K-pop and good things

(This is more for myself.)

So, roughly two years ago, Korean things (history, food, language, dramas, music, and the like) didn't mean much to me. It didn't register on my map. But meeting Korean friends in Hong Kong, eating delicious Korean food (much of which I had not tried before), and visiting Korea itself brought it much more intimately into my life. It was a nice, kind of refreshing alternative to the Japanese things that I had loved so much since middle school.

Not k-pop, though. I had a decent amount of friends who were fans, and I knew the names of some groups. I even had a couple songs on my computer, but I wasn't interested in finding out more. When Janice showed me the street in Seoul lined with idol products--the street to go for fans--I chuckled and admired the vendors' Japanese abilities.

Then, a year later I found out that one of my friends was in a k-pop cover band. I listened to their songs (so-so), listened to the originals (not too bad, SNSD!). It was nice.

Then, about two or three weeks ago, this huge slide happened. I was watching PSY's Gangnam Style like most people, and saw Big Bang's Blue on the sidebar. That was another song my friend's band had covered, so I gave it a listen. It was okay. On the sidebar of that video was Taeyang's Wedding Dress. I had remembered another time when one of my guzheng mates said that her brother resembled Taeyang, so I clicked it to get a good look at this guy. I skipped to the middle, his dancing caught me, and I watched the whole thing.

Then I found out he was in Big Bang so I went through their stuff to look for his dancing. And then, well... I got caught. Both my feet are now in the k-pop world, and what a world it is. It's very fun. The music wouldn't exactly be my normal style, and I don't like a lot of it, but Korean idol culture is really fun. It's almost a guilty pleasure, and I almost hate to admit it--the thing is, k-pop has brought me a lot of joy while I was stagnating at home.

Yesterday at a family celebration for Autumn Moon Festival I finally got into an extended conversation with one of my little cousins (I've tried quite a few times with no results), and it was all because I noticed she was playing Wedding Dress on the piano. That was great. She's pretty cool!

Thanks k-pop!

Summer blooms

Something wonderful just happened.

I was  feeling sort of down, what with my brother about to leave and all. We were talking my room when we heard these booming sounds like gunshots outside. I live in quite the small, peaceful suburban neighborhood, so I didn't really think they would be gunshots, but we were pretty confused. We actually ignored it for a while, but I eventually looked out the window to check it out.

There were these huge fireworks in the sky, just beyond our roofs.

In such a small town!

It was amazing!