KCON LA Day 2

I slept in a little and laughed at the ridiculous convention queue below my hotel window (I heard it was so poorly organized this morning that many people missed the Artist Stages that they were planning to see because it took too long to get inside - yikes!)

I returned to Fika Fika to try the cute mochi pancakes kitty paws. Then I hopped on the Metro to visit The Broad Museum. This was a great experience! I don’t spend much time viewing post 1900 art, so I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy it, but the collection was very interesting. Here’s some of my favorite pieces.

When I reserved my free ticket I opted for the Infinity Room add-on. I thought it was one of those rooms designed for instagram photos. Those aren’t really my thing, but why not? I decided to wait in the 20 minute line that I thought was pacing out people so it’s not too crowded. To my surprise when I got to the front they ushered me into a closet-sized space all alone and shut the door behind me. I was startled to find myself alone with the “infinity” as the lights dimmed in and out to a sparse musical accompaniment. I hurriedly grabbed my phone to try to capture some semblance of the experience. It really was quite moving.

I took the metro a bit further down the line to Little Tokyo. As before with Ben, the shopping district was packed. I ducked into a bakery with no line and snagged a curry bun and Diet Coke for lunch. I did some window shopping, but a lot of the merchandise here is cheap Chinese knock-offs instead of licensed IP or true Japanese imports. I browsed the card shops and found a few Pokemon cards for the boys back at home. I looked all over for a Barley tea. It’s so hard to find Barley tea in Japanese shops in the US, but they were everywhere in Japan. I finally found one in a Korean cafe!

I took the train back to the mall area for a little more shopping at Uniqlo and Kinokuniya, but didn’t see anything exciting. I grabbed some take-out for dinner and headed back to my hotel for some R&R.

Second concert! The line-up wasn’t as dear to me, so I got nosebleed seats on the side. Even with the crappy seats, the performances were great. I was most excited for the headliners Zerobaseone and they had a really fun set.

Illit are a very popular girl group from Belift/Hybe. They had some monster hits this year and were one of the most anticipated girl groups at KCON.

P1Harmony are a boy group I saw in Denver at my first K-pop concert. They’ve gotten really popular since then and had a huge crowd presence.

Zerobaseone are a boy group from a TV contest. The original group contract ended this year and five of the 9 original members renewed - lucky me they were all my favorites from the group! They did some new songs, some old songs, some solos, and a cover of SexyBack that made the crowd go wild. Link to summary.

They sang Doctor Doctor!! Yes!!! I played this song nonstop when it came out and I was afraid it was gone forever with the new group contract. Whenever I page a provider at work it runs through my head: “Doctor, doctor, hey, where you at? Left a message, yeah, call me back.”