Korean music, part 1 - Nell

Ok, so I decided to write a little about what Korean & Japanese music that I like! 

Nell is one of the bands that I think deserve more attention! It's a South Korean band founded in 1999 by Kim Jong-wan (vocals, guitar, keyboard, songwriter, lyric writer), Lee Jae-kyung (guitar), Lee Jung-hoon (bass guitar), and Jung Jae-won (drums). While performing at a club in Hongdae (!) in 2002 they were discovered and signed to a major label. The most recent years they've become well-known in Korea but unfortunately they still seem pretty unknown overseas. 

While in Hongdae I bought two of their albums - Healing Process (2006) & Separation Anxiety (2008). Both very good albums! Most songs are very sad and emotional, and fortunately many of the lyrics are easy to find translated into English! For the moment the band members are in Korean military service, and they will be there until next year (I think). I can barely wait 'til they release another album!

Nell - It's okay (Let's take a walk, 2007)

Nell - Thank you (Walk through me, 2004) - English sub


Nell - Time spent walking through memories (Separation Anxiety, 2008)


Nell - Tokyo (Separation Anxiety, 2008) - English lyrics


Last but not least:
Nell - Promise me (Separation Anxiety, 2008) - live performance

Last day in Seoul

Last day in Seoul, and also the last day of our trip.

We went over to our friends guesthouse cause our friend James treated us to some delicious home cooked lunch!

Really tasty food! 

My Cherry Coke bought at Family Mart. =P

Jonas & Agnes outside Family Mart. 

Rebecca, Yannick & me! 

Rebecca! We went around looking for souvenirs around Hongdae. 

I look really short here o_O. 

Meeting up with Cecilia for the last time this trip! Here at a Japanese restaurant. 

My food. It was really good. 

Tonkatsu sidedish! 

Rebecca & Cecilia at a cafe!

The chairs were really comfortable. Kinda like rocking chairs. 

Best bingsu ever. 

Served with white bread & cream O_O. 

Mmmh... sure tasty. 

Last meal in Seoul. Haha.

Our flight meal. 

Home in Sweden we were obviously VERY tired! We slept in the taxi taking us to Incheon airport, then we slept in the airport waiting for the plane. Then we slept in the plane to Beijing, slept in Beijing awaiting the next plane, slept on the plane taking us to Stockholm and then we slept from Stockholm home to my city Örebro (2 ½ hours) and then we fell asleep when we came home - and were dead tired the day after that. I guess we didn't sleep very well for quite a long time, haha. But it was worth it. We've had a wonderful time!

I will continue blogging even after this trip. See you! ^^

Coffee Prince

Sorry for the lack of updates. I will update more from now on. Promise!

On Saturday (31th of July) we were all really tired. We basically went to Dunkin' Donuts, and then ended up at the other guesthouse playing games at Jonas' new PS3! Nothing more really happened that day since we woke up pretty late. 

Hongdae on a Sunday. There were street performances everywhere. Well... 

We went to the Coffee Prince cafe as featured in The 1st shop of Coffee Prince. Very cool!! It's such a good and sweet drama. 

Some Japanese tourists actually helped us with finding the location of the cafe for us. Really sweet and helpful. They took this photo of us right outside of the cafe. 

Rebecca in front of the cafe. 

Outside the entrance. 

The menu from the drama. Not the real menu that you can order from. 

The "famous" wall painting. 

Yay! 

Photos of some of the actors. 

I've heard there are two Coffee Prince cafes, so be careful to visit the "right" one. 

 Rebecca & I went to Dongdaemun afterwards. Here I'm waiting for the food, obviously very hungry! ^^

At this nice restaurant we ordered some tasty bibimbap. 

 As it was served. Before eating the ingredients should be stirred around well. 

Outside one of many shopping complexes in Dongdaemun. 

And at last - some fun karaoke in late evening. Guess which song they were singing?

30th of July - Seoul!

Finally I got to meet my Korean mom again.

She had cooked food for me!

It was very delicious! I feel very happy to be able to eat the food that my mother made for me. 

In evening we met up with Cecilia & Ringo! We ate some tasty BBQ at a restaurant! 

Cecilia & me waiting for the food. Of course I tried to take a photo of the sidedishes. 

Ringo & Rebecca! 

Heaven...

... and of course bingsu for dessert. 

Later on, around midnight, we met up with our other friends to join the Hongdae Club Day! That means - for one pass (20,000 won) you get access to many of the biggest and best clubs around the area. It was crazy and lots of fun! Unfortunately we didn't take many photos that night, partly because it's prohibited to take photos at many places.

Club... SAAB?!!!

Lee & me! At some random place. 

Oh well, that's all for now. I will update more soon. Promise ;)

From Tokyo to Seoul

Wednesday was our last full day in Tokyo. 

We obviously woke up pretty late. At evening Rebecca & I met up with Tsuyoshi & Hide. We mainly strolled around in a few stores around Takeshita-Dori, and then walked to Shibuya to spend time in game centres & to eat.

The next day we strolled around downtown Ueno before heading to Narita airport to take the flight back to Seoul! 

Me at First Kitchen. 

Rainy Ueno. 

The train to Narita. So exciting!!  ...............

Mmmm, flight dinner. Well, actually - it didn't taste good. And still, I am a huge fan of flight meals. 

The queue at Incheon airport, for the train taking us to another terminal. Yay.... 

Zushi beach & The Lockup

Intense Tuesday.

We went from Tokyo to the Zushi beach, located about an hour by train from Shinjuku. It's a nice beach, very popular among locals and visitors. Sometimes there are big parties arranged there. For example, Otodama Sea Studio arrange performances of artists & DJs there during summertime. I actually considered to visit it last year when my 90's Jpop idol KAN (video link) performed, but unfortunately I couldn't. This particular day there were not many events really, but nonetheless a great day at the beach. Very windy, but the weather was really warm so it was very enjoyable!

Yay!!

The beach! As seen in Life by Kimaguren!

Jonas! As never seen before!

The day was good. We ended our beach visit with eating some food at a beach restaurant. Before going back to Tokyo we also stopped by McDonalds.

Hide eating curry rice!

Ice cream at McDonalds!

Hide! Happy as usual! 

While Nathalie, Yannick & Agnes went home, the rest of us stayed in Shinjuku. We went to The Lockup. New experience for Jonas & me, and such a cool one! It's basically a jail bar with some horror theme. 

Yeah, these pills were served with superstrong alcohol. Wow. Intense!

Awesome drink!

When entering the bar, Jonas was wearing Hide's birthday gift - a Swan hat! It was glowing in the dark! 

I have no photos of it, but we played a kind of food game. A food roulette game, basically. You order 5 pieces of some kind of food, and one of those five pieces are with a different filling than expected. Oh well, I now have tasted the spieciest Korokke ever. >_<  But it's fine, since I experienced to watch Hide eat a mustard-filled dessert. Very amusing!

We ended the day (night?) with some Karaoke nomihodai for the rest of the night! Awesome!!