When I arrived at the main lobby around 10am, Wow, I realized that it was not a normal five-star business hotel. It’s more like a tourist motel with full of people chatting, laughing, shouting, even running around. There were tens of flight baggage chained in front of the bell desk. The main lobby was already full of people to check-out or check-in. There was a long line of queue.
I could see many young girls were hanging around in the main lobby, the hallway, the lobby lounge, outside of the hotel, everywhere. Definitely, they came for the BTS concert.
As it was around 10am and hotel did not allow to check-in till 2pm, I gathered that they were staying at least from yesterday and went for the concert last night and would go for tonight’s concert back to back. They didn’t seem to check-out from the hotel today.
I couldn’t imagine how expensive their trips were. Flights, minimum two nights at Marriott (weekend rate was more than double of weekday’s) and two concerts. Hope they were thankful for their parent’s enormous support and understanding on this THING.
Due to mega BTS fan bookings, Marriot came up with the double registration protocol. When you arrive, you must do a preliminary registration by giving full details before official check-in at 2pm. And you show up at 2pm and do the formal check-in process by giving same details again.
I didn’t understand what would be added value here but had to follow. There was a long line as always. After one hour waiting, finally it became my turn for pre-registration. I showed the paper of booking details with the passport.
“I would like to check-in today. Here are the booking details. And this is my passport.”
The young guy at reception desk looked very very exhausted and tired. For the last few days, he must have had tons of frustration and gone through difficult times with BTS fans, who were not native speakers.
After he heard me (I am not a native speaker but can communicate in English at reasonable level, hopefully) , he smiled brightly and asked me with full of pleasant voice.
“Good morning, Miss ****. Welcome to Marriott. What business brings you here?”
He did emphasize the word ‘Business’. Guess he wished that I did come for business here such as conference, workshop, or business meetings.
Hmm... About five seconds of hesitation as I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I didn’t want to lie or hide my true purpose of this visit, either.
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It was my answer.
His facial expression was changed so quickly with the full of disappointment. He might say to himself ‘Even You, sigh!’. I let him down. But what to do. That was the fact. He didn’t say anything after that, just put my details into the computer.
Pre-registration was completed. Till 2pm for official check-in, I decided to hang around the concert place to get familiar with.
It’s about 5 min. walk to the Arena. There were mostly teenager girls, inside and outside the Arena. Some were buying BTS goods, some were taking pictures in front of BTS Love Yourself Poster (the very same front-cover), some were having meals at McDonalds or Subway. All looked cheerful and excited. I was happy for them
Most of them were Chinese (guess from mainland). Also, many were from Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia, even Russia. Thank god, there were some group of people, who looked definitely older than me. Felt relieved. 99.999% were female fans. I spotted only two boys.
I checked the entrance of concert hall at 2nd floor. It said that you needed to be there by 4pm, otherwise you would not be allowed to enter. And you couldn’t bring your purse/bag. No water. Technically, you could bring only yourself. The show would start at 6pm.
Finally, at 3pm, I was able to check-in after again long waiting at the queue. After putting one small luggage bag to the assigned room, I hurried to get the lunch. Was starving since 3am, somehow, I lost the appetite. But needed to eat to join the crowd for screaming and shouting during the venture. Only lobby lounge was open for the meals, I ordered a beef hamburger, which was not tasty, but I finished all.
Now, heading for a concert with full of excitement by carrying BTS Official Light Stick Army Bomb (Version 3) only, which was allowed per concert hall entrance rules.
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