Concert in the Park... Korea > US

I loved Pittsburgh's concert in the park series. (Especially with Mike and Stephanie Sortwell!) Not because I knew any of the bands that played, but because of the relaxed picnic atmosphere.

Old pic of South Park Concert, Thank you Google Image search.

I have to say though that in terms of performance, grandiosity, and overall money spent on a free concert though... Korea definitely wins.

OMG, this is the free concert at our apartment complex Tuesday night.

So the story is this, Monday Andy mentions that there's supposed to be a concert at Hanbit on Tuesday and that Super Junior is supposed to be there.

THIS is Super Junior... they're kind of a big deal. #1 in Thailand, 12 year old Korean girls everywhere swoon over them. 

Note this quote for later:

Super Junior are known for doing performances that are heavily centered around their choreography, and are acclaimed for their highly synchronized dances. - Wikipedia

At this point I was thinking, there's no way that Super Junior is coming to our apartment complex, but we had to go to make sure.

Tuesday night, a group of people come over, including Andy (see below for his daily contribution), we ordered in some chicken and beer, watched a little So You Think You Can Dance via Slingbox, and at 7:30 started walking towards all the noise. It took us 5 minutes to get down to the apartment soccer field. This is what we saw:

Definitely not Super Junior, but someone reassured me that they would be on later and that this was the Madonna of Korea. YeonSil said she didn't know about that..... but she was pretty awesome!

Everywhere we go, there's always this guy:

Haha, he was having a lot of fun till security interrupted!

Then there was Maya (I don't know if I'm spelling her name right, that's who YeonSil said it was though)

Still no Super Junior....

Then, the Korean Wayne Newton:

He's 66 years old, and really does kick a$$. I enjoyed his performance most out of the night. (I hope that's not too much of a spoiler for the rest of this post)

There were several other performers in between. Including a cute Kpop girl band that I missed b/c I went to the bathroom. Dangit!

Finally, Super Junior!!! Kindof...

Notice the big difference between the video above and this one (besides my crappy shaky filming skillz)? Oh yeah, there's a lot less members. I was disappointed by this, but not too surprised, after all, we're at our apartment complex's free concert, sponsored by KHNP (company Shannon's working for over here). What I was really disappointed about was the 3 songs they did after we watched all those other performers and the lack of dancing!! Let's reference the Wikipedia quote again:

Super Junior are known for doing performances that are heavily centered around their choreography, and are acclaimed for their highly synchronized dances. - Wikipedia

What??? Not fair!! No dancing? This blows! I'm sure there were some 13 year old girls out there who were just ecstatic about seeing Super Junior up close, but I've been to concerts, I know when a performance sucks.

So my message to Super Junior is this. I understand only 3 of you (out of 12 or something), and I understand only 3 songs, I'm sure KHNP didn't pay enough for more then that. But if you're known for your dancing performances, take some pride in your work and dance!

I would have been less disappointed if it had been a Super Junior cover band or something (or if they weren't even there).

Super Junior- One more thing to think about... the old Korean performers blew you out of the water....

I should probably end there (that was a good closing line right?), but I've got more to say.

Weird thought: It looks really easy to be a back up dancer in Korea.... maybe it's because they were back-up dancing for everyone, not just one performer?

Also, Andy's contribution of the day...

Love/Hate Relationship

As we discover more about Korea, there's more to love... and hate! This is stuff I love and hate about our apartment (or stuff in our apartment).


Love
I love the great instant coffee packets they have here.

This little instant coffee packet has sugar and creamer in it. Just pour it in the bottom of your cup and pour hot water on top of it. Yum! I have never liked any instant coffee before and I really like this.

Hate
I hate not having a dishwasher. I didn't take a picture of not having a dishwasher cause it's not there!!!!! All these awesome appliances and conveniences and I have to wash my own dishes?! That sucks!!!

Love
I Love the heated floors. Never have I wanted to be in my socks so much. I wasn't so sure about the very Asian tradition of taking your shoes off before you come in to any place, home, restaurant, etc. But I quickly got used to it and learned to wear shoes that slip off easily. If you go to a restaurant where it's required to take off your shoes (and then sit on the floor, they go hand in hand), the floor is typically padded and heated as well. Heaven.
Anyway, this is about in the apartment. When you turn on the floor heat, the apartment heats up really quickly. In fact, it's been chilly here for the last week (about 45F), I turn on the floor heat for a couple hours during the day, turn it off before Shannon gets home and he's complaining about how hot it is. If we ever redo floors in any room in our american house, I'm going to investigate floor heat. Love it!!

Hate
How low the counter-tops are. The come up to my thigh. Which means when I'm washing said dishes above, I get a crick in my back. A whole nation of short people are going to give me a bad back!

Not a great picture since I took it at home today, so no Shannon to help, but it gets the point across.

Love

Even though our 3 bedroom apartment is a lot smaller then our house (duh!), I love how many cubby places there are to store things. For example, in the entryway, where it is expected that everyone will take off their shoes, there's a shoe closet. (A whole closet for my shoes you say? <3 ) With even some features that I haven't figured out yet... gotta ask our new Korean friends.

Hate

Our hard, uncomfortable sofa. You have to sit up straight or slide off and it's hard! No taking a nap on this couch. At least it's nice looking... Too bad it also shows all the cat hair...

Love

Key code door locks. I was thinking that we needed one of these before we came to Korea, now I'm sure. With no way to lock yourself out of your house by accident, this is a modern convenience I would love to have at our house in the future.

Hate

Our Washer/Dryer. With a very small barrel and that it takes about 4 hours to do a load of laundry, it means I feel like I'm constantly doing laundry to keep up. I can't imagine what people with kids do... it washes like 5 pieces of clothing at a time. Maybe it's just not made to handle our large american body clothing.   -.-    I actually tried washing 3 towels yesterday and it was too much for it. It refused to dry it, having an error until I finally took one towel out and then it would work. Grrrrr.....

I already can't wait to get back to my huge washer dryer. (That takes about 2 hours total to wash and dry) Ah someday.

And now I'll try to end on a

Love

I love having a security camera that turns on automatically when someone rings our doorbell, or you can turn it on yourself. In a busy apartment, it makes me feel safe and sound. We need this when we get back so I can feel extra safe when Shannon's off on business trips. :)

Neat right? That's the hall outside our door. There are buttons to call the police and remotely bolt the door. Though if we called the police they wouldn't understand us..... Maybe just panicked yelling would get a cop to come to our door. :D

There are lots more things I can think of in both the Love and Hate categories, but they'll have to wait till another day!

Til next time!

Location Location Location!

Since I've been getting so many question about it, I thought I'd post some maps of where our apartment is in relation to everything else going on on that side of the world.

Look how close we are to the beach!

Just North of the DMZ is North Korea! Yikes!

Japan is Korea's breakwater. :D

Where we are in relation to the world!

So no, I'm not worried about Tsunamies, Radiation or Hurricanes. Thanks though for being the thousandth person to ask, I should've had a prize ready for you. ;)