It's been two years since I visited and
posted something on this blog, so I think I'll start with an amazing experience I had this year.
Ok, so how do I even start writing about that epic night of April 12, 2015? Well, bragging aside, I had the rarest chance of meeting and watching some of today's hottest k-idols in one major concert! I, along with some of my closest kpoppers went to Best of Best in the Philippines Concert held at the Philippine Arena in Ciudad de Victoria, Bulacan. The concert featured acts such as Super Junior, Girls' Generation, BTOB, and Red Velvet.
THE STRUGGLE
At first I was hesitant if I should push this dream through. I could not have imagined myself attending such big concert especially that Bulacan is miles away from where I am, which is Davao, and still considering that it is outside Manila which is also risky. Aside from that, I was still hoping for a Super Show 6 to happen, and with limited time and money I had to seal a difficult decision, whether it's a yes or a no.
Several days, I prayed for God to give me the slightest hint of a go. And with all that's said, I confidently gambled my chance. I weigh in everything, looked into possibilities and what-ifs: what if this might be SJs last Philippine tour this year? What if there will be no SS6 Manila? And so armed with guts, aided by strong gut-feelingss, we booked our flight and bought VIP tix!
We were lucky the organizers changed the seat plan and added a runway in the middle. Yey! Still, we had the hardest time picking the right seat. We wanted to see to it our Php10k worth tix will do us justice. And so after a nerve-wracking decision, we finally opted to sit on the first rows infront of the runway, thus SM tickets gave us VIP section D, rows T1-T3. (Yess, just a meter away from the ramp.)
D-DAY!!!
As part of concert perks, we also bought ourselves shuttle bus tix worth Php50, that is from Mnl to Bulacan and vice versa. We chose Trinoma as our pick-point. Exactly 12pm we hurled ourselves down to the mall to catch-up with the trip by 3pm.
But it was actually not exactly 3pm when the busses started picking-up passengers, and went to the venue, aside from which there was a little confusion among riders since it was not orderly. We even rode a diff bus because we had the hardest time locating the orig bus assigned to us.
From Manila, we reached Bulacan in less than 40 min via NLEX. Upon reaching Bulacan, still on expressway way you can already see the amazing view of the arena from a site afar. But then we had to drove around the City Proper in order to get to the Phil Arena site which is Ciudad de Victoria. I thought we were almost there but then the driver, though veteran, lost track and could not locate the exact crossing to the arena. We had a roundabout in the city for almost 10min. Lucky enough some local enlightened the driver and we speed-up towards the venue. Whew!
It was roughly our first time stepping on Ciudad de Victoria, and be amazed by the enormous size of the arena, its view and other collosal structure alongside. So we had to take pictures, yay!
We had to walk few meters to reach the actual arena. When we got there, almost a thousand concertgoers were already present. A program has been going on with a lot of cosplayers performing already. The 'choki choki' flashmob of some ELFs was also done. Sigh. We weren't got the chance to participate on it. There were stalls swarmed by kpoppers thirsty of posters, headbands, lightstick and other stuff. There were also food kiosks with long queue of hungry fangs. At almost 5pm, the gates started to open, tickets were validated and we had to queue for the longest timeeee before we finally entered the arena.
Again we were lucky, VIP queues are not that much crowded, so we went inside with no fuss. Inside, we were amazed with the set-up and stage decor, except that our seats were soo close to the ramp that the railings were high enough for us to get a better view of the main stage. I was worried I could not watch them properly since it was a reserved seating concert.
Few minutes passed, and the lights dimmed. Sam Oh, the emcee for that night, greeted with a resounding voice. Even before the start, shrieks and excitement already filled the arena. Fanchants were everywhere!
And the music started which created much more louder shrieks and chants, then revealed are the lovely ginger Red Velvet baes: Seulgi, Wendy, Irene, Joy and Hyeri singing their latest track 'Ice Cream Cake'. They were cute and energetic as usuall. I thought they were skinny af but I was completely wrong. I actually love their body frames (esp that of Joy), tall with more meat. They have milky white complexion, like a perfect skin to-die-for. Ofc they have cute, smaller faces.
They perfomed some latest tracks off their album like 'Candy' and 'Somethin kinda crazy'. They finished their set with debut single 'Happiness'.
Came next was the boys of BTOB aka Born To Beat. To be honest, I knew no one out of them. I have not listened to their music even watched their videos before. So to meet these boys and watch them perform was more intriguing. They kicked-off their set with a powerful track, just dunno the title. The boys seemed funk-up, hyped and quirky. Little did we know, we started to dance, mimic their gestures and wave our light stick as they perform. They finished their set with a whooping 7 tracks.
Crowd went wild as the next act plugged on vcr was no less than Girls' Generation. Oppars, fanboys and die-hard Sones cheered the loudest as the girls appeared wearing a cute pink ensemble dancing to 'Mr. Taxi'.
Seeing them as ot8 was quite sad since I was a Jessica biased from the very beginning, but then again the girls gladly performed and expressed their excitement of being able to comeback again to Ph. Tiffany even asked the crowd if we missed them, expressed quite sadness qouting it has been a rough year for sones but nonetheless she promised to give a better and much stronger GG for everyone.
To be honest, I was really awestruck seeing Sooyoung and Yuri upclose. They were the true goddesses for me. Although the rest were all pretty and cute esp Yoona and Sunny but I think the simplicity of beauty Yul and Sooyoung have cuts them above the rest. Taeny couple really has pale complexion. And Taeyeon is really skinny.
They ended their set with a slick performance of their hit 'Mr. Mr.'.
Finally after snsd, came my much awaited act. The chance of seeing them again the second time around seemed like the same as seeing them for the first time. Last time we saw Super Junior minus leadernim was 2013 during their Super Show 5 Manila leg. We were definitely most excited about seeing leader Leeteuk, swoon over his good looks and marvel his perfect jawline.
And we were not disappointed. Super Junior had the grandest entrance complete with perfect light effects and Superman tune.
The boys were still the same, quirky, energetic, fun on stage. They made the concert their very own super show. Even other fandoms loved their presence and participated during fanchants.
I had the most memorable close encounter with Lee Donghae, when he kneeled down and stared infront of me shooting my camera towards him. I've got a video to prove, lol. It was roughly a sec eye-to-eye contact with fishy! How am I even still alive at this point? asdfghjkl
They ended their set with their latest track Mamacita. After the song ended the crowd cheered SS6. I hope they noticed the clamor for a comeback. Right now I am still hoping for SS6 Manila.
To say the concert was so-so will be exaggerating. Although it was one hell of a night for kpop fans, I myself was not fully satisfied given it was barely just 3 hours of togetherness with the idols. I wanted more. I wanted a solo con for SJ!
Surely the experience we had will create marks in our hearts forever. We got to spend bucks but we clearly spent it the right way we knew. Up to this time, when we talk about our encounters during #bestofbestph2015, we couldn't help but smile and bring back feel-good memories which made our fangirl hearts beat.
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