If you follow SNSD as much as I do, or I would even say the K-Pop world, you would know that they are in NYC this week to promote their U.S. release of their latest album "The Boys"! (Insert comment about "unless you've been living under a rock" here.) They arrived yesterday, January 30 at 10am at JFK Airport. According to one of my classmates, they actually didn't come out until about 11:30am. Apparently one of the airport security was trying to mess with the fans that came to meet the girls by telling them that they missed the girls and that they just came out of another entrance. Yeah, I'm quite sure that wasn't going to work. lol
Fast forward to today! So I wake up at like 8:30am all hyped up for today and lounge around my room for a bit. I watch some Live! with Kelly when it comes on to see if they mention SNSD coming on tomorrow's show. Both she and her guest co-host
I look around for the Ed Sullivan Theatre (where David Letterman is taped) for about 5 minutes and then slap myself in the head (mentally) when I realized it was right in front of me when I got out of the station. lol I saw some folks wearing pink, but they walked away and headed off in some direction, so I assume that they weren't going to get ready for the girls' arrival yet. Fine by me. I walk around for a bit before deciding to settle into a Starbacks across the corner from the Theatre. Ordered myself a grande coffee (though I guess I didn't really need it... I did get a good 8 hours of sleep the previous night) and sat down at a window seat. That way, I could keep a constant eye on the Theatre just in case people started lining up. About 40 minutes must have passed before I decided to stop loitering around Starbucks pretending I was doing something. (Well, I did text my friend, who shall remain nameless for privacy, at which point she decided to come out to the city to meet up with me during her break.) I decided to walk downtown in a straight line to look for a store where I could look around. Begin the bad part of my day.
So I walk down a couple of blocks and at this corner, this guy is collecting donations for the homeless. I'm feeling pretty generous so I pull out 2 bucks and donate. Feeling pretty good about myself! Guy thanks me, we chat for a bit, and I continue my trek downtown. A couple more blocks down, this guy approaches me with a CD to promote his music. Here is where I should have kept walking. I shake his hand, take his CD, give him 10 bucks for "a little donation" and then like 2 other guys come right up, push their CDs into my hand, and take 15 bucks each. Right there goes 40 dollars and I'm left with like 2 bucks. So now I walk away feeling pissed and like an idiot. I've encountered situations like this before and just walked away. So why couldn't I walk away now? Fudge my life. Really. I end up having to go to the ATM and withdrawing $40. At that point, I head right back uptown and to the Ed Sullivan Theatre, consistently asking myself why I had such a booming, idiotic moment. I threw out the CDs at the corner into a trash can.
At this point, it was almost 12pm and no one was in front of the Theatre. Now I begin to think something is wrong. The event is for 1pm, and no SONEs are lined up yet? I look inside and don't see anyone. I look at a sign in front of the Theatre and see that the sign is for the box office. I begin to wonder if I'm not in the wrong place. So I walk around the corner of the block and down a bit. Lo and behold, I see a crowd with pink shirts in it. Yep, leave it to good old Alger to get hustled for money and then wait at the wrong spot for the event he was trying to attend. Really. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOUR STREET SMARTS, SON. -_-
But that ends the bad part of my day! Proceed to the very very good part. :D So I'm with the crowd, pick up the stamp card that the folks over at Soshified are using for a Super Fan Contest, and wait a bit. My friend comes and picks up her stamp card and we talk. Then - Soy (founder of Soshified) arrives and begins to stamp the cards of the folks at the event. She had to use my The Boys tin for a hard surface to stamp. She apologizes, but I said it's okay. She stamped my and my friend's cards and then moved on. My friend was a bit surprised when I knew that it was Soy and even more surprised when I said she wasn't from NY. lol My friend and I step up to the barricade to prepare for the girls' arrival.
As it gets closer and closer to 1pm, more and more news reporters/cameramen arrive. They begin to film and interview the crowd. When my area was asked which one we would ideally like to go our with, we pretty much said all 9. Hey, you love all 9 before loving 1 as a SONE. That's just how it is. I got my picture taken holding up my All About Girls' Generation DVD set. One of the cameramen asked me some questions about the girls, like where they were from. He initially said Japan, but I corrected him and explained a bit about their promotions. The guy and I finish talking and he walks away.
And now, IT IS 1 PM. The bus arrives ON THE DOT. We all start cheering like a bunch of lunatics. There was a group of the girls at the center of the barricade singing The Boys, but instead of singing "Bring the boys out," they sing "Bring the girls out." I'm just a bit bewildered at that. I didn't know whether they changed it just because it was all girls singing, or because they wanted SNSD to come out of the bus. Either way, from around the corner of the bus comes Sunny and Tiffany. I get literally STARSTRUCK. Really, it was like time slowed to a crawl. Tiffany walked toward the barricade, receiving some instructions from the security guard in charge of making sure the girls were safe. She then talks to some people to my left and starts signing. Sunny continues walking, like a boss, waving and smiling at all of us.
Jessica comes and I manage a pretty timid "Hi Jessica~". She smiles, takes my Sharpie, and signs on her portrait. Seohyun then comes. Begin the cutest moment ever. I greet her and she greets back. I ask her to sign. She takes my Sharpie and hovers it over the flap, looking for her portrait. After hovering for a bit, she said, "Where am IIIIII~?" in English. Seriously, I must have died inside when I saw that. I managed a laugh and pointed out where she was. Right after that was Yoona. She was simply breathtaking. I managed to look at her face, greet her, and ask for her to sign. I said, "Middle~!" and pointed to her portrait. She repeats, "Middle!" with a smile and signs on her portrait. Then, after a bit, Yuri gets to my area. I say hi to her and try to get her autograph, but she signed a few in my area and then had to move on. I didn't mind... I was already in La La Land at this whole experience. Three of the nine girls actually signed my DVD set. I got to see ALL NINE up close. Seriously, did that really just happen? At that point my friend, who had my The Boys to try to get it signed, tells me that she couldn't get any sigs. She says that Jessica was about to sign the tin but didn't because the ink wouldn't stick. She tried to stay around for my friend to pull out Sica's photocard but had to move on. My friend was pretty excited that she got to talk to Sica, even if it was just for that brief exchange between celebrity and fan.
We then went to the end of the barricade line to try and catch another one of the girls to get another autograph on my DVD set, but security had to get them inside the studio at that point. Oh well. I still couldn't believe I met them up close, within arm's distance. It took me a good, long, while to snap back into some semblance of reality. Tomorrow is going to be the same drill, also. They're going to be on Live! with Kelly to do their thing! My friend and I are going out there
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