Late evening on Tuesday I am at the last pre-recording for the day and I am smiling as my crew is bringing up the article written about the lunch I had with Honggi. It wasn’t long but it was comfortable and we took some pictures that we uploaded on our SNS pages, fooling around a bit. They repeat “celebrity friends, just a meal” while laughing. It is something to laugh about, how our pictures can create headlines of friends meeting up during heavy schedules as he is preparing his comeback and I am busy promoting, and I am happy because the headlines does not give us any rumours of being more than friends (I am tired of those headlines, it is nice to leave those for a while). “How do you think Jonghyun reacted to that you went on lunch with Honggi?” Chae Hwan casually asks when fixing my makeup for MBC’s Music Core pre-recording. The smile in my face is frozen by the mention of his name. He is the person I think of the most but talk about the less, I don’t even talk with him these days, so to have my stylist ask of his reaction surprises me a bit. It must be visible because my stylist gives out an awkward laugh and apologizes “How would she know his reaction?” my crew jokes lightly. I smile again before I change the subject by asking what shoes I’ll wear to this dress; it is the fourth performance I am doing today; this morning I did two performances for Inkigayo, my fifth week promoting [New Me] and an addition of my fan-dedicated song from the album [Baby], a song I have performed at my concerts and it was supposed to be the next song to promote though I am not sure if I will promote more songs due to our overseas schedules. Then I had lunch with Honggi until I had to do a live performance for SBS-MTV The Show (where my song got first place, surprise!) and now I am pre-recording for Music Core. After this, I will rest my voice for a lot of days. After the pre-recording I head to the saloon to dye my roots before heading home to sleep. For Wednesday we will finish the filming of [Pieces’ Invasion] music video that we filmed abroad last week, mostly just a dancing scene which will take a few hours and some promotion interviews, I think, but since I got my hair done the night before, I don’t have to leave home early. I get to sleep longer than the others, which is amazing, and not correct: in the morning when the others are leaving, Tiger is expecting me to get up too so she actually jumps on me. Maybe she just wants to play but either way it wakes me up three times too early. I am whining while playing with her, I don’t even get out of bed to play with her but Tiger doesn’t seem to mind – she only minds it if my hand is still. Today we are filming the music video then tomorrow we are heading to America, to Las Vegas to do the jacket shoot. It is a bit late since the album will come out in a month – a month! Now that: that truly is unbelievable, 5 Pieces’ first international ALBUM. We have worked with Melissa on the album for some time so it will be thrilling to have it released, I am just worried if anyone abroad will care or if it will just sell in Asia. I am worried, mostly out of things my members have been mentioning that keep repeating in my head while I think of it. We write on our online chat, which is becoming more and more of a habit since we moved into two houses and since my promotions made it difficult for us all to meet up and talk. Our online chat is private and the most active member is Maria, who writes a word, sends it, writes another word, then sends it and keeps doing like that until a sentence fills the chat room. The least active member is Carolina, who rarely responds and when she responds it is brief and direct as she always seems to have other things to do. Another way that we communicate is through SNS; {Instagram, 5P_HANNAH: Tiger woke me up to play, grrr, but your cuteness makes it hard to resist ^^, I’ll play with you~} Emelia is the first one to answer, writing in the comment section ‘bring her later and I’ll play with her too’, which I write in response that I will not let Emelia play with her. It is simple writing but our fans love it. Still, I hope they will like our album coming out soon. For an hour I play with Tiger and for the next two hours I take my time getting ready to leave and being lazy. I think of packing for the trip to America but end up just taking out a bag: I’ll have to ask my members what they are bringing. I do bring Tiger with me to the set and for most of the day I am spending time working with my ladies and playing with Tiger and Milo who we took with us and we talk a lot about the trip, of what to bring and how to pack. Us ladies have our own conversations with our managers trying to add their suggestions; we don’t listen that well. ++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++ After 20 hours of travelling from Thursday morning, it is afternoon in Las Vegas when we arrive on Thursday, which is confusing and we keep thinking it is Friday all day. But one thing for sure; we are in Las Vegas, and we have some free time as our schedule will start tomorrow. Before anything we check in at the hotel; a five star hotel and I have never seen anything like it before. All the colours and space and luxury that fills Las Vegas, and the hotels that have their own golf courses and large pools, different restaurants and casinos – our hotel is the best, and there are people dressed up on the streets to invite people to different places and there is countless of things to watch. When we check in we even get our own guide who will show us around while waiting for our rooms to get ready. Along with us we have the American team filming for our movie, doing the album-making and now the album-jacket-making with us going from Seoul to Las Vegas and how we spend our free time and how the next couple of days will be like. They are setting up in the rooms while we get our tour. We are showed everything, and it is amazing, they even have a garden. I am spacing out most of the time, trying to take in as much as possible but I know I probably don’t even spot half of the things we can see – and this is inside the hotel only. After the round tour we are given an hour to settle before we will go for dinner in one of the hotel’s restaurants. We have our evening planned out already; dinner, casino and look for a nightclub to enjoy our time in Las Vegas. It was Maria’s and Julia’s plan to go to a nightclub, and we will go there to get some drinks, dance and have fun together. Our stylists are with us, managers too, and poor Chae Hwan is the only one not allowed to come with us to casino and nightclub, which is sad but she can come with us for dinner. “You think we will be out for long?” Carolina asks while we are in our shared room getting ready for dinner. “I don’t know,” I simply answer without really thinking of it, shrugging my shoulder. Carolina puts on a set of a black semi-sheer trapeze cut going-out tank with sheer lace panel down the center and lace collar and black shorts, ending it simple with a pair of Spanish crafted washed leather block heel shoes with square toes and ankle straps that she actually bought online. It is her first time wearing them. Stylish and clean, a light outfit that works both for dinner and a night out, but of course she has to add a structured military inspired blazer with bronze buttons down the front and on the cuffs. I guess it looks good on her. Like always, our members have their own styles. Carolina looks stylish and feminine in her clothes, while for me … I don’t know what I look like. I got over-the-knee black socks and simple heels to an oversized heathered tee with rounded neck, the purple-reddish colour looks really nice and I wear a long black necklace with a white feather and ornament at the end and a smaller metallic one, adding on some rings to finish that off. Simple too, the clothes aren’t fitting but I show a bit of my legs so it is exactly what my stylist want. Though our styles are individual we all have one basic ingredient for 2015; bohemian look. That’s what our styles are about this year as it is a popular trend. I bring my wallet with me, my phone put into it when we leave and we meet up with the other ladies by the elevators. 18th floor, that is incredible. Emelia looks ready for the summer in a reef pink drippy soft jersey tank with a burnout design, a pair of washed ripped light blue boyfriend jeans to a double golden necklace and gladiator sandals. Her long blonde hair is out and beautiful too. For Julia, she looks like she will go on the beach, and it might be slightly true because she talks about the pool as soon as she comes up to the rest of us: she wears a black combo printed dropwaist tunic featuring a v-neck, matching a silver necklace and a black fedora styled hat with a horsehair tassel band. “She’s late,” Emelia sigh as she looks at the time. “Typical.” Emelia and Julia are sharing one room while Maria shares room with our stylist Yong Hyun. I think we should’ve learned by now that those two combined will make us late, why still give them a shared room? We got cameras around us now: one camera up here and more waiting downstairs. And we keep waiting for Maria. “She is coming,” Yong Hyun laughs when coming down the large corridor, seeing all of us waiting. It takes two or three more minutes before our leader arrives, saying she got done in ten minutes but used the rest of the hour sleeping. She looks great though; our fashionista is wearing a grey spacedye wrap skirt set that is anything but boring: a bodycon wrap skirt with drape detail and high waist, and a matching crop tee and on her feet a pair of white sneakers. Our leader pulls off anything. “Who is ready to party?!” Maria comes cheering and dancing down the corridor while the rest of us show no interest and walk inside the elevator. “Ya, all of you, am I going alone later or what?” Emelia pretends the elevator is full when Maria wants to get on but our leader gives her a glare and says we are in Las Vegas (as if the elevators can’t get full in Las Vegas) and we all ride it downstairs. It feels like we have gone to a different planet. This place is gorgeous from top to toe; every room is filed with such details and thoughts that we can stay an hour in each one of them on our way to the restaurant and just admire the place. We have booked table at the restaurant so we are given our own tables and it is noisy when we take our seats and we’re given the menus as we start scanning it through and talking of what to take. There is one trouble when we are being filmed; we are supposed to speak in English, but we have our managers and stylists speaking Korean so it is kind of mixed. But no one seems to mind, we can mix languages, and everyone is talking a lot during the dinner. It is really nice, and it is different from when we went to film the music video last week. It is probably because we are in Las Vegas, but also that we have the whole evening free to do whatever we want; it’s relaxing, and we got the best people surrounding us. I think our crew of stylists and managers are the best people to have fun with; we can talk for hours even if we spend days together, we enjoy food and soon we will go to the casino and the nightclub. It is exciting. We don’t stay at the restaurant all too long because we want to go to the casino, and poor Chae Hwan heads to her room to instead enjoy the night view as she is not old enough to come with us. I am not a gamer at all but I watch the others at the casino. Carolina is a monster, she has to try everything and she keeps loosing money wherever she goes that Manager Park is given the assignment to make sure she does not throw away all her money; which ends up with Carolina and Manager Park leaves the casino to go to the nightclub before the rest of us are done, soon followed by me, Maria and Yong Hyun. We even have cameras following us there, mostly shooting from a distance but one camera stays close, and one camera is with the others at the casino. We go to the bar first and I get the same drink as Maria since I really don’t know anything about drinks. It is a sour drink, and it is delicious – Maria always take sour drinks, she says. Carolina has ordered a strawberry drink based on Manager Park and the bartender’s recommendation, and she takes sips of it from time to time. We stay by the bar for a while, enjoying our drinks and taking in our surroundings before we finish our drinks and head out on the dance floor. Tonight we are not drinking much, neither one of us want to have a hangover for tomorrow’s shooting, but we dance tons as the nightclub is crowded with dancing people and I do see one thing; all women in here are either wearing tight clothes or/and showing off their s. I do not fit in with my loose outfit even if I am showing off my legs; but I d