Ladies & Gentlemen, Ballerina's & B-Boys

I like to present to you my Top 5 K-Pop dances that I can actually do without feeling the need to imidiatelly change my name, address, appearance right after I'm done.

So, here we go:

(I put he titles are hyperlink to the videos on youtube in case you want to see the videos in high quality.)

5. Jiggy - F.CUZ

Get, get, getting jiggy! Getting jiggy!

My very first K-pop dance. I learned it more than a year ago, but doing this dance still makes me feel as happy as I was when I got it right for the first time.

Aaahh... I remember it well. 

4. Hoot - Girls' Generation

Nan shoot, shoot, shoot! Na ne hoot, hoot hoot!

Every K-Pop fan had at least attempt to master this dance.

You know it's true! Admit it!

3. Visual Dreams - Girls' Generation

Move to the beating of my heart~

I absolutely adore this dance!

Ok, time for a little bit of information you never wanted to know about me. I actually do it all the time in front of the microwave, while I'm waiting for my food to warm up. I have no idea why... Strange, right?

Anyway, moving on to Number 2.

2. In the Night Sky - Afterschool Red

I don't wanna love you again </3

I must confess that I have the biggest obsession known to man with Nana. She is so stunning! Especially during the 'In the Night Sky' promotion. That basically explains this decision. I'm totally biased.

And now..

The moment of truth...

My absolute number one..

K-pop dance...

Is...

*Drum Rolll*

1. Run Devil Run - Girls' Generation

You better run, run, run, run, run!

An absolute classic! And actually the first song of Girls' Generation I encountered. I immediately respected these girls, and that was before I even knew what they were singing. Not to mention Jessica's awesome hairstyle.

So, now you know my top 5 k-pop dances it's time for my favourite part: the creative content.

Creative content

I have been really looking forward to this week. Even before we knew when we were doing K-Pop dancing I was already planning my homework assignment.

I really wanted to make one of those dance tutorial I usually watch on Youtube. Not that I'm an amazing dancer or anything, but let's just say I like to give new things a chance. "Live and learn" is my motto (but only when it benefits me). But to make this dance tutorial special (and more K-Pop) I wanted to do it dressed up as one of the group members.

So, I had my idea all packed up and ready to go, but there was a tough decision to make before I could get to work. Which of my top 5 dances should I pick? A normal person would make the obvious decision and pick their number one dance, but I like Nana so much that I take any opportunity to dress up as her with both hands.

Long story short, I couldn't chose between the two so I decided I would do both (I suffer from 'only child' syndrome). I was going to do 'In the Night Sky' with my friends, and do 'Run devil Run' on my own as an extra.

Somehow I managed to talk my friends into doing this with me even before we got the homework assignment sheet, and so I started to assemble my outfit together. I looked at live performances for both groups and bought clothes that looked remotely similar to that.

I really like this performance, but what's with the added sounds?

The 'Run Devil Run' (make that Jessica) look:

- Black shirt

- Black legging

- Black shoes

- 6 Black hair extensions

In the video I'm also wearing a belt. This is not worn by Girls' Generation in the live performance, but in my case absolutely necessary. If I hadn't worn it my legging would definitely have gone 'bye bye' mid-dance. That could have been embarrassing.

I must have seen this like a million times and I'm still not sick of it. =)

The 'In the Night Sky' (make that Nana) look

- (A white T-shirt I cut into a) tassled tanktop

- Yellow (short! o.O) shorts

- 11 Pink hair extentions (I needed a lot of them because my hair really thin) <3

- Brown, flat ankle boots

- Denim jacket/blouse (I looked for a tassled leather jacket, but I couldn't find one. Luckily Kahi wears a similar kind of jacket/blouse in this live performance, so I think it still works)

You must be curious for my dance tutorial, so I won't milk this any longer.

Here they are!

(Or even better, click in the title of the videos and check them out in a better quality on Youtube. Because the quality of my videos on Blogger make me want to cry myself to sleep at night.)

In the Night Sky

Run Devil Run

If you still haven't had enough of seeing me spazzing around the dance floor, check out Alice her page. I'm in her T-ara's 'Bo Peep' and Sistar's 'So Cool' tutorial as a student/background dancer.

Here is a link:

http://diaryofakpopstudent.blogspot.co.uk/

Hope you enjoyed this weeks' show,

and hopefully we will see you again at the next one. ^^

But in the mean time,

Keeeeeeeeeep Dancing~

Dear fellow k-pop lovers,

Last Saturday we watched the movie '71: into the fire' in our K-Pop Academy class. Such a sad movie! But it's also really good. If you haven't seen it yet, seriously, go watch it!

Assignment

This week I picked the option C of the assignment sheet: write a letter to a k-pop star that is currently doing military service. We were given some options of who to write to, and I choose to write to Bi Rain, because I really admire him for his work ethics (and I also because I know that he speaks English, which comes in handy since my Korean is still very, very poor).

Research

My knowledge of the Korean military service (and the Korean war) is no where near enough to be able to understand what it’s like to be in Bi Rain's shoes. This worried me, because it makes it really hard to come up with something to write, let alone make it look sincere and heartfelt.

To overcome this problem I asked one of my Korean friends, who had already done military service, what he would have wanted me to write to him had I known him at that time.

My friend told me that would have wanted me to thank him for protecting Korea and call him ‘oppa’ a lot. He also told me that soldiers don’t have a lot of time to read their mail, so photos are a good alternative. And that, if I could, I should include drawings, because he liked receiving those from friends when he was in the army.

Creative content

Instead of just writing Rain a letter, I wanted to do a little bit more to show how much his fans miss him, support him, and appreciate his hard work. So I asked my friend if there were any products or items he would have wanted me to send to him, to which he answered that I could have send him warm clothing for the winter.

I thought ways to make the assignment more fun and cheerful for a while and I came up with the following idea: I was going to make Rain a care package containing a hat, a scarf, gloves, shortbread (just because it’s typically British), and what I would like to call a encouragement album.

The encouragement album basically consists of photos of me and fellow students of my university holding up cardboard signs with the contents of my letter on it (Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’- style and it has also been done in the film Love Actually, except I’m taking pictures instead of making a video).

Love Actually - Cardboard scene

Music Video 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' by Bob Dylan

These pictures I would put into a photo album, on every the page on the right (like a flip book).  On every page on the left I would put a small drawing of an animal, an post-it with a Korean word written on it, and/or an encouragement quote (from Rain himself and other famous people) to hopefully cheer him up.

On the final page I put the hand-written letter itself. It says the same thing as what's on the cardboard signs (except that it mentions the shortbread), but I still wanted Rain to have a written version.

My theory behind this is that he is an celebrity and therefore probably gets a lot of packages and presents. I wouldn't be surprised that he gets so many that he can't keep them all, and has to throw most of it out after looking at it. But a written letter doesn't take up that much space, so I thought I should give him a one just in case he would like to keep some of my work without it taking up loads of space.

Here is the result:

Encouragement Album

K-Pop Academy student: Suzanne Broodbakker

Dear Rain Oppa,

I don't know if you are aware of how popular you are in the UK.

You have a lot of fans here!

See?

I would like to thank you on their behalf for protecting South Korea.

Thank you so much, oppa!

We all have friends, families and/or idols living in South Korea and

it is good to know that you are trying your hardest to keep them safe.

I hope you are doing well, oppa.

And I hope you still have fun even though you are working really hard.

That's why I prepared something for you:

a hat, gloves, and a scarf to keep you warm when it is cold outside.

 I hope it will make your time in the military a little bit easier,

or at least shows our appreciation of your good work.

Please stay strong and healthy, oppa!

Hwaiting!

Love, Suzanne

Care package

- A hat

- A scarf

- Gloves

- Shortbread

- Encouragement Album

I hope you enjoyed it!

Sincerely yours,

Suzanne

Ps. I want to give a special thanks to the people at my university who helped me out with this project. Thank you guys so much!  =)

Hello K-poppers,


I have been thinking, eating, breathing, dreaming, living Korean food all week, because that is what the third week the K-pop Academy has been about.

For this weeks homework I picked assignment c: pretend like you are preparing a meal for your favourite k-pop star and make a menu.

There are quite a few K-pop stars, but there are only two I really really like: SHINee's Taemin and BIGBANG's G-Dragon. Asking me to chose between them is like torture to me. I can't make that decision to safe my life. So I thought about it rationally for a while and figured that, if I really was to cook for one of them, I would prefer it to be G-Dragon, simply because I would feel a little awkward being in a date-like situation with someone as young as Taemin (though I do really like him a lot).


Research

So making a meal for G-Dragon it is. But what kind of food does he like? To find out I simply typed into Google search "G-Dragon favourite food" and I noticed there were three dishes that were mentioned quite frequently: ochazuke, pho, beef and fried rice.

Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, usually served with beef or chicken. The soup includes noodles made from rice and is often served with Asian basil, mint leaves, lime, and bean sprouts.

Ochazuke is a simple Japanese dish made by pouring green tea, dashi, or hot water over cooked rice, usually with savoury toppings.

The assignment didn't specifically say that the dishes had to be Korean, but since I'm making it as a part of the K-pop academy program of the Korean Culture Center, making sure that the dish is Korean is the bare minimum I could do. Luckily for me I found a recipe of a Korean version for Ochuzuke. Nice!

I did some more research about various Korean dishes I remembered from when I was in Korea and came up with the following menu:

Starters

Ochazuke (GD fav.)

Gimbap

Rolled Omelet

Main Course

Kimchi Fried Rice (GD fav.)

Bulgogi (GD fav.)

Omerice (GD fav.)

Desserts

Chocolate Green Tea Cupcake

Pot Bing Soo

Iced Green Tea Latte

I also did some research about what kind of drinks G-Dragon likes and found out the answer is 'Casablanca' beer and the Korean soft drink 'Sunny10'.

Casablanca beer

Sunny10

Apparently G-Dragon really likes this stuff as he posted about it on his me2day.

But also Soju should be on the list since it's typically Korean.

Let's get Cooking!

Now I menu had an idea of what the menu should be like I was eager to try it. I wanted to see if I could actually pull it of. For those who don't know me, normally I can't cook to safe my life, and therefore I usually try to spend the least amount of time in the kitchen as humanly possible, so this was totally out of my comfort zone. Still I went to the local toko in Almere, the Netherlands (I spend last weekend at my hometown ^^), bought all the ingredients and spend more than 5 hours in the kitchen. It was a new world for me, but a surprisingly fun and tasty one!


The results
(I put links to the recipes I used underneath the pictures for those who want to have a go themselves.)

Starters

Ochazuke: http://www.koreaforniancooking.com/2011/07/secret-recipe-club-ochazuke-with.html

Gimbap: recipe from Mrs. Kie Jo

Gimbap Sauce: recipe from Mrs. Kie Jo

Rolled Egg: http://koreanfood.about.com/od/sidedishesbanchan/ss/GaeranMariStep_7.htm

Main Courses

Bulgogi: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beef-bulgogi/

Egg Fried Rice: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/10/kimchi-fried-rice-recipe.html

Omerice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTf5EgVY5uU


Desserts

Chocolate Green Tea Cupcake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqNVgg9RNNs

Pot Bing Soo: http://michunya.blogspot.com/

Iced Green Tea Latte (with Pepero sticks): http://www.food.com/recipe/matcha-green-tea-smoothie-or-iced-latte-133955

The Assignment

I wanted to create a menu that not just contained the food G-Dragon likes, but also reflects him a little bit (or at least how I see him).

G-Dragon is a very stylish guy and his look is always quite bold and colourful. I did some research about restaurant menu templates and found one which I think would fit his style quite well.

It's a Japanese sushi menu with a dark background, which helps the images to stand out. I think it looks rather stylish.

I tried to base my menu onto this menu and add something I will also associate G-Dragon with: one of my favourite songs, 'Butterfly' and especially my favourite line "It's all about you, my butterfly".


Here it is:

I hope you guys like it! ^^