So for those of you not in the know, we all decided to do a really crazy thing - spend over $500 to fly out to Atlanta and watch a FinKL concert. I've only been listening to kpop for a couple of weeks or months now, but Ireally like FinKL so I figured it would be a good idea to catch them in theUS, because we might not get another opportunity for a while. After harassing Kirk, Mikey, Wayne, Hank, and John Joh into buying plane/concert tix, we find out they're playing in LA. Weak man. To add insult to injury, I find that canceling the plane tix is practically impossible Travelocity requires a $75 "reissue" fee for each ticket...AND all four passengers would have to go on another trip together (I fronted the money for Kirk, Mikey, and Wayne since I seem to be the only guy with a savings and not living month to month) because the money is only good for these 4 passengers. PHUCK THAT. Now here comes the real kicker - we find out later that Jin and Juhyun are not coming to Atlanta. WTF. I mean...how can you cut a four person band in half? That's like...not the band anymore - esp b/c juhyun’s the only one who can sing. And hello...Jin not going.?!?! My dreams are crushed - she's the cutest one on the group. =( Sux to be me. But those were just rumors posted on web boards and I foolishly kept the faint hope that they were not true. Anyway the fateful day arrives and we're stuck in a weird situation. Mikey's unable to go because of some...ah...issues. So Kirk gets this other dude to come along (Bronx from http://hyolee.cjb.net), but we're foiled at the gate by some overly anal Flip. Too bad I can't speak Tagalog. I coulda cussed his ass out and threatened his ghetto ass family back in the islands with some Colayco style wrath. Uh yeah. So we get on the plane, still upbeat but down to 5 diehard fans making the long, crosscountry pilgrimage to see the objects of our affection. Our quintet arrived at the airport, only to find that our resident genius Wayne had no idea where our hotel is or how to get there or even how to contact them. I got really pissed off...normally I’m a very tolerant person, but abject stupidity is something I do not stand for. How in FREAKIN hell does someone make hotel reservations (involving credit cards and money) without knowing who or where the $ is going? "Uh hello, this is soso. I don't know who the fuck you are but here's my $. Please ass rape me of a few hundred bucks. Thanks man." Eventually after a long distance and overly lengthy phone conversation with Brandon, Wayne was able to track down the proper information, and we were off on our way. That brings us to the subject of Atlanta roads. I'm not a real expert on Atlanta. I've only been there once before - for E3 in '98. And at that time I relied on public transit and my Chevrolegs. But now that we had a rental car, it didn't take long for the realization to set in that the highway system here is really, really fucked up. There's a single highway that encircles the greater Atlanta area. And like a sick twisted spiderweb, dozens of other, smaller highways and roadways radiate outward from the heart of the city. Some overlap with others, and all the exits are numbered in that annoying east coast fashion. By the time I finally figured out a rudimentary understanding of the local geography, we stumbled across more bad news - the hotel we had reservations at was miles from the city where FinKL was going to perform. The radio station guy that Kirk talked to clearly fucked us over, by saying falsely that it was “3 blocks from the concert venue.” My ass. Arriving at the Comfort inn, we had serious doubts that a band as popular as FinKL would stay at such an establishment If it was "three blocks" from the venue that would be one thing. But this place was miles away and not up to the quality standards of a band as popular as FinKL. For us 5 buffoons it was fine. But for the goddesses of our minds, it was certainly beneath them. With nothing better to do, we scoped the local terrain. There were a surprising amount of Asian businesses in the area, as hicktownish as it was. Who would think that a place called Doraville would be home to so many Asian restaurants, shops, boutiques, and even a Ranch 99? With nothing open at such an early hour, we just drove up and down the busy street near the freeway and settled on breakfast at a nearby Mickey Ds. The sausage biscuits/mcmuffins were the beginning of a grease filled weekend. We were exhausted after consuming the garbage, so we lapsed into a restful slumber before the concert. The late afternoon rolled around so we all got cleaned up and piled into the car, excited that we were just minutes away from the thrill of seeing at least part of FinKL live and up close. Arriving at the Gwinnet Civic and Cultural Center, we were surprised to see an Asian community so vibrant and decently sized! The sight of so many fixed up Hondas and Acuras was a nice respite from the whitewashed territory (Georgia) that terrified us so much. We filed into the auditorium, picking seats relatively close to the stage while "surveying the scene" for cuties. There were some decent looking girls around but most looked to be around the 14-18 year old range. The pedophile alarms rang in my head, tinging my hopeful eyes and imagination with the stain of guilt. There was something not quite right about the setting though. The atmosphere had all the makings of an amateur garage band show instead of a proper, professional sound stage for the likes of stars like FinKL. No stadium style seating - just rows upon rows of folding type chairs facing a simple stage. One row of overhead lights attempted to illuminate the stage, while sound checks confirmed the poor quality of the sound equipment and the shoddy acoustics of the room. Why would FinKL fly thousands upon thousands of miles for this? Well those fears were temporarily quelled as Hyori and Yuri arrived on stage to perform their first number. While initially disappointed by the lack of Jin and Ju Hyun, I was still excited to see the other two. Immediately after the one song (track 2 from 2.5), they stopped to chat with the crowd and the radio station emcees. From here on out, the show degenerated into an amateur talent show. One by one, groups of 4 local school kids filed on stage to lip sync to FinKL songs played through the sound system. After each song, they'd get a chance to introduce themselves to the crowd of (all?) local Georgia Koreans, and talk to Hyori/Yuri. this was slightly amusing, and maybe I would have found it even more interesting if I could understand Korean...but after the third group, I started getting pretty annoyed. I came and paid big $ to see FinKL perform, not see a bunch of kids perform FinKL songs in front of ½ of FinKL. The annoyance quickly morphed into a resigned disappointment as Hyori and Yuri left the stage and "old guy" (Song Dae Kwon) came on stage to perform. He was OK and he did sing live, but I'm just not into the Barry Manilow/Tony Bennett kind of thing. Oh yeah I forgot to mention the dragon lady who came on stage to perform 2 high energy dance songs (or was it the same song twice). Again it was OK but dammit I was here to see FinKL!!! =( It didn't happen until the end of the show when they filed out again just to say goodbye (maybe - again, I don't understand a word of Korean). Turns out the best part of the whole night was just being able to come within about 15 or 20 feet of Hyori and Yuri. That's it. Well, from the experience I'd have to say that Yuri is quite pretty in real life. Hyori was cute, but not quite as attractive as some of her photos suggest - maybe she's just really photogenic. If only Jin was there, then at least that would have been a bit more of a consolation for me. Wayne/Hank got their Hyori and Kirk got to see Yuri =( We left the Gwinnet Center, dejected and feeling foolish for wasting our time and money to see a talent show with FinKL as judges. Hopefully LA will be a more fruitful experience, and dammit, Jin better be there. On the way back to the hotel, we decided to stop off to eat a late dinner at Dave and Buster's, which is a nationwide chain of adult type chuck e cheese's. No there's no strippers - it's just a bar/restaurant with an arcade attached to it. There are carnival type games you can play where you win tickets redeemable for prizes. We ended up coming away with 7 D&B shotglasses. I earned a good deal of tickets by playing the "shoot freethrows" game. One play (about a dollar) lets you shoot 3 regular free throws. Hit 2 out of 3 and you get 25 tix. Hit all 3 and you get 50 tix. After an embarrassingly slow start involving airballs, a couple 1/3 tries, and a shutout (0/3 madeshots), I finally started hitting my stride, nailing 2/3 consistently. My last attempt, I made all three shots, drilling the last two with authority (clean stroke, nothing but net). That was pretty satisfying. Word of advice - don't bother with the Reggie Miller popashot basketball. It costs an outrageous # of tokens and all it lets you do is enter in the national "pop a shot" basketball contest. Big woop. We had dinner before the gaming festivities. Being so depressed from the disappointing "Concert," we ordered chick drink after chick drink, trying in vain to drown our sorrows in alcohol. We were mostly successful, with Wayne and Kirk getting rather faded, and myself feeling some effects of the booze. Mudlsides and Toasted Almond were good, as was the "Green Tea" (Midori, Vodka,Gin, and something else). Wayne was so drunk that when an Aaliyah song came on he said “Tricia Gray (our PR chick)” instead of “Trish O’Day,” which is Aaliyah’s character in Romeo Must Die. GG Wayne. The truth comes out. The food was above average as well. Most people ordered ribs or steaks. The ribs came in Claim Jumper esque portion sizes but they were as soft and juicy as Tony Roma's ribs. Good mix, I'd say. The steaks were OK, but definitely not as good as the ribs. Anyway, after winning several shot glasses, we left D&B and headed back to the hotel. The ride back to the hotel was a bit of an adventure. Upon exiting the highway, John cut it too soon and we ended up turning left into the wrong side of traffic. It wasn't busy but he happened to do it just as a cop was passing by, so we actually got pulled over. Luckily the cop let us off when she found out we were from out of town. The first order of business at this point (1AM Saturday morning) was to call into Delta to see if it was possible to take a Saturday flight back to Cali. While Kirk/Hank/John did a walk around of the hotel to look for FinKL (slim chance - the radio guy said they'd be here + there were big buses outside), I waited on hold with Delta. Good news! It would only cost 75 each for a reissue of the ticket for a Saturday flight. Considering cost of another day with the rental car + hotel, we figured it was a wash, so we should just head home. I called Delta back after we had all decided...only to find that the $75 offer wasn't OK - our tickets required a Saturday stayover...changing to leave on Sat would have meant a switch to "Standard coach fare" or something. That meant coughing up nearly a G each. Uh...right. So that settled it - we were stuck in Atlanta for another day. Standby wasn't a possibility for Saturday b/c you can only do that the same day of your scheduled flight. The best we could do was 8AM on Sunday (instead of noon). The rest of the night and pretty much the rest of the trip we just watched cable (lots of channels for a hotel - the Gameshow channel was good) and played Uno/Big2. We thought about hitting up a noraebang or a strip club, but this was unfamiliar territory. Mostly because we didn't know where to go and partly because we were scared of the area in general. By the time morning rolled around, we all went off for the free breakfast of powdered eggs, stale pastries, and cereal. Mmm...more grease. That pretty much knocked us out and we were all sound asleep from 7am to 5pm or so on that Saturday. During our rest, Kirk got a call on his phone that the house on the water in Richmond was ours! We just need to go in on Monday or call them so they could ask us a few more questions. Strong. Saturday night was another long affair of cards, TV, and chat - talking about chicks in general, our women, etc. That morning's breakfast was a particularly eye opening chat session involving many skeletons in all our closets. Back to the evening's events - our stomachs rumbled with hunger as we staved off dinner to finish "Devil's Advocate" on TV. Once that was done, we were set to look for KBBQ until a "Captain D's" comercial flashed on. With one such place just across the street from the hotel it made a logical choice. Might as well add more grease to our trip's menu of fat. Kirk and I ordered 3 meals between us. Not a strong idea. It was ok at the time but when we got back to the hotel, everyone's GI tract was howling in protest of our poor choice in eateries. Back to cards and TV - by the time Wayne and Hank decided a second trip to Dave &Busters might be fun, it was too late to go. With 8AM looming near, we figured on staying awake until it was time to leave. More cards and TV... 3AM rolled around and Kirk was hungry again. On the few miles we drove around Atlanta we saw no less than 10 different "Waffle House" restaurants. A greasy looking spoon to be sure, but hey, there was one right next to the hotel. With so many in Georgia, it couldn't be all bad, could it? Again...bad call. We pulled up into the nearby Waffle House and found a pack of Asian Students leaving the Waffle House. Surprised to see us (Asians they didn't know) they correctly assumed we were from out of town and urged us to attend an upcoming Azn sorority party anyway. Yup, they pressed the standard issue "glossy party invite with funky graphic" into our hands. Delta Phi Lambda was the sorority. We thought it was amusing that they were so eager to see Asians, ANY Asians around. haha Of course they asked us where we were from and why we were in Georgia. Sheepishly we admitted that we came to see FinKL. On that note they nodded and left, probably laughing their ass off at us once they got in their cars. The Waffle House food was rather forgettable - I vowed it would be the last nasty food to enter my system for the next week. Upon returning to the hotel, we uncermoniously showered, packed up, and left, at 5am local time. The plane home was a rather uneventful flight - we were able to check into the plane right away b/c it had so many empty seats. On the way back we flew by some top secret, black ops Air Force base that we weren't supposed to see. I'm pretty sorry couldn't get a picture of it. By the time I got Kirk's camera, the plane had flown past it. I did get some shots of Half Dome in Yosemite - wonder how those turned out. We're descending into SFO now, and I'm relieved to be back in Cali. There were many lessons learned on this trip - one of them is that it can be very expensive to be hasty. While the trip wasn't a total waste of time, the primary objective to see FinKL perform, remains unfulfilled. The secondary (real primary?) objective meet them, also remains unfinished. LA should be better. The second lesson is that it ain't worth it to leaveCalifornia. Ever. For any reason. Weesssstsiiiiide!!!!!