Cheer Up

ZB1 Concert

After attending Riize’s fan-con the week prior, I was able to see the group ZB1 at the first stop of their first world tour. As I did for Riize, I also purchased the membership for this group in order to get pre-sale ticketing access but was ultimately unsuccessful. Thus, I checked the ticketing site daily to see if anyone refunded their tickets. Through this method, I was able to get tickets for two out of three dates of their Seoul concerts. 

Since ZB1 is a temporary group, I justified going for two days as I probably won’t be able to see them again in the future. I’m really glad that I got to see them and enjoyed their concert.

Yon-Ko

The Yon-Ko Games is an annual event where Yonsei and Korea University (KU) reaffirm their strong friendship and compete in a series of sports events. The games have a long history, in which the students of these two top universities have maintained the rivalry until today. Aside from the actual sports competitions, there are a variety of other events surrounding the Yon-Ko Games to increase school spirit. 

The first Yon-Ko event that I went to was Yon-Ko Joint Cheering. This is something that I’ve dreamed of attending for years and I still can’t believe that I got to experience this. The cheers are incomparable to anything that I’ve experienced before. The cheer squad dances and guides the audience to upbeat songs that promote school spirit or taunt the opposing school. This was a joint event with Korea University, meaning that half of the audience was KU students but was held at the Yonsei Amphitheater. As this was my first time going to a cheering event, I did not know the words or choreography of the majority of the songs but it was still an extremely fun experience. It was also pouring on this day but I’d say that it was absolutely worth standing in the rain for 3 hours. 

Next was the Yon-Ko Eve Festival. This was a new event for Yon-Ko and consisted of performances from four popular Korean artists. I was able to get a ticket through the Yonsei Mentors Club as they were able to obtain a certain amount of seats for exchange students. While this concert was free for regular Yonsei students who had paid their student council fee, I had to pay 10,000 won as I’m an exchange student. The seats were also randomly assigned to us but nobody was sitting in their assigned seats. Even if I didn’t really know the discographies of the performers it was pretty fun.

As for the actual sports games, I attended the baseball and soccer games, which were the two that didn’t require you to have a ticket. Something that I found interesting was that instead of just sitting and watching the game like I have at sports events in Hawaii and Japan, everyone is standing and cheering the whole time. At the baseball game, the stage for the cheering squad was right in front of my section. Due to this, I might’ve spent more time watching the cheer team than the actual baseball game. Yonsei did not score and lost the baseball game but won at soccer, making cheering at the soccer game extra fun. 

After the Yon-Ko Games, there was an after party which was a collaboration with the Yonsei Mentors Club and Korea University LECA. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a ticket for this event as ticketing was during the ZB1 concert but I heard it was extremely fun. Yonsei and KU students were cheering in the streets all over Seoul that night. 

Yon-Ko Joint Cheering

Yon-Ko Eve Festival

Yon-Ko Soccer

Museum Hopping

There are a bunch of museums in Seoul that have free admission and are within walking distance from each other. With a friend, I spent a day exploring the Seoul History Museum, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), and the National Folk Museum of Korea. My favorite out of the three was the National Folk Museum as it was a good mixture of artifacts from throughout Korean history and shared different aspects of Korean culture such as food, clothing, and art. 

Seoul History Museum

MMCA (Seoul)

National Folk Museum

Thoughts

Everything that I’ve experienced in the past few weeks truly does not feel real and I can’t believe I won’t be able to do these things again. I’m trying to find the balance between wanting to capture everything and living in the moment. These are memories that I’ll genuinely think about for the rest of my life. Thanks for reading <3