As I mentioned in my Super Junior blog, Teppy is a k-pop fanatic. Earlier this year, she had me help her pen a letter to the directors of Summerfest in Milwaukee to see if they would consider bringing a k-pop group to Summerfest. She chickened out, though, and never sent the letter. Funny enough, Crayon Pop was the opening gig for Lady Gaga this year at Summerfest, so some other crazy ass k-pop fan must have sent a letter. See Teppy? You snooze, you loose! Someone else gets to take the credit:( Pooh. That could have been your legacy....40 year old Germantown Ajumma brings k-pop to Milwaukee!! What a headline!
Because Teppy loves k-pop so much, she does in fact know everything about the groups and their management agencies. At Christmas, she showed me the Christmas card for SM. It was cute....but I could have taken a better picture. I'm just sayin. So, getting over to Gangnam was a TOP PRIORITY for her. The day we decided to go, it was a little bit hot out, but since the wind was blowing, it was tolerable. She had her Samsung Galaxy Note all GPS'd up so we had no problems finding our places. We started off by visiting the OLD SM Entertainment building. We knew it was the old building when we got there because we could see the faint remnants of some k-pop stars under the whitewash they had applied to the outside of the building. We spoke with an older workman ahjussi who confirmed it too. After walking past and taking no photos, we continued around the block and backtracked a bit to get to the NEW SM Entertainment building. Teppy had mentioned the possibility of fan girls being outside the building. Damn, she had done her research because sure enough, we saw the fan girls before we saw the building. They were lingering outside the doors of the building. Across the street from SM Entertainment was a park. There were a bunch of ahjummas using the free exercise equipment in the park. As an ahjumma myself, I could totally see myself using that stuff! That was some nice ass exercise equipment, and I would say the stuff was way better than a $60 monthly membership to Lifetime Fitness would get you minus the yoga and zumba classes! It also provided the ahjummas with an undercover spot to stalk k-pop stars! The younger girls were all sitting outside the building. The ahjummas kept an eye from across the street. It worked for them.
The closer we got to the building, the more uncomfortable I became. I finally said to Teppy, "Uh, Teppy, I am embarrassed to go over there. I don't want to be part of that fan girl posse". She must have agreed, since she followed me to the ahjumma exercise park. We paused for a moment to gather our thoughts. Finally, I suggested she go stand over by the sign in front of the building so I could at least take her picture. We had come all that way and to NOT have a picture would be something she would regret later. She WOULD NOT GO!!! I couldn't believe it. To come so far and then falter! After a bit of insisting and nagging, she finally agreed. SEE PHOTO ABOVE! I was so happy for her!
After leaving SM, we turned the corner and went up the street. There was JYP and CUBE!! Right there across from each other. There was also a corner Dunkin Donuts store in front of JYP and the fan girls were hanging out all over the inside and outside of that place like hungry roaches. It was kind of annoying, because I was really craving a donut and didn't want to go in and associate myself with them. Teppy thankfully decided to just snap photos of the outside of the buildings. After snapping our photos, we headed to a Tom N Toms coffee shop right across the street from CUBE where I had THE MOST AMAZING PINA COLADA SMOOTHIE EVER! Teppy ordered a pretzel which she later told me didn't appeal to her. Bummer.
Despite my initial ambivalence about the trip to stalk k-pop management buildings, it turned out to be a great adventure! Teppy accomplished her goal and was able to knock off another item on her Seoul bucket list. I got to drink an amazing smoothie. We both got to hang out in Gangnam and see tons of girls wearing surgical masks fresh out of plastic surgery. This was also the day we went to the Super Junior mom coffee bar.
We really liked Gangnam....it was well lit, the buildings were tall and new, the streets were wide, and the stores were ritzy. We just don't think Gangnam liked us. Our k-pop management stalker trip was our 2nd trip there. The time before, we were on the hunt for Mango 6 from Gentleman's Dignity and never found it. We tried to find it on this trip too, but were again unsuccessful. We probably put more miles on our Merrell's and Keen's in Gangnam than any other part of Seoul. Between the Apgujeong and Apgujeong Rodeo subway stations, there is a lot to see. They don't make travel in that part of Gangnam easy, so once you are there, it requires a bit of walking. In addition, the freaking Galleria wasn't lit up the day of our k-pop stalking trip, so I took that as another sign that Gangnam was giving me the bird. Maybe it was because I wouldn't go set up the tripod for a selfie with Teppy in front of the k-pop buildings. In response to Psy's song about Gangnam, I would say that Gangnam Style is dead and that it is all hype. While I saw ritzy buildings, stores, plastic surgery centers, and Bentley dealers, it wasn't anything special. It reminded me of any old street in America in a busy city.