Thank You - Ra.D

Ra.D's latest mini album, Small Story that was released sometime last March, with "Thank you" as its promotional single (you can listen below). Get the full album here. I hope to hear new songs from Ra.D sometime this year!

Ra.D

With my growing interest in K-Indie, I found Ra.D! Such simple name but this guy can do so much. Even with that statement, it still lacks the praise that Ra.D needs. I was taken aback from looking for who is Ra.D because of the name. You know how KPop mix capital letters and punctuation marks, anyway, I skipped the entire article in seoulbeats because of the name. And now that I would like to know more about Ra.D and he doesn't even have a wiki page. BOOOOO! A fangirl got to know his birthday, height and blood type more that his discography. hehe! 

How did I learn about Ra.D? Who is Lee Doo Hyun by the way, born in 1980, and debuted in 2002. My friend asked me if I know the background music on episode 5 of Dating Agency: Cyrano, kdrama that features SHINee's Taemin :). Yes I have to put a smiley face there! His voice is not new to my ears and got a few guesses thinking that its an old song. I googled it and found nothing. I told my friend to give it 2 days and soon, everybody will be asking what that song, and a kpop geek will say what it is and who sang the song. Well I was not mistaken! First, everybody is asking for the same song too! Well not everybody, I mean at least to those who is watching the show. Second, yes after a couple of days, somebody gave an answer, and the name Ra.D appeared! I was about to rip the video file to an audio file and take only the part when the song is being played!

The song by the way is "A Certain Heart Fluttering" (어떤 설레임), part 3 of Dating Agency: Cyrano OST. I like the song a lot, and I love Ra.D's voice! Apparently he collaborated with a lot of artist already and was surprised that my growing list of Kpop songs on my hard disk already got a couple of Ra.Ds there for I have IU, and Lee Seung Gi albums. He even got rendition of "Jesus Loves Me", a popular Christian song for kids and I remember growing up learning that song too! Its cute for it features a kid also, singing with him. 

I'm sure I'll not forget to buy his albums when I get back to Korea next year! I wonder who will be my next indie artist and I actually don't know if he is still considered indie since he is with Loen.

Seoul Day 1.0

After maybe after 6 months of countdown and years of dreaming to go to the land of Koreanovela (what Pinoy refer to Korean dramas) aka KDrama and KPop, we finally landed SAFE in Korea, the South part that is! We arrived at Manila on the night of 12th of April and went to Korea the afternoon of the next day! Jet lag means nothing to two people yearning to go to South Korea!

As we reach Incheon International Airport, we were taking snaps from the plane window, even joking about requesting for the pilot to tilt the plane on the left to have a better view! Only upon landing a guy told us that we almost got into an accident if the pilot wasn't able to pull up the plane. And so that's explains the  brief roller coaster ride feel that I felt! whew!

I can't remember what time we landed, but it should be around 9pm. We got our T-money at the airport and followed the signage leading to the trains. We didn't take the airport express because our stop is Hongdae (Hongik University Station) and airport express train skips Hongdae and goes straight to Seoul Station.

at Incheon International Airport

inside train to Seoul

I knew we were at the right place when a drama is being shown on TV at the waiting area. Its Kdrama of course, though I don't know what it is, and pity that its not subbed.. hehehe of course! On board the train to Seoul, I heard one lady calling the man she's with, "oppa", boy, I can't help but smile! I said to myself, "INDEED I AM IN KOREA!" hahaha!

Train stations in Seoul is no joke. It has several lines and several exits.  We got off Hongik University station, and contemplated on which way to go. I got confused with "Bank" on the map, it says Hyundai Bank (at least to what I read) and the one at our back is Woo-something bank. And the Hyundai that I see across the street is a petrol station. A guy helped us, because we are so obviously "lost" bless him! I asked for his name but I can't remember anymore. Apparently, our guesthouse is 10 mins walk from the train station and as a treat for us, we passed by FNC! The studio where CNBLUE started and was the very street that CNBLUE most likely roamed around during their training days. Mr. Helpful guy commented on how excited we were (because we are squealing) and we can only answer "Yes!" I was about to explain why but I'm afraid it will be gibberish to him and might say to himself "Ugh! Fangirls". hehe!

We got into our guesthouse, still full of energy even if its already almost midnight. We stayed at Seoulwise Guesthouse. The owner, Mr. Young speaks English well so we don't have any problems communication wise. The room that we stayed is cozy and clean. We booked a 55,000 KRW/night room and we have our own bathroom. They clean the room everyday, free breakfast, till 10 am but we always fail to have it. After we put our things to our room, we head out to the convenient store for ramyun!

See some travel tips (from what I learned from our day 1 in Seoul) below.

Lessons learned... er...Travel tips!

1. Go for a morning flight if its your first time to visit a country. Unless a friend will pick you up or the hotel will pick you up from the airport. Although, we did not feel threatened (maybe because we are over excited), still you're a foreigner and technically know nothing about the place, except from months and months of googling and reading from different blog posts, still its different when you are already there. I think you will enjoy more scenery when you will arrive during the day. 
2. Install handy apps! Install ahead of time Seoul's or Korea's train system. As I said above, its no joke, well at least for me, who just happened to live in two countries where there are 2-3 lines of trains and just have 2-4 exits. If you don't have a smartphone, which I don't know what's stopping you to get one, have a print out of the train system and make sure its colored.
3. Know train timings. We were appreciating Incheon International Airport when we landed and even snaps pictures, taking our sweet time, without knowing that trains don't run 24/7! Good thing we did not miss the train towards Seoul.
4. Read the map thoroughly. Because in Korea, a petrol station/gasoline station is called an Oilbank! I actually learned it the next day, when everything is lit up. So the map is not wrong, I just failed to read the whole thing. Its Hyundai Oilbank, not Hyundai Bank, dummy! If only I read it well, We will not be standing there, debating or rather nearing to do a "eeny, meeny, miny, moe". Though it made us meet a kind person that made our impression of Seoul better.
5. Eat on the plane. Eat whatever they offer if you booked for a night flight. We had our lunch and snack in Manila and Incheon is 4 hr flight, 1 hr train ride. You'll be hungry and the best option is a convenient store. Cebu Pacific offers decent (rice & viand) food for 300 Php. So I guess its better to have it rather than not finding anything to eat when you land.

Cryfest with Gu Family Book Episode 21

What do you do to fight your tears from flowing when you are watching something that you will definitely cry? Well for me, I like to multitask, sometimes I paint my nails or grab my phone and check Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and what have you. Last night while watching episode 21 of Gu, I was playing Pumpkins vs Zombies and I just glance here and there (my friend is wondering how can I watch a show, read the subtitles and do something else) but my goodness! My chest suddenly felt heavy and tears fell.

Its a good ending to their love story. Good in a sense of how it was written, it is so fitting. Fitting to let you grab the sleeves of your shirt, if your tissue is far from reach. Its the voice over of Wol-ryung that hit me, “I didn't hate you. I only missed you. I didn't resent you. I only loved you with all my heart. I love you. I love you.” waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! 

I love how they put the acoustic version of Best Wishes to You (잘 있나요) as the background music of that scene, and its Wol-ryung (Choi Jin Hyuk) actually singing which made it more heartfelt! 

I love how Seo-hwa admitted that she was young that time and that her heart was not that big to cater for his love. I love the lines of Wol-ryung that sorta say his action tends to look like hatred and resentment towards her but truly, it just that he misses her so much and loves her so much. waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. How many times we see a negative but in reality it is meant for our good. 

Choi Jin Hyuk, I've loved you in I Need Romance, and I love you more in Gu Family Book! Last 2 episodes next week!

Loving Monstar!

My Kdrama life continues, though my last entry was about Flower Boy Next Door. So far I've finished "Unexpected You" while I'm on vacation its a 50+ episodes, yes I can't believe myself either that I was able to finish that show. Its a good one and its bearable to watch till the end. 

Right now I enjoy watching Monstar! Its being shown every Friday only, which is a total pain, though each episode is longer that the usual 2-episode a week drama. I love watching high school drama plus this is a musical! No, its not just another Dream High or Glee (whatever happened to that show? because I stopped watching). I've been loving every episodes but last Friday's episode is a blast for several reasons (might contain spoilers):

1. Less bickering between Se-yi and the star, Seol-chan. Ha! I love it when he says "I'm a Star"
2. More background stories for the other characters 
3. Nana lighting up, see everyone has a soft spot, I think she has a big crush on Sun-woo
4. The duet of Do-nam and Kyu-dong of 2NE1's I am the Best! 
5. Do-nam's beatbox perf.
6. Seol-chan back-hugging Do-nam to stop him from leaving, and how others stopped him as well. Awwwww moment for me.

Monstar has been covering popular Kpop songs and I will try to get them all! Right now I manage to rip and convert to mp3 the I am the Best duet of Do-nam and Kyu-dong and the beatbox too! I will use this as my ringtone!

For recap of this drama, you know where to go to, dramabeans! To see it online go to dramacrazy.

Big Baby Driver - A K-Indie Gem

I have a great find today and its Big Baby Driver! Okay, first the name is catchy, I mean these words "big", "baby" and "driver", if use them all together produces a curiosity to the readers. You'll get several  ASLs if you use that inside a chatroom. Its not your usual KPop name, you know the mixture of  capital and small letters and sometimes punctuation marks like SHINee, f(x) to name a few, not to mention that you have to know if you are pronouncing it right. Second, I was surprised that she is female, and third superb music!

image credit: koreanindie.com

So Big Baby Driver is an indie band and can't find a wiki article about her. ugh! Anyway this guy/gal wrote something about her (thanks!).

When you fall in love with KPop and you are a bit mature, the tendency is to dig more to the scene, thus finding greater talents than those on the mainstream. Well that statement could be entirely wrong for you, but for me it is so true. Although I am just a rookie on the KPop scene, I thirst for moaaarrrr Korean music.

I am a fan Sarah Mclachlan, Jewel and Fiona Apple, so maybe that is why I am attracted to Big Baby Driver's music. 

The first song that I heard from her is the "Tuesday Song", OST of King of Dramas, which I did not know that it was sung by her. Now Cyrano Dating Agency have several songs from her too and this is how I learned about her music. At first I was trying to find the background music on episode 5 (its by Ra.D, another artist that I like now) and find out about the drama's OST, and most of them is saying that they like the song of Big Baby Driver. I googled and found her other works which includes the song that I like in Joowon's drama, Level 7 Civil Servant, "A Stranger". I was surprised that I can understand her English. I hate to admit that most English on mainstream Kpop makes me cringe. I like "You Gonna Quit me Blues".

Tracklist:

1. You Gonna Quit me Blues
2. Big Baby Over 38,000 km Away
3. Your Sun is Stupid
4. I'm Leaving Here Now
5. I Am a River Dolphin
6. Constantly Vanishing Me
7. Everyday Blues
8. Marca's Wedding
9. You're a Jumping Zebra
10. Let's Breaking Down
11. Tomorrow
12. Singing for the One Less Lonely Mind

You can get it here. Thanks to this user on kiwi6.com. I'll buy her album once I get to Korea next year in autumn. I've got one K-Indie album that I bought when I was in Korea, its the second album of Urban Zakapa!

CNBLUE in Manila!

photo credit: cnbluestorm.com

I was not there. That's a very sad fact. Sad is an understatement. For years I and my few friends were following CNBLUE. Okay we are FANGIRLS and I don't have to expound that term for you. I've been to two CNBLUE concerts but still, having it in our own country will make it more special, more awesome! You see Philippines or should I say Manila is so thirsty with Kpop compared to our neighboring countries. I am not sure of the fanbase of Kpop in Philippines overall, but there's been concert here and there and a yearly Kpop convention that started in 2009, which makes it hard to believe that Manila will be one of the last places when it comes to concert like this.

I thank those guys who made the effort to let CNBLUE come to Manila. I am skeptical but hopeful for that to happened and it did. I remember voting for the survey that they did last year. It is just a bliss to see it actually happened, even my title of this post "CNBLUE in Manila"!

To make things more fun for the Pinoy fans, CNBLUE had a press con SM Megamall. I asked my sister to go there, for the fear of just a few fans will show up. But man, I was mistaken big time! Another reason why I asked her was, I know that one way or another she'll get to get pass security people, and there she was, in front row (or the sides) bearing production pass and see my boys, up close! can I cry now? waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

We are so envious because I for once flew to Hong Kong twice to see them live, get up so early in the morning to get the best tickets to see them as close a possible, but her, my little sister, just a jeepney ride and metro ride, boom! CNBLUE in her face. She was not even a fan. Though she finds Minhyuk cute. What made her more lucky is she got a copy of the coverage of the presscon that almost did not happen for the fans are getting crazy or CRAZY. Any Pinoy Boice will go wild after waiting for years. And yes I am bitter, we are bitter! hehe!

Here's the video for your viewing pleasure!

Bluemoon, more fun in the Philippines!

Vacay I Like!

I am actually back from my holidays and still too lazy to work. I didn't write an entry during my vacation for 1) I am chained to Candy Crush Saga 2) I am glued on TV for a 58-episode drama 3) Laziness. Haha! I do feel that I have a license to be lazy after all I waited 1 year and 4 months. As an overseas worker, we are to get a month long vacation every year and as for me, I usually go on vacation on a "need" basis. Like if I want to spend my Christmas and my mom's birthday, I'll go on December, if I want a summer vacation, I'll go some time March or April. This time, I need to be in Korea during spring for the cherry blossoms, thus I left mid April and enjoy a 5-week vacation! yay!

I'd rather rather talk much of the little stresses associated with this vacay, starting from my luggage (ask any OFW.. hehehe), to overly talkative passengers that started chatting (a little loudly) from the time their butts hit their seats all the way to Brunei which is a 7.5-hour plane ride. Ugh!

So where did I go? Its more of a "go" to me than "do" this vacation actually. I went to places this time but I kinda guilty of not "doing" much. Oh I did something dummy! Thus a new page on this blog... polymer clay. yay!

I think this is the grandest vacay ever! I've gone to South Korea and Hong Kong. Striking out one place on my bucket list (still got a lot on that list by the way). And CNBLUE! For its already second time is a charm! hehe

So hopefully, I'll be able to document my Korea trip and my BLUEMOON experience!