y.s magic

Saturday - July 8, 2006.
(Written on above date)

I'm on the plane about 5.5 hrs into the trip. We've been Rainbow-ing a little, playing a little. I told Debbie this earlier when I was still in Seattle, but I feel like SS501 in LA. Haha... we're riding Korean Air like they did. I thought those personal moniters that they had where they played games and all that stuff was only for 1st class, but it turns out everyone has those. I kept hearing Kyujong talk about watching Memoirs of a Geisha, so I'm rather tempted to do the same. Is that nerdy? Yes. I know. My brother & I even played those lame games they have where you can play against each other. RATHER amusing. Seriously, you don't need to bring anything on the plane these days. Maybe it's because I'm good at sitting around on my butt for hours and hours at a time, but this really doesn't bother me at all. Well, one thing. My mom was saying earlier that Korean Air wants to take a different route to Korea because of those N. Korean missiles. I'm really praying that we'll be okay and the flight goes safely. Anyway, I was asking my brother to bring all this crap because I was like NOO... they only show American movies. Anyway, untrue. I finally watched Lee Junki in Wangeh Namja. I'm so behind. Hahaha... I dunno, I've heard lots of mixed reviews, but as an entire piece, I happen to think it's brilliant. To touch upon an extremely controversial topic like homosexuality in the way that they did, it was clever and genius. At least, that's how I feel. And most of you know how I feel about that topic, too. There really wasn't that obscene of scenes like I was expecting. Maybe this is disturbing, but at a quick glance, I thought Junki looked like Vicki. O_O... Yeah, isn't that bizarre, but then I look again and realize it's Junki, and not Vicki. XD Maybes I just miss Vicki. =(

I found a new love for Noel. On the episode of Yoon Dohyun's Love Letter that they have on the plane, their singing is so-so-so... yeah. & that guy really is pretty.

They have rather a lot of Korean programming on this machine. I've decided that even if you can only speak Korean, you can live in America. I mean, after I came into the airport, I already felt like I was in Korea. All the boarding instructions came first in Korean, then a fobby English. I highly discourage any non Korean-speaking individuals to take Korean Air.

There's even Korean music on this thing. I have a playlist up right now as I write. It's Wahjoh Part II - Se7en, Love Mode - Clazziquai, 1-2 step - Jessica H.o, Last First Kiss - M, Girlfriend - M (I think I miss Sherri), In a Dream - Tim, Yellow Butterfly - Fly to the Sky, We're in Love (feat. Gumi) - Vibe, A Piece of Love - Wheesung. For soem reason, I've got a feeling YG has somehow paired with Korean Air. There are so many artists under YG here.

Oh, how could I forget about all the drama on the plane. So, my mom brother and I have the 3 seats on the right. Row 28 is where Economy class starts and we're in 29. There is this fat man who's sitting in front of me, who's wife is the fat lady across the aisle from me. In front of her is this fat Korean man. She was trying to usre her laptop, but the fat Korean man kept leaning back, so she nearly went ballistic. They were all arguing in their awkwardness. Meanwhile, her husband is leaning back all the way to the point I can't even eat my freaking Bibimbap. -___- You take care of your own self first! >( Anyway, my brother is watching Break now. I was watching ep 4 when he said he wanted to sleep, but he found it interesting so he's sitting there watching.

I've already taken more pictures than I thought I was going to...

Sunday - July 9, 2006.

We arrived in Incheon Airport in the afternoon. My cousin, 원, came to fetch us. My mom had heard she had a foreign car and it was a really nice car and all that, but it turned out to be some crappy Ford. I can't believe what people will do for foreign cars in Korea. It's ridiculous. They're not even that nice! Fords are probably crappier quality than Hyundais nowadays.

We got to the place we're staying at. I was going to stay till the 14th, and my mom and brother would stay the entire length of their trip. I have to say, I really don't like my 이모... It was the first time I ever met her in my life, and she wasn't very nice. That's I guess stuff I would rather not talk about though...

Monday - July 10, 2006.

So there's actually no decent shower in their apartment. How nice. So to shower, my mom, grandma, brother, and I all went to the public bath. Only my brother is a guy so he had to go alone and he isn't going to take very long anyway, so my mom, grandma, and I took a while because we're female and that's what we do. It was so weird, seeing naked people didn't bother me in the least bit. Perhaps it was because of all the naked people I saw in my figure drawing class. When I see naked people now, I don't really think it's gross, but I start to see how I would draw them. O_O Like if you can see where their upper leg connects with their knee and shin. X___X My brain is weird, so hush.

After that, my mom, brother, and I went off to Namdaemun market. It was our first time on the subway. I don't know if any of you know where Madu is. It's like. FREAKING FAR from everything. To get to Namdaemun, it took about an hour on the subway. I think during this week was the only time I've ever seen the subway so empty. When we got there, we got eyeglasses done, walked around and shopped. Although it was kind of hard to shop. My mom and I keep oogling the accessories but we can't have my brother standing there bored out of his mind while we take all out time looking through those. So we walked pretty quickly around. The rain was so bad, too. The drops were so big. We bought umbrellas and managed to get around a little bit.

My mom found this place for us to eat. It was some restaurant that is famous for their fish~ My mom was spazzing about how she remembers the ajumma's face from TV when the restaurant was featured. Everyone that was eating there came because of that thing from the TV! The steps to get up to the top floor and down again were so steep. Since it was raining too, we were all afraid of slipping and falling.

In the evening, my mom's best friend from high school, 성옥 ajumma came with her husband to Ilsan. They came in and said hi to my grandma and whatnot. After, we decided to go out to dinner. I mean, if you're taking your friend's kids out, what else do you go eat? Meat. We ate at this pretty fun restaurant. For the first time in my life, I drank. If an adult hands you drinks, what can you do? My mom looked pretty against the idea, like she was squirming in her seat, but she knew you can't refuse, too. Hahaha... First she started us off with this beer. I think that tastes pretty gross, I had to eat a lot of food with it or else I would spit it out again. Then she ordered soju. I think I drank 4 shots? The ajumma was talking about how my mom was known as #4. After the 4th, my mom lost consciousness and acted like a crazy person. I guess my mom was really weak in alcohol and her friends used to make fun of her for it. My mom told me all these stories about how that ajumma used to get so drunk that she'd crawl out in the middle of the night with no socks on when there was a curfew and all this stuff. My mom sounds like she had a pretty lively life. I don't think I handle alcohol well either, after drinking all that, I felt pretty dizzy. The ajumma's husband is so nice. He was like cooking meat the entire time, he rarely ate. He really likes taking care of people. He is highly amusing as well. He made a map of USA saying that the parts that stick out, like Florida and California have problems. They always get the weird natural disasters.

I like this ajumma, she's really good to my mom and I can see it.

Tuesday - July 11, 2006.

In the morning, my mom and I were still pretty jetlagged at this point so we kept waking up at like 5 in the morning. Since no one else was awake, we got up, and decided to try to find the Lake Park that Ilsan is famous for. Only we ended up walking in the wrong direction for many blocks and we found this random place that was under construction. We didn't know we walked the wrong way, and we're like, what the heck, this park sucks. HAHAHA... my mom and I... ;;;;

We bathed at that public bath again and we came home. After, I was to meet Shannon since she was in Seoul, too. We met around 2pm in the subway station. We're stupid because we didn't even decide a specific spot but we ended up finding each other anyway. My brother came, too.

Grace called, too, so she ended up joining us in Myongdong next to Milijorie. All of us were pretty unfamiliar with the area, but we ended up going to a 냉면 place for lunch, although it was pretty bad. :X We took retarded sticker pictures, it's so hard to get everything you want! You are like running around because there's timers on everything for sticky pictures! Then we headed off to 노래방~ I really can't sing, especially compared to Grace. Her boyfriend came too, and he can sing really well, too. I stopped singing. Hahahaha...

Then Grace and her boyfriend headed off. The three of us shopped around for a bit and then went to eat in the food court on the top floor of Mijiliore (I really don't remember how to spell that). The food was actually pretty good and filling. Then it was nearly 7:30 so we decided to wait for Stacey, Shannon's sister before we did anything more. We hung out at the biggest Starbucks in the world. It was like 4 (or 5) stories high and there was so much seating. My brother's friend, Hannah, joined us just as Stacey did. We decided to go find a place to eat. Seeing as how none of us really knew the area, we went into this random meat place.

Okay, this place was so strange. I mean, it was fun at the same time, but SO STRANGE. This strange man kept talking to us, and we thought he worked there, but apparently he worked a few shops down. Then these people from Hong Kong were sitting at the table next to us, but the owners couldn't really communicate with them, so I went in and helped them a little. In English. The man kept saying I was his daughter's age, I think he was really drunk, it was really the strangest thing. The people from Hong Kong were sweet, I gave them my contact info, but they never emailed me, but it's okay. I can't remember any of their names... The one guy was Phillip, I think. That's all I remember though. We went out for ice cream after, and then we all went out own ways.

Wednesday - July 12, 2006.

This day was really bad for rain. My mom had spent the night at her friend's house all the way across town. There was a nice hair salon over there that she wanted me to get my hair cut at. So we were supposed to take the subway from Madu to there. Only... due to all the rain, the subway was flooded and the subway from Madu wasn't running. So my grandma tried to get a taxi to take us. Only the taxi couldn't go through. The streets were flooded, too. Eventually my mom's friend just came to Madu to pick us up.

I was pretty in a bad mood, although I feel bad about it now, back then, I was just so mad. The rain was so shitty and I didn't really want to go out anywhere.

Eventually, we got our haircuts, went to eat again and met my mom's other friend, the small lady.

I suppose that part I don't really want to talk about much, family things ^^

After that, we were unable to get back to 이모's place, so we stayed the night in a 찜질방. It was actually a lot of fun. There's this room called the Igloo Room and it's just this really really cold room, but in Korea, it feels nice to be in a cold room. We ate and drank and talked and played until we decided to go to bed. Well, sleep on the floor.

Thursday - July 13, 2006.

We woke up and we didn't really have clothes, so we went shopping. I got some shoes, finally so I could actually walk around. Bought some clothes at the random stores around. Then the lady dropped us off at COEX Mall. We wanted to check out the aquarium there and do a little walking around, too. The aquarium was pretty cute, really small, but there were lots of cute things to look at.

Then, I met up with Jin for the first time at the food court. We got coffee and walked around for a bit. It was kind of challenging talking to her in all Korean, since my Korean isn't that good, but it was fun. After, we went to watch 한반도 at the movie theater there. It was such a nice movie theater! They even sell 오징어 in the popcorn stands~ Such a difference...

Friday - July 14, 2006.

I woke up and got all my stuff ready to go meet Jecka at the airport. I had to walk out and find the airport bus stop and when my mom and I finally did, we parted ways. I got on the bus with my extremely heavy luggage. I got to the airport with a lot of time to spare, but I really had no idea when she would come out, so I sat in front of where people come out for about an hour.

When she came out, I recognized her right away. I mean, she flew on a European airline and all the people who were walking out were white, it wasn't hard to tell the difference. Jecka was a lot taller than I expected her to be... I know I keep saying this, but I was really shocked. I thought she would be like a lot shorter than me, but this was not the case. Rather tall, I have to say.

We hopped on the bus to Myongdong. It was kind of hard communicating with the man who owns Seoul Tower Ville, he's like hard of hearing or something. But he finally came and picked us up from the bus stop and we started to get unpacked. It was pretty interesting. We sat around all day and watched Mnet. We decided to take this day "easy." But then a lot of the days turned out like this -- where we'd wake up and lay around for a few hours and finally get dressed midday to head out a few hours after...

We exchanged all the money to give to the man for our housing. But you know you can't walk around shopping areas with wads of cash or your passport, so we after we changed money, we had to lug back up that treacherous hill back to the place.

We ate at the food court in Mijiliore. Yummy~ easily a good place to go to eat. Then we raided this tiny CD shop in the shopping area of the subway station at Myongdong. I think the man thought I was insane because I'd only been in a few days earlier. I mean, it was the same guy the entire time, he just have realized I was the same person, too.

Saturday - July 15, 2006.

This day was spent mostly lazing around until we headed off to COEX Mall. COEX was fun, we hit the CD shop there, too. Who knew I could seriously buy that much, certainly not I. Today, I wanted to do something very specific. I don't know how I knew, but I had this weird feeling, that from M!Pick, the episode when Baby and Kyujong are getting gifts for their coordinators and their music teacher for White Day, they went to COEX. I found the EXACT shop that they went to and saw the lady who works at that cart, it's the same one!

Sunday - July 16, 2006.

Since we're cool like that, we had another late start. This time, we headed off to SBS. I'll just stick in the entry I wrote about it at the time. Just because I'm lazy like that.

(annie's part)

what do these three people have in common: lee donghae, yesung, park jungsu.

?

they showed themselves to the countless super junior fans waiting outside of inkigayo when they were leaving in the buses.

who in the world knew that we would be fangirling super junior to this extreme?
there should be a list of things you should be prepared to do if you want to be a true fangirl.

1. wait 5 hours in rain or shine
2. dress smart, no skirts
3. be extremely happy just to see 1 glimpse of a hand, leg, or any other such body part
4. be prepared to sleep at certain locations
5. don't expect to see them perform
6. love them for retarded selves
7. don't be afraid to talk to all the treacherous fans

for the love of all that is T_T_T

they won their 3rd mutizen today, oh what a lovely day.

in the words of 이동해, "여러분, 사랑해요!"
T____________T

jecka'll be around later to update and edit XD

JECKA EDIITTTT;
+annie re-edit XD

So we just watched the Inki perf - it wasn't Yesung. But don't worry, Annie isn't all that heartbroken. Cos we've worked out that it must have been Hyukjae who waved to us XDDD

Today has completely flown past though. It's been a complete blur. We woke up to 'Singing in the Rain' at 9:30, had breakfast and took the subway to Balsan for Inki despite the rain. We got to Inki about 1pm, with plenty of time to spare for the 3:50pm live recording. But seriously, more than 85% of the people there were Super Junior fans, over half of which must have been under 14 years of age. But all's cool cos we found two 12-yr olds who might take us to the Super Junior apt this week LOL! They seemed rather shocked to hear we were from America and England. And that I'm Chinese. +they kind of thought it was the most bizarre thing that there were foreigners in their midst that actually had heard of suju. one of them asked me when i heard about suju and of course i said when they came out, which i guess is true, although i didn't like them at the time. she's like omg how?! i didn't even know about them then! the girls kept giving us tips on how to get in and where we would have to stand. i think at first they were really suspicious of us~ i told them that jecka was chinese so that's why she wasn't responding and they're like what?! HANKYUNG'S HOMETOWN?! i think jecka at least understood that. xD then she asked us who was our favorite members. when i told her that jecka was donghae, she looks her up and down and goes, oh, competition huh? hahahahaha, then she asked who i liked, and i said hyukjae. she's like... HAAHAHA i think she doesn't like him that much. then she started going off about full house and how he was really cute on that and at least he could dance. oh, i can't forget that comment where she said, "oh, but he's only just about my size!" then she started going off on a imitation of leeteuk from this week's show... "my name iz lee teuk~" she also couldn't forget to mention all the times that she'd seem them THIS close~ she saw my hyukjae on the stage really close like a few weeks ago. she said when you get to go in and stand near the front, donghae and hyukjae are the ones you can see the best. they started offering about their dorm~ and the girl was digging through her phone for the address of the place, but i guess she couldn't find it. she started reciting something but she couldn't rememeber halfway through. in any case, we've got to meet those girls again to find the dorms. in the beginning, she asked me how old i was, and so i asked them to guess. they said 25, 26 -_-. DO I REALLY LOOK THAT OLD AND WRINKLY?! maybe it was the rain that made me all wrinkly. i found out my umbrella doesn't work much. basically while we were standing outside, we were talking to those girls. they sure knew a lot of info.

+so i guess, i dunno if it was just a super junior fanclub thing, but basically you need to carry whatever album is being promoted by super junior with you at all times. it's not to get it signed or anything, it's just a sign that you're a fan and that's one of the things that determines if you can get inside or not. they line you up first with the people with numbers, although i'm highly unsure where the numbers come from, but then right after is people in whatever order with cds. there was also a man walking around screaming at everyone, and apparently, according to the 12 year olds, he's super junior staff. he goes and controls all the crowds and he's the one that they see most often. the girls even knew the names of the managers. there is one nice manager they say, and all the rest are mean. they hit kids that come towards super junior. there's even been kids who get really hurt at the sites where super junior is. so the 12 year olds kept checking to see if the SUPER mean manager was gone. they found out that, indeed, the mean one had not come out today, she started screaming in joy because she could see the boys properly today without any bashing (literally). hahahahaha (by jecka).

We never made it inside Inki, so we stood outside in the rain for another hour and a half until 5:30, shivering in the cold and being wet and hungry, but nevertheless getting rather amused by the stories the other Suju fans were telling. After a while, we heard that Super Junior had won Mutizen for the third time. And we all squealed so bad. +first, the girls got a call from their friend who was watching it at home. apparently heechul was the mc, and there's this thing that heechul always says whenever they win the mutizen, that maybe because he's the mc that week, it's a luck that they win the mutizen. so then when the girl found out heechul was mc, she started screaming about how they were probably goin to win mutizen this week as well. only they were pissed because we couldn't get in and started going off about how they can't win this week because they couldn't be there to watch. 2 weeks ago, when buzz won the mutizen, i guess they had gone inside, but when that had happened, the entire room was empty because all the super junior fans went outside to greet super junior leaving.

A bit later, vans started emerging and although the windows were all tinted, other fans told us that Suju liked to wind down the windows for their fans. And you know everything you hear about the security guards/managers being scary? All true. I don't think I've ever been shouted at like that before. They weren't shouting at me directly, but at all the fans blocking part of the road. +the people shouting were bodyguards i suppose, they had that written on them. the thing is, they weren't just screaming, they were swearing at all the kids and saying like why the hell are you kids so stupid, get up on the ledge, and don't you dare stick to the van, why are you stupid, do you think that the van can move if you're stuck to it like that?, etc etc. it was actually much more horrible than i could have ever imagined it to be.

+there was some girl that seemed to be in charge, i think she was a fanclub leader or something like that, she started guiding everyone to move one way. some other random older girls showed up and they started taking pictures of the place. that one girl started screaming not to take pictures and the older girls started swearing at them saying that they love it when they upload it to the internet anyway, so they don't know why they're complaining in the first place. those girls were gone pretty quick.

We were so busy peering down the road, we didn't see Goo Hyesun getting into her van. When we did realise though, she smiled at us and she really is beautiful.

Annie is sure she saw Heechul in the front seat of the first van. Kibum must have been in the back, cos they live together. +and after watching the show, hankyung must have been in there as well since he was at inki today. that leaves 10 among 2 vans, 5 in each.

But behind them, was a bigger black van. And a voice spoke out on a mic, 'Everybody, I love you. And just in case you didn't recognise the voice the first time, he said it a few more times. Donghae. Aiden aiden aiden. <3>

Monday - July 17, 2006.

Perhaps it's the effects of yesterday, but although we didn't head out until 3pm, we still had a pretty good day. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much. Let's start from the beginning. I'm sure Annie will fill in the rest I've forgotten. +cause annie's good like that :)

We decided to stay close in case it started raining. Today was, after all, the second day we had planned to go to the SM Town festival, cancelled because of the typhoon. So we went shopping at Myeongdong, looking out for the stores that our boys endorse. Of course, they're all way too expensive for us, and all we could do was look at the pretty ads and squeal.

+i just want to step in here and note that we didn't ONLY fangirl shop today! i looked at pretty jewelry type things and bought a few items for really cheap. oh but then we did stop at those weird tents with those strange accesories with korean stars on it. i think these tents were purely designed for foreigners. they were mostly pretty empty except for us. there were pretty dbsk books, but they were so expensive! they were fake too =( they had a lot of ugly people that we don't think are so pretties and a few dbsks, and some ss501 boys. i think one of the most amusing was the pillow? or maybe the MUGS with ss501 on it. ._. sigh... the things that they'll make for fangirls. OMG. THE DISCOVERY. THE MOST AMUSING DISCOVERY EVER. there were a whole bunch of keyrings/cell chains. i think they messed up on one of them, but it had jaejoong on one side, and most of the other ones had like a group picture of dbsk on the back, but this one got a wookie. ._. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? JAEJOONG + WOOKIE? O_O

Suddenly, we hear the distinct beats of U faintly somewhere. We basically run around like headless chickens, across the road, back over to the other side of the road, trying to locate where it was coming from. We find it. We run straight in. We look up... to find a lingerie store. So we proceeded to look at socks for the following 4 minutes. In our defense though, Annie did buy some socks. +the socks were rainbow colored! 7 socks! 10,000 WON! how cheap. or at least i thought so anyway. +what was even harder was the fact that we were humming U and walking around the store while the lady FOLLOWED US. i mean most places people follow you, but not to that extent. she was following like RIGHT behind. ._.

For the first time since arriving, we had a proper meal at an Italian restaurant. It was realllly nice, we'll have to take Sarah when she gets here. We have some more 50% off coupons for that place. We planned to walk around the block a couple of times to get some more from the little old lady that was handing them out, but she gave them to us pretty freely. +i've also determined here that interesting only means weird and scary for jecka. when she says something is interesting, be afraid... very afraid.

Afterwards, we took the subway to COEX because it was raining. And because we needed more copies of Junior, which comes with the most gorgeous gorgeous Super Junior poster in the world andDonghaelookssososososocute. Annie will probably rant about what we discovered, so I'll leave that for her. +they were all out of junior ._. sarah wanted us to buy her 13 O_O but there were really none! we might have to go somewhere else to get some more ._. i hope the next month's are nice at least. so... then i walked near the counter ._. there sat one sole copy of junior. *snatch* somebody doesn't know how lucky she is tha i love her.

+oh right, we went to the cd store to buy more cds... we wanted to grab more copies of the dbsk live, but alas. dbsk fans are certainly amazing. they were all gone. ALL of them. they were in at least 4 different places in the store, they were GONE. then i even asked the lady at the counter and she apologized that they were gone. how are fans so crazy? how is it possible? it's really not possible, but i guess that's what it is...

But things changed when we went to Spris, Heechul's store, to look at shoes, and I decided to buy a pair. The lady at the store saw the Junki magazine I was holding, and I smile stupidly at her like a fangirl. She goes to the back.. and comes back with the Fly, Daddy Fly poster. The exact poster Annie and I look at dreamily every time we come out of the subway station to get home. I wasn't sure what she meant by that.. until I see that she was holding THREE and was rolling them up. Annie looking gobsmacked helped too - she was giving us those posters. Just as we were squealing at each other, she goes back to the store room again. She comes back with a WHOLE BUNCH. ANOTHER 10 POSTERS. +the lady actually started getting our stuff ready to go with the three posters and i think i had the *omg-i-wish-i-could-have-some-too-look* on my face so she goes, you want more? we can give you more! that's when she ran off to the back ._. i have this feeling it was the combination of her knowing that jecka wasn't korean and the junki magazine she was holding, and the fact that all the shoes i wanted was the ones you had to special order. ._. i kept glaring at her while trying on shoes because nothing would fit, and she looked really sorry. at the end, she went underneath the counter, for which i thought she was grabbing heechul unni magazines, but she says, take some things to drink too! and hands us cans of drinks with heechul unni on it. oh right, and then the lady started rambling about how there was a japanese person there yesterday and the past 3 days before that everyday to buy shoes and get junki posters. :X at least they just gave them to us all in one go.

+after we left, jecka was in the most crazy spastic mode i've ever seen her in. she was smiling like a crazy little fangirl, clutching the posters, clutching heechul unni soda, shouting that she could never ever drink it because it's ever too lovely. she started going off about how she has some other drink from two years ago that she still has, not opened. i couldn't understand her in her overflowing with fangirlism british accent.

+it seems like places are favoring us more than anything for coming from abroad... it's certainly harder for me since i know jecka at least depends on me for really basic stuff, but it's so hard for be to be outgoing outside of my group of friends. due to that, it really limits me on how much i can ask the people there for stuff. i feel bad because jecka keeps poking me to ask stuff, but i don't really know how to nor do i have courage to. people who know me know how much pride i have and how hard it is for me to break out of that. hmm~

Tuesday - July 18, 2006.

My mom needed to meet with me to give me more money because I was running out. Since we were there anyway, we might as well hang out right? So originally Shannon was supposed to meet us at 2pm in front of Milijore, except she slept in and we only found that out at 2:30. We went with my mom, her friend, her friend's husband, my brother, and Jecka to a Chinese place. There used to be some place that my mom and her friends used to go to all the time around there, but I guess the place we went to wasn't it. But since we're already in there, we had to just eat... XD Shannon called and I went to bring her back to eat with us. She eats good. XD My mom's friend also poured us drinks, and being young children, we're not allowed to say no. We drank tiny shots of this really really strong stuff, it was clear I'm not sure what it was. Whatever it was, it must have been really strong because Jecka's entire body turned red. She was wearing a shirt you could sleep her back a little bit and her shoulders. ALL RED.

After eating, we went to eat ice cream. That 32" one. Hahahaha... it's a lot of ice cream. And actually we ate it once before! Amusing~~ Once it was over, we went separate ways. Shannon, Jecka, and I walked around Myongdong a bit and shopped around. We thought we had a good idea, which turned out to be a not so good of an idea, but we were going to go to Shannon's area and meet her sister to watch a movie. But the thing is, if we did that, we would have to take a taxi back. So we were on the subway and arguing with her sister and all these things... It was getting pretty bad so Jecka and I decided to just head back and call it a night.

But then, Shannon kept calling from a payphone and her sister from her cell asking where each other was. How in the world was I to know? Then Shannon's sister called one last time and was cursing and just randomly hung up.

Jecka and I went home.

Wednesday - July 19, 2006.

Jin messaged me saying that she received the tickets and she could meet today. In the evening, we met with Jin in Myongdong and had some coffee. We chat a bit and it was interesting watching Jin and Jecka communicate because Jin could say what she wanted but couldn't understand what Jecka was saying.

Later, we went around and tried different food in the stalls outside. It was interesting. XD I liked a lot of it, but of course I've eaten a lot of it before, too. Jin had never been to one of those fortune teller things, so we decided to try it together. So the man was talking about me, saying that he thought I had a really kind heart that was the type to break easily. Then he started telling me that I could only get married after 2010. If I get married too early, it wouldn't be good. Also, my husband will be someone who is a specialist in whatever field he's in. So it won't be like general doctor, but like a specialist of something. XD Then he was saying that I will have kids and when I have the kids, the kids will mean more to me than my husband. Also that I should go into teaching the arts or something related. Whatever I do, I'm going to be traveling a lot between America and Korea. O_O; He also said I'm going to be really well off. He was talking about me and Jin's relationship, which is weird because we hadn't even known each other for very long, but he was saying that our types mix easily and we get along well. It's true, I think considering, how easy is it for people to just meet people and talk to them and hang out with them this way. After this, we went our separate ways.

Jecka and I went to Dongdaemun to meet up with my cousin, Saehyun. He had already met with my brother and the four of us were going to go to Dongdaemun and do some night shopping. He took us around and showed us some of the shops and whatnot and how to talk to the people. He was more experienced in these sort of things so he was able to give us more guidance about it. We went out and walked around a bit until we hit the actual gate. We made some illegal moves by running around the street and got a bit closer to it. My cousin was all talking about how everything in Korea is fake. XD There was a police car with the sirens on next to the gate, and we saw how there's no one in it. He stares, and goes, wow, I didn't know that REALLY everything was fake.

Later we went and ate at this ddukboki place that's famous, I guess. The food was pretty good, but it was already 2am. We got home around 4am and almost fell right asleep.

Thursday - July 20, 2006.

In the morning, it was extremely hard to wake up, yet at the same time, I kept waking up in the middle of my sleep. I kept having these strange dreams where I had this image of Sarah standing on a sidewalk, lost. She would be wandering the streets of Korea by herself, and due to that image, I hopped out of bed, tied my hair back, and ran out the door. (I didn't even brush my teeth T_T) I ran out, only she wasn't there yet. I think I waited over an hour. I saw two buses go by and then the third one is the one she hopped out of. But while I was waiting the man from the Tower Ville was like standing around... I guess he was waiting for Sarah, too. HAHAHA... And he didn't know whether I was me or not so he just kept looking away. It was very awkward. Finally she came out, and for some reason, I recognized her right away. She had a crapload of stuff. She already bought all those Juniors. Of course Sarah would do that. xD Sarah was a lot tinier than I expected her to be. Although I'm not quite sure why I thought that, but still. We brought everything back up to Tower Ville and rested a while. Jecka was already out of bed and it was me who needed to get ready to head out for the day.

We headed off to Mnet, really not sure of what to expect. I mean, they were letting people in at 6:50 and we got there around 1:30. We didn't know quite exactly how to get there so we started following the groups of girls in school uniforms that were holding signs with "이특" or "동해" on them. Clearly Super Junior fans. We eventually found the line, but the line was more than anything I've ever seen. We couldn't even see the stadium from where we were in line. As time went on, and seeing that there wasn't even much of a line behind us, we weren't really sure whether or not we were getting in. This strangely familiar man in a yellow shirt walked by and wrote numbers on our wrists. What was this? Apparently if you got a number on your wrist you were getting in? The numbers were huge. 946, 947, 948. How were we really going to get in? Well, the place we were going into was a stadium, that's how. Those numbers merely stated that you were a Super Junior fan. Apparently there were other lines, but we really couldn't find them.

Even though we sat around for a few hours, it was really nothing. There were line vendors-- people that walked by with Super Junior crap-- that walked the lines every so often. Other people walked by with cards with their homepages and things of that sort. There was a lot of amusing things, but probably the most interesting was while I was listening in on the conversation of the group of four girls behind us. See, ever since trying to get into Inkigayo, I've had this habit of listening in on conversations to figure out what our chances are of being able to get in. However, these girls weren't talking about Super Junior at all. In fact they were talking about us. Of course speaking in Korean, they were asking each other why we were speaking in English, and how it was possible for Super Junior to have overseas fans. One girl that was sharing a seat with Jecka on some block was getting frustrated because she wanted to say Hi to us and talk to us in English, but for some reason her memory of English classes was foggy and she couldn't remember what to say. I was sitting there, giggling to myself and of course Sarah and Jecka were like what in the world. The other girls were taunting the one getting frustrated because they were all saying how her English is the worst anyway. Finally, the girls turned around. The one frustrated girl kept looking at us, breathing really deep, and then talking to her friends in Korean. Then, since they really couldn't seem to do anything to start the conversation, I was like what are you trying to say, in Korean. She's like WHAT? YOU SPEAK KOREAN? Then we all started talking about where we were from, why we were here and all that. We had a long time to wait in line, but we ended up talking to them a few times more after that. We'd talk a little bit, and then stop talking altogether for a while. I mean, communication was hard. If they wanted to talk to Sarah and Jecka, I had to translate, and the same the other way around. Or they'd try to speak in their English that they didn't know very well. As the line got shorter and shorter, letting people in, it was a different feeling. I kept getting scared that we wouldn't get in, or it would cut off at a certain point. The security guard kept saying, you're all in, don't worry. But in a really rude way, everyone was getting irritated that everyone was speaking so rudely to them. It had started sprinkling a little bit so we were all trying to share three umbrellas among the 7 of us. That was a really amusing time. They continued to push people back in line and all this other business, it was really frustrating.

Before I forget, the girls were Nayoung (the one that was getting really frustrated) who liked Donghae, Namhee, Eunjung who liked Sungmin, and Bobae who liked Kibum. All four of them were so cute. They lived aroudn Incheon and three of them (Nayoung, Eunjung, Bobae) went to school together while Namhee went elsewhere. They all met in middle school, though when they went to school together. Nayoung seemed like the leader of the group. Like, she would always say what they should do, but she had a terrible memory, and would act dumb a lot of the time. Eunjung seemed like the brains of the group, and from what they were saying, she was really smart. She studies really hard, I guess. Namhee didn't really seem like totally a part of their group, I dunno, I only met her once but that's the sort of feeling I got. Bobae, I think had another friend who she was really close to. They brought the friend's sign for 이특 to M!Countdown to wave. This was the same group of girls that we were following out of the subway station. HAHAHA... Bobae was really quiet and I thought she didn't really like us that much, but I don't think that was the case at all after meeting her a few times more.

Finally, they let us in. We were really in there. Actually, when going in, there were a lot of things that looked familiar from SS501 Stalker and all that. The hallways they run through and whatnot. It was all there. We were seated in the far, far corner. If you were standing on the stage, it would be like on the far left hand side very far away. It wasn't very close, obviously, but you could still see enough. Enough to spazz anyway. So I guess I must be retarded. Everyone was taking pictures and I guess when the performances start, you can't take them. How am I supposed to know that? The scary man they call a Super Junior 이모, the one that put numbers on our wrists, was flashing a flashlight at me and telling me I have to pack my stuff and leave. So he drags me out my pulling on my wrist. I still have bruises from that. There were two other security guards, one was an older man, another that was younger. I pleaded my case to both of them, the younger one felt terrible asking me to leave, but the older man finally pushed me out. There were a whole bunch of fans who didn't get in that were standing right outside the door because I guess you can hear whats going on inside. There was also a cleaning lady. To all these people, I pleaded my case. Actually, it was quite funny now that I think about it, but I was speaking with a terrible accent on purpose so they would actually believe that I was in trouble. I started talking about how I had two Chinese friends in there who couldn't speak Korean and had no idea how to get back to the place we were staying at. I have to say, I've never met kinder fans. Think about this, they're people who didn't get in, and they're helping someone who got kicked out, go back in. The cleaning lady was rude, saying how did I know about this if I was from overseas and all this other shit. How rude. Anyway, there's a group of mostly ladies, called Super Juniors 이모s and they deal with the fans and help manage that side. They're basically one step down from managers, except they're mostly girls and a lot younger than the managers. There had been this one who was really weird outside, she had one like WHITE makeup and red lipstick, and she was pretty short and chubby. Everyone was saying how she looked really mean and all this stuff. There was a group of about three girls who brought me to the table where the 이모s were sitting and helped explain my case. All the other ones weren't that nice, but the one I was describing just now got up and said, let's help you get back in. She brought me back inside. We walked by the security guards, and the scary man in the yellow shirt and walked back to where I was sitting. The security guards and the scary man kept looking at me, but then the 이모 grabbed my hand. She said, go be with your friends and walked away. Maybe it was me being crazy, but she was really really kind. It doesn't seem like they would do such things, but it's true, they're a lot nicer than people will ever believe. On the front, when managing crowds and fans and whatnot, it's scary and they shout or whatever, but they are only doing it for the protection and wellbeing of everyone. They have hearts and they really do care about the fans.

After I got back to my seat, I was shaking. I think I held Jecka's hand for the remainder of the show and kind of tucked my head down in case the man came to kick me out again. The girls that we had been talking to before grabbed my hand and said they were glad I got to come back in and they had been worried and whatnot. I guess you don't really know wonderful people are until you fall into a crisis. The show was wonderful, it really was. The TRAX had their comeback and it was just. I can't really even describe. Even from these far seats, you could hear Jay Kim hit the notes and be amazing and everything. There were a bunch of other groups, but I don't really remember anything other than TRAX and Super Junior. Basically, they had their part in the show, won the #1, so they went up to receive the award, and then they came back to do their encore performance. I'm not sure if it was because he was usually on the left side, but Hyukjae kept coming on our side and bowing to all the fans. I think during Kibum's little thing, if I remember properly, the trio of Kibum, Heechul, and Donghae all did it together. Everything about it was just so.. it was really perfect for a first performance. So, also, Eeteuk, Kangin, and Shindong were MCs, right? So honestly, the entire stadium was filled with Super Junior fans, as you can imagine. There would be no cheering during most of the other songs except when the MCs appeared in random places to do their part. There were parts where they would sit among the crowd or appear on a platform. During their performance, you could almost not hear them because all of the fans were singing along. There were a handful of SG Wannabe, Buzz, and TRAX fans, but that was really it.

It was an amazing show, but it wasn't over. Once M!Countdown ended, a random man came on stage and talke about how they were going to do a drama filming for a scene in the 1st or 2nd episode where they have some performances. Those that wished to stay, could come to the front and watch. The girls we met that day were like, hey! let's stay. So me, holding Nayoung's hand, and the other holding Jecka's hand we walked straight towards the stage. We got there pretty quick because we ended up sitting in the very front row. It was Namhee, Nayoung, me, Jecka, and Sarah in that row. Eunjung and Bobae sat right behind me and Nayoung. Although, those two were the shortest ones, I really wonder how that ended up happening. It turned out this was for Hwanhee's new drama, Over the Rainbow. He was going to do some scenes of being a singer. The man kept telling us that it was only going to be half an hour to an hour, but it ended up lasting till like till 1:30am. -_-; It's okay, there were some amusing times. Actually Hwanhee is pretty good looking in real life. I didn't think he was really ever that attractive on TV, but he's not as short as I thought he would be either. For the beginning of it, I was just filming Hwanhee, but then that got boring after these really good looking dancers came on stage. There were like three that were really really attractive. So as the fancams go on, you can see I became interested in only one or two guys. And really, I learned that quite a bit there, that if you are goign to go watch performances and that sort of thing, you can only REALLY like one guy. I guess I can say I figured out who that was.

We had to move to the other side of the room because there was a different stage set up, so we stared at the dancers some more. Since everyone was complaining about how the subways were closed now and all these students had no way of getting home, they provided 10,000 won per person for taxi money home. I thought this was too little, but actually, even with the high rate of taxis at that time of night, it only cost 17,000 or so. So between the three of us, we had like 10,000 leftover anyway (which we used later for taxi money ahahah).

We were parting ways with the girls, apparently the MBC people were going to take people who lived in the Incheon area home in some van. We traded phone numbers very quickly on the spot and promised we'd see each other again soon.

Friday - July 21, 2006.

In the morning, we found out that Super Junior was going to be performing on MBC Music Core. Not only were they performing, but they were going to be having their Power Recital. You know, that piece at the end of Music Core where one artist or group sings and does stuff for 15 minutes. MBC Music Core was on Saturday at 3:50. It would be over by 5:00pm. If we grabbed a taxi right away, we could make it to SS501 Concert by 6pm. Originally we weren't going to go to MBC Music Core at all because we wanted to get to SS501 early since we had standing seats. But how could we pass this up, going to the concert was going to the concert right? We started to think. I was pretty sure that we needed to be there overnight in order to get in. I mean people stayed overnight to get into Mnet. That's ridiculous, there was over 1,000 Super Junior fans that got in. MBC Music Core is in their own studio so it couldn't even be that big. How could we possibly get in if we didn't stay overnight.

After a lot of thought, we finally went out around 5pm to go check out the studio and the building around. We had been text messaging the girls back and forth and they said that if we just had the U CD, we could get in as long as we were early enough in line. They also thought that we would have to stay the night. So we were walking around and we noticed a huge group of girls sitting on the bench in front of the gates. We were wondering if that could possibly be them, the Super Junior fans, but we decided to just walk around and see. There was nothing else around, and I have to say, MBC is such a nicer studio than SBS. It's HUGE. Anyway, without us even having to go ask those girls, they approached me and asked if we were Super Junior fans. I think when in a foreign country and you're really not sure, you just automatically say yes to everything. I mean, it's not like we were lying. So I said yes. She goes, "Oh! Then here, what are your names so we can write you down on the list to go into Music Core." She brings over this paper with like 12 names on it so far. We were written down as numbers 13, 14, 15. She started squealing about how we were all going to get in. They usually let in 50 fans of the group that is having their Power Recital. Anyway, we were in for sure. But there was one catch. Of course, there's always a catch, right? We had to come back at 1am, 5am, and again at 9am. Those that didn't follow these rules would be taken off the list. This was their way of getting fans to stay in line without having people line up overnight on the street. I guess it looks really bad on the artist if students are lining up outside a studio overnight. Anyway, since we hadn't prepared for this, we had to head back and gather all our things to stay out overnight. We contacted the girls and told them to come as soon as they could so they could be quite far up on the list as well. They came and were quite a few below us, but apparently we were all guaranteed to go in. We stood outside the gate where apparently Super Junior was doing the radio show with Ok Joo Hyun. Everyone was there apparently except Shiwon. They walked out of the studio and we saw them. They were walking. They were really there. They waved at us and ran off to their van. I guess we were standing on the wrong side that day. The girls on the other side fainted from seeing Yesung on the driver's side of the van. The girls were so cute. Nayoung, she had seen a grandmother carrying really heavy bags so she went and helped her carry her things to wherever she was going. I think Nayoung was gone a good 30 minutes or so. The grandma was a little bit crazy. She dragged her around to the most random places and all those bags she was carrying was gum. She was one of those old ladies that sell gum in the subways. She started telling Nayoung how she should stay with her and sell gum with her. She started getting upset when Nayoung said she had to go back to her friends. So finally, to just get away from the grandma, Nayoung bought gum. Nayoung came back with the gum and shared with all of us. She even shared with the security guard who was looking all firm and saying we couldn't be leaning against the fence and all that. After she gave him gum though, he was chewing and smiling and whatnot. It was really cute. I asked them how they had convinced their mothers to let them stasy out the entire night. They said they were going to 찜질방. So that's how ...

One of the girls in charge came and told us that we couldn't hang around outside the studio, that we had to go somewhere else. Where could we go? There was no motels or anything like that for us to stay in. The night was sure long. I think everyone was tired, but me. I don't know why, but I never really got tired until the morning came. I guess it's just because I'm really good at staying up until the middle of the night. I suppose that's normal for me. We hung out in so many different places. Stood next to different office buildings and banks, next to the handimart, in restaurants. All over. The entire time we had been looking for a motel or some place we could be indoors even if we had to pay. It had started raining quite heavily and everyone was getting drenched. After a while, we were all shivering, it was really too cold. When we stood next to the office buildings, the guards would come out chasing us, asking why students were out this time of night. I guess it didn't really help the girls were in their school uniforms still. There really was no place we could stay for too long. I mean between the hours of 1 and 5, where were we really to go anyway? Even if we went home, we'd have to go back again to check in and everything. What if we had just fallen asleep? There was too many risks involved. Considering we had already gotten that far, we might as well.

There was another situation. There was one girl following us around that we didn't really know. She had said that her friend was going to come later, but her friend never came. We really didn't understand that. She stuck with us like gum for the entire course of the night.

Saturday - July 22, 2006.

After the 5am check-in, we decided to bring the THREE girls back to our place to let us all sleep for at least two hours. Nayoung is such a good girl, she figured out a way to have the other girl stay behind. We all went home and almost everyone took a shower in the time we were at our place. Everyone but me, anyway. -_-;

Bobae sat in a chair and sleep, Eunjung and Nayoung slept on the pull out bed together in the living room, I slept on the ground next to them, Sarah and Jecka each in their beds in the bedroom. I guess Tower Ville can really house six. XD Thankfully we got up in time and headed off for MBC again at 8:30am by taxi. I was in the car with Bobae and Eunjung. Bobae kept getting nervous that we weren't going to make it on time and all these things. She would stare at Eunjung, whine a bit, then stare at the clock in the car, stare at her phone clock, shutting it and opening it over and over again. Her being nervous made me even more nervous. What if we didn't get there on time? We could do nothing about it right? This would be our last chance to catch Super Junior this year anyway.

There was the biggest crowd of girls I've ever seen before in front of MBC. I guess it wasn't all girls. There were actually quite a handful of guys too. Unlike Mnet, there were many different lines for all different artists. Boom fans, Lim Junghee fans, All Black fans, TRAX fans, FTTS fans... so many fans of all kinds. Apparently it turned out that a few people didn't turn up for the times they were supposed to and we moved up to 9, 10, 11 on the list. We sat around in the scorching sun for nearly three hours. We had to wait for the stupid scary man to come and write our numbers on our wrists. I think Sarah and I fell asleep for a good portion of those three hours. During the earlier part, the girls, being as sweet as they are went off to go buy us "breakfast." She came back with like a 3 liter water bottle, and crackers. Of course, she's young, what else could she buy from that mart anyway. xD We sat around eating, and I think everyone felt like they were crazy. We were all so dazed and tired. Finally, after hours of falling asleep on my arms and all that, the stupid man came. After he wrote the numbers, we were able to go off and do our own thing until 2pm. At 2pm sharp, we were to line up again in the order we were given on our wrists. We went off with the girls to get a proper meal. I mean, for me, Sarah, and Jecka, this was going to be our last meal for the day, probably. We stood in line again for a long time. I guess because the 이모 for Super Junior wasn't ready since he was doing CD checks in the line, the man from MBC got pissed and let in all these other stupid retarded fans first. Super Junior fans were supposed to be let in first, after all, it was STANDING section. It was also the Super Junior Power Recital, why should other fans be in there first. Anyway, we eventually got in.

But before I talk about inside, there are actually a lot of different age fans. Like girls WAY older than me! The girls that were standing in front of me, they were all older. One girl apparently knows Yesung. Not like, as friends, but as a fan. She is older than Yesung, I think 1980 or something like that. She had a sign that Yesung had written on calling her nuna and all that. I guess also sometime at a fansigning she gave him a pair of shoes...

Inside was so nicely air conditioned. It makes you kind of think, how is it possible that we sweat while in there? When the performances were going on, everyone went mad. The MBC audience was way more supportive of a variety of artists that Mnet. Everyone cheered for everyone. Not equally, but still. Our spots were just this empty space right in front of the stage. The stage was the stage, there wasn't anything around it. I stood behind one or two people in the very center. There was someone who would always be in the center in most of the dancing, so I claimed to stand there. For a lot of the things, they pre-record one performance, and do one live. I guess there's really no way around it, but I thought that was interesting. Sometimes, if they have time, they also do practice performances during the commercial break or while one of the recorded performances is airing. Super Junior was amazing. It wasn't even like bad or whatever because of the live. When they are at their best, they can really sing live. I was really taken aback by the new one, Kyuhyun. He was singing Sea of Love, and it was really good. The others too, but he really stood out in my mind. I wonder how bad of condition they must be in if when they're not doing well, their live is just that bad. You know, it was interesting too, all of them look so good in real life. I mean, of course it's the case with most people, but it's hard to even talk about this, they were so close. I think if I reached out a little further, I could touch them. Hyukjae always leaves his mic when he's doing his live at the front of the stage, so that after the remix dance sequence, he can come and pick it up to rap. They performed U, Sea of Love live and the other songs were pre-recorded. Those two songs they rehearsed as well. During the times where they are airing a pre-recorded performance, the boys can hear the music and stuff so they would dance along and do amusing things like that. It's not stuff you see on TV, but they really are nice. They provide a lot of fan service, bowing and waving and everything as soon as the cameras go off. Out of the ones I could see, Hyukjae, Yesung always did 90 degrees bowing before walking off the stage. It makes sense to me now, why artists can't exist without fans. In Korea, it really is like that. WIthout faithful fans that follow them everywhere when they sing and cheer them on, it's nothing. There's no rush to be there on stage, and there's no reason to do it. Anyway, something funny I thought was that you could really see me when they air. I am standing like right near the front, with a beige shirt on, and I'm about a head taller than all the other people gathered around the stage. Brian was really amusing, too. Brian kept copying the moves that people would be doing on stage and get all this attention. He's cute in life, too.

It was already 5pm. I felt like Cinderella rushing off to the ball. We rushed out of there, but we couldn't leave without saying goodbye to the girls. We didn't know when we'd see them again. So we said our goodbyes, and finally caught a taxi to the Double S concert. It's interesting, we seem to always be catching the most strange taxi drivers. This one was old and he really didn't seem to know where he was going.

I think its hard for me to sum up the double S concert, so I'll just post what Sarah wrote in her blog, I'm sure she doesn't mind. ^_^ I'll add some comments at the end of it.

-- SARAH'S SS501 POST --
Then after that, we took a cab to double S concert, we were so late, everything was gone, there was hardly anything to buy:( then we went to this booth,you have to buy stuff in order to get a poster, but there was this man, he suddenly said to me, you want one?~ and pointed to the poster, and im like yesplease, can i? and he said yes yes~ and gave each of us one. xDD he's so nice. the only regret i have, was that we werent there early to buy stuff and collect those fan cards sites. :( *regrets so much*

The concert, there were sooo many parents, hahaha dads moms families. its like families like Double S alot. xD
awhile before the concert started, the boys came out to look at the fans, then there was this great commotion, some fans tried to get near them but they got blocked up their guards. haha.
and then the lights all went off and it was dark with green light sticks flashing. so prettyful~

they perf the dancing songs, and most of the songs they sang live. they sang all the songs they never performed before. like in your smile, passion, take you high. then they did 2 new songs, the one youngstreet used, and another one byebyebaby bye, that one was so cute. haha, and im really proud that hyun joong's voice changed so much, he sounds so good singing live, and he has alot of parts to sing now. like in the first 2 singles, he didnt get to sing much, but this time, the byebye baby bye, he had so many parts and he sang so well, i'm really really happy. then they showed this clip where youngseang had his hair flattened. hahaha, and another one where hyun joong was the reporter and the other 4 boys were wearing skirts and pretending to be fan girls. hahah so funny, even as girls they look cute. xD then there was a clip where jungmin and kyu jong were in this room. Jungmin was the doctor and Kyu jong was the patient. and Jungmin was teaching Kyujong how a perfect smile/smirk should look like. and then first you push up your left cheek and if you want it to show in your whole face, you need to move and shake your head around so your whole face looks like its smiling. hahah. and then they showed like during makings, hyun joong popped his face in front of the camera and smirked. hahaha i think his one was the best.XD

then they sang how deep is your love. XD accapella for the chorus and then they sang normally. i need to spazz over hyun joong's voice again. :D then their individual perfs were really good, they have like their growin up pictures, from baby till now pictures. and young saeng had this video clip where he was a kid and he was singing on the karaoke. haha. i think its not that obvious but in real he had these strands of red hair looking like extensions, its so cool, it matched his red pants. haha.

for the individual perf, hyun joong sang in english,"Creep" the song title. .ajfdslahfa i mean you know he can't sing that well and he was singing in english even. and it was then i realized that he practiced so much so much till his voice sounded so good. and he played on the acostic guitar first and then the electric, after that he sang. its like those soft rock song where the singer comes out and holds the mic on a stand and sings. aljdsakjd;;

i cant really remember what the other members were doing, baby was doing this sexy thing, like singing + acting thingy, and kyujong had the sexiest michael jackson dance with pelvis moves and stuff like that, young saeng was singing and jungmin was doing tap dancing.

there was this cute thing, where they dressed up in like ghost kinda fashion, hahah the funniest was baby, he was chucky! he was wearing like baby clothes and rolling about on stage on the skate scoter thing. haha. and jungmin was the lady with long white hair.haha, and then he was asking the fans, am i sexy?~ they were like sexy~!!!!! ahaha and he laughed, he's actually kinda shy, although he tries to be out going and stuff. XD and he's really nice to the fans, i tihnk he interacts the most with the fans, tts why i think he has the most fans. like he gets the loudest scream and stuff. and there was once where he was at the triple S side, he bend down and picked up a light stick from one of the fans and started waving it. XD i mean who does that! double S, only double S does that. And then Hyung jun threw a shirt into the crowd, i was to far back to catch it, haha. and then oh oh i like how they play on stage, i think they recently got alot closer to each other, like they have more physical contact and stuff like that. like jungmin and kyu jong are really close now, and baby really looks up to kyu jong as hyung~ like how he hugs him from behind when kyu jong was going to cry.. and hyun joong as usual was in his own world. hahahah i like how he doesn't really know whats going on, and he just walks anywhere he likes and does whatever he likes. like they have proper places to stand, but he goes to the wrong one and baby is like aren't you suppose to be the other side, he'll look at baby cluelessly and continue standing there hahaha. the only thing, i didnt like was that young saeng is far too thin now. his cheeks were all sunken in and he looks skinnier then jungmin. you know how jungmin is soo skinny, i think young saeng is thinner then that. and how young saeng drinks all his water while the other members fling the water into the crowd. i hope his throat doesnt get worst~

and they're going to release a DVD for the concert, and their cd is going to be out 8/20. they said everyone to buy 3 copies~ 1 for dad, 1 for mom and 1 for yourself~ i think the album is going to be so good, i can't wait:D and the dvd too. hahaha. whoever is reading this, you guys gotta get a copy of the dvd, promise me! and byebye baby bye isnt their main song, they said its even better then bye bye baby bye. and that song is already really good. its cute too~
-- SARAH'S SS501 POST --

So, for me, I think the most memorable part was Kyujong & Youngsaeng's solo performances. Kyujong did this thing that was really not like him at all... I mean, it didn't seem shy or anything, it really made me proud how far he's come from the shy Kyujong that had been around for so long. I got about half of it on camera until the security guard pushed down my camera because we're not supposed to be filming. HAHAHA... Youngsaeng's was this old song with a remix to it. He sang and acted cute and pranced around. I guess all this time, I knew I liked him a lot, but I could really see when I was watching this. There was also so much Kyusaeng everywhere. Kyujong would walk around and do things, and then Youngsaeng would be right behind him. Baby was kind of all over the place and walking around on his own.

I think their new CD will really be good.. I just get this feeling. I hope it's not a mistake for them to be releasing an album so late in the year. I mean, obviously they're still too new to be able to get big awards or whatever this year, but still. They've pushed back all of this for so long now.

Afterward, we were leaving and we found all these random merchant people selling SS501 things. I went up to one of the carts, and I remembered I wanted to get a few extra Super Junior nametags. I started looking through them, and the man's like... You know that's Super Junior right? HAHAH... why the hell would I look through it if I was looking for SS501? -_-; I guess it didn't make much sense to rifle through those when I had just come out of a SS501 concert.

Sometime, maybe next year or so, I want to go back to that park. It looks so nice, even the area around the stadium was nice. Go playing around there and have a picnic or something.

Sunday - July 23, 2006.

Sarah had been aching to go to the 63 building, and I guess I understand why now. On the night where we spent the night out in Yeoido, Sarah had accidentally locked my phone so we had to go to the airport to get it fixed. Sarah and I decided to catch a proper meal before we went to the airport. We walked around Myongdong a bit and found another CD shop. This was strange because the only ones we'd seen was the one in COEX and the one in the Myongdong subway station shopping area. We hadn't actually seen this one in Myongdong and I'd been there so many times before, especially considering we lived right there. We went in and found so many CDs that still came with posters. It was fabulous. The lady was really sweet and gave us other posters as well. Anyhow, we eventually found a place called Sorrento that we decided to eat at. It was a lot nicer than almost any other place we'd gone to. It was Italian and since Sarah felt like spaghetti, it was a good place, we decided. Eating there was really nice... It almost felt strange to be eating more italian while we were in Korea.

Eventually, we finally found our way to Sejong Hotel to get to the airport. Standing there and waiting a while, we noticed an older lady, she had white hair, holding a bag. This bag wasn't just any bag. It was a Mighty Mac bag - the brand that SS501 does commercials for. Sarah, being the more outgoing one out of the two of us, she started to say how we had to ask the lady where she found that store. Except we started to notice something. She looked awfully Japanese. The night before had just so happened to be the SS501 concert. We stood a little closer to her, nonchalantly of course. She had one of those weird fake SS501 flower shaped keychains!! In the Mighty Mac bag was a poster, or so it seemed. Could she possibly be a fan? We stood behind her in line, and I even recall asking her to go ahead and board the bus before us, just so we could sit near wherever she was sitting. Sarah was brave and she started a conversation with her. We found out that indeed, she was from Japan, and yes she was SS501 fan. She was a baby follower. Ironic, but cute, no? She started telling us about the Mighty Mac store she had been to and even gave us a receipt of the place so we could go find it as well. She happened to have two posters, so she even gave us one. She was so cute. We talked about the concert and what parts we had liked the most and whatnot.

After shopping around the airport and getting my phone fixed, we decided that we would head off to the 63 building. Sarah had been wanting to go so much all throughout the trip, we just had to. We found a bus that went and got on. Sarah is really good at talking to strangers. She started talking to the white man that happened to be sitting behind us, saying, "Are you on holiday in Korea, then?" He replied, "No, I live here." After a look of shock, Sarah turned back around and we didn't speak with him throughout the entire time we were going to Yeoido. When we were near the 63 building, we started talking about where we were, whether we should be getting off or not. That's when the man interrupted and gave us DIRECTIONS on how to catch a cab and how to get there. It was quite humiliating. But amusing.

I've never even really seen a picture of the 63 building, only heard about it from what people tell me. Although now that I'm back home, I've seen quite a bit of it in My Girl, and it really is nice in there. We walked around first on the bottom floor where there are lots of shops and such. Actually there wasn't that many shops but it was fun to look around anyway. There's this really nice area that's between the ticketing counter and the elevator place and it's so pretty. We took a lot of pictures in there. We wanted to eat before we went up because obviously eating up there is going to be way more expensive. The guidebook had kept saying eat at the buffet, so I went there, and I asked in my shitty Korean how much it was. She nearly laughed at me. I guess it's like really high class. It was like HUNDREDS... How could it be so expensive. Who in their right mind will ea t there?

Anyway, after wandering for a while, we went to the ticketing counter to ask for a ticket up. Except, I couldn't figure out which option we wanted, so I just said, can we get two tickets for going up? And she muttered some Korean word, and I just replied yes. xDD I need to make my Korean a lot better. It's hard to get around;;

We went up the lift and going up was so. I can't really even describe. It was so pretty. It was around nighttime so there were a lot of lights up there and it was a darkened color in the city except for those lights already. Up inside the top floor, there were plenty of things we could look around at. Of course there was just the view. Now, I'm sure most of you know I'm not really a big person on views and scenery and all that, but this was just. It was really amazing. There was an area where you could go a few steps higher for a "thrill" but the floor of that area was a mirror and Sarah just so happened to be wearing a skirt. It was rather an amusing sight. We walked around and looked at all the touristy things to look at and take pictures with. We even took time to make a wish on the wishing wall. You can take this little card and write your wish. I guess really all of that is hard to put into words. I hope that we really can return in 5 years. In 5 years with our boyfriends right?

We headed home after that. Only, a day with Sarah will always be an adventure. We couldn't really figure out where we were supposed to go to find the subway. So we decided, after taking a hard look at this random map, that we should walk in one direction for a while. We saw some guys coming out of a building. Sarah started to yelp about how one of them was cute so we slowed down so we could confirm. Only there was a bus stop that came up just ahead. We stopped to look to see if there was a way we could get home from there. Without really knowing where this would take us, only those random guys we wanted to look at were standing there, we took the bus, following those guys on. A few minutes down the road, we saw a cute guy getting off the bus. Deciding he was much cuter, we hopped off and followed him. What do you know? He found us a subway station! We continued to follow him, and really, I think that's how we got home.

After we got home, we found Jecka sleeping in front of her computer. She said she was too tired to go anywhere so we decided to take a little trip around. We hadn't really eaten in a bit, so we went out and ate at some random chicken shop that was right next to where we lived. I think it's one of those chicken and beer type of places, but we weren't drinking, so the lady there kind of looked at us weird. After eating, we headed out to Myongdong and walked around a bit. Most of the shops were closed already since it was nighttime, but it was kind of fun to walk around anyway. We wandered further out, but it seems like no matter what we found our way back. We sat on the steps of McDonald's in Myongdong and talked about who was our style, who was not, and all the in betweens. There also happened to be a booth with Kpop crap on it sitting next to us. They happened to not lock up everything properly so we decided it would be amusing if we took some stuff. Waiting around for there to be no people was a long wait. There were many people around, considering that there was no shops open. It was a hard feat, but we did accomplish it.

Monday - July 24, 2006.

We decided to meet Jin at the entrance to Lotte World in Jamshil around 1:30. In the morning, I received a call from Kimmi saying that she was in Seoul (for most of my trip, she was in Incheon with her other cousins), and she wanted to meet up. So being the brilliant planner that I am, I told her to meet up at Lotte World. Although I don't think it would have been so bad to go, Sarah didn't want to go to Lotte World. She went there that past winter so she wanted to spend her time doing something else. Unsure of what we should do, we met up with the other two and decided to think about it over a meal. We headed off to Marche. It's basically this restaurant where you can walk around and pick up food you want. If you don't eat buffet style, it's pretty expensive, but eating buffet style is fun and yummy. We ate and played there for a few hours.

Around 5pm, we decided that Jin and Jecka, who wanted to go to Lotte World the most, would go there and spend their day there together, while the three of us (Sarah, Kimmi, & I) would go off shopping wherever. Sarah, Kimmi, and I took Jin's advice and went to Kangnam to check out the scene there. There were a lot of shops along the street, but it wasn't really exactly what we were expecting. The prices seemed to be much more pricey than Myongdong, and it was more crowded and tiring. After walking around there for just a little bit, we took the subway back to Myongdong. We had a lot of fun there walking around and just enjoying the night. I guess none of us are really big shoppers. After just a little while, we got exhausted and decided it was time to head back. We sent Kimmi off and headed back to our place. It's interesting because we didn't even have keys since Jecka carried them around. We just went in and asked the man to open it for us. XD

Another problem was that we were going to go to Dongdaemun and I needed more money from my safe. There was this little cabinet that we put two locks on, mine and Jecka's. Since Jecka's lock was long, once we pulled mine off, you can grab anything you want from the slightly ajar cabinet doors. We were pretty much all ready to go except that we were a bit tired. After resting for a bit, Jecka arrived home. Seemed like she had a good time at Lotte World.

Sarah & I head off to Dongdaemun. We did a bit of shopping, just finding whatever we could in the different areas of the streets. We also took a look around in the aPM. Walking around the entire night asking if someone was who's style(ee), eating random food. We stayed out pretty late and we were pretty much exhausted by the end of it all.

Tuesday - July 25, 2006.

We had promised to meet the girls at Boopyung (a subway station closer to their place) around 5:30pm. We had the rest of the day to go to DSP and find the Mighty Mac that the older Japanese lady had directed us to from a few days before. However, Sarah and I had stayed out all night the day before, so we didn't really leave our place until it was later in the day.

We stopped by Myongdong and decided to eat a meal before heading off for the day. We at at the place that Sarah and I had been to a few days ago, Sorrento. Meal was good, as always.

We had this map that Irene gave us for finding DSP, but that was really all the lead that we had to where the place was. After we got off at the subway station, it seemed nearly impossible to find. We were walking around everywhere in the heat, asking taxi drivers, asking random strangers. Finally, we stood around and this random man helped us out. He seemed to know the area very well and he even helped us figure out directions to give to a taxi driver. We found that long-searched for place, DSP Entertainment.

And now I don't believe that DSP cares about a fanbase, and that's the reason they're not successful. They have amazing stars under their label yet they don't do anything that dreams big or anything. They stay where they are-- their comfort zone. The only thing that drives DSP is their stars that who are successful on their own. Anyway, after that highly unsuccessful meeting with DSP, we were leaving and I severely injured my foot. I cut it on some huge metal piece sticking out of the ground. Perhaps it was a symbolic injury. In any case, it's all healed now, so I guess all things like that will eventually fix itself.

After that, we didn't really have any time before 5:30 to meet the girls. So we headed off to Boopyung. At Boopyung, Nayoung and Eunjung were waiting on the other side of the gates. Bobae couldn't come because she had extra lessons she wasn't allowed to skip that day. We started walking around Boopyung, but the girls had forgotten that Tuesday was the one day all the shops were closed. After talking to them a little bit, we decided to go find that place that had Mighty Mac. They took the receipt and we headed off to Youngdeungpo.

After finding the place, the girls were asking strangers for directions. It seems like that's something very normal to do in Korea. I'm walking around and I don't exactly look like I'm from Korea. I mean, it's very obvious that I'm from the states, but I get asked how to get to certain places and where some place is nearby. Anyway, it's convenient if you don't know how to get somewhere.

We went to the mall and we finally found it. There were lots of posters just sitting out rolled up! The lady said we could take as many as we wanted. However, while I was staring at the posters, Sarah and Jecka were shopping. They certainly found their fill in the shop. After buying all that, we grabbed about 15 posters and headed to the other areas. There were shoe stores that Jecka wanted to check out. After Sarah found shoes she wanted in Converse, the mall was closing. It was getting pretty late already and we had to eat. Since none of us know the area of Youngdeungpo very well, it was kind of hard figuring out where to eat. There were a lot of random places that tried to grab us and make us eat there. But luck must have been on our side. We found a place to eat bbq that wasn't expensive! We ate and took pictures and were very happy for a few hours. The lady even gave us extra meat and portions on the house. The total came out to 35,000 won. That is extremely cheap for a 5-person meal.

After we ate, we had to part ways. One train headed to Incheon, the other for Seoul.

Wednesday - July 26, 2006.

We had to take Sarah to the airport. The girls (Eunjung & Nayoung) were getting off school at 1:00pm and coming straight away to see her off. In the morning, after finishing all the packing and whatnot, we went to Myongdong for some last minute shopping. It was starting to rain, so there really wasn't much left that we could do.

Then, it was off to the airport, the man came and we went down to wait for the bus. The bus had just then left so we had about 20 minutes to wait until the next one came. I think I fell asleep for the good portion of the time we had to wait.

It was so strange being on the bus. Here I was, going to the airport and I felt like this day was going to be my last day, but it wasn't. I guess the even stranger part of it all was that it was pretty much my real last day. Maybe it's me being crazy but I think I missed Sarah a lot when she left. It was strange sleeping alone on the large bed.

The girls came just around the same time we did, but I'm very stupid. I basically ... honestly, I don't know how I did it, but I left my camera on the bus. WHO DOES THAT. So I ran around and went to the place where the bus goes back to Myongdong and was asking around... After waiting a bit, I got it back. The look of the bus driver was really... I don't know how to explain it. It was warm, like he seemed really nice about it, but he says like, "Be more careful next time, yeah?" Sigh... but after I received my camera back, I only had a few more minutes until Sarah had to go.

We walked around for a little while, but it was time to go. The girls wanted to give Sarah something so they gave her this Bulgogi burger... We couldn't find anyone to take a picture of us all together, so we each took individual pictures with Sarah.

After Sarah went off, we found out from Eunjung's friend that their teacher knew that they came to the airport today. So, being the girls they are, I guess they have some study period from 1pm-5pm. Today, they just told the teacher they had to go to tutoring lesson for English (HAHAHA) and they took off. The teacher found out about it and was really mad. Apparently he knew about how the girls went to Youngdeungpo the day before as well. Although really, that has nothing to do with anything since they went there after all their lessons and study times, it was just weird that the teacher knew all that.

We went down to the basement to take them to eat. They are always so modest... we had to nearly beg them to order food. I mean, we're older, doesn't it just make sense we treat them. They're poor students... they don't even have much money. We ate our last meal together there. It was really hard to part knowing that I probably won't see them again for a good long time. It's happy to meet such sweet people in this world that you know have good hearts and that will end up wonderful people, but it's so hard to part.

They watched us get on the bus and they waved and it was sad. We took pictures of each other. Us from inside, them from outside. The bus ride to COEX was pretty sad. It was going to be the last time meeting the girls this year because of all the business with their teacher and whatnot. They had originally wanted to come out and meet us when Jecka and I left, but it wasn't going to be possible.

When we got there, after walking around for just a little bit, Jin joined us. We walked around, did a bit of shopping, some last minute things we wanted. We ate at this Chinese place. Actually, originally, we wanted to eat at like two different places, but the wait for eating there was like 40 minutes or 20 minutes. So we just found a place we didn't have to wait at all-- Jin was hungry. We ate really really hot jjajangmyun and I couldn't figure out where the spice was comign from. For the longest time, I thought I was just imagining the spiciness. XD

We tried to go watch the Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but there wasn't any time we could catch it before we had to go home. We walked around a bit more and then headed off back to the subway. We parted ways as the subway came quickly for Jecka and I. I don't know, the way we parted, I have the feeling that I'll see her again soon.

Jecka and I went home and packed. And packed. How did we manage to buy so much stuff? Anyhow, we went to go to sleep. In the dark we talked about different things. I don't think I've talked about such random stuff in a long time. She responded though, so all's good. XD

Thursday - July 27, 2006.

We woke up pretty early, Jecka and I had to be out the door by 9:30. I was meeting my grandma at the subway station and Jecka had to get on the bus for the airport. Her flight was around 2pm. I said my goodbyes with Jecka and I ran off to Choongmuro Station. My grandma and I went out to eat. She started talking to me about my future and all these sort of things. I couldn't believe the amount of things she had to say. Like telling me about how once I do decide what I want to do, I'll be fine just because I've got the brain that will spin like that. She was telling me to buy stuff in Korea for cheap and sell it in America. HAHAHAHA... my grandma is also this way...

Then my grandma and I went back to the place I was staying at. Jecka, Sarah, and I had left the room a complete mess because we just left all our random trash and stuff all around the room, but while I was taking a shower, my grandma cleaned it all. Sarah, you know that Junki small calendar, she set it up on the table, too. HAHAHA... Then we sat around and watched Mnet for two hours. She started to ask me if I knew who DongBangShinKi was and all this stuff. HAHAHA... my grandma knows more than my mom ^^;; I was telling her about the 13-member group Super Junior. HAHAHAHA... she's like ! He's cute! She likes Siwon the best... HAHAHAHA... I asked her which stars she liked, and she's like oh I like Chae Yeon, and Hyori~ they're very pretty. HAHAHAHA... sigh... Then in the U MV, you know how that weird girl appears out of nowhere? She's like ew! Why did that girl come on here! Hhahahhaha... I love my grandma. I told her about all the performances and stuff I went to, and she was like wow, you stood so close? Very interested and stuff like that~ Oh, then she was like, you know that group? Shinhwa? Eric, Andy! Hyesung, Dongwan! Minwoo, Junjin?! And I'm like mmm *nods* She's like, they're too old now. The new groups are all in and they can all sing. .____.;;

She told me to come next summer, that my mom was planning on it and I should make her let me. I think she wants me to hurry and graduate and come live with her~

The Tower Ville man came and he dropped my grandma off at the subway station. As soon as I got there, the bus was getting ready to leave, so the man parked right in front of the bus, so I could get on that bus to the airport.

So I brought about 280,00 won to the airport because I was scared my phone would be $23423423, but it was only 100,000. XD So I paid that and had all this leftover I ran around and did lame shopping all around the airport until it was time to go.

I guess the rest is really history. I found, I really can travel alone, I don't mind it much at all, and I really like the freedom. This was probably the best vacation I've ever taken, hands down.

y.s magic

20060825

Point to point.

20060824

Never turn back

20060815

Forever in memory

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lonely

20060807

Korea Trip: July 8 - 27, 2006

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