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Today is Khun’s birthday ^___^
Yesterday I was walking along the whole hongdae area but we couldn’t find any CD shop. Well, bringing the CD is the first thing you need to attend any Music Show. So I was rather disappointed that I had to give music bank a miss as since I couldn’t even buy the “passport” for the music show.
Well, things always happen when you least expect it!
When we went back to the hostel yesterday night, we met 3 girls who had been in Korea for one month already. They have attended quite a number of music shows plus a fan sign; all for FT Island! Because of the common interest in KPOP we had a nice time chatting. and omg, before i went to bathe, they come upstairs to our place and said that they could lend us the FT island items which would help us in gaining entry to music bank the next day! Well well, they lent us their latest album, hello hello and the prima dona penta stick (yellow flag). There was 60 spaces for FT island fans and they say that the chances of entering is very high.
I couldn’t fall asleep the night before because I was so anxious about the whole thing. And it was still a ‘IF’, nothing was certain.
The next morning, we decided to check out MayPole to buy the Shinee t-shirts! We went to Grand Mart at Sinchon, one station away from hongik.
To our horror, the t shirts were all sold out, BUT there was a pre order going on, which closes in a week! Collection of the shirt would only be in first week of august..
Okay so we placed our orders for the SHINee T-shirt and my friend helped the sales person to reply some email in english. apparently it was some shinee fans from france who wanted to order like 50 or 200 shirts from them. Then he was telling us that on the day these shirts were released, the whole floor was flooded with fans from all over the world.. But seriously, i think that this shirt is in hot demand is because of the freaking huge poster which comes with it. hahaha. SHINee is so amazing somehow. hmm. I ordered an ONEW shirt for myself but i’m not sure if I have to sell it eventually because i might be running low on funds. hmm.
After that, we went for lunch around the area.
I can’t remember the name of the dish but it was a mixture of rice cakes, veg and meat.
Anyway since both of us did not know what to do with it, we started cooking the things ourself when they pour the things into our hot plate. HOWEVER, apparently we are not supposed to touch it. the staff will come by here and there to help you cook it and all you have to do is just eat your appetizers and wait until he said it was okay.
But, i think the guy found it very amusing that we did not know that we weren’t supposed to do anything, started performing stupid stunts and making weird sound effects while he help us cook the stuff. Oh wells.
We paid 17,500W in total.
After that, we proceeded to Yeouido for KBS Music Bank!
Something about the line 9 (light brown line) , they have express train and non-express train.
The express train don’t stop at every stop! We wanted to stop at National Assembly (914) but the express train didn’t stop there so we ended up at Yeouido.
From Yeouido, exit 3 or 2 (think one is under construction) you follow the direction and walk all the way straight. there’s one road which you cannot cross and you will have to walk through a long underpass. You will cut through the yeouido park and then after that you continue walking straight and i think it’s at the first junction, you turn to your left and you should see KBS building. I think it’s quite prominent so you can’t really miss it. The whole walk is about 15 ~20 mins, but stopping at National Assembly would have been so much simpler.
When we reached, we saw a lot of people holding umbrellas standing around so we decided to follow and we saw some boyband. I THINK it is X5 but I am not sure. It was raining and their car couldn’t drive it for whatever reasons, and they had to walk a distance to the backstage. hmm. There was someone with this ultra big lens camera. I guess this is where all the awesome photos online come from. Ha.
So I guess if you want to meet some celebrities for a brief 15 to 30 seconds, you can stand there the whole day on Friday. I’m pretty sure you will see someone at least. It’s the only entrance to the back stage.
Alright after that short encounter, we went up a flight of stairs and we reached the empty area whereby fans are gathering.. It was the start of our semi-nightmare as we have no idea who are the officials for the fan clubs, which fan clubs the fans are queuing up for. We have totally no idea what to do.
So after trying our luck and asking the people who are queuing up.. there were fans for f(x), rania, apink, b1a4, boyfriend, blah blah blah and we finally found one girl who seemed to be holding an FT Island fan board. Well actually the information on the FT island website says that the staff will only reach at 430pm but we were there early.
Anyway, the girl in yellow directed us to the FT Island queue line where we placed our umbrellas down to ‘reserve’ our spaces and sat on the chairs while we waited and waited and waited.
This is what the door of the recording studio looks like.
Some random sights while waiting..
Arlight, so finally 430 came and they started asking as to queue up. So for FT Island, they actually rank you according to the items you have.
Membership, Digital Downloads, Album, Flag (Prima Donna).
So if you have 4 items, you will be priority 1, 3 items-priority 2, and so on..
Since we only have the flag and album, we were in priority 3. 3-4 means im the 4th person in priority 3.
Then, they will rearrange you according to the priority number. Meaning those with priority 1 will be entering first, followed by priority 2 then 3..
As time passes, we were really scared as there were more and more people showing up! There were only 60 slots and if priority 1 and 2 has more than 60 people, we wouldn’t even stand a chance! Omg it was so nerve-wrecking and anxious as we might just waste our whole afternoon queuing up for nothing..
Anyway, we heard some familiar slang somewhere and we realised that they were singaporeans too! so we started chatting with them and they are really hardcore ft island fans. I felt so guilty. But, I decided to do my part and I started SMS-ing my friend to google for me the fanchants for FT island..
And then the cut-off time was out, and they started counting the 60 people who would be allowed entry and OMG it cut off like 2 or 3 people after us. like OMG. I THINK I MIGHT HAVE DIED that moment.
WE WERE GOING TO WATCH MUSIC BANK! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, SECOND DAY INTO KOREA AND ON KHUN’S BIRTHDAY, I’M ACTUALLY GOING TO SEE HIM. OMG.
After that fans started streaming in.. apparently, the sequence of fans entering the hall is determined by rock,scissors, paper and our friends at the hostel told us that ft island fans luck isn’t that good and we were always one of the last few to get in.. since we were one of the last few, the fans were separated T_T
But something really nice is that, even though the “Officials” are the ones planning everything, they actually entered the studio after us! Meaning that they are willing to get lousier seats.. I mean, if you are doing all the shyt work organizing and everything, shouldn’t you enter earlier to get better seats? but in fact they did not! they were behind us in the queue and sort of directed us in.. how nice right. hmm! they FT island officials were really nice to us.. giving us the mileage booklet too!
Anyway, the thing about music bank is I don’t usually watch the first 1 hour of performances because i’m quite a noob in all the newbie bands.. Other than my bias, I practically know no one else. So then I realise there’s this group of students in front of me, drawing fan signs with their markers and I realise I have them too.. so, i wanted to draw on my mini note book but the korean/jap girl beside beside me (a friend we made while queueing) asked the students and they gave us the paper!
And this was what we did along the way.. Since we were there for FT Island,
Since I was sitting beside the FT Island officials, I cannot be too prominent in my other bias, so i decided to do a subtle board like this. HEH.
It was a good thing to kill-time while waiting for the performances I wanted to watch. Anyway, I was sitting at the right side, which means that I can see when the idols are entering and leaving the stage. And the crazy friends in front of me will start waving and sometimes the artistes will wave back and I decide to zi-high but waving too and pretending that they acknowledge me when they wave back when they are actually just waving to the whole big group.
Actually, I did not know who I was waving to 90% of the time. Hmm.
Anyway, so the performances are either live or pre-recorded. when it is pre-recorded. the artiste will just come on to stage and dance/sing without the microphones.. and when it is pre-recorded, there won’t be much lighting.. and usually they will leave the stage before the song ends so that the other group can prepare for their live stage.
Actually I am very impressed with how they manage to plan the sequence of everything! It is done very skilfully like where the cameras will show and everything.. I’m very impressed with the whole order and coordination of the whole music show. How they merge their live shows and pre-recordings so nicely such that it turns out perfect on the TV. *AHH*
And so when FT Island came out. I played my part and sang along to the fan chats of all the ‘HELLO HELLO’ & ‘GOODBYE GOODBYE’ together with the hand sign. Hongki was so good at it~ A lot of people did the hand signs too which felt really good.. and followed by the everybody say ‘LA LA LA’ ‘TA TA TA’ ‘HA HA HA’.
Oh wells, all was awesome. and finally when 2PM went out and when they did their ‘like a movie’ and with all that interaction and i was like.. speechless but then when they started singing hands up! it was so awesome. anyway, the one that you saw on tv was pre recorded. But when they were on the stage, they were so ‘high’ and making everyone else ‘high’ and obviously everyone did the hands up thing and i was screaming like crazy and eventhough it wasn’t so near but the whole atmosphere was there. it was perfect.
watching 2pm’s performance on khun’s birthday. though i kind of wish someone will start singing happy birthday to him in the audience but that did not happen..
anyway, KHJ won Secret and he was back with an encore. When the whole show ended, fans started dashing out of the studio, probably to catch a glance of their idols as they leave from the back stage to their vehicles. While everyone did that mad dash out, all we did was to go forward, being closer to the stage.. and.. sneaky me took photos~
Taking photos are not allowed in the studio and if you are caught, this guy in black suit with stern face will walk over and take your camera away. chances are that he will look through the photos that you have taken and delete them at his own discretion. It is a very big risk, only to practice with caution and fear. I used my iphone to snap the pictures btw. So i could be seen like i’m just checking my SMS or something. hmm.
At the end of KHJ performance, he threw the bouquet of flowers into the fans and i swear it was just the fan in front of me! you know things like that, always happen to people around you but it is never you. ARGH. but how i wish he could take off his sunglasses. i haven’t seen his eyes at all. so annoying.
After that, we left the recording studio and seeing a lot of people with umbrellas waiting and waiting, we followed.. Im really very puzzled because the jap/kor girl said she saw Junsu walking out but i did not manage to see him and neither there were screams or anything so i think it wasn’t him? anyway there was a rookie group again =/ i can’t remember the name but we waited for quite long, for fun and in the end the security guard gave up and let us enter but obviously there wasn’t anyone to see and we left shortly. but someone said KHJ was still inside as he had an interview or something but obviously my stomach cries were greater than the desire to meet anyone else other than khun.
I can’t believe I actually belonged to this huge crowd. I should never do this ever again.
Feeling very happy over my first khun encounter, we decided to visit YG as my friend was a BB person and since I was so happy, we should do something to make her happy as well.
We had dinner at some place at Hapjeong
Nothing fantastic but edible. hmm.
and we started on our hunt for YG (similar to the post i did in the guide to entertainment companies) you can skip this whole part if you have read it.
YG Entertainment
Photo taken on 24 Jun 2011.
Managing artistes: Big Bang, 2ne1 etc.
Address: 서울시 마포구 합정동 397-5 YG엔터테인먼트
Seoul, Mapo-gu, Hapjeong-dong, 397-5, YG Entertainment
Nearest Metro station: Hapjeong
We saw a couple of staff here and there entering in and out and two figures playing pingpong. But they were blocked by curtain but no one familiar, or so we thought.
And after that my friend made me walk in to ask the security guard if Big Bang was inside.
Obviously he said no. Even if they were inside he would say no.
Then came the conclusion, i followed with 2-NE-1. He couldn’t get it so I repeated like girl group, Sandara. and he replied I do not speak english. I say it’s okay in korean and walked away.
It was really a random visit and i’m not sure if I will do it again. hmm.
*Actually the day i’m typing this entry is 4th July. I’m actually trying to catch up with my entries but it seems so impossible because I talk too much. hmm.*