Rabbit noona

A significant part of my Korea Trip was to take photos of anything BTS related and at the same time purchase the VTXBTS range of products. There are a few VT stores in Seoul, however, I made my purchases at the Hongdae store, which is situated above a cafe called Pink cafe/Menon cafe. As the name goes, the interior and exterior of the cafe is painted in pink. I did not eat at the cafe but they had BTS standees outside the cafe and along the staircase up towards the VT store. Photos below!

My BTS biases’ standees at the entrance!

More photos and standees inside.

I got the giant toothbrush and the white collagen pact. When I was there, only shade no.21 was available. They seemed pretty generous with freebies? The lady there gave me a free bottle of toothpaste (worth 15000 won). The toothbrush set was 12000 won each while the pact was 35000 won.

The cushion pact also came with a poster, which I didnt take out of the box because lazy, while the toothbrush kits came with a set of photocards each. I think the top row is the black set while the bottom row belongs to the white set.

I decided to drop by the Myeongdong store as well just to look at the display haha.

Isnt it pretty??

First impressions/reviews

1. VT white collagen pact

The collagen swirls inside were really pretty, but unfortunately, being South East Asian Chinese, I’m pretty tanned so shade no.21 was too white for me. I swatched it once and it was “nope”. I actually had to sell this. Shade no.23 was just released recently (after I’ve left Korea :( ), my Korean friend is helping me buy it so I might review that later once i’ve received it! The poster that came with it is really pretty though.

2. VTX BTS Toothbrush kit

Hey guys!

I was lucky enough to catch BTS at the Wings Tour Final in Seoul last December and I thought I’d write about the experience in case anyone is planning on attending a concert/event/muster in Seoul.

As it was my final year in college/university, I made plans to go to Korea for my gradtrip! I started following BTS after “I Need U” and sort of became a fan of Jin after “Fire” and “Blood Sweat and Tears” but I only became an ARMY after Wings Sydney and BTS Festa 2017. How good was JK and Jimin’s cover of “We don’t talk anymore”? I started listening to all of their cover songs and then progressed to Run BTS etc… and long story short, I became a pretty big fan, but I digress. Since I had planned to go to Korea, I decided to set my travel dates to coincide with the Final. In a way, it was a pretty bold move because I hadn’t secured a concert ticket that time but I decided to try my luck anyway.

1.       Ticketing

Since I became an ARMY pretty late, I did not join the ARMY membership. I also made plans to go to Korea pretty late because I had to focus on my exams first so I didn’t see the need to be a member that time. In almost all Kpop fandoms, fanclub members get priority to purchase tickets at an earlier date prior to the general ticketing date. So my only chance was to try for the general ticketing. Obviously, I wasn’t able to beat the high speed South Korean internet lol. My next option was to buy tickets from resellers. I tried looking for resale tickets via ticketbay but I didn’t have a Korean address so that option was out, then I tried Stubhub but their prices were ridiculous. Eventually I found ticket resellers on Twitter. The prices were cheaper though I remember someone tried selling me a floor ticket for 3000 USD?! (FYI Original price was 110000 won for floor ticket and 99000 won for the other levels). I pretty much gave up on getting a ticket after 2 weeks. But a week before the concert, I saw a seller selling her ticket for 400000 won, it was a floor ticket, and after comparing with other resellers, 400000 won was the cheapest for a floor ticket. In fact, some fans bought 4th floor tickets for the same price. As I was worried she was a scammer, I asked her to send a photo proving that she had the ticket, and also asked if she would be able to hold the ticket for me until I arrived in Korea 4 days later. She sent me a photo of the ticket and next to it wrote my twitter ID and her ID as well as the time the message was sent. That seemed pretty legit but to double check, I posted in a Wings Tour Support Group on Facebook just to check if other peoples’ tickets looked the same. All was good and the seller agreed to hold the ticket for me provided I pay her 400000 won in cash on the day. On hindsight, I might have been able to get a better seat for the same price but then again, its not often I come across a seller who was willing to hold the ticket without a 50% deposit. A lot of people have been scammed and I didn’t want to take the risk. The day came for me to meet up with the seller and that was how I got my ticket! I went with a friend to meet the seller just for safety purposes. Although I had to pay a ridiculous amount of money for the ticket (almost 4x the original price), I was glad that I didn’t have to pay higher than that or worse still, scammed. My seat was alright, I had a good view of the Left large screen and I could see the members very well when they came to the left side and when the performed on the main stage, but I could only see their backs when they were on the centre stage.

2.       Getting to the venue

The day of the concert came around and it was the coldest day of the week! The weather got a lot colder the following week but as far as I remember it was a min of -5C and a max of -1C that day. Bring heat packs guys, get both the stick-on-your-body ones as well as the handheld ones. A lot of ARMYs camped out the night before to get the Wings Merch. Since I’d already spent so much on the concert ticket, I decided not to get any merch other than 2 ARMY bombs (1 for myself and 1 for a friend). Somehow wish I’d gotten the necklace and essay books but I didn’t want to spend further nor waste a full day in Korea just for this concert since I was only in Korea for 8 days. I was staying at an Airbnb in Sinchon (Subway Line 2) so I had to change to Line 1 to get to Gocheok Sky Dome, which is near Guil station. My friends and I went to Ewha University for a visit during the morning so I only arrived Gocheok around 2pm. To get to Gocheok, get on Line 1 and go to Guro station, then from Guro station, you’d need to get off and change platforms to go to Guil station, while staying on the same Line 1. Download Kakao Metro! I forgot to change platforms so I got to the wrong station and had to go back to Guro, get off, change platforms and then go to Guil. So many ARMYs wore the PUMA shoes! I wish I’d worn mine but I was worried it would snow and be slippery so I wore boots but the day turned out to be sunny! Gocheok was right next to Guil station and all I had to do was follow people in PUMA shoes LOL.

3.       Buying merch

Since I was only getting the ARMY bombs, I lined up at the Express booths. There were a few express booths but the very first one was relatively quiet and I didn’t have to wait long, whereas the ones closer to the entrance of Gocheok were packed. I don’t know why people were queueing at the busy booth when they could get the same stuff at the very first booth?? After testing out both ARMY bombs to make sure they work, I went hunting for free fansite banners! There were also fansites as well as vendors selling unofficial merch along the area as well but being stingy/poor, I didn’t buy any lol.

4.       Getting freebies

In short, it was pretty chaotic. Some fansites give out banners liberally whereas some require you to follow their Twitter account and RT a particular post. Most of these fansites also have a Korean user ID so this is where I had to make use of my Korean language skills! To hunt for these fansites, just find a crowd of people, or if you are early/lucky, you might be able to spot them holding a stack of banners. I managed to get a few Yoongi, Hobi and Jimin banners but I could only get one Jin, one RM and one V banner. I couldn’t get a single Jungkook banner but thankfully I met up with an Aussie ARMY there and she was lucky to get a Jungkook banner but not any Suga banners so we swapped LOL. Eventually I did get a mini Jungkook photocard and it was the most adorable photo ever (check the photo at the bottom of this post). I also got some paper wrist bands but they were too precious to be worn/potentially destroyed. There was also this girl distributing TopStar Magazine for free and the cover was V and Jin (December birthday babies!). After that, my new Aussie ARMY friend and I went around taking pictures of the photos that BigHit put up outside Gocheok Skydome. We spotted a Jin and Jungkook birthday ad on the bus stop opposite as well! Most of my photos aren’t great because it was pretty windy that day and it was so crowded but here are a few good ones!

5.       Mediheal booth

Yes, there was a Mediheal booth this time because BTS collaborated with Mediheal to release some special masks sets. Unfortunately, the masks weren’t on sale yet that time so we could only visit the booth to try your luck on getting a free sample of the masks. Unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky enough that day so I didn’t get a free mask. ☹ At least I got pretty photos, and I bought the masks online after the release.

6. THE CONCERT

Alright, here it is. It was 6pm and I decided to escape the cold and enter the venue. Prior to entering the venue, I was given a banner that said 나의 사랑이자 벗 천국이자 자랑 (My love and my friend and my heaven and pride). Found my seat, went to the bathroom, and just chilled in my seat. The security was very strict before the concert even started so I couldn’t take any photos or videos, except for a few sneaky ones. JiKook came on Vlive at that time and surprisingly no one around me seemed to be watching?? I watched for a few minutes but eventually turned it off because I didn’t bring my earphones with me and I needed subs haha. The rest of the time was spent watching MVs on the large screen. I must point out though that K-ARMYs seemed like a chill bunch because during the Sydney concert, people were screaming and singing along to the MVs but no one in Korea did that? Most people were on their phones LOL. At 6.55pm, they dimmed the lights and Not Today MV played at a higher volume and people started to get excited and did fanchants. I’m guessing this is because the Wings Tour started off with Not Today so most people were expecting them to start with this song. Side story: I turned on my ARMY bomb and literally freaked out for 5 minutes because I couldn’t change the modes so I thought my ARMY bomb wasn’t working, but I eventually realised that my ARMY bomb had been synced to the Bluetooth system in the venue so that they change colours during the concert! Isn’t it cool and exciting?! This didn’t happen in the Sydney tour (or other international tours aside from Japan). Anyway, the first song was….. *drumroll* MIC DROP!!!!!!!!!!! And it was MIC DROP REMIX!!!!! Not the English version of the remix but the Korean version, the same one during MAMA 2017. The dance break was my favourite (OMG THE BODY WAVES). Next up was Cypher 1, 2, 3 and 4!! All the Cyphers!!!! Then it was followed by JK’s Begin and Suga’s First Love. We were in for another surprise when Suga’s first love continued on to “So Far Away”, sang by our 4 lovely vocal line (Jin, Jimin, Jung Kook, V), before following up with “Lost” (Another favourite song of mine). Everything else was pretty similar to the Wings Tour, but they did DNA and Go Go!! I’m so glad they performed these 2 songs on the main stage because my poor eyes didn’t know whether to look at their backs or the screen when they sang on the centre stage. K-ARMYs fanchants were all so on point I was so impressed. As for the encore stage, I was not prepared. They came out in carts and sang “Best of Me”, and WOW Jimin’s voice was so beautiful and clear when he started the song. I don’t like the song as much as the other songs in the album but hearing them sing the song live, it was incredible. I thought I was done with surprises, but then you can never trust Bangtan, they sang Road/길, and BORN SINGER!!! I REPEAT, BORN SINGER. I must confess, being a new ARMY, I’ve never heard of Road so it was my first time listening to the song but I liked it instantly. With BORN SINGER, ah, I was almost in tears, I’ve never in my life thought I’d be able to watch/hear them sing it LIVE. They’ve come so far from when they first sang it at BTS Begins, I’m so happy. They made their final ments and my Korean isn’t good enough so I could only understand parts of their speech. Oh and of course Jin did his heart event! You can probably find this on youtube, but basically Jin asked Jimin and V? (I cant remember who was the other member, sorry) to hold up a large sheet of paper, and Jin punched through it to reveal his heart-shaped paper. He called it a “magic show” it was so cute. They were all a bit teary after Born Singer. The show ended around 9.45pm to 10pm and the ending VCR played. All the security people disappeared for some reason so I recorded the VCR for memories sake but all of a sudden people started screaming and it WAS BANGTAN IN HOT AIR BALLOONS!!! IT WASN’T THE END!!!! J-Hope told all of us to record it (hence the reason why security left LOL). OMG J-hope was coordinating the entire thing he was so happy and talkative. They sang Outro: Wings and had their GoPro with them. They were all so cute. Once they were ‘back on land’ they proceeded to walk around all the stage, all the members came to my side for a bit as well. They then bowed to everyone and left the stage. Yoongi said “Bangya” before he left omg. When I left the venue, I got 2 more free banner sets! I’ll put a photo of the banners that I got below (some of them are not pictured because I’ve put them aside to give to my friend in Sydney 😊) So, yeah, that concludes my Wings Tour Final in Seoul experience. It was my first time to Seoul as well as my first concert in Seoul so it was very memorable and unforgettable. Was the 400000won ticket worth it? I’m not sure, I’d say yes because I’m a big fan and the concert was 3.5 hours (compared to Sydney, which was only 2 hrs), but at the same time, its also sad that fans are getting ripped off by scalpers. 탕진잼/YOLO I guess?