Day 10 & 11: Sleep and Gangnam Festival

Day 10 (Friday) consisted of lots of sleep, reading, and ramen. I basically didn't move all day and it was great! This is the first time in what seems like forever that I have actually felt well rested.

(October 5, 2018)

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Day 11 was a little more adventurous (in that I moved from bed). I found a cafe right by my hostel called Bread Blue that serves all kinds of cakes and bread that don't have any butter or milk in them. I stopped here for breakfast and got a sweet potato bun that looked interesting as well as a tea ade. Tea ades seem to be common drinks here and I love them! I think it's kind of like a bubbly lemonade with your choice of tea bag in it. My favourite is the iced lemon peppermint one, which has the bubbly lemon drink plus peppermint tea. The sweet potato bun was amazing (I ended up eating it every morning for the next week). It was a regular bun with seeds, but it was filled with potato that was probably mashed with a ton of sugar in it. It was very sweet and tasted so good!

Jisu's mom (Ainslie) had sent me information about a free concert happening in Gangnam that night so I hopped on a subway and met her in Gangnam around 3 pm. She had brought her two sons with her (who were both super adorable) because she was taking them to the aquarium in the COEX mall after she showed me where the concert was. I had a quick chat with her youngest son who is very shy but speaks English well. We talked about his video games, the sky, and how he missed his older sister while she was away in Canada.

The subway stop and concert were in the exact same area that I visited on day 2 when I went to SM Town. Ainslie was kind enough to stand in line with me to get tickets and then explained where and when I should start lining up. We arrived 4 and a half hours before the concert started but there were already so many people! Ainslie had been there the night before and there had already been people lining up to get tickets (a wrist band with a number on it). I ended up being one of the last people to get a ticket for section B because they had already given out all the A ones and almost all the B ones. After I got the ticket, Ainslie and her sons went to the aquarium and I walked around the mall and grabbed dinner. I found this dessert that I think was called an oreo stroop waffle. It was basically a very thin waffle cake covered in some kind of candy sauce and decorated with oreos. It was super sweet but yummy.

I went back upstairs at 5:30 to start lining up for the concert. There were way more people than before and everyone was crowded near the stage because some of the groups had started rehearsals on the stage. I wandered around to try and find a place to watch (I have never been more thankful that I am taller than most Korean women). I was able to watch Sunmi, (G)I-dle, Red Velvet, and Spectrum rehearse. It was kind of strange to see them casually practicing in normal clothes instead of crazy stage outfits. There were so many fan sites with fancy looking cameras lined up all along the stage area trying to get pictures of the performers. Everyone seemed to be carrying huge cameras with them as well as stools to stand on so they could get pictures above everyones heads (see the fourth photo). It would be so stressful to try and find a spot and take good photos instead of just watching.

I eventually started to line up, which was an experience all in itself. Once I got close to the line up area it started to get so crowded and everyone was squished together and pushing against each other to try and get to the right line. I hate crowds and I really did not enjoy how pushy and chaotic it was. We were supposed to line up based on the number on our wrist band but everyone just ended up bunching together in their section. I went as close to the back as possible and just tried to stay away from the pushing people. I did ask a few other fans about the numbering system but everybody seemed just as confused about the lack of organization. I stood there for another hour and then they started moving people into the barricades (sections) around the stage. The guy moving people was yelling in Korean so I had no clue what I was doing but two Korean girls I had spoken to earlier actually came to find me and helped me get to the right spot (thank you! :) ). They were there to see EXO-CBX perform and had official light sticks and shirts. Everyone from section B was shown to one area and it was a whole lot of shoving and stumbling around as people attempted to get as close to the front as possible. I tried to stay where I was at first but it was so uncomfortable that I eventually escaped to the back of the section again. There was much more space there and people were even sitting around and relaxing while they waited. We waited for another hour and then the show finally started.

I saw one group (Spectrum) perform and then a DJ (Hitchhiker I think?) came on. The majority of the crowd was there to see either EXO or Wanna One and there was very little reaction during the DJ and Spectrum's performance. I couldn't see the stage very well and it was a little weird to watch a show when the audience was just sitting there rather than singing and enjoying it so I ended up leaving early. I wandered around the mall a little and took pictures of a few more subway ads before I went back to my hostel. I love seeing birthday and song ads in the subway especially when they are for members of groups I really like! There were lots of ads for SM artists because the stop was right by SM Town.

The stage was set up right beside SM Tower and the whole side of it was a TV screen that was playing different videos all night. There were music videos, ads, short clips of k-pop idols, and other videos like this one which I think is for the aquarium in the mall.

One of the birthday ads in the subway today. The person in the ad is Chen from EXO (the first k-pop group I listened to).

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(October 6, 2018)