Personal Story, Part 3: The Final Pleasantly Surprised Fan Meet 「喜歡．一個人」最終回見面會

Welcome to my last post about the Pleasantly Surprised fan meet! You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here if you've missed the begining of my tale (Part 2 in particular has some cute Puff and Jasper moments)...In my last chapter, I'd just finished talking about the Hi-5 meet and getting the opportunity to Hi-5 Puff, Jasper and the crew (and to talk to them very briefly!)

So after everyone had completed the Hi-5ing, Jian-An announced that the crew would pose as a group for the audience to take photos. You may have noticed, but these photos are by the far ones I took! Why? Well, because the crew posed properly (or at least moved a little less :D) and they turned on the right lighting for photos...and everyone just had fun for the cameras....

Ba Yu pulled Yorke's hand so he was poking her on the cheek, Puff made a funny pose to show Jasper and then they laughed so hard that Puff was leaning on his shoulder for a few minutes laughing (Sorry wasn't quick enough to catch that shot!...Or I caught the tail end of that happening in some of my pics)...Verna was doing her signature hair twirl...ahhh, everything I loved about the crew can be found in these photos...We were allowed to take several and then they moved to the other side of the room so that those audience members could take pics too...There were a few more group pictures that would have been perfect if the girl in front of me hadn't suddenly stood up! Sad stuff....but I do like the shots that I took anyway :)

I feel like the other side of the room got the advantage with these group photos because it was confusing for everyone...the crew were trying to figure out the best poses and trying to get in sync, while the audience were trying to figure out how to take the best photos...Even in the first couple of photos, they were still trying to alter the lighting!...But by the time they shifted over to the other side, everyone was ready....but ah well, I can't really complain. I posted one of these pics on instagram recently and Stanley Mei 'liked' it!!! Yayyyy!!!

OK photos now go back to the normal lighting as they turned off the nice bright lights...

I like this shot of Sean's face..ahahaha

After these photos had been taken, it was time to wrap up the event with everyone's goodbye speeches....It was so sad! I wanted the event to go on for longer, but by then, it was getting late. So they started the good bye speeches with Jasper's speech. He thanked everyone for their support with the show and the fan meet. He also thanked the crew for all the fun times. He'd had a lot of fun playing Ah Jie and acting with Puff and would miss his Pleasantly Surprised family a lot.

Jian-An then turned to Puff and asked if she'd like to say some final words. She thanked Jasper and the crew for being a fun group to work with (she said it was like being back in school again - every work day was like playtime!)...She said everyone had been family from the beginning of filming till now and she would continue to catch up with every one after the series. She also thanked the audience for showing so much love to Pleasantly Surprised. Then she ended her thank yous by thanking the filming crew and director for all their physical labour and hard work. To which Jasper added his thanks too. Puff said that Kai Qi would always be a character that she'd love and felt honoured to play.

Jolin also thanked all the audience for supporting the show and for coming out to meet the crew. He would miss everyone and miss his awesome character, Hao Wei, even though he didn't get the girl. He said that they'd captured all the good times in the behind the scenes clips and SPOP, especially this month's issue (which summarises the whole Pleasantly Surprised series and has all the missing photos from the August photo shoot)...and he said that if we missed them, we could always go back and look at these beautiful memories...He would be flipping through SPOP himself (ahaha, good marketing plug Jolin!) :D

Mason, speaking from Jolin's arms, had a really cute little speech thanking everyone for watching the show every week...he said "Thank you everyone for staying up late every week to watch Pleasantly Surprised!" to which everyone laughed (Pleasantly Surprised aired at 11:00pm in Taiwan, so it must have been late for Mason. Wayy past his bed time!)

Lene talked about how amazing it had been to be part of the Pleasantly Surprised crew. She also talked about how she thought it'd be impossible for her to pull off a "cute" character (Haha, she usually plays the seductive/ sexy girl and sometimes the mean, psychotic female characters). But she'd learnt a lot from Le Xuan, and she ended her talk with a cute curtesy, blowing a kiss to the audience. Sean had a speech that made people laugh...He thanked everyone for loving Head Chef as a character because he felt that Head Chef was meant to be a really unlikeable person, given that Head Chef was always trying to be clever and talking himself up all the time! But he was really happy that so many fans had told him that they liked Head Chef. He also thanked all the fans for loving all of the other characters on Pleasantly Surprised and for following the show for the past 6 months...

I can't say I remember Ba Yu's speech very well, sorry! Too much going on!...But when Yorke came to speak, with all the sentimental speeches that had happened, Verna couldn't contain herself and had started to cry...and because of that, she triggered off Puff. Puff was crying so much that she had to duck behind Jasper and Jolin for a cry.

At first Jasper wasn't paying too much attention I guess because speeches were still going on and maybe he wanted to give Puff some space. But then Puff was really crying quite a bit....And those standing on that side could notice. Lene pulled back to check that Puff was ok. Jolin was patting her back. Jasper, out from his trance, turned around to check on Puff too. As people in the audience were handing out tissues, someone on the side (I think an editor for SPOP) grabed some tissues and tapped Jasper to give them to her. At first, I thought he might just be giving her tissues. But then I saw a swift hand movement close to her face, like he might be wiping her tears!

I think it might have happened perhaps as something funny to cheer up Puff, because Lene laughed and a few others of the cast turned to look. Even Verna, who was looking from the other side and crying pretty hard herself, couldn't help but laugh. It was a quick moment, and as they were turned around I couldn't see everything, but I caught a photo I think just before or just after it happened. I thought it might have been just my eyes, but the girl next to me hit her friend pretty hard and hushed excitedly, "He's wiping away her tears!!!" So I think I'm not the only one who saw it happen...Anyway...this picture is the closest I got to what happened...

In terms of the speeches, everyone had their turn to say something. The only other two I really remember was Verna's speech and Stanley Mei's speech. Stanley had a lot to say about how fun it was to work this crew. He said that in real life, he thinks he's a really boring person and usually goes to work and then goes home. But these guys taught him how to have fun and they really bonded so much that they'd often hang out after work and he'd really miss them! Aww. Verna burst out crying and talked about how touched she was that everyone had come out to support the crew and the show. And she sobbed, and then said really loudly, "I love all you guys!" which was met with much applause and love. Because Verna was crying so much, Mason went up to her gave his favourite big Jie jie a hug! Awwwwww!!!!

Deyn, I think mentioned, that he hoped everyone would work with each other again in the future. And I don't remember Zooey's speech, but she was crying so much that Ba Yu ended up giving her a hug :) I've recorded Vic's speech (it came a little late to my head that I should have recorded the speeches!) and I'll upload it onto to YouTube hopefully when I have time. I also have the dance that Puff, Jasper, Mason and Jolin did when she first came...

After that the actors all took a deep bow and then stood for the Closing song of the series. Jian-An joked with Sean about whether or not he wanted to sing along. Everyone in the audience waved their mobile lights up in the air like candles. The actresses were still crying, especially Verna, but some of the crew were also singing including Puff...and then from my right side came screams...And I realised that Jian-An was handing out signed Puff and Jasper Pleasantly Surprised posters to each of the actors for them to throw into the crowd. Jasper threw his poster out to the right side of the room so there was no way I could have caught that. It was too crazy with the fans on my side too (as in people snatching and flying out at others), so I didn't end up catching any :( But it's alright I guess! After the posters were gone, Jian-An announced that the crew were going and they all waved as they left the stage, Puff being the first to leave and Vic the last. (Probably for her safety too as some fans were a little...scary with how much they loved her.)

Everyone got a free gift on the way out, which was a heart shaped coaster of either Puff or Jasper (the picture being the promotional picture for Pleasantly Surprised). I got a Puff one, but swapped it for a Jasper one on the way out when I saw that the guy giving them out had only one more Jasper one left (Sorry Puff! They wouldn't let me have two.) When I left the building, I found fans gathered at the doors waiting for the stars to leave the buildings. I joinned them too, feeling a little guilty for being so fangirly. But I didn't act crazy or anything....I mean, there was a girl that walked out of the building with short hair, glasses, a cap and a long cardigan...and fans fully rushed up to her screaming, "Puff!!! Puff!!!" It was sorta scary! I had a feeling that Puff, Jasper and maybe even Lene wouldn't leave from the front entrance (for their own safety). And I was right (except for Lene). But I did see Mason as they rushed him out of the building. I also saw and took a pic of Jolin, Deyn and Yorke leave to catch a taxi together. 

Then Stanley took a cab by himself. Ba Yu, Verna and Lene came out together and shared a cab. 

And finally Zooey came out to catch a cab by herself (Everyone else must have driven or had private drivers and escorts...). Then that was the end! I was really happy seeing these guys live and I feel blessed that everything went reasonably well. As I mentioned before, I do wish I'd had the opportunity to do some things differently (e.g talk more to them), but it would have been difficult given how ushered we were from spot to spot. Hehe, I also wish I had captured more Puff and Jasper moments, but it was harder from the left side of the room. Nonetheless it was a great experience and I had heaps of fun...and I touched Jasper!!! I hope you've had fun reading about my fan meet experience...Thanks for re-living the journey with me! You Pleasantly Surprised fans rock as much as the cast do :)

Personal Story, Part 2: The Final Pleasantly Surprised Fan Meet 「喜歡．一個人」最終回見面會

Welcome to part two of my Pleasantly Surprised fan meet re-cap! Part 1 was getting ultra lengthy, so I decided to break it up into another chapter. You can read Part 1 here. I left off where the actors and their audience team mates where doing PK competitions against other actors, namely their on-screen couplings. So it made sense that Puff and Jasper were against each other in the dance-off PK.

They were super animated and it was entertaining to watch because they were their usual competitive selves, from their 'Rock, paper, scissors' match to decide who would go first, to the actual dancing. I love the look on Puff's face as she competed against Jasper and won. Jasper just waved his arm at Puff when losing, while Puff rubbed her victory in his face fully!

The rest of the PK competition was fun. As Mason was so small, they only started him on the competition in the second round against Ba Yu. Hahaha, Jian-An said it wasn't fair that Mason was playing Ba Yu as she was a pro and he told Ba Yu to go easy on Mason...but Ba Yu still won in the end....so they let Mason play a second-second round with Jolin. If he lost this round, he'd really lose. Mason did such cute little dance moves...but it was Jolin who took out the round! The other second round competitions included Verna and Deyn and Puff and Lene. Or as Jian-An said, Sous Chef v. Second chef. Puff lost out to Lene so she went into the losing corner to pretend cry...Look at Jasper's amused expression as he looked at her...

I want to highlight the interactions between Puff and Jasper after they both lost the game. They were both fairly far away from the action, and seemed content talking to each other. I was happy to see that they were close in real life too...They only stopped talking after the winners were announced...

Lene and her team mate had won beating out Jolin in he semi-finals and Verna in the finals! Her lucky team mate not all scored a 'Figaro spoon' (like all the other participants), but also recieved an SPOP Pleasantly Surprised bag signed by all the stars of the show, as well as a Pleasantly Surprised poster signed by Puff and Jasper! While I was admiring the winner's prize, I also happened to take this shot of Puff and Jasper...probably my favourite shot of them talking casually. It looked cute and playful due to the way they were standing...you know what they say about body language, right? Anyway, again, they stopped to take a photo with the winner and her signed poster.

At this point, the crew took photos with all the participants of the competition before taking a media-photo break. By this, I mean that they paused the fan meet to get official group photos with the audience in the background (this was for the Taiwanese newspapers, magazines, TV channels...as well as for their instagrams). It was a bit of a wait as they had to work out how to gather themselves...(They needed to have their backs to the audience to include us in the background). But it was cute to see them all talking to each other and figuring out how to best include Mason in the shot. In the end, Deyn offered to lift him up onto his shoulder, being the slightly taller one. Jasper and Vic helped Mason up and watched over him as he settled himself down. So much cuteness from the boys!

At this point they turned off the slideshow and changed the lighting, so photos may have a different lighting for the next couple of shots.

In terms of the photos, I was in the front row, so I'm not very visible as an audience member in the fan meet photos, but I have found myself just above Stanley Mei's shoulder in a couple of shots taken with more of the audience on the left-side in the frame.

After the media photos was the best (and most nerve-wrecking) part of the night...The Hi-5 meet! So the special part of this meet was that we'd be able to go physically Hi-5 all the actors from Pleasantly Surprised! I was super nervous because I was actually going to go touch Jasper. And Puff. And Jolin. And everyone. It was crazy and once again surreal because I always thought of them being so far away and beautiful and totally removed from me and my life...but now I'd actually be interacting with them, even if it was for a brief moment in time.

Before the actual Hi-5ing took place, they had to set up the tables (to keep a safe distance between actors and audience) and give us instructions to manage the event smoothly....The Hi-5ing would start with the back rows first and move its way to the front...While all the explaining was taking place, I witnessed a playful Puff-Jasper interaction through my camera. I have to say, this makes me feel a bit like a Paparazzi...but I'll also go to say, I post these photos not to spread rumours, but because I like to see my favourite actors getting along...a bit of proof that their whole friendship isn't just for show! I thought they looked flushered from joking around around too!

Anyway, Puff was talking to Jolin when jasper tapped her on the arm to tell her something. Obviously something funny/ silly because she whacked him and they both laughed. Ah, such a cute moment :) I also thought Yorke and Ba Yu almost looked like their characters too as they were talking about the lighting...such cute expressions....I really love how much fun this cast has had in real life!

In terms of the actual Hi-5 process, it took awhile for everyone to get up there as there were about 300-600 people at the fan meet. While we'd been instructed that we could only Hi-5, and not clasp onto their fingers or anything like that, I was suprised that a lot of people were very quick and brief with their greetings with the actors. I mean some people were really excited and did double Hi-5's and some raced through quickly and loudly Hi-5ing the stars (though they got told off by Jian-An lightly because I think they were a little worried that people would get too excited and lean over the table to get wayyy too close to the stars, or worse assult them. Also Jian-An was worried that people would accidentally hurt Mason!) But there were people that also looked super quiet and shy....

But as I was going up I realised that it wasn't that they had wanted to be brief - they had probably been as nervous as I was! I wanted to say something other than just 'Hi!' But my Chinese isn't the greatest under pressure and what could I say that would be quick and relevant?! Here's the funny part of the story... Travelling alone and staying at a hostel, I'd taken my passport with me in my backpack because I didn't want to have it stolen or lost. But going up for the Hi-5's, I didn't want to drag my heavy backpack with me...but I also didn't want to leave my passport in my bag when I wasn't in my seat. I also didn't have pockets. So I just took about my passport and held it in my hand as I my row approached the handshake table. We had to hand in our numbers (the little numbers we'd waited several hours to recieve to come into the fan meet)...and then shuffle forward in single file to where the guys were standing behind the tables.

My heart was pounding really quickly as Puff was the first person and Jasper was second. I remember noticing how fair and tall she was. She was also super smiley and bright as she said 'Hi!' In my nerves and partly because I'd been staring at my passport before I'd looked up at her, I said quickly, in Chinese, "I came from Australia to meet you guys. Thanks for meeting your fans!" Probably due to a combination of my nervousness (making my voice quiet), my rusty Chinese, the volume of the excited fans in the room and the long-ish sentence I'd stupidly chosen to say...

Puff looked confused. She smiled at me and was like, "Eh?" Feeling nervous to repeat what I'd just said, but too coward to back out, I held up my passport and said the same thing even more quickly if possible. Puff laughed and was like, "Oh my!" putting her hands to her mouth, but it was really Jasper, who must have been listening in, who responded to me by saying, "謝謝, 辛苦了!" which translates roughly to "Thanks for making the effort to come/ It must have been difficult for you"...You may have noticed that he sometimes writes it when he posts an instagram photo with fans who have waited the whole day on set to take a photo with him...Jasper then leaned forward and Hi-5'ed me gently. I was in shock because I hadn't really been thinking he'd been listening. Imagine my surprise when Jolin, who'd be listening in too, said the same thing, straight after Jasper.

What did their hands feel like? Soft! But other than that I can't really say much else because I was in too much shock to fully remember. I also think they were gently Hi-5ing because it was tiring for them given there were still at least 50 people after me! After that, I went down the queue of course. Lene was very quiet...I think she would be a nice person, but I'm often intimidated by such stunning girls when they're not really talkative. Sean was really friendly and postively beamed his radiant smile at my direction which put me at ease straight away! Stanley was nodding and smiling as he Hi-5'ed me and Linda was tiny compared to everyone, but probably still taller than me. Deyn was also really friendly and Vic was surprisingly shy and smiley! As for Yorke, Ba Yu, Mason and Verna, I remember only shyly saying hi to them and lightly tapping their hands. It was all a fantastic blur! I wish I remembered more, I wish I'd defied the no-photos rule and taken some polaroids with them, I wish I'd also told Jasper how much I liked Morning Call...but I suppose all in all, it was an unforgettable experience!

To be continued in Part 3 blog entry...