Here it is. The final day of my trip to Mexico. It was a fun adventure and I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed writing about it. After this, expect a daily account of my experience in Houston in a similar format. ENJOY!
DAY FOUR
The day had come! We quickly got up and got ready, had our standard egg breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, checked out, left the majority of our luggage with the hotel and headed straight for Tiffany's hotel. We ended up getting there about 1.5 hours early. We chilled in the lobby for a while, as we waited for Tiffany to get ready and come down. I went to the restroom a ton of times, from nervousness and likely from the coffee I had in the morning. We briefly went over everything together, then started walking over to the hotel C-ute was staying at.
On the way, we stopped by an Office Depot to pick up a notepad so that I could take notes during the interview. We decided to not have me ask the questions and then have Tiffany translate as originally planned, for fear of taking up too much time. Instead, I was to take notes, she was to do all the talking and Manuel was to deal with the technical part of the interview. It was a sound plan. We finally arrived at the hotel and waited in the lobby, where I went to the restroom a few hundred more times in anticipation. We discussed everything one last time before we got approached by the gentleman from Up-Front Link and some more staff (including a gentleman who spoke Spanish, Japanese and English, who tried to lighten our tension, bless his heart). The most important thing I was steeling myself for, was remaining completely professional and not fanboying at all, for fear of risking ruining A-To-J Connections' name. I was especially fearful that Chisato might say something about me having been totally oshi'd out at the concert. I was more nervous about those two things than anything else, to be quite honest.
I want to be perfectly clear. For respect of the folks we communicated with, Up-Front Link and Up-Front Agency, I am not going to disclose any information about the interview itself, or the individuals with whom we worked. The interview itself is available on our website (http://www.a-to-jconnections.com/the-hello-idol-blog/mexico-and-beyond-an-interview-with-hello-project-idol-group-c-ute).
So once we entered into the room C-ute was standing up to greet us, wearing their beautiful black, silver and red outfits that they opened the concert with. The first thing I noticed was that they were all extremely stunning in person (seeing them in an event and in an environment like this are totally different). We greeted each other nervously, sat down, and commenced. The interview ended up going very smoothly, all things considered. Tiffany did a beautiful job and we completely behaved ourselves.
By the look that Chisa gave me a couple times, I'm pretty sure she clearly remembered me from the night before. I'm confident that they are used to that sort of thing, especially since many of the people who report on H!P acts are very outspoken fans as well. This was reassuring to me. On another note, Airi was totally staring at me the whole time, and it was destroying any nerves I possibly had left. I don't know if it was because I'm Indian, and she hasn't seen too many of us. Or if it was because my glasses were crooked (due to my nose, it's hard for me to have straight glasses without bending them awkwardly). Or maybe it was because she remembered me from yesterday and was contemplating how I was so calm and respectful after being so boisterous and insane the day before. From the constant smiles she gave me whenever I made eye contact, it could have been a number of things or anything in particular, but it certainly lifted my spirits while simultaneously making me as nervous as humanly possible. The girls were completely responsive to the questions and I feel like we asked a couple really solid ones based on their reactions. It was actually a really fun experience overall, and I'm so thankful I was a part of that.
After the interview was concluded, we took a picture together. Before the
picture was taken, Saki noticed my T-Shirt I was wearing and asked if it was Tinkerbell on my shirt. In her defense, I wasn't standing up completely straight at that moment since we were positioning ourselves and it wasn't easy to see. Me being the fool I am, forgot all of my Japanese. I felt so dumb, considering I have no problem formulating words when at handshakes or while in Japan. Instead, I stretched my shirt so it was easier for her to see. Her face lit up when she noticed what it was: 'AH! Zelda!' To which I simply smiled, nodded and said 'HAI!' I thought it was a cute moment, since none of them responded to anybody else (yeah yeah, I'm bragging a bit here). We took the picture and thanked them.
On our way out, as we thanked the staff and the girls, I noticed Mai, Chisa and Airi hunched over a table against the wall. I didn't think anything of it, and we started to walk out the door. Before we could leave, the girls stopped us in our fumbling. Each one of them handed us a personally signed A5 photo (same from the VIP, but with our names on it). It is probably very normal for this to happen, but it really warmed my heart and is a very special thing I own now (I've actually spent a bit to get it framed.). Chisa gave Manuel his, Airi gave Tiffany hers and Mai gave me mine. They were all very kind and polite. Funny enough, they had written in Japanese on mine and Tiffany's, but Chisa wrote in Spanish for Manuel (which makes sense, because I felt like she made the most effort to learn the language too). The thing that impressed me the most was that Mai actually spelled my name correctly! This may seem minor, especially since they likely had our names from our business cards or from the e-mail we sent to the Up-Front Link representative. Keep in mind, though, that people spell my name wrong extremely often. When I say it, or spell it out, or say it's spelled like it sounds or even when I write it down for them. It happens extremely often, and Mai made me melt by doing it right.
We thanked them again, and headed out of the hotel in a daze. We had done it. And it was wonderful. They were some of the kindest and most amazing people I had ever met, and totally lived up to their names. From there, after gushing about it to each other for a while, we met up with some more friends at Tiffany's hotel and decided to go to a churro place that a friend had recommended a few days prior. Manuel and I were really pressed for time, due to our flight, and we strongly considered just getting the churros to go so that we could make it to the airport on time. We ended up caving, and decided we deserved this. I ordered the mexicano y 4 churros. It was a hot chocolate similar to what we get back home, along with 4 churros and I got a dipping caramel sauce to go with it. It was extremely tasty, and worth every peso. It was also worth us almost being late to the airport. We rushed out after finishing the food and tried to get an Uber. Manuel's phone kept wigging out and I didn't have enough data left to be able to download the Uber app onto my phone. While we waited for his phone to fix itself, we continuously tried to flag down taxis. Amusingly, we ran into the rest of the group twice while we scrambled to get to our hotel. Finally, we got a taxi and asked him to take us to our hotel. We got lucky, because he told us most taxis in that part of the city wouldn't go as far out as our hotel, but that he was one of the exceptions.
We thanked him profusely and gave him a tip (even though taxis don't normally get a tip). After grabbing our luggage, we got an Uber to the airport. We ended up making it in time, and had a smooth flight to Los Angeles. While I passed through everything just fine, Manuel ended up being stopped at immigration. He had warned me that this always happens to him, too. I felt like a complete jerk, but my uncle was already at the airport waiting for me, so I ended up leaving him and grabbing my bags to go. I constantly contacted him to make sure everything was fine, but he won’t ever let me forget it.
In the end, though, the trip ended up being really nice. Mexico City was much nicer than I expected, as were its people. It helped show me how beautiful the country is. Couple that with the phenomenal experience we had at the concert and the day after, and this would easily go down as one of my most important and most exciting trips ever.
As I sat in the car, on the way back to my Uncle's place where my car was, my mind drifted to the chant that the Mexican fans had said as we waited for the encore at the concert: "Ole! Ole! Ole! Kyuuto! Kyuuto!" I smiled contently, as my trip finally came to a close.