LINK: viva las vegas 2026: chapter 1, day 4
I woke up early, not because I wanted to, but because Alyssa and Linda woke me up.
“Happy birthday!!!” they screamed at 0600. I am not a morning person and when they pulled the curtains back to let light into the room, I groaned and rolled over.
I was thoroughly annoyed. Why am I awake this early? We didn’t have to go to the concert venue till 0900 to meet Maria and check in for soundcheck. We had plenty of time yet.
I flipped myself onto my other side and asked them, “Hey can I sleep another 30 minutes? I’m pretty tired. Since I took a shower last night, maybe you guys will want to take one before I get up?”
They took it upon themselves to leave the room and give me some peace for another hour. Well, so much for that because Alyssa left her phone in the room and the alarm kept going off and it was annoying AF. I resigned in trying to get anymore sleep.
When they came back to the room, they loudly sang happy birthday to me and gave me a cup of decaf coffee from McDonald’s. That was nice of them… unfortunately, they forgot the creamer (yes, they know how I take my coffee) so I couldn’t drink much of it. Without the creamer, it becomes too bitter, making my stomach hurt. I took a Pepcid to counter it but I didn’t want to push my luck any further so I stopped drinking the coffee.
The two of them promised to take me to eat a yummy breakfast, which I was looking forward to it because it I had nachos for a late lunch yesterday and didn’t eat afterward.
During this time, I got a bunch of birthday texts. I had a few friends who called but I didn’t answer, I let it go straight to voicemail. After reading the transcribed voicemail, I texted back thanking them.
Five Star sent me money through Venmo for my birthday. Then she texted for me to try my luck playing the slots. I thought about it for a second but naaah. I already lost a good chunk of money at the casinos, I’ll be damned if they get anymore of it.
While the two of them took turns showering, I got dressed. Yup. I was still tired so there was nothing fancy going on with my fit today. I wore leggings, a tank top, and wore my Arirang hoodie again. I put my hair up in a hair claw, applied sunscreen, and I was ready to go.
For whatever reason, Linda and Alyssa could not focus. They kept talking about this and that and making adjustments to their fits by adding more embellishments. I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news but I reminded them that we had to get going because we needed to check in for soundcheck at 1000 and meet Maria at 0915.
When we finally left the hotel, it was already 0900. We didn’t have time for breakfast.
We still needed to drive over to Excalibur, catch the tram to Mandalay Bay, then walk over to Allegiant. I quickly texted and apologized to Maria that we were running late and that we’d have to meet her at Allegiant at 0945. She responded and said that was fine and she’d meet me there.
Another photo op we saw on the way to Allegiant Stadium.
We finally got to the place to check in but Maria was not there. I texted her and she said that her husband dropped her off on the other side and that she was walking over, which would take another 15 minutes.
By this time, my foot and ankle were spasming. I didn’t want to take Ibuprofen because I didn’t eat anything today so I tried my best to bear the pain. I could feel it getting more swollen with every step I took.
Maria made her way to where we were and we checked in. It was really hot outside and there were people passing out and having heat strokes in line. Every so often, I’d hear someone screaming, “We need a medic!” I went over to where the people were laid up to assist but by the time I got there, they were already being taken care of. I was encouraging everyone to take advantage of the free bottled water that they were giving away. I had at least three bottles of water that were given to me, I emptied a packet of electrolytes in one of them and gulped it down. Then I chased it down with another bottle of plain water.
Our seats were in the center and I was fucking elated. This was the closest we’ve been to BTS. I could feel the energy from all the people there for soundcheck.
Pictured: Jimin, SUGA, and J-Hope.
RM announced that Jimin was not feeling well. Poor Jimin…
Pictured: SUGA and Jungkook.
I was in disbelief the whole time. I didn’t care that I haven’t eaten yet nor did I care that my foot was in unsurmountable pain. I kept staring at my bias and bias wrecker. Le sigh.
The whole soundcheck experience lasted about 15 minutes while they performed three songs and interacted with the crowd.
When that was over, I became full blown hangry. It was already 1700 and I hadn’t eaten… yet. And because I didn’t eat anything, I couldn’t take Ibuprofen (it can cause gastrointestinal issues like indigestion, heartburn, gastritis, peptic ulcers, or gastrointestinal bleeding). I told them that I was going to go to the concession stand and get a pizza. They both jumped up from their seat and offered to get me a slice since it was my birthday. I conceded, “Sure. Thanks, I’ll take my med after I take a few bits.”
They returned back to our seats when Alyssa asked if she could eat half of the pizza that she bought me. I let out a deep breath and calmly said, “Sure. Just leave me enough so I can take the Ibuprofen.” She carefully split the pizza in half. I hungrily ate a couple of bites before popping 800 mg into my mouth.
Alyssa was still hungry. TBH, I don’t know where she packs the food. She’s really thin but could eat like a motherfucker. Once I felt a slight relief from the pain, we all went to the concession stand to forage for more food.
She really wanted the Korean Philly cheesesteak sandwich. I’m not a fan of of this, but she offered to pay for it so I took her up on her offer. We ended up splitting the sandwich in half. It was mid, it was pretty salty but I really needed the iron from the beef and more food in my stomach because of the Ibuprofen.
After we ate, I started feeling a lot better. I handed out hundreds of freebies to ARMY and received just as much back.
Me and my ARMY bomb plushie. 7 signifies the number of people in the group BTS.
We all patiently waited for another hour before the show started at 2000. Yup, we’ve been here for over 10 hours but it was fucking worth it.
J-Hope
Jimin – even though he was under the weather, he still gave it 100.
V
But seriously, are they even real?
V, RM, and Jin.
I’m loving Jin’s hair tonight. Not JK pretending to be sad about leaving Las Vegas.
They were all looking fine, looking like a snack. Also, that wasn’t me screaming, it was Maria.
Their final Las Vegas performance was so damn good. It’s a unique experience with each concert. And since I had seats in different areas before, it really felt like it was all brand new to me. The secret songs for that night were: Boyz with Fun and Danger.
I was incredibly happy being so damn close to them. Ahhh. We were all on cloud nine, loving life at this point. It was sad to see the concert end but at least I had a bunch of videos and pictures to remember it by.
When we got outside, we offered to wait with Maria till her husband picked her up but she insisted that we leave without her. I didn’t feel good about leaving her alone, but she kept pushing me away and told me to go. I asked if she would text me when her husband picks her up and when she gets back to her hotel. She agreed to do so.
The three of us walked back to Excalibur and that’s when we noticed that there were random people selling bootleg Arirang BTS t-shirts. I couldn’t resist. I bought five, one for me and four for my friends.
Linda and Alyssa were apologetic about not being able to go to brunch, having me wait till 1700 to eat, and eating half of my food when I finally got something. They offered to take me to a local Thai restaurant for a late dinner. I figured why the hell not?
We ended up at Thai St food because they were open 24/7 and a lot of the other restaurants were closed.
We ordered crab fried rice and yellow curry with soft tofu.
Chicken pad see ewe and mango sticky rice.
The service was a fiasco, it took over an hour for our food to come out. The food also came out one dish at a time. To make matters worse, the lady dropped one of our plates onto the floor before reaching our table, and the mango was heavily bruised on the inside so we had to cut the brown sections out just to make sure. When we did that, there wasn’t a whole lotta mango left to eat.
We finally reached our hotel and when we got to our room, I hurriedly got my things ready to take a shower before going to sleep. I took a 20 minute shower, the warm water felt super good on my skin and washing away all the germs felt very satisfying to me. Alyssa and Linda said they would take a shower in the morning. That was fine with me since they weren’t sleeping in the bed with me. I personally prefer taking night showers because it improves my sleep, it’s good bed hygiene and keeps the bedsheets cleaner, and since cellular regeneration peaks at night, it really is the best time to wash up and lock in the moisture with lotion.
When I hopped out of the bathroom in my pajamas, I checked my work e-mail on my work cell phone. Great. There were a few e-mails that I needed to respond to but otherwise it looked like everything else could wait till I got home tomorrow.
I don’t know how I managed to walk more with a fucked up foot today than previous days.
As soon as I got into bed and pulled the blanket over me, I was out cold, drooling and all.
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