Day 29: BTS!!!

Everybody mark your calendar: today is the first day that I saw BTS in person haha (not including concerts). BTS are receiving the Order of Cultural Merit from the South Korean government at the Korean Popular Culture & Arts Awards today. They are the youngest people to ever receive the award and they are getting it for their efforts to spread South Korean culture and language around the world.

I knew that the ceremony was going to be held at Olympic Hall in Olympic Park so I decided to make a day trip to explore the park (thanks BTS for helping me figure out what the heck to do with my days). I thought it would be cool to be able to walk by the venue when I knew BTS were inside receiving such an important award. I did not realize I would actually get to see them. The ceremony started at 4:30 so I planned to go to the venue around 4 to check it out. That gave me several hours in the early afternoon to walk around the area and explore. I looked up places nearby and found out that JYP entertainment is right beside the park! JYP is the entertainment company in charge of k-pop groups such as Twice, Stray Kids, and GOT7. Stray Kids is one of my favourite groups so I definitely wanted to check out the building.

I took a few different subway lines to get across the river and close to JYP. Then it took about 15 minutes to walk from the subway to the entertainment company. It really easy to find. I noticed a coffee shop nearby that had birthday ads for one of the Stray Kids members and then a super tall building with JYP across the top.

The building has a cafe called Soul Cup. It is on the first floor of the building and open to the public as well as those who work at JYP. Some people have also seen JYP idols at the cafe. Unfortunately, I did not meet any idols there but the cafe was nice! They have a huge screen on one of the walls that plays music videos from all of their artists and the tea that I got was yummy. At one point Twice's Likey music video came on and I had an omygosh moment. A few months ago my roommates and I had been in our living room trying to learn the dance to the song and now here I was sitting in a cafe in Twice's entertainment company in South Korea watching the music video. Craziness.

The cafe was very full! It was a mix of regular people and also some people with special passes around their neck for the office area (so I'm assuming they're company staff).

When I was in the cafe a bunch of JYP wifi options came up on my phone.

After I finished my tea I wandered around the area to find a kimbap place so I could grab a quick meal before trying to find Olympic Hall.

The hall is in Olympic Park which is a humongous park with a sports university and several athletic facilities including the pool from the 1988 olympics. I tried to look online to figure out where the hall was but all I could find were sites that said it was in the park (not helpful since the park is huge). There were several spaces labeled ‘performing arts venue’ on google maps so I picked the one that looked like it was a similar shape to the images of olympic hall that I had seen online. I walked through part of the university area to get to it and even passed the olympic pool! As a former competitive swimmer it was pretty cool to pass by a pool that had once housed the Olympic races.

I got confused once I was inside the park. I wandered back and forth for a couple minutes until I saw two other girls with BT21 characters hanging on their bags. I figured that they were probably looking for the hall too and I decided to ask them for help.

They were both from China and they came to Korea to study Korean for one semester before they could apply to go to a university here. They were both super nice and huge BTS fans! They had already found the venue but said they would walk back with me if I needed help finding it. I thought it would be cool to talk to them more so we tried to find it again together. Both of them made comments that it was strange to have another Army (BTS fan) approach them and be nice to them since they have found Korean Army to be rather hostile and unapproachable. I hadn’t met any other Korean k-pop fans yet so I didn’t really have an opinion on this, however, later I would find out that many Korean k-pop fans (particularly Army) aren’t very friendly to foreigners. I'm not sure why and I know that not all Korean k-pop fans are like this, but it was interesting to discover.

We walked to the hall and when we got there there were tons of people and media waiting outside. There was also a big red carpet and photo zone. The three of us started to get excited because we were realizing we might actually get to see BTS. We ran around trying to find a decent spot as quickly as possible! I walked across the road to be on the same side as the red carpet and not even a minute later a big black van pulled up and BTS walked out. Holy smokes they are absolutely amazing looking humans. They were all dressed in fancy suits and looked super cool!

The way that the red carpet was organized was that there was one side full of official media and news outlet photographers and then the other side was where fans and fan accounts could stand to take pictures. There is a specific area facing the media outlet side where idols and presenters have to walk to and then stand to have their photo taken. I didn’t get a very good video of them while they were standing for their photo since I was trying to watch them and also not get run over by someone. There were so many cameras taking their picture and I have no idea how they get used to that! I would hate it but then again I was also a fan who pulled out my phone straight away when I saw them. It's cool to see them because they make amazing music and have had such an impact on my life but I also feel bad video taping or taking pictures of them... conflicting feelings. I was also able to see a k-pop girl group called Red Velvet as well as several popular variety show MCs.

The crowd started to leave after everyone had arrived and entered the venue. I was able to find Betty and Fiona again (these are their english names) and we shared our photos and videos with each other. Betty’s bias is Jungkook (the maknae/youngest of BTS) and Fiona's bias is Namjoon (the leader of BTS). We walked back to one of the park entrances to grab a snack at a convenience store and talked outside for a bit. They are both big BTS fans but didn’t really listen to other groups. They were currently finishing a Korean language course at a university in Seoul so they could apply for a full program next year. Both of them didn’t have the support of their parents to come to Korea but they had still gone anyways because they really wanted to. I can’t imagine travelling to a different country and trying to go to school without my parents support, it would be so challenging... I eventually left to continue exploring the park but not before we made plans to meet up again to eat chicken along the Han River later that week.

I had found a site online that said the award ceremony would end around 6 pm. I figured it might be fun to wait around and see what happened plus I wanted to look around the area. I wandered around the park for a while and the colours were so amazing!

I walked back to the hall and met three other BTS fans. These three girls were from Indonesia and they were all here to go to school. The first girl I talked to was Aisyah. Her family had recently moved to Korea for work and she was in grade 9 at a foreign high school in Seoul. The next girl was Beta and she had come to Korea for high school as well however she was finishing grade 12. The other girl was named Kika and she had come to Korea alone to go to university here. They were all super nice and easy to talk to! They were waiting for BTS too and said that they typically drive out of the venue and sometimes wave to fans. As it got closer to the end of the award ceremony we could hear people cheering inside. There were several other fans waiting outside the venue that also seemed confused about which way BTS was planning on leaving. After fans had cleared out of the venue (people could watch the award show but had to buy a ticket in advance but I didn't buy one) everyone gathered near the parking lot.

I didn't take a picture of people waiting but this is where we were

People were lined up along both sides of the road waiting for BTS. And we just kept waiting. There were tons of cars and black vans that left the parking lots but none of them seemed to be BTS. About an hour later the security told us the BTS had already left. People were not happy. Some were angry at the security for not telling them earlier and others were saying they were lying so they would leave and then BTS would leave after. It was already getting pretty late and we had been waiting for awhile so the 4 of us decided it was time to go home. We all split up and I went to the subway station to go back home. It was super packed with everyone from the concert! It was definitely the most crowded subway I have been on so far. Everyone was squished in and I didn’t even make it on the first subway because it was too full. I eventually made it back and just relaxed in bed for the rest of the evening.

I honestly can't believe I waited for an hour outside the venue. I think I need to take a step back and get my fan-girling under control... I felt a little weird waiting outside and when people started getting mad at security I realized this was all crazy. I really enjoy their music and going to their concerts is great but I think that's the furthest I am comfortable with. I don't think I would be comfortable with people waiting outside for me to drive away if I was famous plus I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting. It's not particularly exciting or amazing to watch a car drive by. Seeing them today reminded me that they are real, normal people, very attractive and cool, but still regular people.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(October 24, 2018)

Distance walked: 14.3 km

P.S the station closest to the place I am staying at is very close to BTS’ entertainment company so there are tons of BTS ads in the subway and the bus stops nearby (especially since it was recently one of the members birthday). I have noticed that the subway ads change based on where I am. For example there are lots of ads for SM artists in the subway station near SM Tower. I think this may be because the artists are more likely to see them since they are near these stations? Whatever the reason is, it is interesting to see how the ads change based on where I am. I like the Gangnam area and knew BTS's company was somewhere in this 'district' but I had no idea it was so close so that was fun to discover!