No wonder becoming a star here is worth more than being the president.

[cerealjoe]

Have I already mentioned that I love the fact that in Korea almost every cafe/sandwich place offers free wifi? Well, as it happens my hotel doesn't have wifi, it's in the "new" city of town (ie it looks very shady but does have those small baseball places that you always see people going to in dramas to practice hitting balls, I have to check out if I can go there... haven't touched a baseball bat since my freshman year of high school), and obviously "new" does not mean "modern". There is a "business center" but hell, I'm too lazy... So yeah, I'm at this place eating kimchi bulgogi and using the interwebs. Ah, Korea, you are amazing! Also Korea, I love your taxi drivers but damn, it's hard communicating. But it is kind of hilarious when eventually they warm up to you and they start talking to you and you can't do much more than just smile and nod once in a while. I mean either they really do enjoy telling strangers their lifestory or they're highly amused by me and therefore feel the need to entrain me. Anyway, here are some photos from my trip to Gimpo airport this morning. Some of the stuff is random and I took photos of some of the kpop-related ads out there. I think there were about seven times more but if I start taking photos of all of them I wouldn't be able to walk more than three hundred meters in an hour. Let's start with my kpop "happy place", SS501. Yes, they're my kpop equivalent of Arashi. Well they were, now there are stories of disbanding, etc. Basically I got into kpop because of HyungJoon (aka Baby aka HJB) and I've stayed ever since. They're not as lulzy and amazing as Arashi but still... when shit hits the fan in kpop (it happens almost every other week these days), SS501 seem untroubled. And as a bonus you get some random statue. You can take a photo with it. I'm not quite sure what it was though. I figured out the metro! I even bought the local metro rechargeable card and managed to not only charge it but also use it. 2AM are promoting the Seoul metro. Apparently it's all about design and being digital and safe and stuff like that. For those who didn't know, 2AM are the ones who sing the official South Korean World Cup cheering song that's included on the World Cup CD. I have no idea who the lady in the bottom ad is :( The famous "sweat" drink machine! Yes, they really do exist and you can find some sweat to drink almost everywhere. The domestic terminal at the Gimpo airport was quite something. There were tons of counters and obviously I went the wrong way... but hey, I did find the right one at the end and everything went super fast, it was rather nice. And this is 2en1 (read "twenty-one"). For those wondering, I have yet to go to a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts here. I have "principles". No actually I don't but why go there when there are other chains unknown to me? These arrows on the stairs reminded me of an episode of that Beast/B2ST show where they fulfill some requests viewers send in (yes, my references to Korean pop culture are incredible!) In the first episode they had to go to their scheduled activities by themselves to give a break to their manager and each boy was the "responsible" one for an hour. During HyunSeung's hour they were in the metro and he said something like "stand on the right, like in a developed country". Here, it's true that a lot of people kind of ignore the implicit 'on the right if you're not moving' rule but given the lack of personal space respect they don't mind pushing. Everywhere where a lot of peeps might cross each other (stairs, crosswalks, etc.) they have arrows indicating to which side everyone should keep. This is to promote some kind of expo. Oh hei, G-Dragon! And TOP in the back! Do not worry, they do are not discriminating against the other Big Bang guys, Daesung was featured on a panel after TOP. Ri and Tae were on the other side of the panels. I checked. (Seriously, will G-D ever stop looking like a 12 year old. TOP still looks as amazing as ever.) Bi/Rain saying hello. I just passed this one shop with F4's Lee MinHo (or actually I thought he was much better in Personal Taste), the storefont was plastered with his face... but you've got to admit they couldn't have gotten a better model for suits. Right now I'm on Jeju Island and it's incredible the number of flights that land here. My flight was full, large plane too and they have hourly flights. And that's just one company! When you see how many of them fly here (and have "Jeju" in the name), you can only wonder just how much Korean people love flying here. On another note, for the first time today I witnessed the "white man" syndom. Middle of nowhere, another "white" person comes the other way, you feel obliged to acknowledge each other...