New Years Seoul CountDown!

Date: 12/31/2010-1/1/2011

We have gotten our tickets, wrist bands, drink vouchers, and head into the Times Square Mall to wait for the CountDown: Times Square 2011 to begin.  We freshen up:

Put one some perfume

Visit the super sleek bathroom.

And then get ready for some great performances--one of which we find out will be 2PM!   We didn't actually believe that 2PM was going to play because they are one of the biggest groups in Korea right now.  But, apparently they were!

So, for 66,000 won (roughly $66 USD), we saw 3 huge groups (2PM, FreeTempo, and Super K2), and a bunch of others (Crystalline, Yuna, and about 6 other DJs and/or bands).   Plus, 6 drinks (1 water, 1 coke/vitamin water, 4 beer/tequila).  And it went from 8.30 pm to 5.30 am.  That's a steal!  Unreal.  To see FreeTempo alone should be 66,000, but we got that and so much more!

You might wonder why it goes from 8.30 pm to 5.30 am.  Well, you see, the subways in Seoul shut down after 1 am (I think).  So, basically, if you were not within walking distance, you stayed at the event.  And then they put 2PM (the biggest group by far) to play at 2 am so that most people would stay until the subways closed down.  So we were both stuck there and enjoying it.  This was great because I don't know if everyone would have stayed if it hadn't been for 2 PM--and we wanted a party and this ensured it was a party for almost the whole evening.

I finally got around to taking photos of the place a little later in the night, but just to give you an idea of where we were--here are the photos now:

This is coming down the escalator from floor 3 to 2. 

Looking up from floor one. 

Floor 1 was the main stage.  Floor 2 was the VIP section (oh la la!).  Floor 4 was the Lounge Area where you could get vitamin water.  And Floor 5 had the bar/restaurant where you could watch the smaller gigs play.

First, we saw Crystalline:

Then we got some munchies--unfortuantely, semi-warm beer and cinnamon preztle didn't really mix.

Back to the pub area:

I can't believe I actually got this shot.  To say the least, these guys were sexy!

We were really hot so we sat down next to the window.  It was a sharp contrast with outside being around 1 degree Celsius!

I mentioned in the last posting that we bought ear plugs and I must tell you that these were essential to my enjoyment of the night.  Korean don't really differentiate between EAR SPLITTING and Loud.  So, I would have been down and out for the count if I hadn't gotten the ear plus--within the first hour.  Easily.   But...thankfully we had the ear phones and it was all good.  (Besides the THUMP THUMP THUMP of the base in your chest--but you got used to that after a while).

Then we headed down stairs to see Super K2--which I learned was a singing contest show that swept the nation the past year.  I actually recognized almost all of their songs--which made me feel very Korean.

This is Huh Gak--and I really like his song.  Too bad I don't know it's name!

 And then the K2 Stars sang songs together--which I think is kinda cool.  I mean, in America, groups don't sing song with other groups.  Unless like a rap middle section to a pop song--and, I don't know how often they actually perform together.  But there seemed to be a real sense of flow between the performers.

I was on the ball enough to even get a video of Huh Gak (I think it's Huh Gak, at least).

Sarah and I in the crowd of Koreans.  We had ALOT of fun dancing and just being goofy.