Idols, Chick-fil-a, and Charades

So fun news, yesterday I was able to go to a live filming for Arirang's After School Club's Chuseok special live with BTOB. I  had applied a week ago and was selected to attend. I was ever selected to go on stage and play games with the members. So when the people at Arirang called me, they told me to be at the studio by 1:20 pm so I left the dorms at 11:30 and with my Seoul subway map and the hand drawn map of the area around Arirang (so I would have less of a chance of getting lost) and arrived at 1:10. After signing in and being told to come back at 2, another Melody (BTOB's fan group) and I went to a near by coffee shop/cafe and got iced drinks, because man it is so hot here in the city again. But the cool thing was we tried to go into the studio via the main doors to find the cafe, but as we were walking up the steps, we saw that the members of BTOB were having a Q&A/ Photo session on the lobby floor! So mid step, we turned and went back down to the street and looked somewhere else for drinks. We got back to the studio around 1:30ish so we waited with the other fans for them to call us back to head up to the rehearsal room.

Around 1:50ish, a lady who worked as one of the stage managers came down to call the next group of "gamers" to the stage. She only needed five, even thought there was about eight to ten of us there who were told we would be able to participate in the day's games. Yep, that is right there were going to be only ten out of the twenty people that had applies that were actually going to be able to participate in the games for the shows! So the remaining group members quickly got into a circle to play rock,-paper-scissors to see who would be the remaining four members to the last group (there was a guys there, and since fanboys are such a rarity, we decided to let him go). I threw rock, as well as two other girls, while the others all threw scissors, so we were able to get into the group. The last girl to join our group came three rounds later, so finally we were a big happy 5 member team!

Once inside the building we were made to wait in the hallway outside of the studio/waiting room for BTOB. We all got to know each other and started talking about the band. We decided to take a group picture in front of one of the signs in the lobby we were at, but as we walked by the door that lead to the waiting room/studio, we saw that the boys were there and that all of them (esp Peniel who is form the States and thus can understand English VERY well) were in there and not on the stage, so they were able to hear everything we were talking about; everything from our classes to who our biases in the group were and the reasons why.

Eventually we were brought into the studio to do a run through of the program and our cues. We we entered, the first star that we meet was Hanbyul, one of the hosts of the show and also the lead singer of LEDApple, and Tia form the group Chocolat.

Tia never really talked to us, so I don;t really have much to say about her, other than she is really pretty and extremely young ( I think she was born in 1997/1996!!). But Hanbyul did not seem real to me. He was so hyper and 4D  that it was almost like he was an animation come to life. As soon as we walked in and were seated behind the host seats, he turned around and started to ask us questions about where we were from and what we were doing here in Korea.

Eric Nam, the other host and a wonderful solo singer, came in a few minutes after we were seated and started asking us the same questions that Hanbyul did. When he heard that I was from North Carolina, he was super excited to have another Southerner there with him (he is from ATL) and we started talking about how much we missed Chick-fil-a and I started to tell him the wonders of Cheerwine. And guess what, he even know about Sewanee and even had friend who had gone there. He is the second person who know about my university that I have met here in Korea; who knew my little liberal arts school on top of a mountain would be so well know on the other side of the world! Plus I was able to talk and connect with him! All this was taking place while Hanbyul was talking with his cousin through the Google hangout, while the other gamers were just looking around the studio and taking everything in (anyway, I need to move on before I start letting my inner fangirl take over...).

SO before I get to into the story, let me give you a run down of the boys so you know what I'll be talking about:

The whole group: BTOB, under the CUBE Entertainment Label

Eunkwang; Leader; vocalist; extremely nice and interacted with our group the most

 

Minhyuk; vocalist; looks smaller in person; self proclaimed "sexy member"

Ilhoon; main rapper; BEAUTIFUL EYES OMG; very cute and childish, yet mature at the same time

Changsub; vocalist; so 4D (weird and random) out of the whole group; kept making faces that would make us laugh, idk if he was goofing around or he did that to cover up the fact that he had a limited idea of what we were all talking about; beautiful voice; super nice and really interacted with he fans; super fit and has a really cool tattoo on his inner arm and back

Hyunsik; vocalist and writer of most of their song off newest album; always smiling and has the best smile that I have ever seen; super nice

Sungjae; main vocalist; youngest member; usually pretty goofy & 4D, but was kind of reserved for the show, I think it was b/c he did not really know what was going on because of all the English; tallest member and was about 3 to 4 inches taller than me

Peniel;  rapper; my bias in BTOB; grew up in Chicago, so speaks English better than Korean; Was host for another show on Arirang; usually pretty quiet of television, so I though he would be very shy, but really his is a gigantic sassy fool. He was always creaking jokes and for us native English speakers, we could tell that a lot of what he said could have been taken in a different light (so sassy!)

BTOB the joined us for a full run through of the show. As soon was the boys got in we all just stared. They were dressed in their black leather costumes from their Thriller MV and looked REALLY nice (*wink~). During the breaks for videos, they would wave at us and interact with us through gestures; at one point the three in the front (Eunkwang, Ilhoon, Peniel, and Hyunsik) started to wave at us. Eunkwang started off waving both hands at us and after we all waved back stopped, but as soon as he stopped, Ilhoon started to wave to us and once again as soon as we waved back stopped, but then Peniel waved at us and then Hyunsik. So we just went down the line waving at each other and making eye contact. When we came to the game part, we were placed on Hanbyul's team with Peniel, Eunkwang, Hyunsik, and Ilhoon. Because it was rehearsals, we were given a random sketch book that had random things on it like:  #BTOBASC, (Hanbyul's) Butt, USTEAM, Insoles, etc. Well we went through the words ( I actually got insoles and guessed right! It was pretty cute, because it was Hyunsik who was acting it out for me and he pointed to his foot and then at Eunkwang!!) and then went back to our seats after only guessing 2 words right. As we were walking back to our seats, Eunkwang gave us all thumbs us in a 'good job, at least you did your best, so well get them next time' kind of way. OMG I felt so bad that we lost.

When it was the other team's turn to go, we all sat back and watched Sungjae, Minhyuk, and Changsub act out the things on the sketch book.  At one point, Sungjae got the word insoles and took off his boot to mime the shoe lift, but of course he did not have any in his shoe because of his height, but when he had to go to the back of the line, he hopped around trying to get his shoe back on.
When we got to the next game, a traditional Korean game played during Chuseok (pretty much like hakky sack but the ball has streamers all around it). The boys were then asked to pick one of us who they though would be a good person to play. Eunkwang came over to pick form our team, asking if any of us wanted to try and choose the only guy there ( and the only other person from the states in our group), David, and brought him over to the center of the stage. As they were standing next to each other, Eunkwang only came up to David's shoulders (Eunkwang is about the same height as me) so the other members in the back were laughing and making fun of their leader for being so short.

Well, we lost that game too, but Eunkwang just smiled and told David to keep the ball and practice. As the rehearsal went on, I really go to see how normal the boys were. When Peniel was talking, he was completely different form how he was on the past shows that I had seen him on. IN the past he never really talked all that much because of the limits in his Korea, but here in the all English show, he was a great big ball of sass; making jokes with the hosts and slightly loading his responses with sarcasm. He did this to some extent during the live filming (See part where girl is eating him in the bread) but I feel that it was more prominent during the practice. Hyunsik was also different from the live filming, while during the interview about his writing the songs for the new album he was asked why he decided to make the songs, he was talking about how he really wanted to get more involved with their music, but at the end of his response, he made the Korean hand sign for money (upside down ok gesture) and smiled at Hanbyul (who had asked the question). You could tell he was joking, but what was really funny was that Hanbyul turned around and did the same hand sign to us and smirked (he turned around to interact with us a lot--almost to the point that the PD had to tall him to stop and focus). But that was how the rehearsal went. Everyone was just relaxed and being them selves, and Hanbyul and Eric were being very hyper and borderline ADD at some points. They were hyper during the show, but they were even more so during the practice that we had.

After the rehearsal, all ten of us "gamers" were brought outside to hand over our bags and cell phones to be stored until the end of the filming and to get our name tags. We were then brought back into the studio, were the BTOB boys were back in the side room resting and the hosts were also there getting ready. The other live studio audience was brought in  and told to take there seats. When the hosts came in to take their starting positions and the BTOB boys were off standing just behind the cameras to wait for their cues, the other people started to get a little starstruck and started to slightly freak out. Those of us "gamers" were actually really calm. It may have been because we had been with them for about and hour and a half with just us in the room and had freaked out then. And so with a minute and a half until filming started I just took in the audience and giggled when 30 seconds till, Hanbyul was yelled at by the PD to stop standing on his chair talking to us on the left side and to get to his place in center stage.

I am not gong to go into much detail about the actual filming, because 1) it is all online  here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4ClMwbkdns  and 2) it passes in such a blur that the whole 90 minutes felt like only 20 minutes maximum! But even during the filming (when the camera was not on him or there was a video playing) Hanbyul would make comments to us about whatever was going on at the time.And just for the record, the other members of team A/ Hanbyul's losers/team Awesome and I are in full agreement that it was rigged and that the other team was given the easier set of words!

My fellow group of "losers". Loved getting to know everyone and had such a fun time!

The really fun part was once the filming ended and the ending music video was rolling, the BTOB members and the hosts came around to all of us and gave us all high fives and started passing out the food from the set. I got a high five form all three hosts and all the members! The cool thing was that because I was part of the show because of the games, all the members and the host told me thanks and that I had done a good job. Eric was passing out the rice cakes and brought the basket over to our side so we could grab some. Changsub showed us his tattoo and attempted to talk to us. But the coolest thing was that as we were being led out of the studio, Hanbyul gave me a hug and shook my hand again while he was walking in the opposite direction to the waiting room.

We were lined up in the hallway outside and told to wait. Thankfully they took the gamers and the three VIPs were taken out and given our bags and gifts first then let go (the gift was a really nice three pocket card holder).  A few of us went down stairs and waited by the elevator trying to figure out what we wanted to do next. While we were waiting, BTOB stepped out of the elevator and transferred to another one. When they stepped out, they thanked us again and waved. Changsub even wished us a 'Merry Chuseok' and bowed a little while thanking us. They were so normal looking compared to what we had seen in the studio. Even though I had said they were normal before, this was very normal in comparison: they were just in their shirts and pants (no fancy jackets and vests), they were hanging off each other and just appeared to be a group of very close friends that were just hanging out (very attractive and talented friends to say the least). If I had been made to wait with the other audience members this would not have happen, so that God that I was able to be let out early.

The day ended with us waiting on the street to wave goodbye to the hosts and BTOB members while the drove away. Hanbyul passed right by us and waved and thanked us again, while Eric and BTOB went the other direction.

So that was my first kpop experience here in Korea and it was AMAZING!! Really looking forward to want might happen in the future!