The Crazy Ahjumma's Cruisin' Playlist

It's that time of year again where the weather begins to warm up, the windows are rolled down in your car, and your Kpop is blasting out into the world.  You know, that time when you get odd looks from other motorists and the drive-thru attendant at McDonalds.  But hey, you don't care, you are a Kpop fan and proud to let the world know. 

Unnie's Wednesday Write Up: Catching Up

I sit here in my son's Tae Kwon Do Dojaeng & type out a late Wednesday Write Up, with my daughter next to me drooling over her next My Little Pony purchase & am very VERY aware that I am very VERY behind in my posts on this here Daebak blog.  I apologize but that last week of school nearly did me in.  My husband was out of town so I was left as mom & dad for the busiest week of the school year, minus the ones before Christmas Break & Easter Break.  Which included; field days, Tae Kwon Do, Scouts, class parties, teacher gift shopping, volunteering, & my son's 8th grade graduation.  You have no idea how incredibly happy I was when school was officially over for the year.  Or maybe you do if you have kids too.  Which I am sure some of you do, so you can feel my pain.  *sob* I shall now proceed to break for a little mental breakdown...you can find me in the fetal position in the corner.

******************************Unnie's Mental Breakdown****************************

And I am okay.  *repeat* I am okay.  Phew!  But you guys didn't come here to hear me whine, once again, about how hard my blessings are to take.  Moving right along then.

I am afraid my WWU this week is going to be pretty short.  Sorry guys but I haven't watched even my review drama in the last 2 weeks.  But guess what I am going to be doing all day tomorrow?  Yep, you guessed it, watching, writing, watching, writing, etc.....  And I will probably be doing it in my most glamorous duds too...my jammies.  ^^

But as a result of my severe K Drama drought, this includes K new releases (except KHJ I stop everything for him... *sigh* happy place* khj* hmmmm.....o.O)  ahem... and  K news too.  I exited my drought yesterday to watch the latest Barefoot Friends episode & discovered, to my shock & astonishment, that you guys went on with life without me!  Gasp! O.O  How could you?!?!?  *sniff sniff*  I feel so alone.  I think I'll break into 2NE1's Lonely.




Okay I am back from feeling Lonely.  Sigh... you guys couldn't wait a mere 6 weeks for me?  It's okay I understand, it wouldn't be my first choice to wait for some crazy ahjumma to start back into the glorious world of K.  I don't blame my fellow AddiKts at all.

{{Psss...is my guilt trip working?  Darn I knew it wouldn't, you guys are on to me.}}

So, let's catch up.  We can stand around the water cooler & just chat about all the things I missed.  I will mention just a few things I was able to see today when I went online & then you guys can leave me comments on this post or go to my Twitter, FB or the TCA FB page & tell me all the things you think are important that I missed.  Come on guys what's the latest news?!?!  I am dying of my K thirst!  Help an ahjumma out AddiKts!!  PLEASE?!?!?!

Thank you Pinterest for the new "search just my pins" option!!  You have no idea how much time it saved me just now! 

First, both Dongsaeng & I happen to have family dogs, that we love & wouldn't know what to do without, & so we send out our sincere condolences to Taeyang of Big Bang.  His beautiful 5 year best friend "Boss" passed away this week.  I lost one of my dogs to a tragic accident just 18 months ago & there isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss our Hershey Kisses....  So we really felt awful for poor Taeyang.  We are sending all our love to you Taeyang.

This is my Liam w Hershey the summer before we lost Hershey.

Going along with another Big Bang member I read this afternoon off of DramaFever that G Dragon has hit over 1 million followers on his Instagram.  So congrats to GD.

GDs IG pic celebrating his 1 million followers

I can see from friends which K Dramas I need to watch &/or catch up on & trust me I intend to...Father's Day is this Sunday so I won't get K Dramas then, so I will have to watch as many GFB eps as I can before I go to sleep Sat night, right?  Then next week we have guests coming in from out of town, another fellow addiKt, my friend from St Louis that I converted to K awesomeness, & her kids will be with me for a week so I have just a few days to get my house all spic & span, so I can fool her into thinking my kids are neat freaks...LOL Yeah I couldn't even keep a straight face typing it.  (^_-)

Sigh...now I feel it important to talk about 2 more things.  First, my distress & subsequent attempts to obliterate my memory.  I told you that Barefoot Friends was the only thing I have been tuning into lately, right?  Well as much as I LOVED episode 8 I have a couple of issues with the show & I feel it my duty to bring attention to these blatant attempts to steal MY KHJ from me.  They are; UEE & Hyori, *smh* on their own these 2 women are great & I like them a lot.  BUT when they are around MY KHJ, wearing his shirts & NOTHING else AND then getting to sleep in HIS bed....yeah that I have a problem with.  Hussies.

Actually I kid.  I really loved the episode, I got to watch Eunhyuk do that weird neck thing while blowing pages of a dictionary & his competition away AND I got to see KHJs house.  It was very similar to what I had pictured...he is a bachelor after all.  Lots of monotone colors, mostly black, simple furnishings, even the skulls, I figured he'd have a few of those in his pad too.  Remember he also spends a lot of time on the road (or rather in a plane) traveling for touring etc...  My eldest son & I watched the show together & laughed & laughed & are now determined to have a few contests of our own together, just so we can yell, "Yah!" at each other.

Which leads me to my last announcement.... also KHJ related.

HUGE SHOUT OUT TO KHJ for having 3 of his singles sell more than 100,000 copies in their first week of release each.  Not surprising when you remember how incredibly handsome, talented, mesmerizing he is on stage & off stage to watch & listen to.   Sigh.


It's been a busy few weeks while I have been otherwise distracted, I feel cut off & floating all by myself iin the ocean yelling, "I'm here!!  Don't do cool things without me!!"  But alas no one sees my sad, pathetic, little row boat.  Sigh.  {{Is the guilt trip working yet?  Dang it!  You people are cold!}}

Well, I should be paying attention to my son & his testing...oops... so I will close with this promise.... LOTS of catch up posts for GFB are coming, look for them this weekend.  I probably won't catch all the way up but I will try to get through at least 3 weeks between Fri & Sat.  But this means my posts will be even shorter than the norm for me.  See ya later kids!

Saranghamnida,

Happy Birthday Taeyang!

 

We here at The Crazy Ahjummas want to take a moment to wish a very special guy a very happy birthday.

Born as Dong Young Bae

on May 18th, 1988

More commonly known as Taeyang, or even Sol, of Big Bang

Dancer

Singer

Model

Best friend and band mate of one of my personal favorite biases, G-Dragon ;)

Taeyang is known for many things.

Look at that smile!

One thing I've noticed is that he really doesn't like wearing a lot of clothes...  Well, uhm, can we blame him?  A lot of effort went in to creating that body, so I suppose it makes sense that he would want to show it off as much as possible, right?  Plus, with all that dancing he's always doing, I'm sure it's just more comfortable, don't you think?

Speaking of his dancing, that's actually the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Taeyang (well, after the whole being anti-shirt thing).  He's always moving and dancing around.  The boy cannot hold still.  The music is in him and it's gonna move him.  He's got the beat.  He was by far the most fun out of all 5 to watch at the Big Bang concert that we went to in LA.  He was running around on the floor in front of the VIP section for a large portion of the time.  And yes, he did this while shirtless.  He was so good though at engaging the crowd and entertaining everyone.  He was quite the showman and it was hard to keep your eyes off of him.  The amount of energy he has is astounding.  He's kind of quiet normally, you don't hear a lot out of him day to day, but put him on stage and watch out!  He will absolutely not disappoint, I guarantee!

So, to Taeyang, we wish you the very happiest of 24th birthdays!  Thank you for being so generous and giving to your fans around the world.  Thank you for your efforts and dedication to your work.  And just keep shining as the bright, warming sun that you are!

I'm going to include some of Taeyang's solo work to finish out our little tribute here.  Enjoy!



Love,

and

{Monday Morning(ish) Therapy with Dongsaeng} The Perfect Pilgrimage

Good morning/afternoon/evening all you wonderful addicKts you!  Boy oh boy, do I have a lot of ground to cover today.  I'll probably save some for Unnie to chat about on Wednesday, but then again, maybe not.  We'll just have to see where we go with this.

First of all, if you were following our sporadic postings on FB/Twitter, you could probably tell that we were having the time of our lives this weekend.  Seriously.  Wow.  We are talking full K-immersion.  Southern Californians?  They've got it going on when it comes to this stuff.  I texted The Husband while there and told him that I had found my personal Mecca.  Picture this - entire malls 100% Korean.  Stores, food court, clientele, everything Korean.  Holy freaking moly - it was so awesome!

Before I go any further, I realize that some of you may just want to hear about the actual concert and not just our travelogue, so for you, I will do you a favor and start with that before launching into the full tale of our travels and time together.  See, I'm still on the post-concert high and feeling very generous.  I love the whole world and everyone in it today.  I saw Big Bang.  Big Freaking Bang.  In person.  They were in the same arena as little ol' me.  TOP, Daesung, Taeyang, Seungri, and GDragon.  They sang and danced for me (and a few other thousand-some-odd people).  It was like the crowning point of my life.  It's right up there with wedding day and the birth of my children.  Can I be perfectly honest?  It may have even been better than those events.  Don't tell my family that though - it'll be our little secret.  ;)  The whole thing was just overwhelming and is kind of a blur.  Certain moments certainly stand out though, like GD's face while singing.  That image will never leave my memory.  It's there for all time.  And I can pull it out anytime I need a pick-me-up.  I adore that man.  He is...just...yeah.  Wow.  Naughty Dongsaeng approves.  The Husband should be grateful I came home instead of becoming a groupie and following Big Bang all over the world, that's all I'm saying.  ;)

So, I don't have like the set list or anything.  I can't tell you everything that they sang.  Like I said, it's all just one amazing haze of awesomeness.  I was thrilled that GD did a full version of Crayon.  And like Unnie said in her post, we got to sing happy birthday to TOP, who's birthday was, if you're going by the time in Seoul, that night.  I videoed it same as Unnie, but again, our seats were nosebleeders, so the quality isn't the best.  However, Seungri?  Yeah, he was in a perfect spot, right there on stage and so he videoed it for us.  Wasn't that nice of him?  He's pretty amazing, that Seungri.  If you haven't seen it yet, check out this video.  TOP is absolutely totally and completely adorable!!!


They did a phenomenal job.  The whole concert was just indescribable.  The encore was amazing.  They did another, uhm, like 4-5 songs maybe?  Don't know - the number was lost in that pesky memory haze which wasn't helped by all the crazy fangirl moments like Taeyang running around the crowd without his shirt on or TOP receiving a shirt/clothing item of some kind from a fan, wiping his face on it and then handing it back to the fan.  Or the water Daesung was flinging all over the VIP section.  It was a fanatic feeding frenzy of fantastic fangirl moments.

*Happy, contented sigh*

Okay.  That's what I'm going to say about the concert for now.  Time to log all that travel now.

Unnie flew into town on Thursday and spent the day with her sister.  Then that evening she came over to my house for a bestie slumber party.  We had a lot of visitors stop by to see the guest of honor - lots of old friends from when she lived here.  She is a very loved individual which probably surprises nobody.  She's just so lovable, isn't she?  Anyway, so we partied late into the night with our old friends (well, her old friends, my current friends since I still live here and all - potato, potato).  Then Friday morning after getting kids off to school and taking care of a few things, we hit the open road.  By 4-something Friday afternoon, we were all checked in to our hotel which was literally across the street from the Honda Center - the venue for the concert.  We could see it from our room - how awesome is that?

After getting all settled in it was time to head over to meet in person a group of ladies that we have, up until now, only known online.  We've mentioned here before a Facebook group that we are members of that consists of Kpop/Kdrama fans, and over the months have grown close to many of them.  Seems weird maybe, and it's kind of hard to explain, but there it is anyway.  It's actually possible to make real friends and connections over the internet.  Who knew?  So we went to one members' home that lives in the area to meet everyone and enjoy a lovely dinner together.  There were 6 of us total from all over the country (actually, one was Canadian too) gathered together for this concert.  Meeting them was incredibly cool.  It wasn't even weird or awkward even though technically we were strangers.  It was all smiles and big ol' hugs and girly squeals from the get go.  Our hostess for the evening's husband made us the most amazing Korean meal.  Seriously so good.  We hung out and laughed and played and had a blast.  Then we hit the town!  Our hostess took us to where we could find our first installment of Korean immersion.  Oh yeah - we hit the norebang baby!  We sang our little hearts out and shocked the employee when we told her we didn't want Michael Jackson or Justin Bieber - that we were there for BigBang and we wanted KPop and only KPop.  Her response?  "But you're so..."  Our collective response?  "White?  Yeah, we know".  "Old" would have worked too.  We were shocking them all left and right this weekend.  Our hostess' husband at dinner said, "I never thought I'd live to see the day when white people would like this [Korean/Asian] stuff" (he and his wife are Chinese - it would probably make more sense if you knew that I guess - he wasn't being offensive or anything - it was actually quite hilarious).  So we started calling ourselves the 8th wonder of the world.

Saturday was LA KTown day.  This was when we got to see the all Korean malls.  And we found the 'crack' store as we so lovingly call it.  It was a store filled with Kdrama and Kpop paraphernalia.  Pictures, postcards, pens, socks - you name it, they had it.  We were like kids in a candy store.  It was a feeding frenzy.  After shopping and sufficiently draining our bank accounts and/or doing our best to keep Visa alive and healthy, it was time for the food court.  This isn't your average American food court.  Oh no siree!  It was an all Korean food court.  With real Korean food.  And a whole lot of it.  The portion sizes are gigantic!  You get a lot for your money.  It was delicious.

Dolsot Bibimbap (rice and vegetable in hot stone bowl) with all the banchan (side dishes) - $10.  Not bad for all that food.  And this picture was taken as I was finishing all I could eat.  

So we spent all day shopping and absorbing all that KTown had to offer,

Unnie found her Hyun-y!

then it was back to Orange County to get ready for the concert!  And since I already told you all about that, I'll skip to the end.  We were on such a happy high after the concert.  We all hung out in the hotel room squeeing and reliving every moment and fangirling over our boys and how hawt they all were.  Then Unnie and I dropped the other 4 back off at Miss Hostess's house and went back and crashed for the night.

Sunday we all kind of did our separate thing since we were staying separately.  The 4 went out for brunch while Unnie and I hit Huntington Beach.  Unnie grew up in the area so of course we had to go back to her beach and see the ocean before heading home.  It was lovely just sitting there in the sand, soaking up the sun and enjoying the sound of the waves.

HellO ocean!

Then it was time for goodbyes.  We met up with our friends after they finished their lunch, said our farewells, took a ton of pictures, and then we hit the road once again, Unnie and I.  After a quick detour to see her old stomping grounds, we drove back to Arizona.

Looonnnggg, boring drive of vast nothingness. Thank goodness for all that KPop we had ready on hand to keep us sane (you know, relatively speaking lol).

Then this morning I took her to the airport and she flew home.  And now here I am, going through withdrawals.  It was such a spectacular adventure and a memory I will treasure for always.  I am grateful for friends, old and new and for the shared love of Big Bang that brought us all together.  :)

Unnie and Dongsaeng - together again <3

Sorry for the long travelogue all about us.  It was just such a cool experience that I wanted to share with you all.  I hope you don't mind.  We'll get back to business soon enough.  Maybe once Big Bang leaves our country.  Until then, I can't help but be distracted knowing that they're here on American soil.  Golly gosh gee willikers - I heart those boys!

Now, it is nearly 10pm my time.  Obviously the whole "Morning(ish)" title doesn't apply to this post.  My apologies.  I had to take Unnie to the airport in the morning and then go out to lunch with my poor, sweet, neglected husband.  After that the kids were home (early release day of course) and bogarting the computer for homework or some junk like that.  Sheesh.  Homework.  Psh!  Lame.  xD  I hope you all had a spectacular weekend as well.  And if any of you were at either concert, drop us a line and let us know what you thought.  We can collectively SQUEEE together as we remember the good times.  Until next time, may your week be filled with wonderful dramas!

Thanks for stopping by!

<3



P.S.  And if you live in America - be sure to get out and vote tomorrow!
{Public Service Announcement paid for by The Crazy Ahjummas who approve this message}

Happy Birthday Taeyang of Big Bang

Having just discovered that TODAY is Taeyang's Birthday... The Crazy Ahjummas interrupt your regularly schedule Dramatic Friday Reviews to include a Birthday Shout Out to our FAVORITE Mohawk-ed, hard bodied singer of Big Bang!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAEYANG!!!!

We send you many happy wishes for your day & hope you are surrounded by your family & friends & that they are celebrating this wonderful day that you arrived.  

All Our Love,

Unnie & Dongsaeng

aka The Crazy Ahjummas

And now a pictorial of our handsome, sweet, talented Taeyang...

P.S.  Unnie really enjoyed looking for pictures of this incredibly good looking guy.  And won't even complain that it was difficult to find pictures of him w/ a shirt on. ^.^