I’m on leave of absence from work starting today until next week. We have an insane schedule ahead of us because of Rain’s PH visit and I think this demands full attention. The last thing I want now is more stress from work to add to my current stress from fangirling, so an LOA is in order. It’s a good thing that Rain decided to fly straight to Cebu instead of going to Manila; he’s supposed to arrive in the Philippines today as told by a local entertainment site’s Twitter account, which turned out to be false because he flew in to Cebu yesterday morning. Per my sources, this was not the original plan. If the original plan pushed through, you wouldn’t be reading this entry now because I’ll probably be at the airport waiting for his arrival, or has started with the stalking process.

Speaking of which… hey fellow Pinoy fans, I know this is finally our opportunity to be like the other fans from other countries and post our own personal fan accounts, but please bear in mind: RAIN’S PRIVACY SHOULD BE OUR NO. 1 PRIORITY. Please learn not to be too intrusive, and learn to filter those that need to be posted on the internet for the whole world to know. Although the publication of his exact whereabouts mainly should be blamed on his own staff who posted the pic of his location on Twitter (really, Dong Joon-ssi… it’s quite easy to use Google to know where that pic was taken from ), but to post stuff like, “he did this and that at this exact hour” is waayyy too intrusive. Don’t tell me stuff like, “but the Japan/China/etc etc fans did that, too!” Just because everyone does it, should you do it, too, even if it’s wrong? Just so you know, most of those fans also filter the stuff they post on the internet. Remember, his hotel is his temporary home. He’s supposed to enjoy his private time there. Sightings in public places is ok, I suppose, but hotel stuff? Na-ah.

Anyway… since Rain is several islands away from me and I have no plans of flying all the way there just to stalk (my wallet’s pretty dried up at this stage and the concert hasn’t even happened yet), I decided to use this unexpected free time to catch up on sleep. I think I slept a grand total of 8 hours in the past 2 weeks or so. When I woke up this noon, it’s busy, busy, busy time once again, replying to queries, planning and monitoring the activities, etc.

And you know what makes this crazier? On top of Fugitive filming and the Intensity concert, Polyeast Records has announced that they’re releasing Back To The Basic Asian Edition in the Philippines in time for the concert. We had a meeting with the record execs last night along with MBLAQ-PH and Infinity-PH and it was very productive. I think J Tune and Mnet made the right decision to entrust BTTB and MBLAQ’s Y to them. They’re very enthusiastic about the project and they’re very open to the fan clubs’ suggestions on how to market the CDs here. Please watch out for announcements on CloudPH’s website, Twitter and Facebook pages as regards the album release. Right now, we’re focusing more on the concert because of certain deadlines, but once we get things settled we will start mass promotions for BTTB. I assure you, it’s going to be really exciting for the Philippine fans and our overseas guests, too.

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I’d like to share a little story from last night. We were having dinner and Rizza received a phone call from an unknown number. She’s been receiving a lot of that lately so it’s not so surprising. The caller is a Filipino and she was inquiring about how she can avail of the CPH T-shirt. It wasn’t until after a few minutes when she revealed that she’s not in the Philippines; she is in London. And then she asked about our friend Dahly. She said that if Dahly does not win the contest, she is going to send money for Dahly’s concert ticket so that Dahly could watch. Rizza told her that there is no need for that because we entered Dahly to the contest only for the Meet and Greet. Dahly already has a concert ticket (and a moshpit one, at that). But I find it so endearing how Dahly’s story has touched so many people, even those who are not in our country. It’s really a very inspiring story and I really hope that even if she doesn’t win the M&G slot, it will send a positive message to all fans (not just of Rain’s) that fangirling may be just a hobby or a passion for most of us, but for some like Dahly, it’s something a lot more than that. For them, it’s a way to cope up with life’s struggles.

This is like asking for the moon and the stars, but I also hope that even if Dahly doesn’t win the contest, I hope that her story would reach Rain. (Then again, I once said that Rain going to the Philippines for a concert is only possible once pigs could fly. Last time I checked, pigs still don’t have wings.)

Finally, after 289357500305 years, J Tune has made an announcement regarding the Philippines concert.

Click on the image to be redirected to rain-jihoon.com

So I guess it’s high time to move on and start really working on this? Ten days of virtually no sleep. Good luck to us.

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Edited to add:

I mentioned here about a couple of years ago that we have a fellow Cloud who has cerebral palsy. She suffered from depression due to her condition but she was able to recover from it when she saw Rain and learned more about his work and his life. Her biggest dream is to meet Rain in Manila. Please help us help her realize that dream and give her a special birthday treat (her birthday is on September 12) by “liking” her entry at the Meet and Greet contest at Facebook.

Thank you!

Today is supposed to be Shanghai Expo day, but Ann and I decided to just skip it entirely. We’ve been hearing horror stories of lining up as long as 6 hours (!) on the pavilions that are worth visiting (e.g., Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Germany). That’s gonna be one heck of a waste of time. After that nightmarish trek at The Bund last night with that mass of people from every nationality imaginable, we thought going to the Expo on a Sunday is going to be hell. We also thought RMB160 is too expensive for a photo-op outside the pavilions, so we decided to just change the itinerary and visit Shanghai itself. We can buy Expo merchandise (available just about anywhere) and pretend we did go there, anyway.

We decided to go to Zhou Zhuang water town instead. Well, at least that was the plan. See, we were so tired last night that we woke up late this morning. We had planned on trying to catch the 2:10pm bus to Zhou Zhuang and since we left the hostel at 12:00nn, we skipped both breakfast and lunch and headed straight to the bus station located, according to the directions Ann got from the ‘net, “close to Shanghai People’s Stadium near Xujiahui.” As you can see, the directions were very vague. For one thing, distance is relative. What is near to some people may be far from others. For another thing, how the heck do we get there?

Since the directions mentioned Xujiahui, the first natural reaction is to go to Metro Station Xujiahui. Which turned out to be a bad idea, because to get to Shanghai Stadium, you must go to Shanghai Indoor Stadium station, not Xujiahui. Or maybe there is a way through Xujiahui station once you have mastered your way around Shanghai, but for first-time, non-Chinese speaking people like us? Na-ah. Long story short, we ended up on the wrong station, which cost us an additional RMB3 each to go back to Shanghai Indoor Stadium station. Once we got to the correct station, here comes dilemma No. 2: where exactly is “close to Shanghai People’s Stadium”? The stadium itself is huge. We might end up walking the entire circumference of it before we see the bus station.

After a looooong walk and some missed turns, we finally found it. It’s near the stadium ticket booths. We got in, but not before some guy stopped us to say that there is no bus for today (!!!) and he is offering a private tour service in case we still want to go to the water town. Of course, that’ll cost an arm and a leg, so no, thank you. We proceeded to the Tourist Information counter, and true enough, the tour guides said there is no bus today. But the service resumes tomorrow, and we can buy our tickets now to reserve our seats. We decided to get the 9:30am trip.

Ok, tour tickets? Check. Now we must eat. It’s already about 2:00pm at that time and we still haven’t had a single meal. I promised Ann that I’ll treat her to Ding Tai Fung in Shanghai as a belated birthday gift so we decided to head off to Xintiandi. But not before we stopped by a Family Mart to grab a sandwich and drinks because I still don’t have any idea how far Xintiandi is from where we were and we were already close to passing out from hunger.

After a few missed turns mainly caused by vague directions such as, “get out at Exit 2 and walk 200 meters along Madang Road” without specifying if we should go left or right once we reach Madang Road, we finally found Xintiandi. But before that, there’s little amusing incident that happened. You see, the reason why I decided to choose Ding Tai Fung’s Xintiandi branch to treat Ann is because this restaurant happens to be Rain’s favorite. He was seen dining at this particular branch when he was in Shanghai. So it’s basically a Rain trip but as soon as we got out of the Metro station, this is what welcomed us:

We went there for Rain; instead, we got Song Hye Kyo. Is this a sign? And I should stress that I did not see any traces of the ‘puor homme’ model in there.

Anyway… Ding Tai Fung. Can I just say that I love this restaurant? I little bit pricey especially if you know that food in Shanghai is generally dirt cheap, but the food is awesome. I ordered xiao long bao (of course), pork and shrimp dumplings, double-boiled chicken and shrimp fried rice. The soup from the double-boiled chicken is heavenly; it reminds me of good ol’ nilagang native na manok. As for the xiao long bao, it met all my expectations. Except that I botched on the proper way of eating it, that the waitress had to approach our table and handed me a guide on how to properly enjoy xiao long bao:

This is the second time I majorly failed on eating this dumpling. Yesterday, we got some Yang’s Fried Dumplings (actually, I had wanted steamed dumplings from the one across Yang’s but there was no English menu so I had to regretfully turn away) to take home to the hostel and I just ate it as I would normally eat any dumpling. The result is that all the soup squirted out of the dumpling and drenched my camera. I think I should’ve had a clue since this thing is called “soup dumpling”.

For the second time, the soup got drained all over my plate because I forgot that I was supposed to place it on the spoon before biting it. Thanks to the instructions, we also figured out what that mound of ginger is for.

After that delightful meal, we strolled by East Nanjing Road until our feet ached. We also emptied our pockets - in my case, scratched the hell out of my credit card - on Expo merchandise. We decided to call it a day early since we have to check out early tomorrow for the Zhou Zhuang trip. But not quite yet. We’re just resting; we’re gonna go out and pig out some more after this.

Hello from Shanghai, China!

Everything’s going on smoothly, so far. Ann and I arrived at Pudong International Airport at about quarter to 12mn. We got out at past 1am and the only option we had to get to the city is via taxi. We already know that it might be difficult for us since we neither speak nor understand Chinese, and it’s true, it proved to be difficult. Luckily, through the recommendation of a lot of travel forums about China, I had the sense to print out the name, address and telephone number of our hostel and gave it to the driver, who automatically called up the hostel to ask for directions. Thankfully, we got an honest cab driver. It was a long (and expensive) journey from the airport to the hostel, but we reached it safely with only a few minor hitches, so it’s fine.

We’re currently staying at Beehome International Hostel at Dong Chang Road. It’s a nice hostel. For one thing, the rooms are HUGE and clean, with nice amenities such as free wireless internet. Of course, we’re in China, so there are sites that we can’t access. But I can live without Twitter and Facebook as long as my blog and my emails are available.

First order of business? FOOD. I love it that there are restaurants around our vicinity which are open even at the ungodly hour of 2:00am. We were so hungry so we just followed our noses and went inside this restaurant that serves hotpot dishes. They have a sort of English menu, meaning there is an English translation but it’s a bit garbled and they don’t have photos on the menu. The waiter knows limited English, too, so he can’t help much. We just pointed at what we think is chicken, vermicelli and meatballs, and then pointed at ‘moderately hot’ and waited for what they will bring us. It turned out to be a nice hotpot chicken stew (think chopseuy without the veggies), and ‘moderately hot’ isn’t exactly moderate. I don’t want to think what ‘extra hot’ tastes like. But the dish is quite tasty and the servings are good enough for four people and we only paid RMB39. That’s not bad at all.

Mission for later: pig out on xiao long bao. Must find that restaurant that Rain always eats in when he was in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago…

God really likes playing his funny little jokes.

I was so down and out when I woke up yesterday morning owing to the very disappointing developments that we had last Tuesday. I felt so bad that I could barely hold back my tears on my way to work (sorry, drama queen in the house). News was a bit scarce yesterday morning, too, with no word yet from J Tune.

Then, around 12:30pm, I snuck out of work to go to the bank and then go the CPH meeting with the promoters of Rain’s concert. I was on my jeepney ride to Malolos when Kairu texted me to say that AYC has posted something new on their Facebook page: “INTENSITY feat. Rain, U-KISS and Gab Valenciano” (note: Gab was later replaced by Christian Bautista)

WHAT?!?! U-KISS?!?!? Where did that come from??

I swear, I was so floored that tears started welling up again (told ya, drama queen in the house). I think anyone who has been reading this blog knows my entire history with U-KISS. All the frustration and disappointment that I felt in the morning disappeared just like that. I thought, things really do happen for a reason. I’ve always wondered how come every time I lose hope about Rain, something U-KISS-related gains back that hope. Believe it or not, even with CPH’s neverending quest to find answers from J Tune as regards the PH concert, a Korean Kiss-Me offered valuable assistance to contact J Tune in Korea. Who would have thought that it all leads to an event that will have both Rain and U-KISS in my own country? And then I remembered what I wrote on the entry before this one. I wrote about U-KISS coming back here and what it could mean to me. Was that a premonition of things to come? Am I leeching off some powers from Ann or something?

I don’t know what I have done to deserve this. But I think, whatever it was, it was something good.

PS: We were told that it was J Tune which recommended U-KISS to the organizers in lieu of MBLAQ. Really, who would’ve thought?

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Here’s the official concert poster:

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I know MBLAQ fans in the Philippines are disappointed that the boys couldn’t make it but… why are you blaming the organizers for it? Didn’t it ever occur to you that it might be MBLAQ who has their reasons why they couldn’t come? And why take it on U-KISS?

Yung iba kasi, makasalita lang eh. Di na nag-iisip. Hay..

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I also don’t get why the “50-minute issue” has become that, an issue. Rain’s Six To Five Fashion concert is an hour and a half, and half of that is a fashion show. Yet the tickets cost about double the price of this concert’s tickets. That was not an issue before. Some fans even paid triple the price for VVIP seats. Why is this an issue now?

I guess a clarification is in order:

1. 50 minutes refer to the duration of Rain’s performance, not including the ‘talk’ part (if any).
2. 50 minutes is Rain’s part in the entire show. It does not include Christian Bautista’s and U-KISS’ sets.

So basically, we will see Rain for about an hour on stage. Just like in Six To Five. Is that understood?

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Honestly, if I am a Rain fan and not counting any other reasons why I couldn’t go to this show, I wouldn’t dare miss this. This may be one of the last times that we will be seeing him perform live before his enlistment, particularly outside of Korea.