C.N.Blue concert [25th May]

I first saw C.N.Blue back in September in London last year. Before then, I have to be honest that whilst I'd heard their songs, I wasn't that much of a fan. Seeing them live converted me, and I really wanted to see them again in Seoul. I missed their concert in December because the tickets sold out so quickly but this time, I managed to buy tickets myself for me, Sam and Hanneke.

Humongous poster outside Jamsil Indoor Stadium

 The afternoon was ridiculously hot and humid, but we took time to grab some photo's in front of the boards;

Me and Sam~

Whilst we were hanging about, we didn't realise until a little too late that a staff member wasn't just taking our photo but filming us for the DVD.... He didn't actually tell us he was filming so we all thought it was just for a photo *rolls eyes* Here's hoping that doesn't make the cut because it was a bit rubbish... I'd have liked to put the stuff down in my hands and then I would have happily done hearts and shouted 사랑해 etc. and they'd have some useful footage instead!!

Me and Hanneke~

They also were raising money for the new school they want to build in Africa. Donations from fans has already contributed to building one school, and they want to raise enough to build another. We spoke to the people fundraising for a little bit, we had our photo's taken again and they let us mess around with the cut-outs;

Sam wanted to steal the Yonghwa cut-out (don't we all?)

We finally went in, climbing all the way to the top on the 3rd floor. Next time at this venue, I won't settle for not having 2nd floor seats... We were so high up! Plus, people on our floor didn't stand up and jump around really like they were lower down, which was a little disappointing as me and Sam wanted to be a little more active.

View from our 3rd floor seats

Anyway, the concert itself was brilliant. They had tons of energy and Yonghwa in particular had about 10 times more confidence being in front of a home audience (than in London, I mean). He definitely played to the crowd,  with cute little dance wiggles every so often, making us scream even louder. They all seemed to have a fantastic time, with huge grins on their faces throughout.

It felt like they played heavier rock versions of their songs too! I came away feeling up-beat and with Love Girl stuck firmly in my head for the following week.

Lotus Lantern Festival

Two updates in one day?! What's going on? Who is this? Who am I? ....anyway, this weekend, I was in Seoul for the Lantern Festival. This was part of the festivities for Buddha's Birthday on Friday, which also means a day off school/work, woohoo!

Warning; picture-heavy post!

After Korean class, me and Sam went up to the Bongeunsa Temple, which is near the (flipping massive) COEX shopping mall. It was pretty quiet, maybe because it was near the heat of the day and it was utterly gorgeous out but people were also preparing for the parade later on.

There were so many lanterns up, it was difficult to get a photo of them all! We walked around the temple and it was lovely and tranquil. It really didn't feel like we were still in Seoul, which was nice as a breather from the city.

Curved roof of COEX in the background

My first glimpse into Korea's punk-rock scene

This was hands-down the most interesting wedding reception party I've ever been to. I happened to see a link to this event somewhere only a few hours before it started. I'd been helping Steph to move in to her new place in Seoul and we wanted an evening out. A quick bit of googling later, found it was within walking distance, so was perfect!

The gig flyer (src; Chincha magazine's Facebook)

The bands that all played were friends of the bride and groom (himself, the vocalist of the band Rux). We  also saw No Brain, Gogo Star, Crying Nut and Galaxy Express. There's some more information from before the gig here including this from the groom, Won Jong-hee;

"One of my favourite songs from Rux is 'Our Life, Our Stage'," says Won. "Anyone can put their life on a stage.... So I thought why not get married on a stage too... After we chose to have our wedding on the venue's big stage, we had to decide on some wedding singers for the reception. So we said, 'F*ck it! Let's just have a big punk rock show instead.'"

There were clearly a core group of fans for each band present, but everyone was so easy-going and fun. This was the nicest mosh-pit I've ever experienced even though it still got pretty insane by any standards. We stayed a bit out of it and stuck to the main non-crazy-crowd standing/jumping. People were able to crowd-surf! And fans jumping up on stage wasn't a cause for being kicked out, it was all so... friendly?! I don't think alcohol was even being served and people were there just to jump/flail around, have a good time and rock out to the bands.

I took a fair number of photo's on my phone, more to test the camera than anything by trying to get at least one good shot of each band. Also, it was an attempt to remember who was who for when I came to (finally) writing up this post.

Any which way, me and Steph had a good time; it's always fun when spur-of-the-moment decisions work out well!

P.S; I'll update this with pictures later, but I just wanted to get this post published and feel like I've actually gotten somewhere with catching up on all these things I want to write about...

P.P.S; I just realised this was a month ago. Where does time go here?!?