Taiwan Trip: Day 3: Fan/Club Meetings! (Part 1)
3 weeks and 1 day ago... Saturday morning...
We woke up, got breakfast and finalized our booklet for Leehom (so sorry I forgot to take pictures!!!). We also fixed the gifts as well.
We went out for a while to get the magazines we checked out Thursday. We thought of passing by 7-11 to buy more milk tea as well but since it was past 11:30 so we decided to go back and get our things for the committee meeting at Outback.
We got on the MRT and made our way to the restaurant. We got there on time (12nn) and the Taiwan fanclub committee was already there. We picked our seats and placed our orders. We were in a steakhouse so might as well order steak. I had mine medium (and it turned out medium rare... oh well). Eventually committee members from Singapore, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Korea came in. We occupied 2 long tables. Mostly fans from Taiwan, Korea and Japan were together. And we were seated with Indo, China, Malaysia and Singapore.
Everyone gave their orders and we just waited. Tried to interact a bit with the Indo fans since we were facing them. And it's pretty amusing since there were three of us and three of them. It even came to a time that we somehow discussed our languages since they're so similar. Like their 'mahal' is the same as Filipino 'mahal' which means 'expensive'. It wasn't the same as 'mahal' meaning 'love' though... We were then served some bread that looked like chocolate bread but I think it really isn't. While waiting, Sally handed out Hua Tian Cuo singles. It's nice that now we have a collectible not everyone have. ;)
In a few minutes, Wang Mama finally came in. My first impression was she looks so plain and simple. Not what I expected... She was just wearing plain pants and a printed shirt. I don't even remember her holding any hand bag or purse. O_o
So some fanclubs handed her some stuff. Probably some gifts for Leehom. We waited for our turn to give our gifts for her and for Leehom. I said something like "Hi, we're from the Philippines and we'd like to give this to you." The moment I said that, she immediately said that she already announced that she won't be accepting gifts anymore. Thanks to Sally, we eventually got to explain that we knew about the announcement after we already bought the gifts so she eventually accepted the stuff. So we got her the table runner and a cookbook. She looks pretty interested with the cookbook when she saw it. Then we handed her our bag of goodies for Leehom. We thanked her and got back to our seats.
After the bread, they served creamy soup. (Yum!) Eventually our main course arrived and I was surprised that I was having rice with my steak! I didn't even request for rice. It's weird... The others got fries along with their food. Not only the fries but I think they gave me the wrong order because I asked for medium and they gave me medium rare I think. It was still bloody. But no worries, it was really nice and tasty. By the time I finished, Ate Chin and Ate Bing's salmon steaks just came.
After we finished our main course, Sally got a mic and welcomed everyone. She asked everyone to introduce themselves. She asked us to go first. I didn't really know what to say so I just said my name and where we were from. The rest said more stuff... kinda embarrassing that I only said a few words (I'm club president for crying out loud! and I don't have much to say? That's so sad). Everyone went to the front to introduce themselves and thanked Wang Mama for the gathering.
Wang Mama welcomed us after all the club committees finished. I really don't remember what she said but I don't think it was a lot. She was very soft spoken and a bit shy.
We had dessert (a special brownie ala mode and cheesecake). Wang Mama was discussing something with OurHome China. I thought we were going to have the chance to actually speak with her and discuss something. Oh well...
So after dessert we got a group picture with everyone except Joanne from Malaysia who took the photo. We also got a chance to take a picture with Wang Mama. Also got pictures with other fanclubs. It was fun having everyone standing up, taking pictures of everyone. I actually wanted to speak with the Japanese fan (and try out my basic Japanese skills) but I didn't get the chance because I'm either too slow to move or we really didn't have enough time to interact with everyone.
It was already past 3pm and it was finally time to go and Wang Mama left first along with Sally. We were among the last to leave along with the Indo peeps. By the time we got out of the restaurant, we saw a guy with a nice Nikon camera that looked like a stalker... I mean paparazzi... and it felt so weird that he was taking pictures of us. O_o
We said our goodbyes and headed for the arena. We passed by the merchandise booth to buy more stuff (the female MUSIC-MAN shirt and 1k package for Aliang) and ask about the mug I didn't get the day before. I showed them the receipt and they gladly gave the item missing. Good thing we were there early so there are not much people yet.
We then waited for the fan meeting at McDonald's to start. When we saw Sally arrive, we got in and said hi. We found some seats and stayed there. We also saw Fong and talked with her. Basically people just went there to hang out with fellow fans, and ate. It was after a while that they had the activity. We met a fan who was sitting alone beside us. She spoke good English. There was another fan that Fong introduced to us who was interested in meeting us. She didn't know English so she asked Fong to translate and introduce us.
Their activity was something like charades. We didn't get to join because of the language barrier. But from the looks of it, I think they were trying to guess which Leehom song they are acting. If that's the case I could have tried answering. The winners got the Hua Tian Cuo single.
We also got freebies from that fan meeting. They handed us extra gold MUSIC-MAN tattoos that were supposed to be free with the concert tickets. We also got a Japanese Wei Yi poster. By that time I was already overwhelmed at the amount of posters I already got. XD
We finally bought our dinner (we didn't buy with the group) of a Happy Meal. The Happy Meal there was just like a regular cheeseburger meal here plus the toy. Not bad. I was actually missing the beef burger because I've eaten their chicken burger for two days already.
The fan meet ended and everyone started to go out and go to the entrance of the arena.
Part 2 coming soon... with concert photos! *whew*
We woke up, got breakfast and finalized our booklet for Leehom (so sorry I forgot to take pictures!!!). We also fixed the gifts as well.
We went out for a while to get the magazines we checked out Thursday. We thought of passing by 7-11 to buy more milk tea as well but since it was past 11:30 so we decided to go back and get our things for the committee meeting at Outback.
We got on the MRT and made our way to the restaurant. We got there on time (12nn) and the Taiwan fanclub committee was already there. We picked our seats and placed our orders. We were in a steakhouse so might as well order steak. I had mine medium (and it turned out medium rare... oh well). Eventually committee members from Singapore, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Korea came in. We occupied 2 long tables. Mostly fans from Taiwan, Korea and Japan were together. And we were seated with Indo, China, Malaysia and Singapore.
Everyone gave their orders and we just waited. Tried to interact a bit with the Indo fans since we were facing them. And it's pretty amusing since there were three of us and three of them. It even came to a time that we somehow discussed our languages since they're so similar. Like their 'mahal' is the same as Filipino 'mahal' which means 'expensive'. It wasn't the same as 'mahal' meaning 'love' though... We were then served some bread that looked like chocolate bread but I think it really isn't. While waiting, Sally handed out Hua Tian Cuo singles. It's nice that now we have a collectible not everyone have. ;)
In a few minutes, Wang Mama finally came in. My first impression was she looks so plain and simple. Not what I expected... She was just wearing plain pants and a printed shirt. I don't even remember her holding any hand bag or purse. O_o
So some fanclubs handed her some stuff. Probably some gifts for Leehom. We waited for our turn to give our gifts for her and for Leehom. I said something like "Hi, we're from the Philippines and we'd like to give this to you." The moment I said that, she immediately said that she already announced that she won't be accepting gifts anymore. Thanks to Sally, we eventually got to explain that we knew about the announcement after we already bought the gifts so she eventually accepted the stuff. So we got her the table runner and a cookbook. She looks pretty interested with the cookbook when she saw it. Then we handed her our bag of goodies for Leehom. We thanked her and got back to our seats.
After the bread, they served creamy soup. (Yum!) Eventually our main course arrived and I was surprised that I was having rice with my steak! I didn't even request for rice. It's weird... The others got fries along with their food. Not only the fries but I think they gave me the wrong order because I asked for medium and they gave me medium rare I think. It was still bloody. But no worries, it was really nice and tasty. By the time I finished, Ate Chin and Ate Bing's salmon steaks just came.
After we finished our main course, Sally got a mic and welcomed everyone. She asked everyone to introduce themselves. She asked us to go first. I didn't really know what to say so I just said my name and where we were from. The rest said more stuff... kinda embarrassing that I only said a few words (I'm club president for crying out loud! and I don't have much to say? That's so sad). Everyone went to the front to introduce themselves and thanked Wang Mama for the gathering.
Wang Mama welcomed us after all the club committees finished. I really don't remember what she said but I don't think it was a lot. She was very soft spoken and a bit shy.
We had dessert (a special brownie ala mode and cheesecake). Wang Mama was discussing something with OurHome China. I thought we were going to have the chance to actually speak with her and discuss something. Oh well...
So after dessert we got a group picture with everyone except Joanne from Malaysia who took the photo. We also got a chance to take a picture with Wang Mama. Also got pictures with other fanclubs. It was fun having everyone standing up, taking pictures of everyone. I actually wanted to speak with the Japanese fan (and try out my basic Japanese skills) but I didn't get the chance because I'm either too slow to move or we really didn't have enough time to interact with everyone.
It was already past 3pm and it was finally time to go and Wang Mama left first along with Sally. We were among the last to leave along with the Indo peeps. By the time we got out of the restaurant, we saw a guy with a nice Nikon camera that looked like a stalker... I mean paparazzi... and it felt so weird that he was taking pictures of us. O_o
We said our goodbyes and headed for the arena. We passed by the merchandise booth to buy more stuff (the female MUSIC-MAN shirt and 1k package for Aliang) and ask about the mug I didn't get the day before. I showed them the receipt and they gladly gave the item missing. Good thing we were there early so there are not much people yet.
We then waited for the fan meeting at McDonald's to start. When we saw Sally arrive, we got in and said hi. We found some seats and stayed there. We also saw Fong and talked with her. Basically people just went there to hang out with fellow fans, and ate. It was after a while that they had the activity. We met a fan who was sitting alone beside us. She spoke good English. There was another fan that Fong introduced to us who was interested in meeting us. She didn't know English so she asked Fong to translate and introduce us.
Their activity was something like charades. We didn't get to join because of the language barrier. But from the looks of it, I think they were trying to guess which Leehom song they are acting. If that's the case I could have tried answering. The winners got the Hua Tian Cuo single.
We also got freebies from that fan meeting. They handed us extra gold MUSIC-MAN tattoos that were supposed to be free with the concert tickets. We also got a Japanese Wei Yi poster. By that time I was already overwhelmed at the amount of posters I already got. XD
We finally bought our dinner (we didn't buy with the group) of a Happy Meal. The Happy Meal there was just like a regular cheeseburger meal here plus the toy. Not bad. I was actually missing the beef burger because I've eaten their chicken burger for two days already.
The fan meet ended and everyone started to go out and go to the entrance of the arena.
Part 2 coming soon... with concert photos! *whew*