS DOING THAT AT ME AS I SCREAM AND SHAKE MY SIGN AT HIM
AND THEN HE WAVES A LITTLE AFTER HE BOWS AND I COULD BARELY SEE ANYTHING THROUGH MY TEARS BY THIS POINT
BECAUSE I WAS RIGHT THERE ON THE RECEIVING END OF THAT
I know it was like literally a tiny action that barely took up a second but it felt like a miracle for that to be able to happen to me. I think he knows how much these small actions mean to his fans and it really did mean so much to me that this person that I admire and have supported from afar for so long was able to at least see me (or okay, he probably saw my large sign) in person. and the Chanyeol stan next to me was so happy for me too lol she was yelling at me like OMG HE SAW U HE WAS WAVING AT U and then I just nodded and hiccuped at her because I was still crying really hard and couldn't say anything
OTL
I was so so SO overwhelmed by emotions and he kept waving to all the fans as he walked around and then he had the mic at one point and he yelled "WO! AI NI! MENNN!!!" into the microphone and everyone screamed and AUGH
I'M SORRY I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS
He is really such a sweet person and he has so much love for his members and for his fans;;;
THAT JUST MADE MY WHOLE NIGHT. And I think so many things fell into place for this to happen for me - being encouraged by the Luhan stan to move up a row to that particular spot, meeting the Tao noona who rented the Tao sign to me for the evening, making a split second decision to listen to the Chanyeol stan and hold my sign high to shake at him to get his attention - it was a stroke of luck or chance that things happened the way they did and I was just in the right place at the right time and I feel so lucky that I was able to attend this concert and see them perform in person and to be able to watch Zitao and to interact with him.
I literally kept crying through the ending stage - I cried through Yixing coming back on stage to wave and bow to everyone one more time too. God that boy is also really kind and sweet and adorable ;~; He was soooo cute ;~;
and then after xing left the stage it was all over.
and I was still kind of crying LOL
and I exchanged info with the Luhan stan~ I actually don't know her name oops but we took pics and exchange numbers so I think we'll be okay~
I returned the board to the Tao noona outside and I thanked her so many times for helping me today and for the board because Tao was able to see me because of it and I was still crying and she was like "Oh, don't cry~" and then we talked some more and I exchanged contact information with her too :D so more friends, yay~
Sharon found me after the concert and told me about her experience (she was sitting in one of the upper tiers cause she had a 480 RMB ticket) and we just kept crying and talking about it all the way home.
T u T
then I was home and the concert ended at 10pm but I didn't get back til around 11:30pm because the subway stations closed at 11pm -__- so I had to walk one stop from Haidian Huangzhang back to Renmin. It was fine though, it was plenty safe and plus I already walked all day so I felt like a pro at walking or something.
Anyways here's a concluding picture of all the loot I got!
Three banners, a Tao fan, a light stick, three photocards, two bags, and an XOXO hat! :D
don't ask me why there's a panda tooth on the Tao banner I don't know the answers to difficult questions
um so yeah I think that's it. If I remember other things I'll add them to the post. If anyone actually read this far and wants to ask questions I can see if I remember stuff?
again, sorry for the huge picture spam with varying quality (they were all taken from diff cameras sigh) and the length of my writing as well as the huge amounts of fangirl feelings for Zitao.
I think this was one of the most unforgettable experiences I've ever had - the magnitude of the event and the intensity of emotions of the people around me just made it even more powerful. I'm really glad I went and I feel like it was such a catharsis for the stress and anxiety and nervousness and anticipation I've had since SMT Beijing was announced. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as a whole, despite having the semi-panic attack with the ticket thing, and it was beautiful and wonderful and wow now I'm experiencing post-concert depression OTL I just want to go backkkk I never want it to enddd :(
sigh.
yeah I was tired and about to ptfo but then I stayed up talking and like writing and then I got up early because I wanted to try to see them at the airport so I only got 1.5 hours of sleep... so total between the two nights I got less than six hours. OTL
But yeah, I did try to see them off at the airport this morning. I was too late though and they went through some obscure VIP route that may not have even been in Terminal 3?! which was confusing. I think only ten-fifteen fans saw them or so bc there are so few pictures up. sigh. It's probably for the best though, they looked really tired and not up for dealing with fandom's craziness today.
today was recovery day and run errands day and now I'm going to pack because tomorrow I'm going on a train to... Changsha!!! :D :D :D
And then going to Zhangjiajie after. Wish me and my abysmal Mandarin luck!
See you all on the other side. I'll try to keep my posts to a more reasonable length next time. u_u
XOXO
BUT ALSO YOU SHOULD READ THE PART LABELED "THE MOST IMPORTANT PART" BC IT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE. so even if you just like scroll through the pretty pictures you should at least read that part T u T
and yeah so this is like almost 6k words long.... oops. Anyways here we go:
This post is a bit late because I took pictures on two phone cameras and one actual camera so it was hard compiling everything;; BUT ANYWAYS HERE IT IS. As a heads up/warning, this is a very Tao-biased post. I swear I'm an OT12 stan but being at SMTown is like getting one really bad fancam of one member of your choice for four hours so take your pick;; I'm sorry I couldn't get around to making note of all the members but there was too much sensory information at once for me to process all of it.
So anyways... where do I even begin to describe this incredible experience? It was a pretty crazy roller-coaster ride and I'm really only slowly coming down from the high now, a good 24-36 hours later.
Saturday I woke up at 6am after being unable to fall asleep until 2am. Four hours. Not unheard of but man I was so riled up with excitement that I couldn't even bother to care. I met up with reiichi_27 at the Zhichunlu station and we headed over to the Olympic Park together! We saw a bunch of other fans inside the subway station and when we walked out there were already a good number of people there (we arrived around 8am). The first few things I noticed: giant yellow Luhan balloons.
Luhan's tieba baidu bars were on top of that shit. You can't see that clearly here, but they all had the character "Lu" written and an accompanying chibi Luhan or his drawing of a giraffe;; talk about Beijing represent tbh lol
We walked around the Bird's Nest and saw a bunch of other booths (they weren't exactly booths per se, more so tarps with goods, but for a lack of a better word I'm just going to call them booths) being set up. Most were member-based and most were Exo lol though there was a significant number of Cassies present. I thought it was interesting that a lot of the DBSK gear was DB5K as opposed to Homin only? Later though all the booths got kicked out of the area whoops but they all just relocated across the road. They were selling a lot of fan-made goods - posters, laminated necklace things, light sticks, LED boards, hats, banners, stickers, bracelets, etc. You name it.
We also found cardboard cutouts of everyone in SMT in their pink-themed SMart Exhibition outfits and we ran around taking pictures with those! 8D I don't want to put Sharon's up cos idk if she'd like for me to, but here is me with Joonmyun and Zitao~ TWO OF MY FAVES~~~
clearly not made to scale
Also the crowd surrounding Luhan's lol I can't
OTL
wow I'm realizing belatedly that this is going to turn out to be a very picture-heavy post. /adds warning to cut
Anyways, after that I help Sharon purchase her ticket on-site (note: this was kind of sketchy because there were dozens of middle-aged men running around with cheap tickets and it was really hard to tell if it was real or fake;;) and basically she paid 500 RMB for a 480 RMB ticket, which is a barely inflated price at all. (for future reference, 6 RMB=1 USD, give or take)
At this point I still hadn't received my ticket yet and I was kind of worried. I've actually been worried about this ticket ever since I paid for it back around August - I wired a sum of money to this noona Tao fan I met through weibo and I had her contact info and everything but there really was no way I could guarantee that I would actually have a ticket.
Regardless, we begin to shop around in the livening booth area in the grove across the street. I think by the time everything was in full swing (around 10-11am), about 60% of the booths were for Exo, about 30% were for DBSK, and the last 10% was split among the rest of the artists. And out of all of the Exo booths, I would venture a guesstimate that half of them were for Luhan;; So Luhan made up about 30% of the total number of booths there. Basically all but two or three of the DBSK booths were for Yunho though, so combined Luhan+Yunho made up over half of the total booths there.
There were also a number of goods-only booths that sold general OT12 stuff like Wolf gear or jelly bracelets or wallscrolls etc but I am not counting those in my percentages lol
Luhan fans really went all out though - makes sense considering it is his hometown. They had large inflatable giraffes and a million tarps and a million people selling Luhan LED boards and passing out free yellow banners etc.
Luhan festival!
The distribution between members in Exo was not even at all. Clearly Luhan had the majority pffft but Wufan and Jongin I'd say were tied for second most number of booths. There were also a significant number of ship-oriented booths, which I think says a lot about the fandom culture in China. I saw at least three Kristao booths, a Krisuho (wtf is that even?), a Taokai, a LOT of Baekyeol/Chanbaek, some Baekai, a Hunhan, and two Kaisoo. Also surprising to me was the huge lack of Lay booths. There were none until around 1-2pm, and even then there were only two. I had thought Yixing would be more popular, but maybe his fans were just a bit apathetic about selling this time around? I'm not really sure;; On the other hand, there were three Tao booths clustered together and they basically sold similar items and passed out similar things and they even had one chick dressed up in a panda suit! :'D This was surprising to me because for some reason I have always been under the impression that Tao is one of the least popular members by far.
I think I saw two Jongdae booths, one for Sehun and Minseok and Chanyeol and Baekhyun each, and I don't recall seeing any individual ones for Kyungsoo or Suho.
Also I had a good laugh at this:
sehun is unique
yes we know
A lot of people also took group photos holding fansite banners and then I realized that those were the pictures they end up using for slideshows or videos and I REALLY WANTED TO BE IN ONE but I was too late lol so I just took pictures.
lol'ing at the Chen stan who had her thing upside down
also yes, those are giraffes for Luhan
So yes um anyways we walked around and got some stuff for free etc. I bought a light stick and a bag and an XOXO hat and I really wanted to buy a Tao LED light board so that I could wave it around during the concert but they didn't let you buy it unless you had a ticket as proof you were going to be attending the concert;; which makes sense, since they don't want people walking away with them. They want people to carry them at the concert in support of the member. plus there were like a million laid out so I figured I'd be fine.
We wandered back over to the Bird's Nest around noon whereupon we heard loud noises coming from inside the stadium. Then... we started freaking out once we realized it was SHINee rehearsing?!?!? Fans were pressed up against the gate trying to get a glimpse of them on the screen lol and I tried to take a picture but it came out like a blob of nothing so I won't bother uploading that;; IT WAS THE CLOSEST I HAD EVER BEEN TO AN IDOL THOUGH AND SHARON AND I WERE BASICALLY MAKING WAILING NOISES AT EACH OTHER LOL attracting the side-eyes of many people around us but oh well
We saw a bunch of people lined up around the back of the stadium and later we realized they were waiting for Super Junior to show up. We weren't interested lol so instead we left so that I could go find that girl I bought my ticket from. She called me three times and I called her back at least that many, but reception for some reason is REALLY bad in that area and I couldn't get a clean call through. And the parts of the conversation I could hear, I couldn't understand;; I'm not fluent in Mandarin and she was saying so many words I didn't know so I just ended up being really useless and a little scared because we literally walked around for two hours trying to find her and I think she was fed up with me being not-fluent and my phone battery was dying rapidly and I was like WTF DO I DO NOW WHAT IF I DON'T GET MY TICKET?!??
OTL I rushed back to the Tao booth area (don't ask me why - idk I just feel more comfortable with Tao stans?) and asked a Tao noona to help me call this number and talk it out with the other girl and so she did! I basically became known as "that American girl" sigh. She typed out the address of a hotel for me and said that I should either walk/taxi over to pick up my ticket. I couldn't find it OTL but I ended up messaging another woman (she looked like she was 30+ years old, I think she's a Wufan stan?) and she ended up walking me to the hotel that the girl was at and I was so incredibly grateful that I was able to even acquire this stupid ticket I'd been worrying about for so long I nearly cried in relief.
huge burden lifted from shoulders. this was sometime around 3pm. AND SEE EVERYTHING IS IN CHINESE HERE so basically it was impossible to get into SMTBeijing unless you spoke fluent Chinese or knew someone who did or if you were like me and used a lot of Google Translate.
Anyways, my seat was a LOT farther up than I had expected, which was a pleasant surprise.
I re-met up with Sharon and we walked back to the grove area because I really wanted to buy a Tao LED lightboard;; also I wanted to thank the previous Tao noona for helping me out. However, it turns out that all of the normal sized ones that said "TAO" were sold out T A T;; I went back to the Tao noona and she said she had two left - one tiny one that you could wear on your head that was 25 RMB, or a huge giant "韬" sign for 150 RMB. I hesitated because the small one was too small, the big one was too ... well, expensive. Plus it was so big that there's no way I could take it back to America in my suitcase? So there'd be no point in buying it.
Then she told me that I could pay 150 RMB for it now and then take it into the concert and then if I came back to the same spot after the concert and gave it back then she would return my 150 RMB! I was so incredibly happy with this deal and so I said HELL YES and got it. This was also the last Tao board left, out of all of the Tao stalls. So I got lucky :D
SEE HOW BIG THAT THING IS;; ok i'm like 156cm tops but still
it also lit up ^O^
The thing is, the fansite booths that were selling merch were more so here to promote their bias/ship rather than to earn money. There were booths that were out to rip people off by quadrupling prices and watching as fangirls bought it all up anyway, but the baidu bar booths and fansite booths were all basically there because they wanted more people to support their biases. The Luhan booths were basically passing out banners and signs (or they must have been bc they were everywhere??) and there were a ton of Yunho lights being sold as well.
Anyways so the point is, acquiring a board was a success!
~~~CONCERT ACCOUNT STARTS HERE~~~
Most of you guys have probably watched the whole thing in fancam format LOL or at least the relevant bits, but I might as well just write this out since I'm going all out in this post anyway.
They opened the gates around 5pm and so everyone rushed in. The venue was huge - the Bird's Nest was built for a capacity of 100,000 people. Of course, a bunch of the seats weren't used because the stage took up about a quarter of the seats on one end and the ones directly opposite also weren't filled. However, there must've been somewhere between 10,000-20,000 people down in the middle mosh pit area. I was pretty surprised because those tickets, which originally sold for 1280 RMB, were resold by scalpers at prices as high as 6000-7000 RMB (read: $1000+ USD x_x) give or take. Also, I forgot to mention this before, but there was basically no way you could buy your own ticket from the official site. My mom tried for me when the tickets first went on sale - within twenty minutes, the top two most expensive tickets were completely sold out. Also you had to have a Chinese credit card number to buy, which we didn't have lol.
I ended up sitting next to more Exo stans (surprise!!! not) and this was approximately where I was for the concert (I ended up moving a bit forward and to the left - better view! - since people cleared out to move up to the front row which had initially been reserved for security guards).
so I was right up next to the left extension/stage, but I had a kind of awful angle of the main stage. It was kind of fun though because whenever any of the artists had a song start on the left platform, we would see them trying to sneak up quietly as the previous song was ending 8D
I moved around a couple of times and then as I FINALLY sat down for the first time all day to eat my first substantial food of the day at around 5:30pm, the girl next to me started talking to me. She is a Luhan stan and 29 years old, from Jiangsu but currently working in Beijing. She also likes Key and we bonded over that too, ehehe~ She was super cute but also seemed very mature/practical? Also when I told her I bias Tao she was like, "Wow, you're the first Tao fan I've ever met!!" and I was like OTL sigh...
TELL ME HOW SHE LOOKS 29 THO
SHE DEFINITELY LOOKS YOUNGER THAN ME
...
RIGHT?!
OTL
And on my other side was a Chanyeol stan who was wearing Channie's signature bomb cap~ I didn't get a pic of/with her but she was really nice! She was from Qingdao so she had a ~connection~ with Tao lol even though she didn't stan him. She was also an Elf lol whereas me and the Luhan stan were both kind of Shawols.
We had a lot of time before the concert started so a lot of impromptu sessions of "DONG BANG SHIN KI! DONG BANG SHIN KI!" shouting started across the stadium. Also, most of you have probably seen this on tumblr/EC by now, but the Luhan fans took up an entire section of the stadium and they simultaneously lit their "Lu" signs and it made for a pretty damn cool spectacle:
this was my lightstick!
The concert started at about 6pm prompt. This was a four-hour long concert and I'm going to limit most of my comments to Exo-related things;; WARNING, WALL OF TEXT TO FOLLOW but you can probably see that for urself so nvm
Tasty Twins started off and I think everyone was kind of ... apprehensive? The atmosphere was confused lol. I think some people in Beijing didn't know about the Woollim merger so they were really confused as to why Soryong and Daryong (?) were there. Their performances were good though, if a bit short. SM then got a bunch of solo artists out of the way (they let ZYL out of the basement! also Kangta) and then f(x) was up. Everyone got fairly good cheers, there was definitely an ~SM Family~ mentality going on. Also lol I was sitting in the second row right behind a security guard so he basically got the brunt of all my screams and cheers 8D haha no regrets.
Then we saw six figures on stage and the whole stadium started screaming and I whipped out my giant Tao LED sign and screamed right along with them. History started playing and Exo-M went first and wow I was actually really far away from the main stage so even my zoom camera didn't capture much, so I won't be uploading anything from the concert itself. M GOING FIRST MEANS EXTRA TAO LINES THO <3 /cough
ahem, so yes. Um. This was the first time I had seen the boys in person, with my own eyes, solid people (albeit tiny) in front of me. I was ... in shock. The song sped by WAY faster than it does when I'm on my laptop in my room for some reason?! But from what I could tell it was a fairly standard performance. I feel like irl they are more charismatic than they seem on camera - their formations were really clean and they were impressively in-sync. They shifted with a practiced ease that doesn't really come through on camera and I couldn't stop smiling the whole time :'D
Then they did their intros and Tao's was short, all of the K members were awful and Sehun and Jongin didn't even bother trying to use Chinese lol they just skipped straight to Korean. Luhan mentioned how meaningful it was for him to be performing here and the entire audience erupted in screams and AWWW's ;3; Yixing did a long ass Chinese... tongue twister?! In Beijinghua?! I don't even know what it was LOL but it was REALLY long and I almost doubled over laughing. The boy is SO much more lively in China than he is in Korea! He's so much more eloquent and outspoken and energetic and fun, it's lovely. Chanyeol kept up his characteristic "dui! dui!" during Wufan's speech lol and I think the Chinese audience appreciated it a lot. Wufan said a lot but it was mostly generic things I think - I didn't understand all of it. Mostly they all said about the same thing - "Are you happy? Are you having fun? I'm so happy to be here. WO AI NI MEN!!"
OTL welp I guess it's hard for them to come up with twelve different things to say.
After the introductions they did Wolf! Mandarin version, which totally threw me off because we rarely get to see that version. Boys were on point though admittM still makes them lipsync everything. I tried my best to look at them dancing on the stage rather than the giant screen in front of me since if I watched the screen I felt like I was just watching a fancam while being really cold;; so I forced myself to stare at the figures on stage instead, even though it wasn't super clear. I actually don't remember too much from the performance other than that I was surprised for a sec when Jongin did the part that Zitao normally does.
sigh I think I should go back and watch some fancams LOL even though I was there.
SNSD and SHINee did a series of performances after that. Luhan showed up to fill in for Minho in Lucifer and wow the stadium blew up when they showed him on screen LOL;;; He did well imo! But I personally don't like enjoy the Lucifer remix as much as the original. They dressed him up to match the rest of SHINee though - all white and clean slicked back hair and wow he looked really good. At least from where I was. Also Sehun did Love Like Oxygen and okay. Tokyo Dome last August, Sehun filling in for Minho for LLO. That is when I first noticed him and his stupid body rolls and his stupidly long and thin body and ugh from there it was all downhill. AND THEN I SAW HIM FREAKING DO IT IN PERSON OMFG.
Idr exactly what came after that but then during Suju's Superman (I LOVE THAT SONG) I spotted a flash of silver polygons reflecting light to my left and I whipped my head around aND EXO WAS CREEPING UP TO THE SIDE STAGE ON OUR SIDE LIKE RIGHT IN FRONT OF US
and sure enough, after Superman ended, there was a brief silence, then suddenly CARELESS CARELESS SHOOT ANONYMOUS and then I scrambled for my Tao lightboard again.
I hadn't noticed right away but it turns out K was in front of us and not M so it was fine;; but anyways ok I never thought I'd say this but WOW I MISS MAMA SO MUCH!! I sang/screamed along to the entire song in both Korean and Chinese lol (though it seems like most Chinese fans can't sing the Korean version or sth??) and also -
KIM JONGIN IS SO DAMN GOOD AT DANCING. He is one of the most charismatic performers I have ever seen in the history of ever. He outshone all of K. I don't understand?? He has a significantly more powerful presence in person than on camera. His movements are super fine and precise and he pops so well and he emphasizes every pop with a little extra feeling and it makes all the difference in the world. I didn't even look at Sehun;;; and I completely forgot about Joonmyun and Baekhyun, even when they were leading. Then it cut to M's part and K ran back towards the main stage except Sekai those lazy fuckers just walked.
Rest of Mama was normal, I screamed and jumped around a lot for the dance break and Tao's flip that we haven't seen in ages, and wow damn they had like new and improved versions of their Mama outfits and it was wonderful. <3 TAO WAS HOT
A bunch of DBSK and Suju performances then ensued.
Then Sunday Morning! It went by fairly quickly for me too and I think Jongdae wasn't feeling too well...? His voice wasn't as clear as it usually is. Kyungsoo was good though, as per usual;; Can't wait for HQ audio! wait we have that already from a Sukira radio jk
Like a G6 came on and okay.
Oh god.
Wufan. Pls.
As embarrassing as he was to watch I couldn't peel my eyes away. It wasn't half as bad as it was in the past and he does move like he's not zipped in the wrong body anymore, and even though I couldn't really hear his rapping I think it was overall fine. He has enough fandom backing him anyway lol Key and Amber were good as usual~ (ALSO KEY LOOKS SO GOOD WITH BLACK HAIR ;~;)
Then okay I was not prepared for this but they did the dance battle and Tao started it and I MISSED IT OTL BECAUSE HE DID IT ON THE RIGHT STAGE AND I COULDN'T SEE THAT AT ALL. T n T I WAS SO UPSET. I HAD TO LOOK AT THE SCREEN. Thank god for fancams. He changed up his routine and he didn't mess up or hit himself in the head and he looked super cool so I'm proud~ :'D LOL /easily pleased /biased /cough
(but actually his outfit and makeup were really hot okay)
A bunch of BoA stages, Luhan showed up for Only One and he did well!! :D :D :D I think he did a lot better than his first Only One stage lol. They must have rehearsed a lot more together because there was at least some semblance of chemistry between the two. Also BoA made Luhan look SO tall... She's like my height LOL and Luhan is actually tall-ish but the difference was striking. He came on stage and the people around me were like "Luhan is so tall??" lol
Lalala more songs, Mirotic, Rising Sun, Break Down, Sherlock, RPPP etc.
THEN GROWL WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~~~
GRABBED MY TAO LIGHT AND STOOD ON MY TIPPY-TOES actually it was annoying because it was kind of really big and inconvenient to have to hold, sigh. Plus they weren't really looking in our direction, it was more of a representation kind of thing. Growl was so much fun, the whole crowd screamed "URURONG URURONG URURONG NIII~" and the security guards were just wincing at the noise and I forgot it was the Chinese version again so I was like WAIT WHY IS YIXING SINGING IN THE FIRST SECTION lol and Tao rocked the rap/dance break and Luhan got to do the closing pose and ahhhhh the M version is so different and fun~
I think other things of note were how much Heechul was loved and missed - he cried during his introduction because of how warmly the fans greeted him. I also think this is his first stage ever since being discharged from the army? It was really sweet and touching~ I think I like him a lot now LOL like I liked him before, but this helped to cement my growing affection for Heenim.
Um wow this turned out a lot longer than I would have expected for four songs so um I'm just going to skip to the ending now;;
THE MOST IMPORTANT PART ABOUT THIS POST:
So for the ending song they all came out in their SMTown tshirts and sang along and smiled and waved and omfg this is where the extreme Tao bias comes in because I was unable to look at anyone else. He kept smiling and waving at everyone and he looked so happy and then the song itself (I think it's called Hope?) was really sweet and a little sad so I just started tearing up and staring at him smiling and waving at everyone and they came over to the left stage and I tried to raise my lightboard to get his attention but then the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and told me to put it down because it was blocking her view OTL
so I was like :(
:(.....
so I just screamed a lot at him instead;;;
He hung out with Sehun and Kris a lot at the left platform but he was facing the other way :(
and as he started walking back, the Chanyeol stan next to me shook me and was like "TAO IS COMING HE'S COMING WAVE YOUR SIGN AT HIM" because by this point she realized how much I liked Tao LOL
and I hesitated and I was like "but - behind us -" and then I thought to myself okay this is like a once in a lifetime opportunity ARE YOU REALLY GONNA PASS THIS UP so I was like fuck it i'm gonna do it
and I grabbed my sign and held it up above my head and started jumping up and down with it and shaking it around and screaming his name really loudly and then he
looked my way and then he smiled and bowed and waved AND I LOST IT
I STARTED CRYING SO HARD
TEARS EVERYWHERE
I BAWLED
I DON'T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I CRIED SO HARD
I WAS SO HAPPY
T A T
I CAN'T BELIEVE HE SAW ME. I CAN'T BELIEVE HZT ACKNOWLEDGE MY PRESENCE. I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S A REAL PERSON.
Click to viewso this is like one of the shittiest fancams in the history of fancams but it's all I've found so far, I'll keep looking;;;
but Tao is the one in the red pants that is closer to the left hand side of the screen
so around 4:48-4:49, it's like he noticed something and then you see him stop and bow AND GUESS WHAT HE IS DOING THAT AT ME AS I SCREAM AND SHAKE MY SIGN AT HIM
AND THEN HE WAVES A LITTLE AFTER HE BOWS AND I COULD BARELY SEE ANYTHING THROUGH MY TEARS BY THIS POINT
BECAUSE I WAS RIGHT THERE ON THE RECEIVING END OF THAT
I know it was like literally a tiny action that barely took up a second but it felt like a miracle for that to be able to happen to me. I think he knows how much these small actions mean to his fans and it really did mean so much to me that this person that I admire and have supported from afar for so long was able to at least see me (or okay, he probably saw my large sign) in person. and the Chanyeol stan next to me was so happy for me too lol she was yelling at me like OMG HE SAW U HE WAS WAVING AT U and then I just nodded and hiccuped at her because I was still crying really hard and couldn't say anything
OTL
I was so so SO overwhelmed by emotions and he kept waving to all the fans as he walked around and then he had the mic at one point and he yelled "WO! AI NI! MENNN!!!" into the microphone and everyone screamed and AUGH
I'M SORRY I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS
He is really such a sweet person and he has so much love for his members and for his fans;;;
THAT JUST MADE MY WHOLE NIGHT. And I think so many things fell into place for this to happen for me - being encouraged by the Luhan stan to move up a row to that particular spot, meeting the Tao noona who rented the Tao sign to me for the evening, making a split second decision to listen to the Chanyeol stan and hold my sign high to shake at him to get his attention - it was a stroke of luck or chance that things happened the way they did and I was just in the right place at the right time and I feel so lucky that I was able to attend this concert and see them perform in person and to be able to watch Zitao and to interact with him.
I literally kept crying through the ending stage - I cried through Yixing coming back on stage to wave and bow to everyone one more time too. God that boy is also really kind and sweet and adorable ;~; He was soooo cute ;~;
and then after xing left the stage it was all over.
and I was still kind of crying LOL
and I exchanged info with the Luhan stan~ I actually don't know her name oops but we took pics and exchange numbers so I think we'll be okay~
I returned the board to the Tao noona outside and I thanked her so many times for helping me today and for the board because Tao was able to see me because of it and I was still crying and she was like "Oh, don't cry~" and then we talked some more and I exchanged contact information with her too :D so more friends, yay~
Sharon found me after the concert and told me about her experience (she was sitting in one of the upper tiers cause she had a 480 RMB ticket) and we just kept crying and talking about it all the way home.
T u T
then I was home and the concert ended at 10pm but I didn't get back til around 11:30pm because the subway stations closed at 11pm -__- so I had to walk one stop from Haidian Huangzhang back to Renmin. It was fine though, it was plenty safe and plus I already walked all day so I felt like a pro at walking or something.
Anyways here's a concluding picture of all the loot I got!
Three banners, a Tao fan, a light stick, three photocards, two bags, and an XOXO hat! :D
don't ask me why there's a panda tooth on the Tao banner I don't know the answers to difficult questions
um so yeah I think that's it. If I remember other things I'll add them to the post. If anyone actually read this far and wants to ask questions I can see if I remember stuff?
again, sorry for the huge picture spam with varying quality (they were all taken from diff cameras sigh) and the length of my writing as well as the huge amounts of fangirl feelings for Zitao.
I think this was one of the most unforgettable experiences I've ever had - the magnitude of the event and the intensity of emotions of the people around me just made it even more powerful. I'm really glad I went and I feel like it was such a catharsis for the stress and anxiety and nervousness and anticipation I've had since SMT Beijing was announced. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as a whole, despite having the semi-panic attack with the ticket thing, and it was beautiful and wonderful and wow now I'm experiencing post-concert depression OTL I just want to go backkkk I never want it to enddd :(
sigh.
yeah I was tired and about to ptfo but then I stayed up talking and like writing and then I got up early because I wanted to try to see them at the airport so I only got 1.5 hours of sleep... so total between the two nights I got less than six hours. OTL
But yeah, I did try to see them off at the airport this morning. I was too late though and they went through some obscure VIP route that may not have even been in Terminal 3?! which was confusing. I think only ten-fifteen fans saw them or so bc there are so few pictures up. sigh. It's probably for the best though, they looked really tired and not up for dealing with fandom's craziness today.
today was recovery day and run errands day and now I'm going to pack because tomorrow I'm going on a train to... Changsha!!! :D :D :D
And then going to Zhangjiajie after. Wish me and my abysmal Mandarin luck!
See you all on the other side. I'll try to keep my posts to a more reasonable length next time. u_u
XOXO