Seoul

I got into K-pop about two years ago, and since then there hasn't been a single day when I hadn't been listening to it. Awful! In any case, I really wanted to visit South Korea as part of my vacation and so I decided to go to Seoul. Besides doing the touristy stuff, I also went to a concert by my favorite girl group, Apink. It was amazing! But before that, I decided to do some window shopping first. Here's what happened.

Window Shopping

Myeongdong is one of Seoul's premier shopping districts, and the place you're most likely to find K-pop merchandise. There is no K-pop equivalent of Akihabara in Seoul. K-pop stores are spread out and hard to find unless you deliberately search it out. There were two that I wanted to visit: the SM Entertainment store at the Lotte Mall, and a smaller store nearby. By the way, if there's one thing I really appreciate about travelling in Korea, it's how cheap it was. I probably spent less than twenty New Zealand dollars on subway fare for five days. That's crazy cheap.

#Gee

Russian Roulette was amazing. The song, the choreography, the music video. All incredible. When it came out a couple months back I was playing it on repeat for hours. Speaking of which: the day before, I was touring the War Memorial. There was a very serious documentary playing (with death and gore and whatnot) and some guy played Russian Roulette on his cellphone. It was such a bizarre scene that I couldn't stop laughing. I'm going to hell.

Anyways, the SM shop is located at the basement floor of the Lotte Young Plaza. It does take a bit of searching because there were so many similar looking underground shopping streets down there. The store itself is kind of small, and is more into apparel (shirts, jeans, etc) than CDs because most people go there for fashion. It's a very chic place to shop, made me realize that within Korea, K-pop isn't exactly a hobby. It, along with idols, are so well integrated within the culture that it's a way of life.

The store above is located pretty close by. It's called Buru's Ddeurak, and is apparently quite a famous store. The store's interior is incredibly crowded but the prices are fair, and the range of goodies is really extensive. Most of the posters/cards aren't really worth buying, since I don't think they're the official merchandise, and for room decoration you could just print them out for cheap.

Apink is one of the more popular girl groups out there, little surprise the store has every release on sale. I guess I was a little surprised how well packaged those albums were. There were few, if any, jewel cases. Most albums had a nice booklet attached and came with photo cards. Two days later I came back and bought the new Apink fan album, Dear. It was a really nice purchase (only 17k won too) and I'll probably do a review on it soon. A few of the songs were really comfy.

Huge selection of autographed albums for sale. Around 5-6 times the cost of a normal album. AOA's Good Luck was actually a great song, despite it being trashy like every other AOA song. TT is the only Twice song that I really like, though the song is really great. I wish SM Station released more songs like Taeyeon's Starlight - I loved the music video. Finally, Eunji's album was flawless. Hopefully Sky is probably my favorite release of 2016, and the video was very charming.

Apink Concert

 

I came to the concert venue about three hours early from Myeongdong. There were about a thousand fans lined up already, was surprised that some of the merchandise had already sold out. I guess what was really surprising was just how different the fans were. I was expecting mostly males in their early twenties, but I guess Apink attracts lots of different fans. Lots of high school/middle school girls, mums bringing their daughters, and of course a large cohort of very dedicated uncle fans.

I ended up meeting one of the members in a Japan fan-meet! But that's a story for another day.

I knew Eunji was popular, but not this popular. She probably had more fan rice than every other Apink member combined. Bomi came second with Chorong/Hayoung/Naeun with a few bags each. I don't think I saw any fan rice for Namjoo. Popularity contests can be pretty cruel sometimes.

They were going for a fairy tale setup for the concert, aptly called 'Pink Party'. Honestly after five years I'm surprised Apink kept up the pure/cutesy concept (even though Chorong is 26...). Frankly I loved their transition from 'Mollayo' era innocence to 'NoNoNo' cutesy-ness and to the more mature stuff they're putting out now. People might disagree, but the transition has been really well-done.

 

Couldn't believe my eyes when they came out. It was an amazing rush of adrenaline. I guess when 4000 people scream at the top of their lungs, you gotta scream too. When the first chord of 'MyMy' played the crowd went absolutely crazy. The fan-chant, Eunji pointing her mic so we would scream 'MyMy' at the chorus, the incredible live band that was playing. It was so, so, so amazing.

Apink fan-chant:

"Park Chorong, Yoon Bomi, Jung Eunji, Son Naeun, Kim Namjoo, Oh Hayoung, A-Pin-N-Ku!"

I must say, seeing Eunji in a gingerbread costume was really funny...

But not quite as cute as Chorong as a lollipop! Really cutesy, loved it.
They also threw candies at the crowd. Didn't catch any.
Eunji took selfies with the phones of lucky fans. Didn't get it! Very sad.

Solo performances. Bomi started things off with her trademark song, Annyeong Goodbye (which I've never heard in full before). Naeun and Namjoo did dancing (didn't like the sexy concept, but the girl who screamed 'Naeun-unnie sexy!' clearly enjoyed it). Chorong did a cute cover of Crush's Don't Forget (one guy did the loudest 'Park Chorong' roar I've ever heard, wasn't me). Hayoung covered Bolbbalgan4's Galaxy - she looked incredible in that pilot uniform. Eunji covered All By Myself.

Thanking the fans. Eunji obviously wouldn't be the one to cry...

But Naeun and Chorong obviously did. Naeun's cry was more of a sob. As for Chorong, she managed to get out two words before she basically broke down in tears. Really cute. I can't stand watching girls wearing cat ears crying on the stage. I felt really guilty for deriving a kind of sick pleasure from watching Chorong cry.

Rong leader happy again!

The four hour concert ended with everyone holding up their fansign while To Us played. It was very touching. It saddened me somewhat that I probably won't be able to go to another Apink concert in the next two years. In fact, I don't even think Apink is going to be around in two years. You can only be young and cute for so long. I can't imagine Chorong doing the 'NoNoNo' dance at 30 and look as if she's being serious.

Apparently every audience member was entitled to a box of panda-shaped cookies. Well I guess I missed out. To make up for that (and the fact Chorong cried), I bought some more merchandise. Got back to the hotel at about 11 and it was completely freezing. I was happy that I got to see my favorite group live and I thought that'd be the end of it all. Well, I was wrong. Very, very Rong.