Emmy came to bed about the time I was considering getting up, but a lot of that had to do with time zone issues. Never mind that I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep- there was nothing to do but get up. I was waking up really early Seoul time, and Emmy was still awake really late. She seemed tired, but happy, so I kissed her and made room for her to snuggle Angela as I got up to get some exercise in.
One benefit to the big chain hotel was that it had a reasonable workout facility, so I ran on the treadmill for an hour before spending another hour on the machines, which were all empty at five thirty in the morning local time.
I doubted we would get any sightseeing in at all that day, since Emmy had gotten in so late and odds were good it was going to be the same story after the second show, too. I mentally resigned myself to the idea of spending the day at the hotel until it was time to go to the arena again.
I’d get some work done, at least.
My mental predictions proved to be accurate- Emmy didn’t even wake up until early afternoon. Angela and I had eaten lunch in the hotel’s top floor restaurant and returned to the room before Emmy stirred.
When Emmy did finally wake up, Angela helped her into the shower while I ordered her a light lunch.
Emerging from the bathroom, Emmy saw the food on the table and smiled gratefully.
“I did not expect to stay so late at the nightclub,” she apologized, but Angela and I made it clear that as long as she had enjoyed herself it was perfectly fine.
“Em, you were connecting with your fans,” I said. “All I ask is that once we get to Singapore you take a few days for yourself, to just relax and recover. Your health, and Emmy Jr’s, that is what is important.”
“Tonight’s afterparty is being hosted by the local concert promotion company,” Emmy said. “It will be very different. The guest list will be K-Pop idols, music and fashion scene journalists, and people like that. See and be seen. I am not going to do anything but pose for photos and- what is the phrase? Happy hand?”
“I think you mean glad hand,” I said.
“Yes, I will glad hand like a champion, but not stay too late. You two do not need to come if you do not wish,” Emmy said.
“I’ll go,” I assured her.
“Me, too,” Angela said.
“Thank you both very much,” Emmy said. “And thank you for ordering lunch for me.”
“How is the nausea these days?” I asked.
“It is almost entirely gone,” Emmy said. “I find I cannot eat olives or strawberries, but if I stay away from those I am fine.”
“I can’t imagine the dish that would include both of those,” I said, revolted by the thought.
“Can we please not talk about olives?” Emmy pleaded.
“Are they that bad?” Angela asked, equal parts amused and surprised.
“Please?”
Angela made a zipping motion across her lips, and so I did, too.
Thankfully there were no strawberries (or olives, for that matter) in the fruit salad with yogurt I’d ordered, so Emmy actually ate the whole bowlful.
The concert that night was more or less the same, but different in all the usual ways, if that makes sense. A different opening act, this one with a female vocalist who seemed to be trying for Joan Jett but mostly just getting Pat Benatar.
Emmy got to start the intro, and when she looked out at the audience before playing a note the cameraman zoomed in really close on her face, so all we could see on the giant screen behind the stage were Emmy’s incredibly vivid green eyes looking back and forth.
Emmy reached into one of the big side pockets on her baggy cargo pants and pulled out a handful of something. When she threw them out into the audience I could see they were her signature turquoise-colored guitar picks, and the fans in the front few rows were happy to scrabble for them.
Pulling out a pick for herself, Emmy hit a long, slow, clear note, which seemed to disintegrate rather than just fading away. She did it again, and again it disintegrated into scratchy, crackling static. She paused and looked out over the arena, then hit the same note, but before it could crumble away she followed up with a slow blues melody, again drawing the notes out.
The audience ate it up, waving their Emmy-eyes flashlight things and cheering like mad.
Lee walked onstage and bowed to the crowd, doing a few Kung Fu-style moves, waving his drum sticks as if they were kali sticks and he was preparing for combat. He had a big grin on his face as the twelve thousand fans cheered their approval at his clowning around.
When he settled down behind his drum kit, he broke into a strange off-beat rhythm, slow to match Emmy’s guitar. He kept the basic beat going but played around it with different elements, somehow accentuating Emmy’s riffs as if he knew what she was going to play.
Jackson joined after a little bit and kept his playing supple and smooth, hitting on the main beat with Emmy, leaving Lee’s counterpointto stand out all the more. The melody gradually surged, until Jackson stepped up to the microphone and called out, “I want you to want me!”
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Unlike the show the previous night, The Downfall ended with 'Baby, I Was Born To Die,’ to my dismay. Even six months after first hearing that song, it still packed a brutal punch. I held Angela close, kissing her hair and whispering that it’ll all somehow be alright, even though we both knew it was a lie.
The afterparty for the second night was at different dance club in another part of town, not Gangnam. It was another basement, the front door wedged between a record store and, oddly, a skate shop. The red neon sign above the door read “Bakery”, which was apparently the name of the club. Maybe it had been a bakery before it was converted into a nightclub or something, but that wouldn’t explain why the sign was in English.
There were a number of fans milling around by the entrance, but the club’s security was doing a good job of keeping them back behind what are referred to as ‘velvet ropes’, but these weren’t velvet, like they had been at the other club.
This place was much grittier in appearance from the front, so the long line of limos and luxury cars waiting to disgorge their passengers seemed really out of place. When it was our turn at the curb I got out first, helping Emmy and then Angela out onto the sidewalk in front of the Bakery’s door.
The noise level was high from all the bystanders, pretty much every single one holding their phones up to capture the moment. There were professional photographers there, too, all yelling Emmy’s name to get her to look their way.
Emmy ignored the pros, though, and walked up and down the flimsy barricade, touching hands and saying hello to the fans.
While she was doing this several cars unloaded their occupants, who were uniformly young, tall, slender and very pretty, both the guys as well as the girls. The pros took their pictures, too, but the crowd of fans hardly seemed to notice the newcomers at all, too fixated on Emmy to pay attention to anyone else.
When we finally made our way downstairs into the dark basement, I saw that it went for a very different aesthetic from the much larger place the night before. The ceiling was low and painted black, the floor was bare polished concrete, the walls rough concrete, and the bar front and chairs were all red leather (or, more likely, some fake leather substitute).
About half the tables were already taken, but it was easy to find Lee and Jackson. The tables themselves were small, only room for four people each, so Emmy sat with her bandmates while Angela and I sat with Jen and Stephanie at a nearby table.
“I’d totally come back here to party,” Jen said, leaning in close and shouting to be heard over the loud house music the DJ was playing. “And the drinks here are legit. That place last night was all show and no go.”
“I don’t know how long we’ll stick around,” I said. “We’re flying out first thing. How about you guys?”
“We’re here for two more days, then we fly to Singapore on Wednesday,” Jen said.
While we were talking we watched a number of the well-dressed pretty boys and pretty girls come up to The Downfall’s table to talk and get their picture taken. It was very obvious the photos were all going to be posted on social media with some sort of ‘Here I am, partying with The Downfall’ captions. The whole thing reeked of publicity stunt, but that is, after all, what Emmy had said it would be.
Waiting at the bar while the bartender made my drink and Jen’s, one of the very slender Korean girls came over to talk to me.
“You are Emmy’s wife, right?” she asked, leaning in very close to be heard. “I am Ha Yun. I am trying to be an idol.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ha Yun,” I said.
“I would like to… to party with you and Emmy. At your hotel,” she said, and her meaning was very, very clear.
“Why?” I asked, curious.
She gave me this look as if that was the last question she could possibly have expected. “I want to be lesbian with you,” was her reply.
“But why?" I repeated.
She looked as if she was having a hard time coming up with a good answer for that. Finally she said, “She is very sexy, and so are you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’re very pretty, too, but I don’t think it would work out. We don’t share our bed with strangers.” Turning away from Ha Yun, I took the two mixed drinks and two bottles of Perrier back to our little table.
“What was that about?” Stephanie asked, tilting her chin in Ha Yun’s direction.
“She wanted to go back to the hotel with me and Emmy to get laid,” I said with a shrug. “I told her not gonna happen.”
“No doubt she would immediately turn around and tell the tabloids,” Stephanie said. “From what I understand, there are two types of these ‘idols’ here. The squeaky clean types that you could bring home to mother, and the bad boy or bad girl types that are just ever so slightly scandalous- enough to seem edgy, but not enough to scare away teen fans. She’s probably hoping to use you guys to launch her career in the second category.”
“I can see that,” I said. Ha Yun had been pretty, but in a sort of strangely artificial way. Her boobs were way too big to have been natural, sure, but also her face was too perfect, her teeth too straight and her eyes too blue for any of that to have been real.
Well, and the pink hair, too, but that hardly counts. I mean, right?
“Not your type?” Stephanie teased.
“You know my type,” I whispered in her ear, my voice just husky enough to get Stephanie to shiver involuntarily.
“Yeah, I do,” she admitted, glancing at the next table to where Emmy sat, talking to some pretty boy band singer. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw a bit of regret in Stephanie’s expression for just a moment.
True to Emmy’s word, we only stayed until about one AM. Back at the hotel we all three shared a not-very-hot shower, then cuddled in bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
The six and a half hour flight to Singapore was really nice as far as flying commercial goes, and I made a mental note to fly Singapore Airlines whenever possible from now on.
That goes double, or even triple, for the airport there in Singapore. In fact, every airport in the world should be modeled after Changi Airport. Sure, there are many, many pictures of the waterfall vortex, but seeing it in person is a completely different experience. The plants! And the shopping! Really, it was incredible. As a first impression, the airport was a true knockout.
Seemingly completely unimpressed, Grant led us unerringly to the courtesy van stand and soon we were on our way to our hotel, which was apparently quite close to the concert venue. It was an enormous thing, nice and clean and all that, but fairly impersonal.
The hotel restaurant was surprisingly good, though, and later in the evening, the rooftop pool was the perfect way to finish off the day.
I used the hotel’s sad gym while Angela and Emmy slept in, spending an hour on the treadmill and then another hour on the small selection of Nautilus machines. It was better than nothing and the views out of the floor to ceiling windows were good, but it made me miss having a real gym. Determined to find an honest to God fight gym for the week we’d be in town, I made my way back to the room, only to find my snuggle bunnies still deep in sleep.
Keeping quiet to not disturb Emmy and Angela, I texted Grant, who seemed quite familiar with Singapore.
“Are there any local gyms you’d recommend for a week’s worth of training?” I asked.
Maybe a minute later his reply came back. “Let me reach out. I’ll have an answer for you within the hour”, he texted.
By the time I’d finished my shower and dried off Grant had found me a gym.
“I’ve got the place for you. When do you want to check it out?” Grant had texted.
“Good morning, Leah,” Emmy said from the bed, where she and Angela were still cuddled together, but awake. “We were just discussing breakfast,” Angela added.
“Do you guys have any plans for today?” I asked. “Other than breakfast, of course.”
“Lunch, too,” Angela said.
“And perhaps dinner,” Emmy added.
"And maybe see the giant metal tree things,” Angela suggested.
“Giant metal tree things?” Emmy asked, puzzled.
“Don’t ask me- Lee was the one who said she wanted to see them,” Angela said with a shrug.