Who would've thought I'd end up flying all the way to Mexico to see BLOOD? Weighing the pros and cons and debating over the sanity of such a decision took a couple months for myself and Calla, but finally it was decided, and we were making plans and reservations. By that time we only had one month to wait before taking off to see BLOOD live in Mexico City and follow their [VENGEANCE for BLOOD 3] tour at the anime/mange expo TNT9. And that means I actually have another (quite long) report to post here. o.o

First, I should mention that I typed up notes for this report day-by-day in our hotel on my laptop, so I'll be smashing 6 days' worth of detailed reports into one here. So settle in for a looooooong read if you want to hear it all. ^^; Also, I know I usually include teaser pictures in my reviews, but... well, you try selecting just a handful of representative images from a total of 147 photos. ^^;; So instead, here's the link to my BLOOD at TNT photo gallery (check out the Misc Photos gallery for a few interesting non-BLOOD pictures).

Let the review begin...

~Day 1: Wednesday, May 4~

To begin with... Wednesday = exhaustion. x.x

So after much debating with my parents as to whether I would drive myself and my kitty to the airport, or they'd sacrifice two nights of sleep to leave us there and pick us up... late Tuesday evening I departed for Calla's. Our night was spent channel surfing and doing whatever last minute packing needed to be done; we didn't bother going to bed since we knew we'd have to head for the airport at 6 am. But we survived... got to the airport without incident, reached the monstrous Chicago O'Hare for our transfer and didn't even have to walk that far to get to our next gate (it was actually in the same concourse o.o)... but things kinda started going downhill from there. After a brief second wind (or third or fourth wind >>), our lack of sleep started to catch up with us... but sleeping on the 4 hour flight to Mexico was next to impossible. Especially toward the end when we encountered the most vicious turbulence I've ever experienced. Seriously felt like a roller coaster at a few points... or like we'd run over a cow. >> <<

Finally we reached Mexico City and walked for what felt like hours through the huge insane Juarez International Airport, trying to figure out where we were supposed to go and how to get through customs and how to FIND customs and etc etc. The whole process took close to an hour... not because we encountered any problems with customs, but just because we had to walk like, a mile to get to the first checkpoint, then another mile to the next one, then another mile to the exit, etc etc. Evil airport of doom. >.x

Finally we escaped the insanity, and were on our way to hunt down the hotel shuttle hub when we spotted someone holding a sign with my name on it. o.o As it turned out, Karime, owner of BLOOD's Spanish fansite, had come along with a small group of others to pick us up. It was great to be able to meet them and talk and hang out... they were all a lot of fun. ^-^ Not to mention they're all native Spanish speakers so they pretty much saw us through the rest of the day... *huggles to them all*

Finally, after also hooking up with Roxanne when her flight finally arrived and then walking a few more miles to exchange some money for pesos and escape the airport at last, we were off to TNT via taxi.

WE THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO DIE. x_x

And Americans think traffic in New York is insane... *twitch* aaack... Anyway, other things we noticed about the roadways in Mexico City were that they all seem to be one-way, and randomly vary between just one lane and, like, eight lanes. And that was just in the few miles we had to ride. Also noticed that, just as I'd heard in high school Spanish class, taxis are ALL OVER the place in Mexico City... and so is traffic in general. It's like New York rush hour on crack, and they all drive like absolute maniacs. x.x

I must also add that Mexico City is... chaos. ._. It's crowded, it's busy, it's insane, it's colorful... and within an hour I was thanking God that I don't live there. x_x Some of the more interesting points I noticed: VW Beetles are extremely popular there (again, as I'd heard in high school Spanish class), people really do walk around in the streets between lanes of traffic trying to sell stuff, and... there are occasionally random giant fountains and statues and... thingies that remind me of the Spanish Steps but smaller scale and newer... in the middle of roadways and intersections. >.o

Yeah, tangented there... but anyway, after that taxi ride of doom, we finally reached the location of TNT, where Karime and company introduced us to Andres. He is... adorable. :D Unfortunately, he was far too busy and we were far too wiped out to have much chance to really talk with him... but he did show us the stage BLOOD would be performing on (which looked very promising, by the way) and introduced us to Rafael, another TNT staffer, who escorted us to our hotel and walked us through check-in and even gave us a rundown of peso/dollar equivalents so we'd have some idea of how to use our money.

Then at last, by around 7 pm, we were on our own in our hotel room... Calla crashed for a nap while I set about typing this account of day 1. A couple hours later, I was amazed to find myself still awake and functioning even though I hadn't slept in 2 days and hadn't eaten more than a can of Vienna sausages and a few Cheetos and a couple random cookies and candies since we left for the airport that morning... along with like a bottle and a half of water... x.x Yeeeeeah, had been running on pure adrenaline all day. So eventually I gave up and tried to nap for a couple hours, but it wasn't a very successful venture, as I'd guessed. >> So by about 11 pm Calla and I were both wide awake and decided to wander about our hotel to figure out where everything of interest was... and mainly in search of a nonexistant ice machine. We had to call room service later just for a bucket of ice. >> Anyway, in our travels we ran into some other BLOOD fans we'd been looking forward to meeting, who seemed to have the same wanderlust we had as we kept running into them bouncing around in the hallways and joyriding on the elevators. :P Didn't get to talk much, so eventually we returned to our own room and idly hung out for a few hours, listening to BLOOD and generally being dorks and FINALLY starting to feel hungry but having nothing but Vienna sausages and chips and candy to satiate ourselves... so yeeeeeah, it was not a very nutritious or restful day for either of us. >.>

~Day 2: Thursday, May 5~

After waiting a few hours for a ride from some of Andres' staff, we figured they'd forgotten about us, so we got a taxi ourselves to the convention center... only to find out a couple hours later when we met Andres that he had just sent someone after us. Oops. e_e Anyway, after we managed to actually be admitted into the con, we first met Shelly, Leslie, and Roger with the rest of the band's staff at the BLOOD booth, then randomly ran around exploring the con. I don't think I've ever seen so many people concentrated in one place like that in my life. The crowds were shoulder to shoulder in every room and aisle, walking was almost impossible, and there was either loud music or a live band blasting full volume everywhere we went. We spent most of the afternoon sitting around in the concert hall, which was by far the least crowded for most of the day. Then, around 4:00, we decided to stake out a spot for BLOOD's live... so being 2 hours early, we ended up in about the 3rd standing row of people, almost directly in front of center stage. Notice also that I never mentioned anything about going anywhere for food here... that's because, again, we didn't. Other than a few Doritos and a couple waters, anyway.

There had been local bands playing on that stage all day, but we didn't really pay any attention to them until the 4:00 band, Tenshi no Yume, started their set. They were a Mexican visual band who played covers of J-rock songs, the only one I recognized being Brise by Malice Mizer. And heh... their look was... intriguing. :p I used half of my first roll of film on them... especially on the bassist, who somehow managed to look like a cross between 2nd period BLOOD's Taichi and Kaede. Needless to say, he intrigued me. >> << I'd swear he kept looking straight at me too, which was special...

The next band to take the stage for a one-hour set was LARKSPUR, a Korean non-visual rock band who I guess was supposed to serve as BLOOD's opening act. They played a pretty good set, consisting of some original songs and some J-rock covers... but again, I only recognized one of them, which was Endless Rain by X Japan. Not as intriguing as Tenshi no Yume or as entertaining as BLOOD, but still a good band... and the vocal/guitarist was all cute and the keyboardist was all bouncy and hyper and smiley. :P So yeah... used the rest of my first film roll on them.

Finally their set ended... but before BLOOD took the stage, the TNT staff decided to make the already horribly crowded conditions in the audience worse by spending about half an hour throwing about a dozen T-shirts, a couple magazine things featuring BLOOD, and a couple dozen bottles of water into the audience. Now, again, already the place was so packed we could barely move or breathe... and their throwing stuff just led to more pushing and shoving and fighting and knocking each other over and even more potential for injury than the concert itself. Ouch. >_<

FINALLY, shortly after 6:00, BLOOD took the stage. And my first impression was that their costumes look considerably better on stage than they do in photographs. o_o Probably because they leave out all the clunky accessories for performances... also, Fu-ki wore pants instead of that drapey skirt thing, and Kiwamu did not wear the eyepatch or the red wig. Instead he had a dot between his eyes. *amused* Anyway... as usual, Kiwamu led the charge, wasting no time in pointing and gesturing at the audience trying to get everyone as revved up as possible. He was all smiley and happy too, which was... entertaining. :P Kaede came out around the same time, but he kept his back to the audience until their set actually started. Finally, Fu-ki took his center stage position and did his usual "I AM GAAAAAAAAAWD" routine (^_~) for a minute before turning his back to the crowd as well. Kiwamu eventually joined them in facing the other direction, but it never lasted long before he had to turn around and pump up the crowd some more. :P

So at last, after several minutes of all this, the show began. Set list was as follows:

Byakuya
Oboro
Sweetest Disease
Sakura
Morphine (TRANS mix)
I Remember You
Gothic
Awake
Maria
The Funeral for Humanity
Blind
Unforgiven
Under the Sensual Moon
D.T.M.H.
new song (maybe Nevermore...? sorry, I missed the title ><)
~encore~
member introductions
Morphine (TRANS mix)

First point of interest music-wise was that they played a new version of Oboro, remixed by Fu-ki, which was quite cool. Also, Kiwamu doesn't really lead the "para para" anymore apparently... Fu-ki seems to have taken over that role... and his favorite moves seem to be bouncing up and down, this double-fisted air-punching thing, arm swaying, and... the chicken. XD Fair amount of headbanging and spinning too, of course. And Kaede did his cute swaying thing during Sakura. ;__; Oh, and there was also plenty of that... special... headbanging... bouncing... fist pumping... thing... that Fu-ki demonstrated on the DVD that comes with the VENGEANCE for BLOOD album. I don't know how to describe it... other than "Dude! I ROOOOOOOOCK!" >.> <.<

Ahem, anyway... their new song Gothic is also really cool. Slow and dark and heavy and... really cool. *.* Not too many other notes musicwise, so as for the members themselves... as I said, Kiwamu was his usual crowd-pumping self, Fu-ki was his usual "I am godly, admire my hand gestures" self, and Kaede was his usual quiet-but-bass-rocking self, though he did get into a few of the songs enough to run around on stage and rev up the crowd. He also watered his fans. ^_^ (check out the end of the Glaz Art footage on the Funeral for Humanity DVD, where he sprinkled water on the audience, to appreciate that one >>) Also, the guest members, Yuu and Noa, did a great job. :D Yuu especially was VERY energetic and into the performance. I heard later that they told him he was being a little TOO hyper and should calm down. :P But yeah, they both did a great job, and they fit into BLOOD extremely well. *2 thumbs up*

In other concert notes, there wasn't a whole lot of fanservice this time around. Only a few instances of Fu-ki leaning directly into the other members' faces while singing particular verses of particular songs... and of course, the biting of Fu-ki's neck by Kiwamu during The Funeral for Humanity. The most entertaining, however, was Fu-ki's revenge during Unforgiven - right at the beginning of the song he grabbed Kiwamu by the hair and dragged him to his knees, where he proceeded to... er, basically... make him his bitch for the duration of the song. ^-^;;;

And now let me remind you that not only had neither of us eaten anything all day besides a few chips and a couple waters, but we also hadn't slept in 2 days. So a bit over halfway through the concert, all of that took its toll and we had to break out of the audience to watch the rest of the show from off to the side where few people were standing. I just felt sort of dizzy and short of breath at worst, but my poor kitty nearly passed out completely. T_T So yeah... we needed out of there. No big loss, since we could still see the show quite well from the sidelines, and even got to take some better pictures of the whole stage as opposed to a member at a time. But yeah, that's why I missed the title of that one song near the end of the set list... we were kinda preoccupied with trying not to pass out.

Finally the main set ended, but they returned for a brief encore, in which Fu-ki introduced the members in his own... cute way. :P Namely, first he pointed at Kaede and led the crowd in chanting his name... then he pointed at Kiwamu and asked everyone "What is his name?" which started the chant of Kiwamu's name... then he pointed to himself and asked if we knew who he was... which again started the chant of his name... which, I might add, sounds really amusing in Spanish. :P;; Finally he introduced the guest musicians, Yuu and Noa... and again, they're both really great performers. In particular, some of Yuu's poses and gestures at the crowd rivaled Fu-ki himself. Then they played Morphine again, followed by some tossing of shirts and water and other random objects into the crowd... including Fu-ki teasing the audience with several fake throws before actually releasing the item, and one shirt accidentally being thrown too high and getting stuck in the lighting rig XD... and then the show was over.

That done, we proceeded to the back of the hall where the BLOOD booth was, where they would follow the live with a signing session. We were the first ones there, but we didn't even want autographs... I was just waiting to talk to Kiwamu because he had asked me to. >.> <.< But of course, very quickly a crowd built up behind us clamoring to be first in line, and again we found ourselves trapped between tons of people and nearly being flung over the signing table. Again, we didn't even want anything signed... so the best part was when con staff finally started "organizing" (so to speak) everyone into an actual line and a security guy grabbed me by my backpack to drag me away from the table, telling me to go back to the end of the line. I probably confused the heck out of that guy when I told him "THANK YOU! Graaaaacias!" since we didn't want to be in that line in the first place, but couldn't break out of it on our own. >_<

So then we had no choice but to wait around for a couple hours until the monstrous line for autographs finally reached its end, and then after the band returned backstage to gather their things and return to their hotel, Andres led me backstage to announce my presence to Kiwamu. But it took a couple minutes to get his attention, so Kaede was the first to acknowledge me. So I got a "Ah, Becky? o.o (me: hai!) Ahhh~ ^o^" out of him, which was cute. :3 Then he joined Andres in repeatedly calling "Kiwamu-san! Kiwamu-sa~~~n!" and nudging me into the room from behind until the man finally turned around and associated me with their "Becky is here" introductions. Then suddenly he was all happy and perky and "AAAAAaaaah Becky!! :D" and grabbed me in a random hug (sandwiching me between him and Kaede I might add >>) and planting a huge black-lipsticked kiss on my forehead. Then he looked at the black smudge left behind, said "Ooh, sugoi!" and... did it again. Then giggled about how he'd made my face all dirty. >.> He and Kaede then thanked me for helping them and such, then Karime asked me to take pictures of her with each of the members, so I did that... and somewhere in the middle of that process, Fu-ki realized who I was and gave me this surprised look while saying my name, then stuck out his hand to shake mine with his big characteristic smirk. :P Then he returned to picking on the other members and staffers and headbutting their bouncer guy in the stomach and etc, while Karime took a picture of me and my black forehead smudges with Kiwamu. >>

So after a few minutes of this sort of thing, I returned to the main... concert... room... hall... place... thing >.>... to rejoin Calla and have a taxi called to take us back to our hotel. But not before being waved and smirked at by Kiwamu from the band's van as they were on their way out too. >>

Soooo, back at our hotel, after a quick stop in our room to drop off our stuff, we decided to randomly wander around the hotel for a while, mostly hanging out at the balcony on our floor that overlooks the pool and bar area on the floor below, just sort of watching the world go by. We were amused when the other group of fans and such (the one we had encountered a few members of the night before) kept popping in and out of their rooms, spotting us looking over the balcony at nothing in particular, and then looking over the balcony themselves to see what the big deal was. :P Eventually we joined that whole group in one of their rooms to hang out and eat pizza and other random interesting foreign snacks for the rest of the evening, until around 4 am when everyone was falling over from exhaustion and we decided to call it a day. And thus we retired to our own room to attempt sleep...

Oh, I must also add that at some point during this very insane and entertaining day, Calla gave Kiwamu chocolate. :P There are multiple stories behind that one... first he won a candy bar from a bet with her that he didn't even know about >> <<, then one day a couple months ago he randomly asked me for chocolate. Soooo we gave him a Crunch bar and M&M's (and apparently taught him a new word in the process - "candy" :D). That story will continue in tomorrow's review... :P

~Day 3: Friday, May 6~

Not much to report for Friday. We spent most of the afternoon just hanging around in the hotel trying to rest, until finally our taxi was prepared and we departed for the convention center, arriving around 5:30. The Korean band LARKSPUR was just finishing their set, so we staked out a position on Kiwamu's side of the stage... managed to get even closer to the front, but unfortunately, we were also right in front of a speaker. Our poor ears. x_x The crowding and shoving was just as bad too... but at least it was easier to breathe and find elbow room when we actually managed to reach the barricade between the front row and the stage.

So, after another agonizing round of con staff throwing shirts and water and magazines for what felt like hours, BLOOD finally emerged. Like the previous day, Kiwamu was all crowd-pumping, Fu-ki was all godly, and Kaede was all stoic and cute. Set list was as follows:

The Funeral for Humanity
Blind
Unforgiven
Collector
Byakuya
Morphine (TRANS mix)
Gothic
Oboro
Maria
Blood
Death Dies
I Remember You
Tanmei
Sweetest Disease
D.T.M.H.
~encore~
Pegasus Fantasy (Saint Seiya theme)
Blind

First of all, it was interesting to hear Collector live. o.o I actually kinda enjoy that song, despite the fact that the lyrics are... well... scary? x_x; Probably because the song has some of the most amazing bass riffs I've ever heard, and I have a thing for bass. I was sad that I was too far away from Kaede during the show to see him rock out on those riffs though. :\ Also, they perform Death Dies a little differently now than they used to... more energetic, mainly... and they sort of keep up a constant chant of "DIES! DIES! DIES! DIES!" throughout the chorus instead of the original "death DIES death DIES!" Anyway... also noticed that these guys really get into D.T.M.H. at live shows. From their perspective, I can understand why... it's a really energetic, hard song, even if there's not that much to it. And on a final note as far as the music goes... they played Pegasus Fantasy! :D *dance* I've been dying to see them perform that song for like, a year now... and it really was fun to hear from them. The whole crowd was singing along, and I'm proud to say I could join in. ^^;

As for other random notes... the members were their usual selves, with a few interesting additions and changes. Kiwamu spit blood again this time, something he didn't do during Thursday's show for some reason... and also, it seems that Yuu has taken over (or is at least sharing) Kiwamu's former role of convulsing and spewing blood during Death Dies. O.o Oh, and Fu-ki let Noa sing lead at a few points during some songs, which was very cool. Some of the most amusing points of the night... during one song Fu-ki actually laid down on the speaker in front of us (which made for a great photo op :P), and... he was all smirky through the whole thing, which is always amusing. x) Also, about halfway through the show Kiwamu seemed to finally realize where we were in the crowd, so from then on he kept making faces and pointing at us. >.> He also still has the habit of throwing water at the crowd in his own systematic fashion - he flings two or three splashes first, then the whole bottle, then the cap, then walks away. One of the highlights of the evening was when someone threw his bottlecap right back at him as he turned to walk away. XD We were also pretty amused when Fu-ki was trying to say something but everyone was screaming over him, so Kiwamu yelled "Shut up! SHUT UP! He's talking! Damare!" which really just sort of had the opposite effect. :P And what else... same plot-style fanservice during Funeral and Unforgiven, plus this time Kiwamu decided to kiss the daylights out of Fu-ki when he was in the middle of singing some verse... you could actually hear his voice go all squeaky and HOLY FOOK when Kiwamu kiss-raped him. :P Another amusing moment was Fu-ki patting Kaede on the butt. *giggles* And finally, Yuu performed a very... graphic perverted hand gesture at the audience, which amused us more than it should have... >.> <.<

And that's all I can remember from the live itself... we then waited around again while they had their signing session and gathered up their stuff backstage, busying ourselves toward the end of our wait by playing volleyball with a random black feather we'd found on the floor. Felines are easily amused. >> Anyway, finally they emerged from backstage. Kaede smiled and waved as he went by... but we were still batting that feather around (or I was, anyway... can't remember every detail now >>) when Kiwamu emerged. We both heard him break into a run coming straight toward us, and both of us figured he was probably going to try to snatch our feather and run or something... but instead the man went all unpredictable and flying-tackled Calla for no apparent reason. *dies* Then he told her the chocolate she gave him the day before was very good, and to give him more. He even specified that he wanted the Crunch bar. :P So we told him we had another candy bar (not Crunch, but still chocolate) waiting in the room, one of those huge king-sized ones, and we'd give it to him later. So then he was all happy and randomly petted me as he walked out toward the band's van. >> We followed shortly after to get our own taxi, and he kept waving and staring at both of us from the van, gesturing with his hands the large size of the candy bar he wanted us to give him. <<

Then we returned to our hotel and headed down to the cafe for dinner, and after that we were both exhausted enough to go to bed at the blasphemously early hour of 11:30, and thus ended day 3 or our Mexican excursion.

~Day 4: Saturday, May 7~

After lazing around the hotel for as long as we could bear to procrastinate (which is a long time if you're us :P), we called our own taxi to the convention center again, thinking we'd arrived early enough to get front row spots on Kaede's side of the stage... but alas, no such luck. So again we stood in front of Kiwamu, even further off to the side than the previous day... but on the plus side, we weren't quite as close to the speaker, and being right at the barricade we could actually breathe and feel a draft blowing through the area in front of the stage.

Anyway, when we got there some random Mexican visual band was finishing their set, and after that ended the cosplay judging event began on the same stage. Turns out BLOOD had been selected to be the judges of the event, which we'd known nothing about previously... so they took the stage in full costume and were seated at a table while the cosplay contestants paraded in front of them. And you know, apparently these Mexicans really go all out on cosplay. O.o The contestants included everything from the very common Inuyasha to things like Gandalf, Edward Scissorhands, the mother alien from Alien(s), and a random velociraptor; but I think the most common cosplay theme of the bunch was Naruto. A lot of them were extremely detailed - the mother alien costume even had the little second set of teeth that protruded from its external mouth, and more than one cosplayer wore a set of wings that must have spanned at least 10-12 feet and, feather for feather, were made in pretty impressive detail. It was amusing to see BLOOD interacting with some of the finalists after the judging was over... especially Fu-ki, who patted the mother alien on the head and lifted the winner, a little kid in an extremely shiny golden armor costume (winged again), in the air for all to see. ^^

So that event ended and BLOOD returned to the backstage area, which we could see pretty well since our eye level was just above the height of the stage itself. There were a few inches of open space between the stage and the screen on that side, through which we saw Kaede and Fu-ki peering under the screen toward the stage to watch WINDY, the Korean girl group who played some sort of rock style music with traditional string instruments. Not bad at all musically, but... oww, as if we weren't close enough to the speaker... those strings... *clutches ears* Anyway, at least we were able to amuse ourselves watching Kaede and Fu-ki peering at the stage from under the screen, especially when Kaede spotted us and waved again. :3

Finally the eardrum-scraping WINDY left the stage, allowing the TNT staff to cause still more riots by throwing more shirts and magazines and water before BLOOD at last emerged. So far no new quirks that we hadn't seen in the previous 2 shows, except that Kiwamu flipped everyone off when he came out >>, so here's the set list...

The Funeral for Humanity
Blind
Unforgiven
Collector
Byakuya
Morphine (TRANS mix)
Gothic
Oboro
Maria
Blood
Death Dies
I Remember You
Tanmei
Sweetest Disease
D.T.M.H.
~encore~
Pegasus Fantasy

So, happily, they played Collector again... and as I expected, Kaede kicked serious tail in it. Too bad he wasn't on our side of the stage so I could see his fingers fly over that bass up close... but oh well, at least I finally got to watch him play those riffs. I also realized then that I just might have been the only person in the audience who was able to sing along with that song. O.o Most of it at least... Anyway, not a lot of new stuff to report from this one. Same plot-style fanservice, plus another instance of Kiwamu kiss-raping Fu-ki, leaving the poor boy standing there looking all "O_O... XD;;;" again... and also leaving a huge slobbery mess of fake blood all over Fu-ki's face and hair. >.> Same para para and interesting gestures and poses and such also (Fu-ki gave us a dirty look once when we didn't participate in some particular move he was leading the crowd in :P)... same energetic participation by Noa and Yuu... same flinging and spitting of water... and Yuu actually lit up a cigarette on stage at one point and blew the smoke at the fans. X_x He shook up a huge can of beer and opened it so it sprayed half the audience too, then proceeded to drink and spit it at everyone... yeeeeah, Yuu had a lot of fun with audience interaction. ^^; And the final amusing moment I can recall was toward the end when Kaede came to our side of the stage with a bottle of water to fling around, and he actually looked at us and gave us a questioning look as if to ask permission before finally flinging it our way. We gestured for him to go ahead... figured the shower would cool us off nicely... though we didn't expect him to throw the entire half-full bottle at us, or for it to bounce somewhere behind us and completely soak Calla's back... ^^;;

So, the show ended... and this time we decided to actually join the line to get autographs, as Calla still lacked Fu-ki's and I still needed Noa and Yuu's. Was hoping to get something signed for a friend I promised autographs to as well, but I could only have one item signed... sorry dear. ;_; Anyway, our turn came, and the guest musicians signed our stuff first, followed by Kaede, then Kiwamu and Fu-ki. Was pretty amusing... Kaede was the only one who seemed to be paying attention to who he was signing for before he actually signed. He gave me a smile and wave again as I passed him, then passed the thingy on to Kiwamu, who was all slumped down in his chair paying absolutely no attention and scribbled some quick... thing that looks nothing like any variation of his name >.>... and finally Fu-ki signed my paper and actually looked up as he handed it back to me... and actually visibly jumped when he realized who I was. :P He then went into this long string of Japanese that I didn't catch most of, partially because of the psycho noisy crowd around me and partially because he was laughing as he said it... but I did catch that he hadn't realized I was there and that I surprised him. Again, laughing out loud all the while. That moment made my day. XD Also amusing was when that little outburst prompted Kiwamu to actually pay attention to his surroundings, and he looked up at me, laughed, and growled "Omae naa...!" ("Yooouuu...!") LOL

So after we got our autographs and marveled at the complete randomness of Kaede's and Kiwamu's chicken scratch signatures for a while, we found one of Andres' staffers to help us catch a taxi back to our hotel. However, before we could retire there for the night, we encountered Shelly and Kiwamu, who immediately beckoned me over and asked me if I knew about the staff party going on that night. I had known about it previously, as both he and Andres had invited me there, but I didn't know exact details about it so I said no. So Shelly told me they were just on their way to go there, and as soon as that was out, Kiwamu said "Ok, let's go!" while grabbing my arm and starting to drag me out the door. >> <<

Anyway, he then told me where to meet the band and their party so we could all depart together, and rushed me off to go get ready. >.> So after a quick return to our hotel room to change and drop off some things, Calla and I headed down to the chosen meeting place, where everyone except Noa was hanging around waiting. It was at that moment that I first got to see Kaede completely out of costume and makeup, with his new haircut. As expected, I didn't recognize him. Thought at a distance that he must've been Noa, until it was announced that Noa was the one we were still waiting for. O_o I do like his new cut though... it sort of frames his face in front and reaches a bit past his shoulders in the back, no bangs, very natural looking smooth black... it actually does look cute in a masculine way. o.o

Anyway, when Kiwamu realized we'd arrived, he walked over and immediately made the "big candy bar" gesture at Calla, so she gave him the two Crunch bars she'd bought him on the way there (substitutes for a giant Crunch bar, which they didn't sell) and he was a happy camper. :P I would've given him the giant candy bar I'd brought from home too, but after Calla spoiled him with the Crunch bars I decided I'd give mine to Kaede instead. >> Never got a chance to do that though, sadly... <<

Oh, I should also mention that it was sometime during this whole pre-party process that I encountered Kiwamu while walking around in my blindingly cute slippers (see here to understand this part :3), which had given him a good laugh... so while we were hanging around waiting for Noa, Kiwamu noticed that I'd changed into black shoes and he made some comment about that (the dork wanted me to go to the party in my slippers I think :P and to be honest, I would have, but they would've gotten dirty >>)... and then he got Fu-ki's attention to tell him about the slippers I'd had on earlier. Fu-ki kept looking at me, I guess waiting for me to explain them or something... not sure... but yeah, he was all intrigued after Kiwamu told him they were really cute and had made him laugh. :P So I told Fu-ki I'd show them to him later and he gave me this insanely happy *nodnodnodnod ^_______^* thing. LOL

Then, eventually, someone reminded Kiwamu that not all of us would fit in the same van to go to this party... so a few of the Mexican staff members provided for the band by TNT told me they were calling a separate taxi for me and Calla. So right around the same time Noa finally showed up and the main party headed for their van, our cab arrived... so everyone was off, in different vehicles but at pretty much the same time. However, due to a chain of events set in motion by a certain preppy little female Mexican staff member, which I won't go into any further detail about here... only one of those vehicles actually went to the party. Guess which one didn't? -_- Sooooo, with no other choice, we returned to our hotel room so pissed we couldn't see straight - not because of missing the party, just simply because of the irresponsible (to put it politely) actions of that woman that had caused us to miss it.

Anyway, we spent the next few hours trying to calm ourselves down enough to stomach a few bites of the random junk food still lying around in the room before we finally went to bed, dreaming up as many ways as possible to maim that bitch when we saw her again the next day. And yeah... that was our Saturday. -_-

~Day 5: Sunday, May 8~

Very, very little to report about Sunday. We still weren't in the greatest of moods when we woke up, so we lazed around the room until about 4 in the afternoon, when we decided to go see if anything BLOOD-related was going on during TNT's final day (after a side stop to get some more money exchanged into pesos, that is). Sadly it seemed there wasn't; Yuu and Noa were there with some of the staffers selling the band's merchandise, and we saw Kiwamu and Shelly on the way outside to get a taxi, but one of the TNT staff guys told us there'd be no concerts that day, so we figured there was nothing worth fighting those insane shoulder-to-shoulder crowds for. I wouldn't have expected the place to be even more crowded on Sunday than on Friday and Saturday, especially with no concerts going on. x.x But oh well... we bought a couple magazines that featured BLOOD, one of which included a CD-R with four BLOOD songs, a BLOOD gallery, and some videos from previous TNT expos... and then we returned to the hotel. Sadly we couldn't find Andres to say goodbye to him. :\ Wish there'd been more time to hang out with him... he was so sweet to both of us the entire time. He even randomly gave us massages and cheek kisses and stuff every time we did see him. *reaches to fluff him*

Anyway, back at the hotel, we ordered dinner via room service and hung around doing very little for most of the evening. One thing we did to kill time was look through the magazines we'd bought, which led us to discover that the biography section printed in one included set lists for pretty much every show BLOOD has performed... and for the Fanime entry, it seemed they'd decided to use the set list I wrote myself (translated into Spanish) during that concert. That kinda amused me. :P Anyway, some hours later we were bored enough to just randomly wander around wherever our feet would take us... and on one such trip we managed to run into Shelly. She asked us what had happened the previous night, so we spent a while discussing that whole ordeal... and at some point during our conversation Fu-ki wandered along and saw the three of us talking, and made one of his special little cocky pointing gestures at us. So since I'd promised him the night before that I'd show him my slippers, and I happened to be wearing them (I took as many opportunities as I could to wear those things >> <<), I held up one foot over the railing thingy for him to see, and as soon as he saw it he broke into a run around the corner and straight toward me, stopping in front of me to literally double over giggling as he pointed at my feet. Then just as he was catching his breath, he spotted Calla in her own... special slippers, and went into another point-and-giggle-fit at those. We found all this unbelievably amusing. XD *noogies the nerd boy* Another point I must add on the subject of Fu-ki, however... that man is REALLY SKINNY. X_x Had us just slightly concerned, since we know he wasn't always such a toothpick...

Anyway, then they moved along and things quieted down for a while... but not before I had one more chance to see Kaede in regular street clothes looking all normal. As in no makeup or wig, quite cool patterned brown shirt, dark blue jeans, and even a chain hanging at his waist. And you know what? He's quite sexy as a man. >.> <.< His new haircut really does look good on him... and to think I never thought I'd get used to seeing him without that long feminine hairstyle. o_o I wish I could've found the time to take a picture of his new look, but I didn't want to bother the members with cameras in their downtime outside of the con...

Anyway, things quieted down then as the BLOOD party continued with their evening out... which gave Calla and I time to discover that we could see into our own room through the window from the part of the hall on the other side of the floor, so we spent some time stalking each other that way. :P Mostly with her staying in the room and me hanging around on the other side making faces at her. Yes, we were bored. >> << So eventually we holed up in our room again, figuring we weren't likely to run into the band again since they'd probably be out and about for a good while, so on to bed we went... and ever since, we've been telling ourselves we should've just walked up and told Kiwamu earlier that evening to bring everyone over to our room cause we were bored and had tons of junk food to get rid of. Plus our room was huge and everyone would've fit comfortably. >.> Darn... but anyway, that ended day 5...

~Day 6: Sunday, Man 9~

The only thing that really happened on day 6 was flying home... and learning a few things from talking with some other BLOOD fans/agents at the airport as we all waited for our flight (we would all fly to Chicago together on a transfer, and part ways there). Such as, the band had apparently left at like 4:00 that morning, so we'd missed them... and also that, after they got in the previous night, Kiwamu wondered if he should grab me and Calla and gather everyone to hang out, but they told him no, everyone was too tired. No wonder we were bored all night. >> So then we knew we REALLY should've just walked up and smacked Kiwamu and told him to bring everyone to our room and amuse us. << Anyway... we also learned of some of the events we missed at that staff party we never made it to... such as Fu-ki prancing around in a Dr. Seuss hat, and Kaede getting completely trashed. >.x And I believe the final BLOOD-related note we learned was that they HAD played another concert on Sunday after all, and we hadn't known about it because the TNT staff guy told us no concerts were planned for that day. >_< Why do I have a feeling the staff party situation AND the Sunday concert would've actually gone our way if only we'd been able to find Andres... *sigh*

But oh well... our flight finally showed up, so that was pretty much all the BLOOD conversation we had, and our journey home truly began. Amazingly we reached Port Columbus pretty much exactly at the scheduled time, and managed to return to Calla's without incident (except when we briefly got lost in the airport parking lot >.>; ).

Sooooo basically, other than a few rough spots, our Mexico experience was a pretty good time. There were a lot of things we didn't like, such as the smoggy insanity of Mexico City and the crowds and overheating of TNT and what seemed to us like the worst traffic situation in the known universe... and some things we still regret, like not getting to see more of Andres, missing the Sunday concert, and not being able to hang out more with the band even though Kiwamu seemed to actually want to spend time with us. But as I think about it... even if I am BLOOD staff, I'm just a translator, so there wasn't much actual work I really could've done for them at the convention that someone else wasn't already doing. Plus, working for them would've had me either missing ALL their concerts or having to watch them from some weird location like behind the stage or way in the back of the hall where the booth was. And with no real work to do, I would've felt like I was just in the way all the time anyway. So, all things considered, I'm thankful that I got to spend as much time with them as I did, that they all know and trust me now (and Calla too apparently :P), and that we got to enjoy three excellent BLOOD concerts.

So that's it. Before I wrap this up, I must thank BLOOD and the guest musicians, Shelly, Leslie, Roger, Miwa, and Karime and her sister for being there for us and helping us feel more at home during our stay... and special thanks to Andres, who dedicated so much of his precious time, energy, and staff to making sure our stay went as smoothly as possible. And thanks most of all to my kitty, who somehow did most of the communicating that got us where we needed to go (:P) and without whom I would not have been able to make this trip. *glomps the Calla*

And that is all for now. With any luck, I'll be posting here again in... oh, November or so... ^_^