[ACCOUNT/VIDEO/PICS] T-ARA: THAILAND FANMEETING 2017 (PART 1: AIRPORT)

[chantellesyf]

 

Second encounter (Part 1: Airport) - T-ARA Thailand Fanmeeting (March 31st, 2017)

 

Initially, after I bought the tickets, I realized that the handful of Malaysian Queen’s I knew at the time wouldn’t be going for it and this would mean it would have to be the first time for me to travel to a foreign country alone. But soon, a C-Queen’s I met on Twitter had added me into a T-ARA group chat and I found some other Malaysian Queen’s who were going as well. But I had already booked my flights and all and would still be travelling solo. But heck, it was for T-ARA, I’d stop at nothing for them.

 

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So, I’ll just skip to the night of the airport greeting. Firstly, I have to say this: Thai Queen’s are AWESOME! There are so many friendly Thai Queen’s that helped me along the way. They told me what time to meet at the airport, the flight times, where to go around in Bangkok and the gate location and all. When I arrived at the airport, I waited with some other international Queen’s and eventually, the Thai Queen’s told me to head to Gate 9. (Didn’t think of it until after, but 9 is such a lucky number for T-ARA related stuff) I had brought along a 5 month old Queen’s and Hahmchin who was new to this whole fandom thing and it was her first time chasing down idols like this.

A small crowd had gathered there already and I got in touch with the Thai Queen’s who was so helpful to me and handed her Qri’s present that she had offered to help me give to Qri. I had prepared presents for the girls. Each of them were getting a hand drawn portrait that I spent many sleepless nights over, custom made bracelets with their names and charms that included a crown in a heart and interlocking pinkies to symbolize promise because I believe in their words that this wasn’t the end. Also, each bag had a Queen’s fan letter that I had printed out on ivory cards, including my own for Hyomin. I had found the perfect bag which had a small crown on them and printed out pictures of each of the portraits I had used to draw and stuck it on the bag to catch their attention. These were the portraits I had drawn and the gifts:

 

 

The plan was to sit in a line and six Queen’s would hold a bag and wait in a line to catch their attention with the six purple bags. We then waited from 9pm till about 2am, for them to arrive. During that time, another Thai Queen’s was so beautiful to have gotten one of her friends to get me a Sunbyung banner the Thai Queen’s had made and gave it to me. I was supremely touched and took a picture of me holding up the banner and posted it on Instagram. There’s another story to that, that I will tell in Part 2. But here's the pic of me holding up the banner to promote Sunbyung, my all time favourite OTP:

*Yes, I tagged them both. LOL*

So here we were, waiting with our DSLRs and Thai Queen’s were taking photos of the group and everyone was chatting excitedly. The one thing I respected the Thai Queen’s for is that they gave instructions for everyone to sit behind a certain line and remain seated as T-ARA passed so that they would not feel overcrowded and we were just supposed to cheer from where we sat. And they held that part up. Mad respect for any Thai Queen’s reading this by the way.

T-ARA arrived around 2am-ish and the crowd went wild! There was already a mass of bodies surrounding T-ARA from inside and I quickly turned on my DSLR recording. The mass of people were quickly approaching us and I was nervous as hell as the crowd went wild. The of T-ARA that we spotted was Soyeon and Boram. The next few seconds was an utter blur.

The Thai Ramchin that I had given the bag to immediately stood up and screamed, “BORAMMM!” while the Songchin did the same for Soyeon. From the camera recording I had, I saw that Soyeon and Boram walk over to the two to take the bags from them. From what the Songchin told me, Soyeon had initially looked at her and was a little surprised at the bag with her face printed on it.

But then, I spotted Hyomin and the only thought in my head was literally nothing. I could only manage to scream out Hyomin’s name multiple times. There was someone blocking the way in front of me and I got on my knees, screaming her name continuously. Initially, she had just smiled at waved in my general direction, not showing that she wanted to take the bag. But as she walked past the dude blocking the way, she stopped and took a second look at me and the bag. And miraculously, she turned back a little and walked towards me, hand outstretched. 

Heart racing, I crawled as fast as I could on my knees to hand her the bag and her smile- God above! She’s gorgeous! I can’t remember clearly, but I muttered something like, “Thank you”, in the shakiest voice imaginable. Here's a recording of it:

My hands were shaking when I stopped the video recording. I looked around and the Hahmchin that was supposed to hand the bag to Eunjung was nowhere to be seen, But I spotted the Queen’s who was supposed to hand the bag to Qri, still holding it. I was about to ask her why she was still seated when she screamed for a guy in Thai and the guy immediately grabbed the bag from her and fought his way through the crowd at the van. I saw him disappear but never saw the bag again. My guess is, he managed to successfully get it through. 

I had initially tried peeking into the van to wave at them but the crowd around it was massive and I just watched from about two metres away, still shaky and not in the condition to pummel through the mass. But Queen’s are really well mannered. There was no fighting and yelling at each other like I’ve seen in other group fan cams. In fact, everyone obediently backed away from the van when it started to move a little, signalling that they wanted to leave.

Still shaking, I looked back down at my camera to rewatch the recording and I nearly cried watching how Hyomin had smiled at me. My Hahmchin friend came running up to me, clearly shaken as well for her first time meeting Eunjung in person and she had told me that Eunjung’s hands were full to the brim but had outstretched her pinkie finger just so my friend could hook the bag onto that finger. The only sad news for the night was that the Jingchin I had handed the bag to couldn’t manage to get it to Jiyeon and I don’t blame her. The maknae was surrounded by A LOT of Queen’s and my friend had a difficult time trying to even get near her. So, we had no choice but to see if we could get it to her at the fanmeet. 

 

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I’ll post up Part 2 soon since it’s 2am where I’m from and I’ve gotta be up in about 4 hours. I hope this wasn’t too draggy and thank you once more for reading. I’ll post up part 2 as soon as I can!

[andrki]

Great! Can't wait for the next part!