4.12.11 My parents dropped me of at heathrow airport were I met Kyunghee (she's a staff member of the Korean culture centre and was with me and looked after me the whole trip) this was the first time I would travel to such a far place without my parents so it was a bit scary at first, but as soon as I left my parents and started my journey with Kyunghee, the nervs calmed down. I think I was just feeling the nerves from my parents. haha.
The plane departed a few minutes past 8:00pm and after that it was a loooong flight to incheon airport, and I couldn't sleep D: .
5.12.11 We landed the next day at around 15:50 KST and I was super tired. After collecting our luggage and going through all the stuff you do at the airport we were greeted by a camera crew. They interviewed me and asked me to say some stuff in Korean to the camera, but I was so tired I was speaking absolute nonsense, just rambling on hoping they would turn the camera off soon and let me sleep, but they made it all better when they gave me banana milk after the interview :3 banana milk always makes it better.
We checked into a really nice hotel called 'Yuido Hotel' and then I learnt that they moved the schedule and instead of having the semi final tomorrow it would be in a few hours,
me = ( -, _ - )
I had just gotten off a plane with recycled air and I was super tired.
Before the semi finals all the contestants were taken to an amazing korean restaurant, it was amaizing! I really love Korean food! I had a seafood meal since I don't eat meat, just seafood and veggies.
The Semi finals!!!
After we finished eating they took us all on a coach to the KBS entertainment building! I was really excited to be there since, its were a lot of Kpop singers and entertainers go. I changed into my stage out fit and waited for my turn and practice a bit.
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| practicing with mirror :) |
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| Again.. ^ ^ |
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| I forgot to mention the mass of cameras along side the judges. |
6.12.11 This day was really amazing! We went to the Starship entertainment building and was in for a treat when Sistar, K.will and Boyfriend all walked into the rehearsal room. Everyone was trying to remain cool. They waved at us and let us take there picture.
They split us up into to two mentoring groups one group would be with Boyfriend and Sistar and the other with K.will. They randomly shouted country names and who ever was the team for that country would have to go on the team of the person that shouted it, finally K.will said 영국 (England) and I was in his group, he high fived me when I walked over. It was a lot of fun.
After the cool mentoring session with K.will (he just gave some tips and answered questions) we all gathered to hear the result of who would be performing in the finals. We all sat down nervously as they called the names and then they called my name second and I was so relieved!!
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| Star Ship Ent. :D |
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| With America (Steven) |
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| Sistar, Boyfriend and K.will Entering room. |
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| My fail picture of Dasom (Sistar) >.< |
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| Just hanging with some Kpop singers xD haha |
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| watching them being interviewed ^^ |
We had a practise with a vocal coach who funnily enough was the vocal coach of G.na herself. I was wondering why he asked me "you're sing G.na's song?" then Kyunghee told me, so I took a picture with him.
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| With G.na's Vocal (P.s. The Jacket I'm wearing KBS gave them to us) |
7.12.11
THE FINALS!!!!!!
It was finally the day of the performance and I was really excited!! but then when I saw the size of the stage my mouth dropped wide open.
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| The huge stage. |
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| The Audience just entering (the side view)!!! |
We had hair makeup and stylists to pick out the outfits, I was given a black dress, a leather jacket and jewelry, they tried to squeeze me into some really nice boots, but the Korean shoes don't fit me :(, she stamped here foot in a manner for me to imitate her, but that just resulted in the tip of the shoe coming loose from the sole xD The stylist lady shouted "OMO!!" in shock when this happened. Luckily -and thanks to Kyunghee who saved the day and rushed to the hotel to get them- I had my own black boots which I just wore instead and then it was show time!!
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| After Makeup!! |
I was on before MBLAQ so I had to wait behind the stage with them, talk about trying to keep my cool!! ahaha It's a shame I didn't try to get any pictures, I'm kicking myself for not asking.
I didn't really suffer from nervousness, I was more excited to get up on the stage than nervous and I just tried to have as much fun as I possibly could!!
My performance
I won the Popularity award and my prize was bouquet of flowers, a trophy and ₩1,000,000 (which is about £500).
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| My trophy |
After the Kpop festival was over most of the contestants and I went to have fun at a Noraebang ( Korean Karaoke) !! we sang till it was morning again!
8.12.11 We took the coach back to seoul in the morning and was taken on an amazing tour of Seoul. We visited King Sejong's castle and was shown all these amazing things. Oh, and by the way, it was freezing cold at the time, I had a big winter jacket on and my arms, legs and face were still numb.
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| I saw this in a variety chat show once now I'm all "I've been there!!!" xD |
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| This used to be a natural stream, but to preserve it they concreted it, if I remember correctly it runs all the way through seoul. Sorry if I'm wrong. |
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| Modern meets nature. |
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| Freezing next to a statue of the guardian of Korea, whos name I cant seem to remember. |
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| Outside the castle, so beautiful. |
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| We came Just in time to watch the guards change over. |
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| With one of the guards and steven. |
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| Two random guys just chilling on the roof ( we were baffled at the reason they were up there in the freezing cold) |
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| Inside the walls of the castle (Oh, and those camera men came with us everywhere at first it was slightly awkward, but I kinda missed them being there when I was leaving. You know when you expect something to be there and then it not anymore >.<) |
Kyunghee bought me fish cake from one of the stalls I felt like I was in one of the K-dramas haha, it tasted real good.
I bought myself some cute bunny ear muffs from another stall (before my ear decided to dropped of from the cold) and a cool gel eyeliner and two sheet face masks from Missha. Korean skin products are really good btw.
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| Outside Missha, look at the pretty Christmas light around TVXQ! :D |
That night was are last night and we stayed in a very traditional Korean styled house, it had the sliding doors, the heated floor, the outside bathrooms (not so great in the winter), it was basically very traditional and I really enjoyed staying there that night.
9.12.11 It was time to get on the plane back to London, this amazing experience was now coming to an end and then the best thing ever happened. It started to snow!! I got to see the first snow fall in Korea.
This was an amazing trip and its has made me love Korea more than I loved it before, I have so many more great memories thanks to this trip and I hope I can get another amazing opportunity like it.
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