Korea.

My memory of Korea (February 2014):
Mayday concert in KINTEX; My two beautiful friends Minjung and Erica; Marshal Yi Shunshin; Street band in Sinchon; My favourite Korean dish – the Budae Jjigae

So it was my seventh trip to Korea, and it was actually my most emotional trip to Korea ever.  How could a holiday ever be emotional, you may ask.  But for me, I went through many emotional ups and downs throughout the trip that even I couldn’t really believe it.

There was a main purpose for the trip for me, but, oh well, anyway.  It’s the kind of thing that I would only talk over chicken and beer.  Or maybe I just need some soju for this.  I could definitely do with a drink this weekend.

Another purposes of the trip was the Mayday concert.  And as I have said a few days ago, the concert was great.  But what I didn’t say was that it brought out the real emotional part of me.  I went to the concert alone, and honestly speaking, going to a Mayday concert alone isn’t always the best idea.  There were a lot of thoughts going in my head that day, and the songs that Mayday was singing really hit where it hurt inside my mind.  There were some things that I realized while watching the concert, and honestly speaking, while I’m glad that I realized that, it wasn’t a good thing to realize because it hurts more after realizing.

And then the other main purpose was to meet the folks at COEX Toastmasters Club again.  COEXTM has this special place in my heart, and it was all because of this Toastmasters club from Korea that inspired me to join Toastmasters again.  So it was brilliant to have been able to attend a meeting there again.  I recognized some old faces, and also got to meet many new ones.  The place hasn’t changed – it was still full of excitement and laughter, and I was just delighted to have been able to be part of that.  It was humbling to receive so many great comments after my demo speech – and I really appreciate all of them.

To make a long story short, I was really glad to have met my friends in Korea – some old ones, some new ones – and as I said over on Facebook, these friends in Korea are forming a very important part of me.  If my trip in February last year changed my life, this trip confirmed that the change was for the better.  Make no mistake, my friends in Singapore and Hong Kong are important to me as well, but the friends in Korea are giving me another perspective of things that I always find fascinating, and I am always grateful that I have the opportunity to meet them.  Korea is special for me, not because of the food, the culture, the dramas or the K-Pop.  It’s all these friends who are making Korea special for me.  And if only an angel could fly me to Korea every week to see them…

I have always maintained that I’m a really blessed person.  But of course, if some things could work out the way I want them to be…

Mayday.

I think most of you would have known that I am a fan of the Taiwanese rock band Mayday for a long time.  So when the band is coming to my favourite holiday destination for a concert, flying over to Korea became a no-brainer.

Getting the tickets was not straight forward though – apparently if I were to buy a ticket online, I would need to have a Korean credit card, a Korean phone number and a Korean address, which of course I have none.  But luckily my noona Connie, who had such a wide network of friends around the world, managed to get one of her friends in Korea to get them for me.  Once the tickets were secured, I was on my way to Korea!

So the concert was held last night in KINTEX, which is about an hour away from downtown Seoul.  It was a cold and snowy February night, and it has been snowing for the entire day.  The snow in downtown Seoul wasn’t heavy, but when I got to Goyang, where KINTEX is at, the snow seemed to be much heavier!  For someone who hasn’t experienced snow for a long time, it was always exciting to see snow, but after a while, I understand why people are getting peeved by heavy snow because it can get a bit unpleasant, as the roads get slippery and it was so easy to fall!

With this being Mayday’s first ever show in Korea, I guess the main purpose for the concert is to test the Korean market before the band decides if it would include Korean as a stop in future world tours.  As a result, the concert is rather different in terms of scale and size, compared to the other shows that I’ve been to.  For a start, there was only a very small variety of concert merchandise on sale, and none of them was Seoul-related.  And then the concert hall was also kinda small – I believe there were probably only about 5,000 seats.  Even the stage design has been simplified – all those mechanisms and pyrotechnics used in concerts elsewhere were not used in this one, so I guess in a way it was very much an experimental concert here in Korea.  After all, Mayday’s popularity in Korea isn’t as high as it is in Japan (of course it does help that the lead singer Ashin speaks Japanese), so I guess there’s no point in creating a huge concert and end up having empty seats all over.  From what I saw last night, the concert was about 90% full, though it was mainly made up of a Chinese-speaking crowd, which included Chinese students, local Chinese, and a good proportion of overseas fans who flew into Korea (i.e. me).  But interestingly, there were quite a lot of them in the crowd who was at a Mayday concert for the first time in their lives – that was a bit surprising to me.

The concert ended rather early – I’m not sure if it’s a Korean practice that concerts end early – it started at 8:15pm and ended at about 10:30pm.  In places like Hong Kong or Taiwan, the concert would probably end way past 11:30pm.  But then again, I’m not complaining.  Having the chance to see a Mayday concert in Korea was already way out of this world.  And I realized that it would have been better if it had started earlier and ended earlier.  What happened after the concert would be something that I would remember for a long time.

After the concert, I decided to take the subway back to Hapjeong, where I’m staying – I thought it would be straight forward, get on the subway at Daehwa, where KINTEX is at, and then get off at Hapjeong.  Except that the subway I took was the last train of the day, and it terminated at Samsong, which was still in Goyang!  So I was forced to get off the train and out of the station with the rest of the passengers, most of them also coming out from KINTEX.  And then a mad rush for taxis ensued.  The problem was that it was very cold out there, and for a split second I was contemplating finding a Jjimjilbang or a motel and stay over for the night and get the first train back to downtown Seoul.  Thank God as I was walking around rather aimlessly in the hope of getting a cab (or finding a place to stay over), a cab pulled over and the driver was willing to drive back to downtown Seoul.  So I hopped on, and told the driver to also pick up those who would be going the same way because it was so hard to get a cab.  In the end the cab picked up two other ladies who were staying somewhere around City Hall – a good deed done!  Fortunately for me, I could speak Korean and therefore managed to communicate with the driver on where to go and where to drop off the other passengers.  When the cab pulled over in Hapjeong, you couldn’t imagine how relieved I felt!

So the concert was over, and one of the key objectives of my trip is completed.  I’ve got 2 more days in Korea, and hopefully it would be as fun as the last two!