Meeting an Idol group and stuffs

Pure:
I never mentioned before but about a month ago I saw an idol group! Their name is Pure, and had just debuted that week.

It' was a rainy day, and I was shopping at Eblin lingerie store. When I exited, there was a small crowd gathered on the sidewalk right in front. As soon as I heard “idol group”, I weaseled my way through as best I could! Here are some pictures!





Click to make bigger~

To be honest, it was kind of awkward…There we were, two feet away, staring them right in the eyes as they tried to do their cool spins and smolder looks …mind you, without any special effects, special angles, or even a stage! T’was a wee bit embarrassing. And don’t forget about their dramatic kneeling at the end!

Personally, this was my face when their clothes touched the pavement:





Anyways, here’s a video I took shortly after they finished performing! You can see that the microphone stopped working. :P At the very end, we got to line up to shake their hands!!



But of course I went to shake their hands~! With each handshake, they bowed deeply and said thanks. Let me tell ya, they are much better looking in real life! If you watch their MV (here), pay no attention to the unflattering close-ups (virtually all of the MV). They are indeed handsome lads in real life!


And now I can say that I have shared skin contact with an idol.






YG Entertainment:
Since we’re talking about idols, behold! A business card from YG:

“Never show my phone number to anyone,” the scout said.

Backstory: Bf was scouted by YG recently. (Oh how I wish I could say that *I* was scouted!) The scout was a man in his late 20s and had approached him while bf was eating dinner with family. I’m told the conversation went something like this:

“Are you a normal person?” he asked.
“I’m just a student.”
“Well, call me if you want to talk. And never, never show my phone number to anyone.”

Bf gave it absolutely no second thought, what with his upcoming military service and the restrictions of an idol. He jokes, “Hey, hey~! Psy is YG too! Daesung was scouted too! And maybe they want me to be a comedian, not idol!” (Hint: Daesung not handsome.)

But I pressed on, eager to know if it was real or fake. We called, and boom-bada-boom, an automated voice says, “Thank you for calling YG, blahblahblah”

So…Anyone want to buy YG’s phone number and address off of me? Just kidding~~ :P



Street Fashion:

On another note, one of the things that bothers me is the misconception about Korean fashion. Just cuz it ain’t Japanese don’t mean it’s Korean! What is portrayed online, versus what people actually wear, is quite different. I will also argue that it is not simply because “regular people just not fashionable”.

In my impulsive determination to show the truth, I spontaneously picked up my iphone while waiting for someone at the subway station. Hence, this video:



To be honest, I do feel terribly rude and intrusive for this video... I’ve become the inconsiderate foreigner that I despise, so I don’t think I’ll be doing anything like this again anytime soon. (Although to be fair, regular people take videos of strangers all the time!) If anything, I hope some can find it interesting or enlightening~


11:08pm here, I'm off to relax for the rest of the evening! Another review is underway~ Let me know if you found this post interesting or something~ Otherwise I feel like I'm talking to a wall and don't know what to post... :(

Snippets of Everyday Life, Episode 1: Food, Food Court, Lotte Cinema, Cafes

I’m starting a new series on my bloggie! I shall call it…Snippets of Everyday Life!

When it comes to going abroad, I’m the type that is most interested in the everyday lives of the locals. Foreigner hangouts? Blech! I want to go wherever the locals go, do whatever they do, and chill however they chill! And for that, I like documenting the everyday sights that I see: stores, streets, people…just little things that convey what it’s like to walk around or live in another country!

If anything, you can think of this as an Instagram post, except in High Definition! (I don't like taking blurry iPhone pictures T.T) But do forgive me; my photos of Asia are not dreamily artistic like the ones on Tumblr… >.<


This particular episode contains pictures from almost a month ago >.< But I have more coming!


Chungdam:
Chungdam is an area in Gangnam. I was walking around and amazed at how wide and open the street felt!


Look how broad the sidewalk is and how uncramped the buildings are. Normally you’ve got tons of little stores stacked onto of each other and signs reaching out towards the street. The stores here were mostly “designer”(?) stores, with wide open spaces and hardly any merchandise, if you know what I mean…?

If you’re also like me, you’d be interested in what that pretty girl is wearing! ;P Well, here’s a picture! Is that rude of me? >.< (This is actually a cropped/zoomed version of a previous picture I took of the street, so I didn't deliberately point my camera at her!)



Mr. Pizza:

Mr. Pizza is a chain in Korea for…well, pizza! I went there for the first time a few weeks ago and ordered shrimp pizza.


Sadly, it wasn’t that good…Not because of the shrimp toppings, but simply the overall execution (of the crust, the cheese, etc..). I could just be biased though since I like saucy pizzas~! But this was not saucy at all ㅠ.ㅠ


Lotte Department Store Food Court:

We went at at the Lotte Department food court located inside Starcity. Starcity is a…building(?) located at Kunkuk University station with luxury apartments, Lotte Department store, gym, restaurants, stores, and other stuffz, all in one.





Supposedly the bread here is yummy? I didn't try~

We ate pasta and pizza from a place that uses a fire oven to cook the pizza!







It was not delicious, though… :( So far I haven’t quite liked any of the Italian food I’ve tried here >.< I’m too used to the American interpretation of Italian food! Oily and not-saucy pizza is not good for my American tummy :(


Lotte Cinema:

We watched Oblivion here! Here’s the lobby of Lotte Cinema~





By standing on the footprint decals, the screen will automatically flips from the movie poster to show you movie information! So cool~!!



Even their bathroom stalls were so extravagant…



I like how across from the sinks they have a large counter with plentiful mirror space. That way, you can fix yourself up without blocking the way to the sink~



The men’s bathroom also had big murals, teehee~



At another Lotte Cinema (different location than the one above), there was a random soccer field in the back! Right next to the soccer field was this angel wing mural. I love these!



Cafes:
This is Starbucks! Nothing special, haha~





I like Starbucks’ strawberry banana smoothie!



We even got to choose our own bananas to put in our smoothie~! ^_^


Naturally, I picked the brownest and spottiest one (inside joke to anyone who knows my taste in bananas~)! :3 From what I understand, this smoothie is only available in Seoul locations? We tried to get some in central Korea but it no work.


I was pooped, so we stopped by Angel-in-Us café for a caffeine boost!




Night Street View:

And here is a view of the street crossing near Kunkuk metro station! Look how cramped all the stores and signs are, all stacked on top of each other? I find all of it so visually stimulating *_*





That's it for Episode 1 of Snippets! I'll see you soon for Episode 2~ ^^ (I hope to post these in between my review posts.)

Toodles!

My first circle lens review! EOS max pure green

Name: EOS Max Pure Green
Diameter: 14.5mm
Base Curve: 8.8mm
Price on Shoppingholics: $25.90 (click here)

It arrived in an unassuming bubble envelope, and inside was this box and a lens case:











Closeups of the vial label:











See for yourself! They're 14.5mm:


Natural Lighting:

standing in front of a glass door at noon



Indoor Lighting:

looking up at two bright ceiling lights indoors

mucky makeup at the end of the day >.<

[Disclaimer: I’m no pro lens-wearer! Although I’ve tried 45 different lenses, I really only wear them once or twice a week. And I won’t lie: while many people claim no irritation whatsoever with circle lenses, I am not one of those people. *Every* pair I’ve worn has given me minor discomfort in some way or another. But I also have dry eyes, so it could just be me considering that other girls seem A-ok!]

I’ve worn these lenses for an entire day ( ~10 hours) on 10+ occasions now. Sometimes I have the usual—and I say usual because it happens with almost every lens I wear—(burning) irritation when I first insert the lens. But sometimes, I don’t feel anything when I insert them.

More often than not, once or twice during the day I have to blink a little more to see clearly. I don’t want to say it’s blurry; it’s just ever so slightly less-than-HD. This also happens with most lenses I wear, but admittedly less often with these lenses. Towards the end of the 10-12 hour mark, I do get less tolerant and irritation in one eye, enough that I can't wait to take them out. But! For the most part when I wear these, I forget that I’m even wearing anything! Overall, these lean on the more comfortable side of what I’ve tried.





These lenses alone look lime green, but they definitely don't show up that light on my dark brown eyes! It mostly looks dark green, depending on how bright or dim your lighting is. In dim indoor lighting, it can even just pass as black.



Natural Lighting:

indoors on a sunny afternoon, but with a large glass ceiling overhead:






inside the car on a sunny afternoon; (almost) direct sunlight:






Outside in the shade on a sunny afternoon:







Indoor Lighting:


Half-half indoor/natural lighting;
going up escalator from the aforementioned glass ceiling room:






Inside a somewhat dim, yellowy cafe with little-to-no natural lighting:






Inside a dimly-lit restaurant:






Indirect bright fluorescent lighting (lights are off to the side):






Dim lighting on indoor escalator:






Bathroom lighting:

(I may have just taken off my wig, teehee~)




Sorry for the selca spam, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what the lenses look like! And apologies for the blurry zoom-up shots...I decided not to take closeups (in which I held the camera close to my eyes) because I don't think it's very true to life...If someone stands at a normal distance to you, what they see is different from the sharpness and color and design vividness that a macro lens portrays, you know? >.<


A big thank you to Loveshoppingholics for sending me these lenses and being so patient with me! You can purchase them here and use this discount code!





Toodly-doos!