I cannot be thankful enough to Korea Tourism Organization for they have spoiled us, the K-Performance Supporters, by giving numerous opportunities to experience variety of performances. I have experienced events that I even did not know before such as Yeosu Expo 2012, Formula 1, Hwacheon Ice Festival, Inkigayo, and not to mention performances such as Jump, B-Boy Kung, Vinari, you name it. Not only I got to experience so many things, but also I got to get many new friends who come from different parts of the world. The last one year was priceless.
The ceremony was awesome. What to whine? We got picked up from the station, luxury ceremony hall, delicious buffet, gifts, plus rare chance to watch concert by the next generation of K-Pop stars. As the gifts, we received some bookmarks, a very cute USB flash drive, and for the first batch members, we got a pair of koreanish-patterned jewelry box.
The gifts: jewelry box, USB flas drive, and KRW 400,000 worth coupons
I, myself was very grateful to have been chosen as one of award grantees from the last batch. I was very proud to stand there on the stage and receive my prize. I actually have no idea how big was my contribution to this program, although I always try my best to review honestly, good or bad, about whatever I experienced from this program. I really hope my reviews were indeed a big help for th
em to make K-Performance better.
Even though I did not stay for the concert until it was done, I think it was a pleasure to see the next generation of K-Pop stars. Who knows in the near future they will be everywhere and I would be "hey I have seen those guys' concert". How cool that would be?!
F1 Grand Prix this year is held at the international circuit located at Yeongam city. It is actually really far from the capital city which is 4-5 hours trip by bus. I went there with the other K-Performance Supporters that were really excited about this. I also put a lot of expectation on this, but maybe I put too much.
We got two days tickets. The first day was to see the preliminary race and I just saw on the brochure that they had drivers fans sign time. We totally missed that! And then we went to some breakwater place which was apparently unavailable due to some construction. We ended up hanging out in some kind of square in Mokpo city. It was kind of fun because there was some performance from European countries. The great thing of the day was to eat seafood!
The second day was the final race. It was 55 laps and the winner is Sebastian Vettel from Red Bull team. But before watching the race we had a brief visit to Dr. Wang-in Historical Site. I do not really know about this place, but I will find out and get back to that.
To be frankly, I think my friends were right when they said watching F1 from television is way better than watching it live. We can only see it in a glance a.k.a we can only see it when they pass the track in front of us, and it only lasted for only what? 2 seconds each car? There was actually a screen, but not big enough to see it clearly. There were opening ceremony and performances, but we had no idea what was going on since our seat is so far away from the seat near the start line. Nevertheless, being able to see it in reality was an amazing chance. Being said it was not really excited, but it was a rare chance and I felt somehow lucky.
Putting aside all F1 related things, I would like to share my homestay experience. Just like when I visited Yeosu Expo 2012, we did not sleep in a fancy hotel. I had this opportunity again to sleep in Korean's house. This time was different, though. His name was Choi Jaeshin and he lives with his wife. He owns this house in a village and he has a garden full of persimmons trees, apple trees, ducks, chickens, and a little dog.
The room is really traditional Korean style. We slept on the floor with only blankets and it has floor heating system. The air is really fresh and the view is green. It was a really stress-less life. We also had a very delicious breakfast and many gifts such as candies, spam, tuna, and a bag full of persimmons. But more than all of them, we got their hospitality. They even invited us to go there again if we do not have anything to do on holiday. It was a great experience and I can't thank them enough.
Thanks once again to KTO for giving us another experience. It is priceless.
As a K-Performance supporter and also as it was Korea In Motion Festival Period, I got a very rare chance to watch a performance called B-Boy Kung plus to learn a little bit of K-Pop dance. I actually had already guessed what the dance would be, and yes it was Gangnam Style by Psy.
Gangnam Style has taken the world. It has spread like virus. Everyone knows Gangnam Style and its very famous horse dance. I actually have already learnt the dance, so no surprises, yet it was still pretty interesting. At the very end, we split onto two teams and had a little horse dance battle. Of course my team won and we got a pair of socks.
Now the main dish: B-Boy Kung. If I had to make this short, I would summarize everything in one word: Amazing. It was really beyond my expectation. B-Boy Kung is a street dance performance. Also, there is a story that in my point of view as an audience is pretty well constructed. It was really easy understandable even without words.
The story is about a group of dancers called Gorilla that lost their place to practice and hang out. Also, there is this very rich guy who I think bought that place. With the power of money, he also succeed to take one of the members of the group. He, the dancer, then becomes the rich guys member. The story goes on until finally they meet at one dance competition which prize is USD 500,000.
The scene that I liked the most wast when the main character was in dilemma between his dance group or his job. He did really good acting and his popping skill is undoubted. There was also a scene where several dancers wearing black clothes and white masks on. It was really scary because the room was dark and glowed everything white. The story and the dance was really good.
The place, oh I love the place. It is very small room with the quota of not too many audience. It really gives us a private feel and closer view of the performance. I would say that the place is the best one among the performance room I have ever been. It is located at Samjin Jaeyak (삼진제약) Building B1 floor. If you know Hongik University, go to its main gate and turn left until you find B-Boy Kung posters.
Overall, it was a very exciting, interesting, enjoyable one hour and a half. I was really lucky to be able to watch the performance. Also, the KOINMO team took some videos and made it really neat. Check it out!
Thanks KTO! And for you who desperately want to watch this performance, hurry up! you could get cheaper ticket as it is still KOINMO festival!
Wedding is really lack of story. Even more, there are several things that do not go with the concept of this performance, which is wedding. For instance, the magic show in the middle of the show. It really has no relation with wedding itself. I would say that this performance is more like a talent show. Everyone seems to have talent in playing musical instruments, singing, dancing, and of course, acting. Those are the plus points of this performance. I really enjoyed them playing variety of musical instruments. One person might be capable of playing several musical instruments, beside singing, dancing, and acting. I was even more interested in them showing their talents rather than following the story.
Basically, the story is just about a couple having their wedding party. The father of the bride did not agree with the wedding but the couple kept on trying to convince him. The show went on along with some unrelated scenes even though they were pretty entertaining. There was one scene when a male stripper came and took off his pants and showed his glittery red underwear. Everybody was shocked and screaming. The stripper turned out to be a gay and fell in love with the event organizer guy. I will save the rest of the story for you to watch it by yourselves. I know that you can guess the end of the story.
The stage
Regarding the place of the performance, it is pretty difficult to find. There are many buildings around it and it is such a hard-to-be-seen type of place. Also, there is another performance with really similar name and I was mistakenly going to go for that one. The room is very small, which I like it very much. I always thing that small room for performance really gives some sort of private and exclusive kind of feeling. The stage, though, is not really eye-catchy, or maybe it is just me.
Overall, I did not quite enjoy the story but on the other hand, their talents, the comedy, and all the surprises were really entertaining. Plus, they put gay couple in the performance which I think ... come on, it is Korea. I think it is a good thing because it gives the audience the feeling that they are also open-minded. Worth watching? Me: Yeah, you?
1.jpg)
.jpg)
