So... I met Ai Kago on Thursday. o_o;

For those who may not be familiar with the name or face, in short, she's a Japanese entertainer (idol, singer, actress, song-writer) who debuted with Morning Musume back in 2000. (For more info, check out her wikipedia entry~)

She's a good 10 years older now and has ventured into new projects, including jazz -- which is why I think she's here in Hawaii, aside from doing restaurant promo work at local eateries Good to Grill and Burgers on the Edge.

I was lucky enough to find out about the appearance and filming this morning via twitter and the eatery was in walking distance, so I made my way down there around 1:30pm, when it was scheduled to begin.

There were a few other folks from Twitter there to greet her and thankfully she was kind enough to take some photos with us. :3 I also gave her a small gift that I threw together the minute I found out she was coming.

What was supposed to be a quick drop-by ended up being a 3-4 hour stalkerazzi fest. ^^;

I ended up staying through most of the filming to help document the event. I had a few words with her here and there and she was quite pleasant. ^^

And no. I didn't speak any Japanese. T__T; (My Japanese is quite terrible. I'm too embarrassed to speak it most of the time. At least she offered to answer in broken English. ^^;)

Hopefully she enjoys the rest of her stay here. From what I understand, she'll be doing a private concert somewhere (either Honolulu or a neighbor island) to promote her new jazz CD release. :D

ガンバレ〜　加護さん！