Breathing the SAME London air as CNBLUE! [a fanaccount] Part 1.
Finally, the Kpop crazy medic gets to go for her first Kpop concert EVER! As surprising as that sounds, CN Blue's London concert is really the first proper Kpop concert I've ever attended and I totally don't regret going for it at all!!!!
Maybe I should start right at the beginning. Not 4.30am on 22nd Sept when I woke up to go to the airport, not 35days ago when I first heard about the CN Blue's London concert through allkpop, but about 5years ago when I first watched the drama "You're Beautiful". At that time, CN Blue hadn't even made their debut and their leader, Jung Yonghwa, was still an unknown acting as the second lead, Shinwoo. Since I always get severe "Second-lead Syndrome", Yonghwa caught my eye (especially in the scene where he sings while playing his guitar) and I went to look him up. Thus, I stumbled upon CN Blue in their Japanese pre-debut days, listening to their Japanese songs. Finally, they made their Korean debut with "I'm a Loner" and I was instantly sold, a BOICE for life! =D My bias did change from Yonghwa to Jonghyun though..hehehe.
In the beginning, I was not THAT hardcore a fangirl yet, so I passed up the opportunity to watch their performance while I was back home in Summer 2010. Kind of regretted doing that and vowed to go for the next CN Blue concert that I can go for.
Fast-forward 2 years and there was the announcement for CN Blue's first concert on European soil. On a Saturday. At the start of the schoolterm, when I'm in UK too. =D HERE'S MY CHANCE TO FINALLY SEE AND HEAR THEM LIVE!!!! 3h later, I found someone to go with me and managed to get pretty good seats to the concert! WOOTS!
The countdown began....
In the days leading up to the concert, I pretty much fangirled and stalked CN Blue over the internet. From their pre-concert interviews to the crazy airport arrival, I lapped it all up. Don't even remember sleeping much the night before the concert, must have been too excited then. ^^
7am, 22 September 2012. My friend YQ and I boarded the flight to London Luton airport armed with our backpacks of food, cameras, extra batteries, chargers and (of course) CONCERT TICKETS! I admit, I brought along some papers to read (I managed to read half a page on protein regulation ok!) and a CD for them to sign if I did manage to meet them. Heh. Waited in Luton for about 2h to get the 50min bus into Central London though.
11.30am. Alighted the bus at Baker Street, where I agreed to meet my other good friend, A, for a wee catch-up. Took a couple of pictures nearby, bought our daypasses while waiting for A to turn up...and it was off for some amazing dimsums near Leicester Square! =9 I think we overdid the ordering part...so we were pretty much rolling down the stairs after lunch. Plus it only cost us 21quid =D
1.30pm. Lunch over, we started touring London on foot. Luckily A didn't have any plans for that afternoon and took us around! Walked pass Leicester Square, St Martins in the Field, Trafalgar square, Changing of the palace horse guards (where the horse hit me TT.TT), Westminister Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben till we reached River Thames.
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| In Trafalgar Square |
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| River Thames and the London Eye |
Crossed the bridge to the London Eye and commenced our 2h walk down The Queen's Walk till we reached London Bridge. I highly recommend that if one is broke or needs to go on a long walk to digest food and kill time. =D Thankfully it was an awesome bright, sunny, warm day so it was an enjoyable walk filled with street performances and interesting sights, sounds and smells (like the good food in Borough market, where I bought dinner for under 2quid). For more pictures, refer to my facebook!
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| Walking along the Queen's walk! |
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| Millenium Bridge |
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| Shakespeare Globe Theatre |
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| HMS Belfast |
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| Tower London |
4pm. We finally decide to take the tube to the venue, IndigO2 at the O2 arena in North Greenwich. There wasn't much more to see pass London Bridge anyway. xD Plus we wanted to find out how to get the blue lightsticks given out by other fans! Got shocked by the MASSIVE queue outside the arena where the people with standing tickets were meant to enter; and no, we didn't find the fans giving out lightsticks (though we saw people holding them...)
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| O2 arena @ North greenwich |
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| Part of the insanely long queue to see CN Blue... |
Anyways, we had some time to check out the place, including the cable cars nearby and the river. Oh, and most importantly, find the toilets. =) We also managed to find out where the doors were and took pictures with the concert posters outside WHILE WE HEARD THEM PRACTISING INSIDE. After walking around for a while, A had to go back, sadly. There was still some time left, so YQ bought some food and we both stocked up on water to get us through a night's worth of fangirl-screaming. After a final toilet break, we joined the queue to go into IndigO2, bursting with anticipation to go inside and see CNBLUE IN LONDON.
To be continued....
POSTED BY mysticmalady AT 3:37 AM |
Mixing fun & work!
It's the start of the new school year! Thankfully, my intercal lessons haven't been too bad...then again, it's only been 3 days into this course, so it might be too early to say whether I'll survive this year. xD Interestingly enough, we had to give a 3min presentation on ANY topic we wanted...so no prizes for guessing what I talked about. When else would I get the chance to talk about my crazy hobby as part of schoolwork? Of course I grabbed that opportunity when I could!
The problem came when I got a little little bit carried away and ended up writing more than 1000words. Naturally, that exceeded my 3min limit so I cut my whole essay down dramatically. *sigh* Since I don't want to waste my effort in writing it, I'll reproduce my essay/presentation here in full! Think of it as...."the director's cut'. Enjoy! =D
What’s with the hype about South
Korean TV shows?
Good
afternoon everyone! My name is Jane and I’m one of the students intercalating
this year. While this is the way I would introduce myself to
strangers, friends who have known me for a long time would refer to me as “the
girl obsessed with South Korean culture” or “that k-drama addict” (where
k-drama refers to Korean dramas). Many of you here might wonder why my friends
would call me that since 1. I’m not from South Korea, 2. I can’t speak the language (except the occasional words picked up along
the way),and 3. I’ve never been to South Korea before.
Well, I think
I know why. It’s probably because I watch waaaay too many Korean television
programmes online and listen to Korean pop songs all the time. There are 3 main
reasons why I prefer watching Korean shows despite the language barrier and I
hope that by the end of this talk, I would be able to convince at least one of
you to give Korean TV shows a try and watch them too!
Firstly,
Korean TV shows are like the gateway to South Korea’s interesting culture and
rich history. With around 2000 years of history to draw on, scriptwriters are
spoilt for choice when choosing a time period to set their dramas in, while
viewers are given a free ‘history lesson’ while watching the shows.
For those
interested in wars and power struggles in palaces, there are many historical
dramas (or ‘saeguks’) which talk about events and people in the various eras of
ancient Korea. They are quite similar to shows like Merlin and The Tudors,
except we’re talking about Korean royalty and traditional costumes here!
Another
interesting but dark period in Korean history would be its invasion by Japan in
1910 till the end of WWII in 1945. History books would tell you that it was a
time marked by suffering as the Japanese soldiers punished those who rebelled
against their oppressive rule and even forced many girls to become prostitutes
for the Japanese soldiers. Most would shy away from dwelling on this painful
past, yet, a recently completed drama called “Bridal Mask” (or Gaksital) chose
to use this as a backdrop for their story about an unlikely hero who fights
against the Japanese occupation. It’s not for the squeamish though as the
production team does not try to whitewash anything, including gruesome torture
scenes.
How about
shows set in modern times? These provide a peek into the Korean culture which
can be sometimes conservative, sometimes a bit too open and often, very bizarre
to those not familiar with it. Let’s take their drinking culture for example.
Their choice of beverage is soju (which apparently tastes vodka). It’s usually
drunk in shots and if you just drink it straight up in front of people of
greater seniority (like this), it is considered rude. The proper way to drink
it is to hold it with 2 hands and turn to the side to drink it. And yes, I
learnt all that from watching drinking scenes in Korean dramas.
In fact, the
diversity of the Korean culture can be reflected by the large variety of shows
Korean TV channels have to offer, which leads me to my 2nd point: That
Korean TV shows cater to a myriad of TV-watching tastes.
For those who
enjoy travel and food programmes, there is the variety show “1 Night and 2
Days”. It follows a group of 7 artistes as they take 2 day 1 night trips to
various places in Korea, introducing the attractions and local food while
performing missions and competing against each other or the production team to
earn their rights to eat and sleep indoors.
Those who
like watching competitive reality shows might enjoy watching another variety
show “ Running Man” where the main cast and their guest stars try to eliminate
each other by chasing the others down and tearing off the nametags on their
backs.
Romantic
comedies, spy thrillers, medical dramas, fantasy dramas, stories about time
travellers…the list is endless. Of course, since these dramas are produced to
meet the tastes of the local population, some might find the violence and sex
in the dramas a little too tame for their liking. Then again, this is what
makes it different from many of the shows here and why I feel that others
should give it a shot if they are getting bored with what they see on their TV
screens here.
The LAST
reason why I prefer watching Korean TV shows is quite a practical one: because
it does not take very long to finish a drama and I can watch it for free
online! Since coming to the UK to study, I have not been fortunate enough to
own a TV set, neither do I want to pay for the TV license when I can watch
things for free online. Thus, I started to watch a lot more Korean TV shows on
websites run by fellow Korean drama addicts who also insert English subtitles
to the shows. Considering that the more popular ‘trendy dramas’ that I watch
are usually made up of about 16 to 20 hour-long episodes, I can see the entire
storyline through to its conclusion within 1 or 2 days. This is unlike American
and British dramas that take several seasons to finish, which means that I
would have spent years watching them before finding out how it ends.
Realistically speaking, watching Korean TV shows would fit my busy schedule
better.
I’ve been
watching Korean TV shows for almost 5years now because I’m attracted to the
fascinating Korean history and culture portrayed, the variety of shows
available online for free and because it takes a much shorter time to finish
watching them. Maybe you all could try watching it too! Just be warned, they
can be very addictive, and in no time, you’ll turn into a Korean TV show addict
like me.
Thank you for
listening to me!
POSTED BY mysticmalady AT 7:05 AM |
Last slacky week =D
And all too soon, it's nearing the end of the loooong summer holiday. TT.TT At least I've finished watching 'A Gentlemen's Dignity' and 'Shut Up Flower Boy Band' while I still have the time to! Woots! It's not really my fault that 'Reply 1997' and 'Arang and the Magistrate' haven't finished airing yet...can't wait to unravel all the mysteries in those two dramas!!!
But for now, I better head to dreamland...and sign off with this song from MATE, this awesome korean indie-ish band I stumbled upon thanks to Jang Do-il (or rather, Lee Hyun Jae) - the cool drummer from Shut Up Flower Boy Band and Mate.
For My Melancholy - Mate
Labels: Tune of the day
POSTED BY mysticmalady AT 12:54 AM |
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