I'm speechless... Ayu spent a lot of time with us tonight and she talked so much! There were only 5 people tonight so she was able to be a lot more personal.
Anyway, here is my report!
We got to the hotel around 5:30PM and we just got drinks and sat in the lounge area, and then we saw Ayu on twitter saying she was at the recording studio. We didn't know whether to stay or go, but then we saw Stan go outside and Brian & I went outside and he asked if she's at the recording studio or not, and he said they're going now. Ayu posted on twitter to meet her there, so we got into Russ's car and drove to the recording studio.
We waited outside for about 10 minutes and then Mannie showed up! I didn't meet him earlier, but he was very nice and introduced himself and went inside. We waited 10 more minutes and then Ayu came out and she looked so adorable! She signed some things, and then I showed her the pic of us two on the Chinese tabloid and she laughed really loud in typical Ayu fashion and she was like "where did they find it?!" and I was like "I think on my twitter" and she said it was really funny. Because there were only 5 people we got to take individual photos again! The funny thing was, Stan wasn't there so we had to figure out who'd take the pictures. So I said I could be the photographer today, and then Mannie said he can do it, and Ayu says "no he is a really really bad photographer" and he's like "what?" and she's like "all of your pictures are blurry! he will do it" and so I took a picture of Ayu with Corinne, who saw Ayu for the first time tonight, and then she told Mannie to take one so they could compare. And then she said it wasn't bad!
So everyone got an individual picture, and she signed Brian's iPhone and other things, and then she went back inside. We were shocked and basically frozen, so we all started exchanging e-mails to send the pictures from our cameras to each other, and we realized we didn't have any pictures with Mannie! He was just standing to the side the whole time. And then to our surprise, Ayu came back out again! She was saying "we didn't take picture with Mannie!" and I said we were just talking about that and she laughed really loud again and was like "you were talking about it too?!? he's playing a game right now..." and then we said we want a picture with him. I asked Ayu if she could tell us what song she was recording, or if it was a secret. She looked at her manager and he shook his head and she's like "no.. it's a secret" but then she told the manager to go get Mannie from inside and then I leaned over to her and I'm like "ok you can tell me now!" and she just laughed again and she's like "no its a secret... but it's going to be REALLY REALLY GOOD!" so there you have it! Love songs will be REALLY REALLY GOOD. Ayu said so herself!
Brad had a really big, complicated professional camera so one of the staff members took it and was trying to take the pictures, but the flash wouldn't work, or something else, so we were joking about him not being able to use it with Ayu. We took some pictures together and then Ayu went back inside again. We couldn't believe she came out the second time, and it was just such an amazing feeling. She was so talkative, and she told us to stay warm as she headed back inside. She's such a sweetheart!
I only got two pictures with my camera today because I didn't feel like snapping pictures as she was talking with us! But there will be a lot more coming from other members!