Hipsterkoala : south korea day two ⁽(◍˃̵͈̑ᴗ˂̵͈̑)⁽ | smtown global package review : exolu'xion , smtown@coexartium , children's grand park

Note : SHITTY CAMERA QUALITY DUE TO LOUSY SAMSUNG PHONE THAT HAS SHIT LIGHTING WHICH IS SO BLOODY YELLOW EW OK RANT OVER

For this trip, one of the main objective would be me attending EXO's second concert : EXOLU'XION

and of course ticketing for this concert through the mainstream way would be too too difficult so therefore I decided to get mine through the global packages, smtown travel arranges. Basically SM has their own tour company where they arrange for you to catch their artistes concerts in seoul and overseas which is only available for foreigners.

The package usually includes benefits like being able to preorder your md goods, transportation to concert venue from the hotel / hostel, special merchandises only available for global package and slightly better mosh pit queue numbers and seats.

I would agree global package is surely on the pricey side especially if you book for the hotel package;; I paid around SGD$1000 ++ for 3 day 2 night hotel fees and the concert ticket + visit to coex and watching the hologram concert (girl story) , lunch, snacks, preorder md goods, transport to and fro concert venue to hotel, exo global package merchandise and i guess my queue number of 123 was pretty okay

I guess most of why I picked global package would be that because I don't have any experience in going for concerts in Korea and I was really afraid I would make mistakes and all and have no idea where to go and all so as to not get lost, booking the tour was the best choice

Tickets as mentioned in my day one post are drawn at the counter on the night before, where the sm travel staff would be there and you will be able to collect quite some merchandise from them . But because I went for the first day for concert, the booth for ticket draw ended really early and I totally missed it when I had reached the place. Which then resulted in my ticket being randomly allocated by the sm staff and I collected it the next morning before we left the hotel. Which I honestly didn't really mind because the ticket queue number for the global package participants are all in the same range

I was kind of nervous because I would be attending the package alone and wanted to find someone i can hang out with during the tour and all because it would really suck to be all alone during the con so I was pretty determined to approach someone and make friends ;;

As I didnt manage to collect my tickets and stuff the day before, I went down to my lobby super early to make sure I dont miss out on anything ; We were supposed to be leaving the lobby at 8.40 and gather at 8.20 but I was already waiting at the lobby at 8am and was there even before the guide came ;; the guide was pretty nice but she couldn't really speak much english as she is a japanese guide // oh wells 80% of the people attending were japanese considering the fact that japan is pretty near and all

really really bad lighting at the hotel lobby orz but got my tix ;; queue number was in the 100 range but pretty ok already i guess - considering how I would have never gotten such good tix at black market anyways and it is like 123 HAHAHA and i don't know why but I always end up in pen b for most concerts ;

There was a whole bunch of concert goodies as well which was in a exo eco bag - filled with exo merch like magnets, notepads and some exo paper to write our messages to them which i didn't even bother writing

I had then went to approach some girls when we were about to board the bus and found out that two of them were from sg as well ; yay ((i made friends))

first stop was coex and we were like given fortune cookies with like an exo's member name in it lol i didn't even know there was gonna be the name and all I randomly just took it and was more interested in eating it cause i was starving so badly

and i got kyungsoo's and sehun's - only took photo of kyungsoo's one cause i was in a rush to eat it

this is the main entrance for the coexartium which is currently home to smtown ;;; it is a separate building from the main coex and the pillars surrounding it is basically designed with all the sm artistes name ;; the interior is super pretty !

Going on to the 2nd floor would be SUM , basically the merchandise store for SM. Honestly I really like how SM is producing more trend items which are not very obvious that it is for their idols. Like the #overdose tee i bought, I felt that it wasn't very obvious it was an exo tee so I can just wear it out on normal days

Because I will never wear a like tee shirt with maybe the words EXO on it or the pathetic Wolf 88 that everyone in the world is wearing.

Honestly I didn't get anything on this day that I went artium because I didnt want to be carrying a whole load of stuff to the concert ;W; but in the end we could leave our stuff in the bus so ...

But the queues were pretty long because most of the exo fans were purchasing merch

They had actually brought us to artium before the opening hours so when we had left, we could see fans queueing outside to enter before we left the place.

Because we had a time limit I was just frantically taking photos because I wasn't going to purchase anything ;;

ok and did i mention that the bloody SIM card in my stupid samsung phone made it not possible for me to turn off my camera shutter sound -_- and it was only for samsung ;; iphone wasn;t affected at all

I could not even like take snapchats without my phone emitting the recording sound

would have bought a few tote bags if they were on sale ;;; only very limited designs were on sale which were basically the ugly ones / obviously kpop ones.

now that poly has started I really want to have a nice tote bag to use when I dont want to carry my backpack

I thought the pink SAY YES tote bag was really pretty but too bad it was still coming soon

and these shirts were the death of me ;; I wanted to buy all the song titles ;;; especially the dream girl and gee one huhuhu

Forgot how much was the tee but it was around 30,000-40,000 won

Then we were asked to go up to the theatre level to watch the hologram concert which was included in the package

The next level was the SMTOWN studio where you can actually make an appointment and film your own MV and have photo shoots and even vocal recording but I bet it is really expensive

Was totally captivated by the panorama vision thing because they were just playing EXO MVs throughout ;;;

The hologram concert was pretty good !! especially SHINee's performance ;; their performance skills are the best and the EXO portion still have yifan and luhan huhuu

did the handmatching thing using sehun as my first match but I guess i am most compatible with yoona AHAHAHA they have a different size one for kids as well !

While we were heading down to meet the guide we saw exo at the escalator HAHHAHA

apparently you could take photos with it at the cafe level but we didn't have time ;w;

New friends made on this trip !! no longer a loner

awkward face because of the sun HAHHAA

the tour then brought us to the lotte departmental store at jamsil for lunch ! and since exo also endorse lotte duty free

The lunch venue was decorated in an exo theme as well !! super pretty ;; even our table mats had exo, more exo stickers were given and also a two piece badge set ! the meal was pretty decent i guess. Although I didnt exactly finish it because I honestly always feel super full when chasing idols orz total weird phenomenon.

The sweet potato was really nice though !!

And this was the first time I tasted pepsi in korea and honestly, it sucks. It doesnt taste pepsi enough ;; tasted more like a diet pepsi - maybe that is why koreans are so skinny adding to the fact that their train stations hardly have any escalators and is only filled with stairs

After lunch it was free time for duty free shopping and with my new friends (hahhaa) we decided to go take a look at the star avenue thing at level 10 (i think)

The place was super small and there was an entrance fee so we just basically stood outside to watch the exo videos play instead.

I think this was the only cool part of the entire star avenue - When you place your hand on the idol's hand print, their video will show up in the window above and because we refused to pay, we couldnt get in to press it

There were these two Japanese fans from global package as well pressing it so I had gestured if the can press so we can view it from outside ;; and all I said was sehun and they had very kindly helped us press and let us to be able to view the video ;;; super nice

omg and at this avenueL art hall, There were super super good looking korean guys inside, which i think are most probably models ;;w;;

There was also a moomin exhibition happening but we didnt have time to go so I just bought one moomin from the pop up table ;;

And we then took the bus to the concert venue !

When we had reached, we were greeted with long long queues.

Thankfully global package offered a merch preordering service where they had emailed us a link around a week or 2 before the concert and that was basically the online site to pre purchase all your merchandise beforehand ! They only send like previews of the merchandise and were not clear at all as we were like the first few to catch a glimpse of the items available for sale (i think this was to prevent like those unofficial sellers to sell the exact design at the concert venue ! So I had a really hard time deciding if I should even buy any merch because the tee design was disappointing really. I think the preorder runs for a few days so you can decide but they also have limited amount of merchandise available for gp holders.

We were also made to queue to collect our merch as the amount of global package participants were quite a lot but they have a special booth for global package so the queue was so much shorter ! But guess what ; I totally forgot I ordered 2 lightsticks as I had helped my friend purchase 1 and they had only given me 1 (ugh) same thing happened to my friend as well but she knows she ordered two so she went back to claim it while I 100% forgot all about it -_- serves as a v important lesson !!!

immediately after we got our merch, we went to queue for all the free fan support merch ! The queues were all so ridiculous ;; people were actually queuing before the person giving out even came

went to queue for a sekai one which was super super long ;a;

decided to go queue for a tao one while waiting and it was by a japanese fan ;;

and as I was holding that, many kr fans came to ask where we got it and we had to reply in super broken korean //sobs// like saying ' 긑 '

The promo banners were all so pretty T_T

while queuing for a sehun fansite merch, a sm staff approached to ask us to leave a video message but we had much troubles communicating because she was trying to speak english ;;

I had refused but bela really wanted to be in the dvd hahaha

and bless us, we were almost late for mosh queuing ;; I had remembered reading in the global package details that we needed to queue at 4pm but the tour guide didnt mention anything so we didn't know anything ;;

thank god we walked over to the hall around 3.40 and we asked the staff ; we were then supposed to arrange ourselves in our queue numbers which I thought could be pretty screwed up since people could actually very easily cut

and we wanted to actually leave our stuff at the bag deposit becuase jannah had her polaroid in her bag and obviously we knew we cant bring it in although our guides said it was okay.

But the queue for bag deposit was crazy and we were running out of time ;;; super super stress.

While queuing it was almost 4 already and this security guy came to approach us (I think cause we had the global package lanyard) and he said smth like we needed to go queue and stuff ;; which just made me extra stressed out because I didn;t really want to bring my bag in to the concert venue.

He then called over another guide for global package and she helped us settle the issue by taking our bags with her as she was there as well when we asked about the camera earlier ;;; super super nice and great effort in their service provided;;

She also realised we didnt get our wrist tagging so she immediately brought us to the counter to get the wrist tags ;;

after all that stressing, we finally got in !!!

another thing, I think there were these 2 girls whose queue numbers were totally not in our range and they were actually asked to go out because the way you enter the stadium is in this sequence - bag check > check if ticket is authentic with uv light > check if you have wrist tag and check queue number

before you actually go down a series of stairs to the mosh area ! totally couldnt pick where to stand ; it is either main stage to see performances or to be first row at the other corners for fan service.

We then decided to stay near main stage as we were technically in first row but our view was just slightly blocked by the pillar ;;w;;

and the amount of people behind me was legit crazy ;; the crowd then became crazy once all the vcrs start playing which were like the coex adverts, dream maker, SR14B bassbot, global auditions and the exo next door teaser, which wasnt released anywhere yet

silver ocean was really really pretty when the lights had all darkened ;;

then starts all the pushing ;; k-fans are honestly super scary and the security had constantly said to keep our hands in a cross action over our chests for first row as we could get hurt by the pushing on the barricades

the most awesome part of the concert would be how we were gonna be the first to hear all their new songs in the new album (which is now released)

the way korean fans screamed was on a whole new level ;; and the singing along and fanchants were all super amazing

jongdae rose up in so many ranks after the concert ;; he was so darn charming and his fan service is really the best !

and it is him that remains super etched in my head at how he was looking at my area during the growl remix part when he wasn't performing

now - to my rant - honestly I know we shouldnt take photos and all but ; so there was this fan behind me and I think the kr fans were slightly pissed that a intl fan got a better view than them and was in the first row so I acttually overheard them speaking in korean that they were planning to push us when the concert started.

So this girl behind me had managed to sort of squeeze abit after 3/4 of the concert. And she has said to me in korean in a super rude way to keep my phone camera and turn it off. So i obviously did since it didn't really matter to me in that point in time as they werent performing near me.

But after a few songs, she was totally fighting with me in my space and I totally didnt have the strength to push her away - so i just moved so she could come to the first row as well because I just wanted to enjoy the concert.

AND guess what - that bitch has actually went to call the security to tell him that she saw me taking videos and at that point in time I wasnt which I thank god. so the security just told me to keep my phone but problem was I had no where to keep it in the first place so he just told me not to take and told the bitch that he will only catch if he sees it for himself

LIKE wtf man I gave you my space already and you went to call security to try and get me caught for taking videos and photos so that I will be called to leave ugh

A thing that I find super remarkable for korea concerts is that they actually have a whole carton of mineral water to pass out to fans in the mosh pit - to prevent dehydration I guess ;;

and the concert ended T_T cried when they had shown the vcr for promise although I could only understand it partially because the korean subs went by so quickly and I can only read so slowly orz

but when they actually talked about how they had lost the thumbdrive for the original and how sehun cried really broke my heart ;;; the tears of park chanyeol as well ;;

and here are some selcas of me

omg I hardly take any but then I was a semi loner so

and while queuing for mosh we met another singaporean ! so we had just hanged out together in the mosh ;; then jannah went to ask a random guy to help us take photos ;; and he was actually really good looking ;; I think he was from aussie and was staying in seoul // the fact that he came for the concert ;w;

The japanese fan who was initially standing beside me (and also gave evil eyes to the bitch who intruded our space) offered me her own water as well which was super nice of her T_T

guess what, after the concert we were lost orz and my face and hands were legit freezing because I didnt bring any additional jacket to wear or even had a mask then and my hand was super numb;

since it was already night and the wind was extra strong;;

thank god we found the staff and he brought us to the bus ;; snacks and water were then provided which were very much needed ;; although I was just looking through all my fancams and tweeting like crazy