So in October, it was announced that my favorite k-pop groupLovelyz would be coming to LA for a concert in November! Somehow, both times they've ever had activities in America have been this year in LA..... and both times, the concerts were announced a cruel mere month prior. ToT Initially I was like, "WHAT I probably shouldn't yolo down to LA again for a concert," for maybe like...10 minutes before it became, "But why not?" As a member of their relatively small western fanbase, I'd definitely regret not being there to support my girls 💪! Y-you can always make money back anyway right? o(-(
Luckily it turned out to be a pretty wallet-friendly trip. ^^ The concert, which also featured JBJ95 and Heize, for whatever reason was free to attend?! I went with my friend Tiffany—who's my only irl Lovelinus friend—and also Myst who was heading to LA for her own playtime, so we made a roadtrip down together and shared a motel. It was a fun little weekend trip with good music, good food, and good friends!
As I mentioned, I've only ever known one person irl who's a Lovelyz fan, aside from Chiisana who likes them but isn't necessarily a Lovelinus. Even given that, Tiffany and I had never actually attended a concert together before. But on this trip I was introduced to two more wonderful friends who are Lovelinuses!!!! It was sooooo much fun and so refreshing to be around them and talk about our girls and for everyone to be on the same page without explanations and just being able to share our excitement and practice fanchants together! 💓
Thanks to these friends kindly waiting in line early—and no monetary restrictions—we were luckily able to have some amazing seats! Honestly so grateful; I owe them my life. The poor folks all the way in the back probably saw nothing as there were no cameras/screens.. But we were able to see the performers' expressions, so therefore they must've been able to see ours too! 🥰
And the moment I realized this...... that Lovelyz could see me, that I was now an existence known to my beloved idols that I'd only ever in these past 5 years been able to admire from afar, that my actions and support might really be felt by them directly, that I had the power to help them feel loved by their fans and give back to how much strength they've given us, that I was truly in that moment a representative of their American fanbase.......... I almost cried while they were performing.
It was a small concert with only 3 acts, but because of that we were treated to a long set with SIX WHOLE SONGS!! 😭 What an amazing experience....
One of the things I love the most about Lovelyz is that their title discography tells a whole story. It's brilliant and it's been so incredible to watch this beautifully thoughtful music project unfold.
💕💕💕 My fifth year attending KCON and I'm still impressed at how I almost always have a good time as long as the ticket wars don't kill me! This year's lineup included two of my favorite girl groups (IZ*ONE and LOONA) and just overall most things were really fun and reasonably well executed in my opinion! It's still insane that simply at the convention itself—before you even make it to the concerts—you can encounter a ton of idols, listen to their special talks, potentially interact with them. ;u; I find some panels pretty interesting and I really enjoy exploring the expo with all the free beauty and food samples and loads of unbelievably delicious sales!! It's just become a no-brainer for me to go every year LOL.
Artists that we saw this year!!!
💘 Owns my soul probably: IZ*ONE, LOONA
💕 Love~: fromis_9, SF9
🌸 Like: NU'EST, Mamamoo, Itzy, Seventeen
👌 I guess I like?: N.Flying, AB6IX
🔍 Interested in learning more: ATEEZ, Stray Kids
😊 Neutral: Momoland, Verivery
Just like me, this post is long and messy—sorry, not sorry.
Somehow after gaining much more free time, I ended up blogging less? LOL Here is a big update post~
After my hospital discharge, I stayed home for a week just recovering which was a bit rough at first. I couldn't sleep the first few nights because of the discomfort in my chest, and also because I would mis-estimate how long my legs are or where my pillow was while trying to settle myself down without breaking my body... and once I was down, I could not move without pain and my arms weren't strong enough to adjust myself with lmao. I was just stuck with however I landed, even if it meant my feet dangling off the bed. What a funny problem to have honestly!!
Thank goodness I was mostly functional by last weekend because it was a crazy (and also very rewarding) (and painful) one! But more on that later.
On Monday, I had my follow-up appointment with my very cool surgeon and received some great news along with his nonchalantly optimistic life advice! My breathing has improved a lot and he says that because I'm young, I'm recovering ahead of schedule!! However it's also because I'm young and my nerves are sensitive that I feel more discomfort and pain than most of his patients... Then he took me off my painkillers because I was apparently taking them too much ("it's not candy") so I've been continuing to feel mild discomfort but at least it's not pain anymore and my surgical wounds are finally healing. I try to take it easy now so I'm doing alright.
I've been doing work from home since last week and on Wednesday I went into the office for the first time! It's already been...a lot. It's an overwhelmingly busy time for my company right now and some things stacked up while I was gone... Lots of projects are due next week... I'm already really tired...
But I'm happy to report that I recovered from my burnout!! I hated feeling flat and inspiration-less, not having the energy to do anything and having nothing sound fun to me. I'm feeling pretty inspired and less exhausted now and I'm able to fantasize and plan for future projects—and that makes me glad because it means I actually desire something, look forward to something.
You know, this recovery period was my first time getting to experience being a NEET in 7 years? I haven't taken a good break since I started working part time the summer before starting college—and I don't count travel vacations since traveling is exhausting. I'm pleased that I was able to fill up all that free time without feeling empty or stressed. ;v; I finally got into another k-drama (it's been a long time) called 100 Days My Prince, a historical rom-com with some tense royal drama, and I really like it! I'm also watching the anime Zombieland Saga and everything IZ*ONE related! Plus I worked on a little something that I'll probably put out in the next couple days. ^^
And now...I've also started to play LoL again.......because K/DA is smashin' awesome and made me want to try playing Kai'Sa :D She doesn't even have solos in this song but she definitely appeals to me the most because 1) Her design is the most my style—it's cool and chic without being over the top. 2) Her official profile seems to imply that she's Chinese or has strong Chinese influences!! "Kai'Sa won Hong Kong’s Can You Dance in 2018" and won my heart in the process. 3) She's an AD carry, which I main! And her abilities have long ranges which is an A+ for my cowardly ass. 4) I kind of like her lore—she's a human who was consumed by the void and is now seen as a monster. 5) Somehow I've accidentally started only cosplaying purple-haired girls, so it would...be perfect... But I definitely wanted to try playing her before deciding to commit to trying to make this cosplay........... I am researching the required purchases and thinking about it..!
After I finish up my current solo (I touched up the mix last week but gonna do some redos once I have the lung capacity~), I'm probably also likely going to record a full solo cover of POP/STARS because I like it a lot!!! I love Soyeon T___T The others sound great too and it's an extremely catchy, badass tune that I've had on replay!
Meanwhile I quickly learned Soyeon's rap and did a yolo live cover a few days ago, but hopefully when I get around to recording it for real, I won't flub on the words this much. It's a fun song and this kind of rap is very much my shit bahaha.
Other things I've worked on that I never got around to posting:
【Highlights】 Norcal Youtaite Alliance Performs @ Slap Face
My local youtaite friends performed at a coffee shop in September, I shot all of the moving shots, and edited this little highlights video for them. /o/ They'll be performing here again in March I think!
BAR Con Matsuri: TOKYO LIVE Promo Video
I also put together two promo videos for a local three-day event that happened last weekend! BAR stands for "booze - anime - rock" and Fome is one of its organizers so I volunteer once a month as his audio engineer assistant. If you're ever in the Bay Area on the first Thursday of the month [Edit: IN 2019, IT'S THE FIRST FRIDAY!], it's definitely a fun thing to check out! This month was the big extravaganza—the first of its kind—with three days of events, some guests from Japan, eurobeat, and Phoenix Ash's (Fome's band) single release. It sucks that I had to be injured for it because I would've put in so much more if I could. ;n;
After overexerting my body on the first day, I resolved to spend the second day sitting still at the soundboard and I promised that I would only touch cables... But we ran into so many issues (plus this was a very loaded show with 6 acts across 6 hours) and had such a lack of stage hands that I ended up exerting myself like ten times the amount I intended to... Twas rough but I'm alive and I ended up with lots and lots of wonderful memories! The girls from Japan were soooooo fucking sweet, respectful, and humble that I can't stop gushing over them. T____T I really did not expect for them to talk to me as much as they did and one of them even called me cute AAAAAA I love them and will support them for the rest of my life... Definitely some of my favorite artists that I've ever worked with—although I'm thankful to report that everyone on this lineup was nice to work with! But like! a cute girl!!! called me cute!!!! I'm ded. I was in a lot of pain on the third day tbh. But all of the performances were a blast, there was a lot of good music and sweet people, and the events were successes, so it remains in my mind as a good memory.
So quick story: my friend Gino has a high school friend—Kate Kim—who debuted in Korea as a soloist after participating on a singing competition show. She's AMAZINGLY super talented and a lot of our friends have been supporting her for years despite never having met her. She co-composed an awesome song, came back to California to film an MV for it, and when Gino told me about it, I was more than happy to help out on the shoot. ^^ It was a long, exhausting day of handling gear, but a very fun experience and I learned a lot from the crew leads! And now I can say I've worked on a k-pop video hahaha!
When I wasn't helping with lighting, I was taking behind-the-scenes photos on my camera. (Ah have I mentioned on here that I bought my first DSLR in October? :>) And I guess they ended up choosing one of the pictures I took as the cover photo for the single, which was really unexpected and cool!!! So you can see this on iTunes and on official Korean streaming sites and errthang....
Anyway, here is Kate's MV for "So Long, Baby" which is a wonderfully groovy bop. She sings with so much flair and oomph and it's got me singing, "do re mi fa sol~~" all the time. The music video looks so cool; the space we filmed in was tiny, but it's incredible what we were able to make out of it thanks to the crew's creativity. And look! how! cute! Kate is! And chic and sassy and gorgeous all at once.
It's also worth noting that Kate's as much of a sweetheart as I already had an impression of her being. Honestly every single person on the set was really nice and cooperative, so it was a positive and productive atmosphere the whole time. Gino vlogged/took behind-the-scenes videos (of course, because he's Gino) which you can check out below. You might spot me a few times~
Under the cut, I'll be sharing some of the photos I snapped on the shoot. :D I'm no photographer and I'm still very inexperienced with cameras, but I do really like how some of these turned out. Enjoy!
(Not so much a fan account, but more about my personal experience!)
Yesterday was B1A4's concert was in San Francisco ^o^ Myst and I both went as VIP so got to be in the front pit and participate in the hi touch (high five) event!!!
Honestly, I think the concert was the most unreserved fun I've had in a long time. Which is both a testament to how great of a concert it was and how little fun I have in my life.
The boys put on impressive performances, delivering solid dancing and singing (esp Sandeul belting my god!!!!) with incredible endurance. ;u; They were visibly tired but kept going and delivering and were full of energy til the end! But I think what was really special was that they put a lot of care into making sure that the audience had a fun, engaged experience. We weren't just watching them perform; we were constantly interacting and encouraged to respond. For most of the concert, it was a lot of asking us to sing along, scream, put our hands up, wave and pump our arms, jump while they were performing.
Then what confused me was when we got to a song that didn't include much of them singing or dancing? It was.....intense clubby music? The boys were all jumping and hyping us up, and we were all jumping too, AND THEN THEY STARTED EMPTYING THEIR WATER BOTTLES....ONTO THE AUDIENCE. Water! spraying! everywhere!!! It felt like a rave?! (We found out afterwards that it was a song remixed by Jinyoung LOLLLLL)
At that point, it was no longer just a B1A4 performance—it was B1A4 members constructing an environment in which we fans could let loose and have a good time! I really think that they didn't want any of us to just stand or sit idly, didn't want us to just be absorbed in taking pics/videos on our phones, didn't want us to just be observers. I appreciated that a lot ^^
I don't really ever get (or pursue) opportunities to just let go and let my body move and just have unreserved fun... I refuse to dance because I'm bad at it and I don't like how my awkward body looks when moving around, and I just get consumed by self-consciousness and the judging eyes of other people. The dance floor is place of anxiety for my party-poopin' ass.
But at the concert, I felt...safe? An unfamiliar feeling of few inhibitions and not needing to care about what I looked like or what anyone thought of me. All I had to do was jump and wave my arms, all I had to respond to was the beat of the music, and the entire audience was in it together to show our support for B1A4 who wanted to give back to us ;A; It was a great stress relief HAHA.
During their encore, they came out with crates of water bottles and WENT HAM. "San Francisco, are you tired?!?! Are you ready to shower?????!!?!?!!" were the words they'd fill the room with before repeating the chorus of Good Timing over.. and over.. and over.. and DRENCHING us with water and love LOL. Objectively, I know they went overboard and probably shouldn't have, but... I ultimately didn't have any problem with it and just enjoyed it. ;v;! At first, I did my best to avoid the water because of protective reflex—I'd flinch and duck, cover my face, and clean off my glasses as soon as I could. But then I zoned out for a moment and thought about it......... and concluded that I didn't have any reason to avoid the water? Unlike many fans in the front, I didn't have my phone out trying to get recordings. I didn't have a face full of make-up to worry about. My hair doesn't get frizzy. All of my belongings were covered because I was expecting rain. I wasn't sick, wasn't feeling cold. Why be afraid?
So from then on, I kept my head up and just smiled and laughed like what B1A4 would probably have wanted to see from us. Was so soaked!!! It's such a small change, but I was very happy and proud that I chose to let go and embrace the fun, messy, in-the-moment thing, instead of clinging to the pragmatic route as I always do. In the end, I had no personal qualms about the downpour and surprised myself by how much I enjoyed it. ;U;
Oh and they just absolutely spoil us with fanservice. <3 It warms my heart remembering all of their sincere gestures, and how they were constantly waving to fans all over the venue, giving us endless finger hearts, making eye contact if possible (I swear I made eye contact with CNU for a moment), posing with fans' banners and headbands, reminding us that we were loved and appreciated. This is the kind of memory that's going to make me smile each time it crosses my mind.
Here's B1A4's newest song, A Lie, composed by leader and my bias Jinyoung~ On first listen, I was rather lukewarm, but it consistently grew on me and now I'M SO EMOTIONAL OVER THIS SONG. (If you're new to their music, their songs tend to land on very opposite sides of the melancholic-silly spectrum haha. Solo Day is a jam!)
Oh my god KCON this year was such a mess. I loved it soooo much last year that I pledged to try to go again in all coming years even if it was expensive, and THIS YEAR LET ME DOWN SO HARD. From as early as the stupid unfair ticket sale process (only a few of the sections were available to buy from?? AND they put you in a random place in line, not first-come-first serve), it was mostly stupid all the way through. Stupid needlessly long lines in which I spent most of my KCON waiting. Stupid things that were not clear or written wrongly or not written at all or not well thought-through or "I can't help you; go wait in that line instead," "I can't help you; you'll have to wait for my supervisor." So! many! things! went wrong! STUPID AS FUCK lack of screens during the concerts so unless you spent a shitload of money and were lucky enough to get the good tickets, you couldn't see anything! I've never been to a concert before that didn't have big screens so that people in the back could see. Who does that?! Fucking KCON!
Yo look at this panorama from the night I had better seats and see if you can spot the only screens.
But positive points!
I continue to adore all of the K-beauty access and information at the convention. Last year, Charlotte Cho (Sokoglam) and beautifymeeh's panel basically changed my life forever!!!! It taught me most of the things I know about skincare! I've been hooked on Korean skincare since, dedicated myself to a nightly skin routine, and it smoothed out my skin. *___* Plus all the products are well packaged and there's such a variety and it's pretty fun to be into LOL.
This year, my favorite panel was Aritaum's—I learned a lot about how to apply different products and the research behind the products, and the reps were so sweet! ;v; Chiisana and I visited their booth and one of the reps offered to give Chiisa a mini-makeover to test which BB cushion is her color. They used the same products demonstrated at the panel, and her skin looked better than ever, so I was persuaded to buy the Iope Bio Hydro Cream since I have dry skin ehe.. (And it came with nice free samples for expensive things *A*) So far, it's made my face look pretty moisturized!
I actually really liked how my skin looked on this day! I used the tips I learned from the panel kekeke
My favorite Aritaum product continues to be the Water Sliding Lip Tint though. It's the only Aritaum product Chiisa and I owned before this week, but it's both of our current favorite lip products, something we literally use everyday, and the only reason we decided to attend the panel LOL. It's seriously an awesome lip tint and it puzzles me as to why I never hear about it!!! We learned about and bought them for the first time in a store that was having a BOGO deal, so they were like $4.50 each or something. And this year we went back to that store just to get them again (although ours from last year haven't run out yet still!).
Anyway, all of the cosmetics promoters at the con were so very generous! Chiisa and I spent most of our [limited] convention time in the "Beauty Block" section of the expo hall. Most of the booths had giveaways so we participated in a handful of them, and sometimes the sponsors would go through everyone in line and give a free mask as a thank you for waiting!! Even with how little time we got to spend at the convention and not in lines, we've accumulated a good amount of free Korean skincare products LMAO.
ALL THE AWESOME FREE K-BEAUTY PRODUCTS I GOT WAAAAA
Another positive point was the cool concert line-up. I think the performances overall were pretty good but it was damn hard to tell when I couldn't see much. The energy was there though! It was still fun even though I was annoyed.
Today I had the honor of attending Apink's concert in San Francisco for their North American tour, Pink MEMORY!! ^^ I'm exhausted now, but I had a blast at the show.
I'll be posting all about the experience I had~
There may be some "well, duh" things though because I went in not having read about anything from previous legs of the tour, and I also haven't watched all of Apink's shows so I'm not an expert on their personalities?
I just went to my first KCON! And now I wonder why I've never gone to KCON before because holy shit, it is such an unforgettable experience. I went with Chiisana and our friend Dres, and the funny thing is that Chiisa and I are known for having very bad luck—especially together. The drive from Norcal to LA is supposed to take 6-7 hours, but guess who had to endure a 10 hour drive through traffic hell with a lovely view of mountain wildfires.... ;x;
And somehow, KCON itself went .. beyond smoothly for us. In fact, it went super well!
So here's my KCON experience complete with shaky pictures and scream-ridden fancams ^^
