I'm Back!

Guess who's back? Yes, after almost two and a half months I am making a comeback on this blog, as I've now returned from Korea and settled back here in Sweden. There are many things that can be said about my eight week trip to Korea, way too many to summarize here, but it has been two of the best months of my life and it is a memory I will never forget. I got a chance to learn the language (and my skills have improved a lot although I'm still very much a beginner), meet new friends and experience a completely new culture. I had a blast in Seoul and can't wait to come back. Of course going to South Korea I had some expectations of becoming closer to the K-pop-sphere, and although it wasn't a huge part of my daily life there were some instances.

Hearing K-pop songs in cafés, malls and shops for example was very interesting, as I got to know which songs were the most popular in Korea (as it's not always the same ones that are popular internationally). I heard a lot of GFriend, Twice, Mamamoo, iKon, AOA and Big Bang which isn't surprising since those groups have done great on the charts, but overall I heard a lot more girl groups than boy groups. Additionally I have to confess that unlike my initial plans I have become a big fan of Produce 101 and I.O.I, simply because they are so huge in Korea. I couldn't go anywhere without hearing "Pick Me", "At The Same Place" or "24 Hours" and thus I became a fan unknowingly. I realized that I actually hadn't written anything about Produce 101 on this blog at all, and that's because I was firmly against the idea and the entire concept (and I hate these kind of reality shows because I always get too emotionally involved), so I was stubbornly going to boycott it. However these days I'm a big fan and "At The Same Place" is without hesitation one of my favorite songs so far this year.

Apart from hearing songs I never actually got to see any idols up close except for one time. Near where my school was located I heard that Twice was going to have an event at a Dunkin' Donuts, so I went to have a look and I did actually see the girls in person. Well, it was from a distance and through a window but nonetheless I SAW THEM. They were all much shorter than I expected but of course super pretty, almost to the point of not seeming like real people but rather like dolls. Anyhow I thought that was pretty cool, but generally the closest I got to seeing idols was watching dance groups perform covers of K-pop songs in Hongdae.

Moving on; Since I have been inactive on this blog for such a long amount of time I thought I would try to do a recap of what I've been missing which is a lot. This means that there's not going to be any long reviews but more so just some quick thoughts about the different releases. Upon writing this I realized that there were some reviews I didn't get the chance to finish back in February so I'm also going to lightly touch on those as well. I can't promise that I'm going to be extremely active here but I'm going to do my best to try and get back into the flow and write here and there, so keep an eye open for some new posts! :)