KCON LA 2017 Happened!

Super Junior's D and E
Donghae and Eunhyuk
And the whole reason we went to KCON!

Before I can report on anything trip related, I have to report on KCON, which happened about a week and half before the big trip, which seems like forever ago, back in mid August!

KCON is a convention of all things Korean pop culture related. It's just like Comic Con only Korean stuff. And there are concerts, which Comic Con does NOT have. :) It's held in cities all over the world, here in the US it's at New York and LA. Last year we were just getting into this stuff when it happened, but we watched the live stream of the concert and thought wow, that looks pretty fun. I saw the people with their faces pressed right up to the barrier on the floor of the concert and thought they must be crazy die hards! Yeah.

Well, so a year goes by and we have to decide, are we going? Or are we not. When they announced that VIXX would be there, I ws in. When they announced D and E from Super Junior would be there, I was ALL in and my sister Megs who said no way could she go... suddenly figured out how to go! Yeah.

So ticket day comes and it took us 45 minutes to even get in the site, and then no tickets were available. But then Mr. Stuey, who always seems to have a knack for the ticket buying thing, clicked the GA button (we were trying to get seats) and there were tickets available if we were willing to do GA... basically, the mosh pit. And so, we did it.

The week arrives. I reserved an airbnb house that sleeps like 10 people, and we took an entire Surburban full of friends, and drove the 11 hours to LA. It was fun since we could blast the kpop music all the way and NO ONE CARED!!

Friday morning and the first day of the convention dawned. We found our way to the convention center and got in line to be let into the event. We had hours to wait, but that time was spent haggling for audiences and high touches with all the bands. See, with your concert ticket, you are awarded certain passes, and if you like what you get, great. If you don't, you trade with each other or buy them off of someone. It was like a high stakes pokemon trading card game! It was insane! But we managed to trade for mostly what we wanted (of course we didn't' get any VIXX high touch, but we did have an audience!) and we even sold some of our things that we knew we couldn't use. Awesome.

Finally, they let us in and we spent the day going to panels and walking around the convention and participating in the dance off and generally having a blast. We even found Kathy our friend from home and book bloggin' buddy! In the very first panel, Toto and I answered a bunch of trivia questions and won a signed poster. Afterward, the people from Viki (who do the kdramas) approached us and asked us to be part of their video answering more trivia questions! We nailed it! (In fact, we were too boring since we actually knew the answers. Whatever.) Here's that video:




Also, we met some Youtubers that we aspire to be like and hope to be actual friendds with some day. It was so much fun and I thought, wow. If every day is like this...

Here's the video of our day one:




At the end of that day we picked up Megs from the airport so she could join us for day 2 and 3. Now the party really began!

So the first concert was Saturday night and we had GA tickets, which means, no reserved seats, which means fight for the perfect spot on the floor, which means stand in line ALL DAY LONG if you want that perfect spot. So that's what we planned to do Saturday, because we wanted to see D and E close up. (See above giffy picture!) We instantly bonded and made friends in line and saved spots for each other to go and do our audience and get food and etc.

What's an audience? Well, that's when the band comes out into the big panel room and talks for a bit, plays some games and interacts with all the adoring fans. Then, the ones with the high touch pass get to file past them and do the high five, while the rest of us watch. I thought I would die of jealousy, but it was actually quite fun just to watch the boys interact with everyone and show off all their different personalities. I loved it.

So we did that for VIXX that day, but truly spent most of the day in line. Toto had three audiences, so she went from one to the other to the other before she joined us in line. But finally we got in and BAM... guess who was right up next to the barrier! YEP! One year later and we are the die hards that I was shaking my head at the year before! We even got in a bunch of videos! See if you can see us in this one (it's very fast about 14 seconds in!)

The concert was AMAZING! Oh my word. And I thought all the other concerts we went to this past year were amazing. Well. Yeah. So Megan made a sign and Donghae saw it and came down to us. Sadly, our hands weren't accessible so he grabbed the closest one, our line buddy Jocey. Still, HE CAME DOWN! (Watch the slowmo of it here!)

And everyone else was totally amazing too. I loved it so much.

Here's our recap of Day Two:




Day three was another concert in the evening, but we spent less time in  line thanks to our friends who saved spots for us most of the day. We went to a couple of panels, finally meeting some youtube buddies for the first time in real life, and going to a couple other audiences. No high touches for us this time. So sad.

We had a great spot in line thanks to Jocey who pretty much didn't sleep and went from the concert the night before and got back in line around 3 am. And who said it was totally okay for us to join her when we arrived. So when we finally got let in again, we had the exact same spot up next to the stage as before. Though Megs choose to get in a more central location this time, while Toto and I stayed to the side. (you can see what I mean if you watch the video.)

Here's the recap of Day Three:



 And if you are interested in any other KCON videos, I've made a play list of both stuff we did and stuff that some official channels did. 


BUT... it's not over yet. About a week later, after one of those official channels highlighted Megs' sign at the end of D and E's song... we woke up to the news that Eunhyuk himself screen shot her sign from that video and POSTED IT ON INSTAGRAM!!! Oh my gosh we DIED!!! And made yet aonther video about dying. If you don't watch any of these other videos, you should at least watch this one:





Guys. It was the best time ever. We had so much fun. I think KCON will definitely be in our future for years to come.