"OMG! OMG! OH! EHM! GEEEEEE!!!!!!"

 

Pauleen screamed her heart out as she watched Dara come out from nowhere, joining GD on his solo stage.  She started rapping and dancing like crazy to GD's 'Caryon'.  She did a 360 degrees turn and when she was facing her laptop screen again, Dara was gone.

"Wait! What?!!! Where?!"  She grabbed her laptop, searching the corners of the screen as if Dara was hiding there somewhere.  I rolled my eyes and laughed.

"Drop it!"

"Noooo~!  That was it?"  She was left in confusion.

"At least there was something."  I gave the most comforting smile a friend could ever give.

Pauleen turned to me with eyes shaped like hearts and said, "IT did really happen, right?  The two of them, on the stage again, right?"

"Yes, my dear.  The two of them, on the stage for 20 glorious seconds."  that special stage probably lasted for less than that, but.

After watching the video, she went on spazzing, as usual, and I listened and agreed and nodded and whatnot.  As usual.

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My name is Yasmine, but Pauleen calls me Mine.  Pauleen and I have been friends since high school, and now we're both 23 year old, independent working young women.  And K-Pop addicts.  Divinely single, thanks to our ever growing standards since K-POP.

I Got in to K-pop 5 years ago, when I was 18.  It was because of Super Junior.  P got in to K-pop 2 years ago because of... me.  Well, sort of.  That is somehow true.  I showed her a video of SHINee and I think that's where it all started.  She wasn't really in to the whole Super Junior thing.  Her initial reason was "too many members, hard to remember names".  Well, she ended up being a VIP.

 

I was never really the "shipper" , except for being a KyuMin shipper sometimes.  And I never really  shipped a male-female idol except for DaraGon.  I only ship them becasue they seem to be the closest to being the real deal, and of  course, P lives and breathes in their ship.  She sails it, even,  How can it not grow in me?

 

Pauleen, though new, is a very hard core VIP.  I don't think her love for BIGBANG is less than those of the VIPs since debut.  She loves the female counterpart too, which is 2NE1.  All the more since Dara is in it.  Dara, Sandara Park, with the history of being insanely famous Philippine actress with her famous tag line 'mahal ko kayo', and 'Sandara wave'.

She'd ship BIGBANG and 2NE1

GD with Dara

Taeyang with Minzy

Seungri with CL and (though she doesn't believe they're ship-able) Daesung with Bom

You might be wondering why not TOP and Bom, so I'm telling you now.

She's keeping TOP for herself.  Yes, her bias is TOP.  And yes, she will marry TOP.

She's a hardcore VIP and a hardcore DaraGon (closet) shipper, that she even came back home to attend their ALIVE concert.  She was attending a 6-month workshop/seminar that time.  Now, she's ready to attend the YG Family concert. IN KOREA.

After a year of saving and frugal spending, Pauleen has now our VIP concert tickets, Plane tickets and a week's stay in a hostel, booked.

 

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"Pali pali!!!" Pauleen shouted as she ran ahead of me in to the airport.  I tried to run as fast as I could with two bags on each of my hands.  She was totally making a fuss since early this morning because we both woke up late.  Finally we arrived at the queue for baggage check-in.

"I... I... I didn't know you could run that ...fast."  I told her, holding my chest and leaning on her for support, while trying to catch my breath.

"It's international flight, for crying out loud.  we've only got an hour before boarding time and we were suposed to check-in 3 hours be--."

Pauleen stopped when we noticed someone was trying to get our attention while waving his hand.  He was running towards us and calling out our names.

"Yasmine! Pauleen!"  We were both puzzled.  We couldnt recognize him at first, but he was coming closer and closer.

"LUKE?!" we called in unison.

 

Luke is one of our college friends and Pauleen's on-and-off crush.  He's a photographer and a computer geek who loves almost everything about Korea, especially the girls.

"What did you say your flight number was?" He was panting.

"What are you doing here?" Pauleen asked back with her 'is he going to see me off?' facial expression.

Luke smiled widely and took out something from his bag and waved it in front of us.  It was his passport and plane ticket.

"Tadah!  I'm going with you!"

"Seriously?!"  Our eyes widened in disbelief but we were in awe.  One whole month we tried convincing him to come with us but he declined us each time, for a total of 18 times!  Then he ends up coming anyway.

Finally, we were able to have our bags checked-in and we were just in time to board the plane for our, more or less 5 hour flight to Korea.

It was winter in Korea but we were so ready.  Thank winter K-dramas for the ideas on which winter outfits to wear.  We couldn't sleep during the whole flight. We were so busy making additional plans and altering original plans, but stalking was a must.  We were on a mission to catch DaraGon red-handed, and to be the first shippers to hold solid proof that DaraGon IS real (so that other shippers can kiss our assets like we don't care).

We arrived in Seoul at midday.  Incheon welcomed us with a freezing cold atmosphere but our hearts felt warmth like we were at home.

With our Korean money, printed iterenaries and basic Korean practiced one more time, we were ready to go out from the airport.  We hailed a cab to bring us to our hostel.  We were so ready, we deserved a girls scout award.

We arrived at our hostel that Pauleen has booked for 7 days while the rate was on sale.  Since we had free lunch from our flight, we decided to unpack our stuff and get settled  and then explore the nearby places.  We figured it was just a mere 30-minute walk from our hostel to the Seoul Olympic Stadium, the YG Family Concert venue.  As soon as we got there, we surveyed the area and studied the floor plan, like pros.  Luke took photos of the 'important areas and possible ways out', as he said.

"But Luke, why bother?"  Pauleen asked, and I gasped with my hands on my mouth "Don't tell me you bought a ticket for the concert as well?"

"Course not...it was sold out."

"Oh my gosh, so you DID attempt to?! Haha."  Pauleen bursted out in laughter and I couldn't help but laugh too.  We were like, 'seriously, after a month of convincing and declining'. 

"Fine, fine!  I did try, for the sake of Dara."

Dara.  We couldn't blame him.  Dara was always a sight to see, even for us girls.

"Don't worry Luke, there might be some people who'd sell their tickets on site tomorrow."  I tried to console him.

"Nah, don't worry about it."

"But what are you gonna do?  The concert alone will probably go for about 3 hours and of course, we should be here at leastn 5 hours before the gates open.  What are you gonna do then?"

"You think you're the only ones who got plans?"  He raised one eyebrow and gave us a smirk.

 

We had 27 hours before the concert but we were so busy.  So busy having fun.  It was our first time to experience snow, but wahat made it more special was that we got to experience it in the K-pop lover's city of romance.  But I think it was extra special for Pauleen since she got to experience it with Luke.

It was almost 11 in the evening when we decided to eat a real meal.  We went in a cheap-looking Korean barbecue shop just cause it looked like one of those that you'll see in KOrean dramas where a depressed or happy character would go in for bottles of soju and barbecued pig skin.

We found ourselves a table and ordered some meat and already cooked meal, and of course, soju.

When our food and drink came, before we could even start grilling, Pauleen proposed a toast.

"Guys, guys grab your glasses.  Ehem. I still can't believe that just last year, I was saving like crazy, 3 months ago, I almost couldn't sleep waiting for the concert ticket sales to open, and we started planning and just yesterday, we were still in our apartment, dreaming.  Now, we're about to eat korean food, drink Korean wine, in a Korean BBQ, in Korea!  Cheers for our first day and an adventure filled week.  Cheers for the YG family concert.  Cheers for DaraGon!"

Luke and I responded "geonbae"

 

We were half way through our meal when a group of people came in.  I thought I recognized one of them so I elbowed Pauleen.

"Pauleen, he looks like Donnie.  Wait, isn't that Donnie?.. or Deukkie?  Oh my gosh, aren't those the Kwon twins?"

"Oh my gosh, where?"

"There."  I pointed them out to her.  They were a group of six people, 4 boys, 2 of them were the Kwon twins, and 2 girls.  We watched as they walked past us and they were seated at the table which was just 2 empty tables away from us.  We were all visible to each other.

"Ssh, don't point, don't point." Pauleen hissed.  We were so close to them that if it wasn't cause of the noise outside, they would probably hear us.

"We should take photos."  I suggested but Pauleen was quick to object.

"Are you crazy? No way.  That's too risky... and embarrassing."

"How about paparazzi shots?"  Luke suggested but once again, Pauleen was quick to disagree.

"With your DSLR, yeah right it won't be obvious."  She sarcastically responded.

Just then, 2 girls approached their table.  They were trying to take some photos with them, by the looks of it.  One of the Kwon twins looked at one of the girls seated with them, and they refused.

"Are those their girlfriends or were they just consulting each other if it wasn't a bad idea to take photos?"  I asked Pauleen.

"See?  How embarrassing could that have been if that was us."

 

Thirty minutes have passed after finishing our meal and it was almost midnight but the Kwon twins' group was still barbecue-ing.  With a bit of a heavy heart, we decided to just go since there wasn't really anything we could do.

 

We were outside waiting for a cab since it was already late and too cold to be walking home.  Suddenly, Luke told us he had to use the comfort room, so he went back in.

We were still peeking through the glass door from outside, once every five seconds.  We finally saw Luke come out from the men's room but he stopped at the Kwon's table.

"Oh my God!  What is he up to?!" Pauleen panicked as we watched.

Luke was able to take a photo of the group and a separate photo of the Kwon twins, and bowed a couple of times to thank them and bid them farewell.  As soon as Luke came out from the door, Pauleen grabbed him immediately that he almost tripped.

"What on earth, Luke?"  She glared

"What?  I just took photos of them.  For you."  He passed us his camera.  Pauleen's eyes shifted to his camera.

"Let me see, let me see."  She suddenly sounded excited and I joined in.

"Later! In the cab."  Luke teased and snatched his camera back.

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We arrived at our hostel in about five minutes.  We were spazzing the whole time even after washing up.  There was only one doulble bed and a couch in our room.  When it was time for bed, Luke unexpectedly teased Pauleen.

"So Pauleen, how's this gonna be?  Should we let Yas sleep on the couch?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know.  You, me..." Luke then jumped on the bed where Pauleen was sitting drying her hair, and he rested his head on her lap. "...like before."

Pauleen's eyes became glossy and she started to blush so I threw a pillow on Luke's face so he wouldn't catch her blushing.

"Yah! Go away pyongtae!" I pulled him to the floor.

When we turned the lights off, Pauleen whispered to me, "Thanks."

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D-Day

 

Although we slept late last night, and despite the very cold climate, Pauleen and I managed to get up just before 7 in  the morning.  We washed up and were ready to leave at around 8:30 while Luke was still on the couch, sleeping like a log.

We decided to have breakfast at the nearest McCafe.  With our iPads and iPhones and McDonald's free WiFi, we stalked all fan accounts we could find  and YG artists' twitter accounts for the latest updates.

"Concert starts at 7 but the gates will open at 5.  General admission will go in first, then VIP standing since they're not a reserved seating.  First come, first served.  Then VIP seating, lower and upper box will follow."  Pauleen read the latest info out loud.

"I thought the gates won't open til 6."

"I know.  They must have changed it.  They're the best!"
 

We had seven more hours before the gates opened so we decided to buy some burgers and fries to bring with us jsut in case we got hungry from waiting and spazzing.

We were so thankful that our hostel was just a walking distance to the Olympic Stadium since there was already a heavy traffic jam.  There were also a lot of youngsters walking holding posters, wearing YG shirts and carrying their YG merchandises which confrimed that they were attending the concert.

We arrived at the venue at around 10:30 and it was already packed.  VIPs, BlackJacks, Lucky7s, and overall YG stans (and shippers) crowded and surrounded the area outside the Olympic stadium.  Some fans even set up mini tents just outside the gates.  Other fans said that they were there since yesterday morning and that they either have the VIP standing or General admissions tickets.  There weren't just Korean fans, there were so many international and english-speaking fans (thank goodness).  There were cosplayers, fanclub booths, shippers booths, and the almighty official YG merchandise booth (which didn't open till 12 noon). 

There was still an hour left before the merchandise booth opened.  There were many other booths aside from the official merchandise one but our favorites were the photobooth where you can snap a photo beside the YG artists of your choice as if they were real, and th other one was the BIGBANG and 2NE1 mv booth where you can sort of be in the mv.  We lined up for the merchandise booth first, of course.  After spending 3 hours lining up for all the booths, we had 2 hours left before the gates would open and there wasn't a queue yet except for the general admissions and VIP standing, which were also separate from each other.  We didn't have to worry about getting in since we were on reserved seating on the lower box.  Thank YG event organisers for the very organised entry.  Anyway, we decided to find DaraGon shippers.  We had a hard time spotting them since they were actually in the parking lot.  they were gathered around 2 vans and a convertible bug.  Talk about swag.  There were quite a few of the gathered, more than a hundred perhaps, but very discreet and away from all the crowd.  There were 9 flower stands decorated with Ferero Rocher labeled with BIGBANG and 2NE1 member's names.  There were posters and tarpaulins that had "HENGSHO" printed on one side and "FOREVER DaraGon" on the other, that they gave out for free to groups of tens.  There were also wristbands and lightsticks that were sort of for sale, but not quite.  They only asked for donations in exchange of the items.  We gathered up for the announcements and mission.  Our mission was to shout "HENGSHO" after GD's solo stage and since DARA did not have a solo stage, we were to shout "Park Darong" instead of PArk Dara for the fan chant with all the other members' names.

 

We were practicing our missionswhen suddenly there was an announcement.  The announcement was first said in Korean, then Japanes, then English.  The gates for VIP standing and general admissions were going to open in 10 minutes and all the other gates were going to open an hour earlier than expected.

 

When the gates for the VIP standing and gen ad opened, we could hear the last few seconds of Gangnam Style being played.  "End of rehearsal" We thought.  A couple of minutes later, the crowd started moving in slowly.  They were all cheering and we couldn't help but join.  We were so excited and we couldnt help it.

When our gate was finally opened, we got in really easily.  We had a couple of minutes to marvel at the beautiful production set before the lights went off for the concert to start.

The concert started off with 2NE1's I Am The Best and ended with Psy's Gangnam Style.  And there was the encore where everybody came out to the stage for I Am The Best, Gangnam Style, Fantastic Baby and Crayon.  We were dancing , jumping and screaming and singing for a good 3 hours and our seats were pretty much useless.  When the artists said their last farewell to all of us, and when they all wnet in back stage, everyone else in the audience started to clear out as well, except for Pauleen and I who couldn't get over it and get back to our senses.  We kept glancing at each other waiting for either of us to get up first, but neither of us wanted to do so.  We were so stuck in the moment.  when the stadium was almost empty we finally decided to unglue our butts from our seats.

 

Before getting out of the stadium, we decided to grab some hotdogs because we were hungry and we were totally unaware until all our other feelings started to settle down.  Pauleen called Luke to find out where he was and Luke talked under his breath like he was trying to talk as quietly as he could.

"Are you still inside?" Luke whispered through the phone.

"Yeah.  Where are you?  and what's with the whispering?"

"Come out quick!  through the back door.  You won't believe what I'm looking at right now." Luke's voice became excited but cautious.

"What exactly are you looking at right now?"

"Just come out already! quick! Hanging up."

Luke hung up and both Pauleen and I were puzzled so we walked fast to the back gates while munching on our hotdogs.  There Weren't anybody going to the back gates besides us.  It was blocked but not so that we couldn;t exit if we really wanted to.  We were hesitating at first coz security might catch us but then Luke suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of us just across the barrier fence.  It was pretty dark so we didn't see him coming.

"What are you doing here?!" I asked Luke

"Nobody's obviously supposed to get out through here" Pauleen added, looking around.

"Just shush already and move the fence so you can come through"

Luke helped us move the fence a bit just so we could get through it and grabbed each of our hands and dragged us slowly, tip-toeing towards one of the 3 black vans.  Pauleen and I were still very clueless.  We hid ourselves behind one of the vans.  We could hear people talking so we cautiously peaked out and there THEY were.  The owner of the voices we heard talking and laughing.  Minzy talking with the Kwon twins, Bom who was busy with her phone while talking to Dara who was also giggling; TOP who looked like he was teasing Taeyang ; Taeyang and GD laughing at whatever their hyung was doing, while GD was puffing his cigarette.

It was like we discovered wonderland.  It felt like we just hit the jackpot.

Suddenly we heard a voice from behind us.

"Chyeogieyo.  Mwohaneungoya? (Excuse me.  What are you doing?)"

We froze.  We were too scared to turn around.  We were caught! "Please not security.  Please not security." I repeated in my head.

"Nuguseyo?  Yeogiseo mwohaneungoya? (Who are you? What are you doing here?)"  the voice spoke again.  Pauleen had the courage to turn around first.

"Han-gugeo jogeum halsu isseoyo.  Hoksi yeong-eo halsu isseoyo? (I only know a little bit Korean.  By any chance, do you speak English?)"  Luke and I looked at each other.  We were surprised at Pauleen speaking in Korean.  We thought she only knew words like oppa, unni, chingu and some greetings.  We turned around to see who it was who caught us.

"Seungri"  I instinctively blurted out.  Pauleen must have not realized it immediately since her eyebrows crossed when she looked at me and when she looked back at Seungri, her eyes widened.

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"Yes, I can speak English.  Are you fans?"

We were all awestrcuk.  Pauleen and I nodded our heads in unison while Luke shook his.

"What are you doing here?  You can't be here."  Seungri kindly smiled at us.  He then looked behind us so we turned around to see.  Minzy, Taeyang and Bom were walking toward us while TOP, Dara and GD were following just behind.  The three of us were quick to notice that Dara was holding on to GD's arm.  Dara must have realized that we were looking at them so she quickly let go as GD looked at her and then he looked at us and continued to walk towards us.

"Hey.  What's up here?'  Taeyang nodded his head to Seungri.

"Fans. International fans."

"Really?  How did get through security?  That's sick."  Taeyang said in amusement.

"We didn't.  There weren't any." Pauleen answered.

"No security?  How is that possible?"  GD said as he came forward he looked pissed and he sounded cocky.  As I know Pauleen, she is a very fun girl with the craziest personality but she has a very bad temper and the thing she hates the most is arrogance.  She hates arrogant people and it doesn't matter who they are.  When GD came forward to say that, I instinctively looked at Pauleen and as I expected, her aura changed.

"Molla.  How are we supposed to know?  This is your concert and we did not organise this.  We were just trying to find another way out since the main exit was packed."  Pauleen answered coldly.  Of course, what she said wasn't completely true since Luke brought us there without a clue.

"Oh cham." Pauleen clapped her hands as if she remembered something.  "You can check the main exit if the securities are all there, if you're really curious."  I could not smell fear or nervousness from Pauleen anymore.  Even Luke noticed so he nudged her arm to try and shut her up.  I noticed Dara and Bom stopped talking at the back and looked at us when Pauleen was talking.

"What?  Did I say anything wrong?" Pauleen shook Luke off.  This is what happens when Pauleen meets cocky people: she fights them with cockyness and most of the time, she wins.  the dancers and Seungri were all "Ooh-ing" in the background.  We can all smell a heated conversation.

"Yah Kwon Ji Yong.  We did not intend to be here nor did we know you were all here so you can stop worrying and thinking that we're some desperate fans.  And by the way, we won't ask you for autographs and photos, if that makes you happy."  The dancers "Ooh-ed" again.

Pauleen grabbed us by the hand and truned away from them.  I was so nervous at what she did there that I kept looking back at them and bowing. "What the hell was that about?" I asked Pauleen but she did not answer and just kept on walking.  She suddenly stopped and let go of our hands.  She turned around, waved at Dara and gave her a smile. "Paalam Dara."  Then she straightened her face again, turned back to us, grabbed our arms and continued walking.