After meeting with Pearl Daisy fans in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Amenakin goes to Dubai where an informal meet-and-greet session creates quite a stir. Amenakin narrates the details of her eventful trip.
After an exciting holiday in Malaysia and Singapore, my husband and I stopped over in Dubai for a few days. I must admit I fell in love with the culture and people in Southeast Asia, not to mention the oh-so-delightful food! The Malaysian and Singaporean way of life really appealed to us, and I left with so many new friends… and plans to return!
One thing I particularly enjoyed was the meet-and-greet events at each destination, jointly arranged by Aquila Style. My favourite part of the “work’’ that I do (I use the term lightly as it often feels like a hobby!) is to be able to meet the viewers behind the screen names. With a fair amount of my work involving generating online content, it is fun to be able to put “faces to names”, and even more of a pleasure to carry out a two-way conversation in real life.
I arranged the meet-and-greet in Dubai independently, that is to say, I put up a message on social media, asking if Daisies wanted to come along for a quick chat and meet up at a café in Dubai Mall.
As 6pm approached, my husband and I rushed to the venue, pacing through the massive floors of Dubai Mall. Trust me, it’s easy to get lost there! As always, I was brimming with excitement to greet the Daisies.
Moments before any meet-and-greet, I am always struck with a momentary thought: “What if nobody turns up?” I reminded myself that around 10 girls had mentioned that morning that they would come, and dispelled the nerves. Even if a couple dropped out, we would at least have a little group to sit with!
My husband spotted the coffee shop from a distance and I began to walk faster, barely registering his comment about the place appearing to be quite busy. I spotted a few girls outside and greeted them with hugs. As we began to run out of moving space, we began to shift to a slightly more open area in front of the café.
But as we all moved, more and more girls from inside the shop started coming with us.
“I think there are more people than we expected,” said my husband.
“That’s okay – we’ll manage, insha’Allah,” I replied. I always have a particular wish at these meetups, which is that I want to meet everyone who makes the effort of coming along.
All of the girls were so considerate and tried their best to form a queue; but with the crowd swelling with latecomers and curious passers-by, we very quickly accumulated a much larger number than I could have ever anticipated. Trying our best not to obstruct the area, we moved to a different part of the mall.
Soon, a serious-looking man in a suit appeared amongst our crowd and said that he was from security.
“I need to discuss this with my manager,” he said after our introductions, and disappeared.
I became concerned about being kicked out and we all tried to form an orderly queue again. But it was no use – the crowd was growing and we were beginning to cause an obstruction for passers-by.
The security gentleman returned and asked us to come upstairs to his manager’s office.
“Uh-oh,” I muttered, with recollections of being taken to the headmaster’s office at school.
“We normally have celebrities inform us of these things,” he said firmly.
“No, we’re not celebrities, this is just –”
Before I could finish we were escorted away from the crowds.
We disappeared behind large doors and took a lift to a mysterious floor. I jokingly mentioned that I hoped we weren’t in trouble; the security man remained serious and unresponsive.
Maybe he didn’t hear me properly… I consoled myself.
The office upstairs looked like a completely new building; separate to the shops and distinctive adverts and banners downstairs, this place seemed more laid back, yet professional. Slick glass doors opened as we were taken to a seating area where we waited, my husband and I chatting about where we could continue meeting the Daisies if they were to ask us to leave.
A moment later, a lady appeared, greeting us warmly and chatting away excitedly.
“We welcome you and we want to work with you, dear,” she said. “But you should have told us beforehand. We would have loved to get Dubai Mall involved and arranged a space for you to hold your meet-and-greet.”
As we explained the situation, I suddenly realised that I had left my handbag downstairs. The security man left to see if it could be found. For some reason, I felt calm. Sure enough, the security man returned with a big smile on his face.
“Ah, alhamdullilah!” I exclaimed.
“This is Dubai – you won’t lose things like this here,” he said. It was the first time his face had lit up.
In the meantime, another gentleman in Arab attire turned up, with a second security man. They asked where our security was, and where we had parked our car.
“We just came by taxi,” said my husband.
“We really didn’t expect to cause all of this trouble,” I said apologetically.
“That’s okay,” said the lady. “We want to help. It’s just difficult right now because of the crowd.”
“We cannot go down now,” added the man in Arab attire, “there are around 300 people there. We are telling people you have left so they break up the crowd.”
We requested to continue downstairs, with the assurance of a more organised system. Alas, this didn’t last long; more people were arriving and they needed to be safe. I walked away feeling guilty for keeping the girls waiting. But I know that the way the day panned out was meant to be that way.
As hectic as it was, I am so grateful for the warmth and hospitality I experienced on this trip. They say travelling opens your mind – in my experience, it also opens your heart.
Sending lots of love to everyone who has supported Pearl Daisy.
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