map the seoul

Hey~ Back with another photo post from the first few months of 2019.
As the weather got nicer, I went to Seoul to hike a small section of the Seoul fortress wall, which wraps around the city. It was originally built in 1396 but has undergone a lot of restoration since then.
On Saturday, March 9th, I saw the musical Shinheung Military Academy for the second time. It's a military musical, so celebrities who are currently doing their mandatory military service are the leads in the musical. I saw it last year because it was basically a dream team of lead actors - Ji Changwook, Kang Haneul, and Kim Sunggyu. I had to go back and see it again this year because Lee Jinki, a member of SHINee, took up a leading role since he's enlisted. I had an 8th row seat, and the musical was great.
I went to Taemin's second solo concert on Saturday, March 16. He is, undoubtedly, one of the best performers of our time. Unreal. So good.
On Thursday, March 21st we had a school outing to welcome the new teachers who started at our school at the beginning of the new school year.
I saw both of Minho's fanmeetings on Saturday, March 30th. These were his last public appearances before he enlisted in the Marines the next week.
I spent the weekend of April 6-7 traveling all over Seoul to go to as many of the birthday events as I could for Jonghyun's birthday on the 8th. Fans held cup holder events - cafes all over Seoul were decorated for his birthday, drinks came with fan-made cup holders, some cafes had specialty drinks and desserts, and there were other fan-made freebies given out. There were also a few fan-hosted photo galleries and sponsored subway station billboards.
I had off work on Friday, May 3rd, so I traveled around Seoul to go to a few of the cafe events for Exo's Baekhyun's birthday and to see a few historical sites that I hadn't been to yet, including the Joseon royal tombs at Seonjeongneung.
Saturday, May 4th, I spent the day in Seoul again, met up with a friend for dinner, then we watched the fireworks show at Lotte World Tower. They did a similar firework show for the grand opening of the tower back in 2017, which I also saw.
Here's some other random pictures I have from the past few months, including really good food and pictures from an afternoon I spent on Gyeongnidan-gil, which has amazing views of Namsan Tower and lots of foreign-style bars (which means cocktails!).

I didn't post very much in 2018, so I thought I'd just post some pictures I took over the past year.

Hey y'all. I haven't updated in a while because I've done literally nothing the entire month of September. After the Jeju-do trip and concerts in August, I spent every weekend this month doing things that are free. Like sleeping in and marathoning episodes of Friends.

Another concert post~ and it was another weekend with concerts both Saturday and Sunday. (I was tired.)
On Saturday the 8th I went to Seoul World Cup Stadium to see SMTown Live. SM Entertainment is a huge entertainment company here and there are quite a few artists signed under them - including SHINee and EXO, as well as two of my favorite girl groups. I've actually seen this concert before - they came to Madison Square Garden back in 2011. I think it was the second kpop concert I attended. EXO hadn't debuted yet, and f(x) still... existed.
I got there early because there were a ton of things to do before the show - they had a whole area of tents set up with activities. There was even a karaoke tent. It was raining on and off all day, so I had reason to buy the SHINee rain coat I'd been eyeing up a few months ago.
Ticketing for these shows is a bit different. There were 10 groups/artists who performed and each artist has their own fandom, so before ticketing takes place they release basically a seating chart that says if you're in this fandom buy your ticket in this section, so that fans of each artist are sitting together. The show sold out before I could get a ticket. I actually got my ticket about 2 weeks after the show sold out by being on the website at 1 am when luckily, for some reason, a seat became available. I ended up being in what was apparently a multifandom section for people who were just lucky to have gotten tickets - perfect. EXO section was to my right and SHINee section was to my left, so I held my EXO lightstick in my right hand and my SHINee lightsticks in my left hand and just went crazy.
OH! The most amazing thing happened! One of the members of Super Junior recently did a collaboration with a duo called UV, who are not in SM Ent., but they performed at the concert. I was not expecting it at all. They had this amazing entrance on stage and I was just like, "..no way...". After they performed the new song with the Super Junior guy they did Itaewon Freedom. Itaewon Freedom is my JAM and I never, ever thought I would see it performed live. This happened like 3 weeks ago and I'm still not over it. I was, without a doubt, the loudest foreigner in that stadium during Itaewon Freedom. I can't post my fancam of it because it's just me yelling.
I forgot that this concert is like 9 days long... and almost didn't make the last bus home. Actually I totally missed the last bus home. The subway stopped running, too, so I took a cab to Gangnam, because I figured if I was going to spend the night chilling in a 24-hour McDonald's waiting for buses to start running in the morning, I should be in a Gangnam McDonald's. Luckily I made it into Gangnam in time to catch a different bus that goes to the town I live in but drops off on the other side of town. So I eventually made it home after a long walk across town at 2:30 am.

After barely making it home Saturday night, I got back on a bus to Seoul on Sunday to see Guckkasten play Olympic Park Hall. Another band that I've liked for years but never thought I'd have the opportunity to see live. I don't even have words for how amazing the vocalist of this band is.