Day #5 (Thursday) Part 3
By the time we got back to WL, it's already only a little after 3. DW and I were a little tired from the heat and we were a little bit hungry too. I know, I had a Mickey ice-cream bar for lunch at noon. Since our ADR at Artist Point is at 5:30pm, so we went back upstair to our room first. Drop off all my camera bag and the souvenir. Then went back down to Roarin' Fork with our refillable mugs. I choose to have a small cup of Chicken Noodle soup with soda. DW had a cookie or something also with soda.
As we pay for our snack, I notice there was a very slim gentleman stood next to me paying for his food also. His hair was wavy and long. I can't see his face at all. But he had jeans on with a suit, I thought that's odd. It's 80 degrees outside and he's wearing a suit and jeans?! I didn't even give it a second thought and paid for our food then move on to the seating area. The seating area was pretty empty. We picked a table, sat down and begin to have our snack.
The wavy hair guy followed us and decided to sat down at the table right next to us as well. Even then, I still wasn't paying much attention to him. Half way through our snack, an older gentleman came sat directly across the table from this wavy hair guy. However, I can tell this older gentleman is a CM because of his name tag. The long hair guy raised his head and start talking to this CM. Only then I was able to took a glimpse what the side of his face looks like. As soon as I was able to see part of his face, my memory database search engine suddenly went overload because that face look extremely familiar to me but I couldn't tell where have I seen him before. I tried to ask my DW if she know whom this guy might be, but she was too busy with her snack and didn't want to be bother. Then suddenly, it just darn on me. That was Sanjaya Malakar from AI.
Sanjaya might not be a big celebrity but I am sure there must be a lot of other people recognize who he is. Luckily, we sat at a corner of the eating area which is away from the main entrance. So no one pay much attention about him. However, there was one table with a few kids and their mom did recognize Sanjaya but was afraid to disturb him. When Sanjaya finished his food, he and the CM got up and was about to walk out, the kids politely asked him if they can take a picture with him. Sanjaya answered them with a very soft tone saying "sure".
Unfortunately, this poor mom didn't have a camera with her. Go figure, how can any one comes to Disney with kids and not have a camera. So the mom has to use a cell phone camera to make shift. They took multiple pictures with Sanjaya and he doesn't seems to have any problem with it. Normally, I would've offer my service to take a picture for the family and then email them the picture afterward. Unfortunately, my camera was left upstair. Oh well! After the kids had their picture taken with Sanjaya, they were all very happy they got to meet a celebrity for the day. Sanjaya and the CM left the place afterward. I thought that was very nice of him to take the time and took picture with this family.
As soon as we finished our snack, DW wants to go back upstair for a rest until dinner time because we still have a long night ahead of us. I grabbed my camera and the tripod and headed back out to the lobby for more photo ops so DW can take a quick nap all by herself quietly.
So there I was with my gears getting into the grove, trying different setting with different lenses. Sun light was strong outside. Since there are not really a whole lot of windows at the WL lobby, nonetheless the light situation was pretty good. So I start shooting from the 5th floor hallway.
Then slowly moved down to ground floor.
I was really having fun. I was practically rolling on the floor in front of the fireplace because I want to see what the viewfinder looks like shooting from bottoms up. A few people in the lobby were looking at me strangely and probably thought I was practicing some kind of acrobatic routine or something.
As always, I was in my zone. Nothing can distract me until I notice a group of CMs were standing in front of the entrance door. There must have been a least half dozen of them or maybe more. They were all carrying 2 way radio and a clipboard of some sort. A couple of the CMs were hovering next to this guy who is medium height, very curly hair and some what heavy set while the rest of the CMs were just looking around like prairie dogs. (Please don't get offend by my comparison. At the time, that's what they look like to me.)
Upon closer look, I recognize the heavy set guy was another former AI contestant, Chris Sligh. I thought some of the for AI contestants must be staying at WL and the CMs were there to escort them to DHS for the parade. I just continue to focus on my WL lobby photo session.
Then as I was shooting in front of the gift shop entrance by the elevator, a couple of people came out of the elevator and stood at my line of sight. I was thinking, do I look invisible to these people?? So I just stood there and wait, hoping they will move soon. But they just stood there and talk and talk and laugh until one of the lady turned around and saw me and my camera with the tripod. They were only a couple of feet away from me. She notice I was trying to take a picture of some thing but realize they were in my way. She quietly told the crew to move closer to the main entrance so they won't be in my way. The lady who turned around was Melinda Doolittle again. What a nice nice lady.
I think the person in lower right corner of this picture who was face the other way from my camera is Doolittle. That's probably the only picture I have with the AI contestant.
As I go around the lobby, I also ran into Syesha Mercado. There were a couple of more of the AI contestants I came across also. But after the first few, I wasn't interest who the rest were any more. Even while they were so close to me, for some reason I have no interest on taking their pictures at all even I am an AI fan. (If any of you are AI fan, you will know who these people are. If not, I am sure you can find more information about them in AmericanIdol.com) I was more into how to get more of the lobby pictures while there was still sunlight at the lobby.
By 5:00pm, I packed everything up and went back upstair to get DW ready for dinner at Artist Point.
Yay! Another stuff animal coming out. I don't feel so silly any more. I still have more pictures to share.
the picture of the fireplace...beautiful.
is so popular ("famous") here on the Dis boards, we might all be doing that to HIM one of these days if we're there when he is and we spot him. ..."hey, there's Topdog" then not bother him (cuz he'll be deeply involved in taking pictures of something.) LOL
