Super Junior

The postman woke me up today with a lovely package! A few weeks back, I made a pre-order for Super Junior's Boys in City 4 - Paris photo book and also ordered their 6th album, Sexy, Free & Single. It was a birthday present to myself and I had been secretly thinking of getting it when they had announced the photo book earlier on. The photo book was released last week and I got a notice that it shipped on Thursday. Took less than a week to get to me! I was really surprised~!

I ordered through YesAsia since they offered free shipping and somehow it ended up being a lot cheaper than other sites. The cover price of both items were marked up, but it somehow ended up being cheaper because of the free shipping. Other sites killed my shopping cart with their explosive EMS and air mail rates @_@;;!! Although when I received the photo book and album, I realized why the shipping was through the roof! The weight of the books combined were 3.5kg, (about 8 lbs).

I didn't bother taking pictures of the packaging, since it was plain, but the books had 2 layers of bubble-wrap protection and there were no dents or bent corners.

Moving on~~!
Say hello to Sword-bean Shiba!

S.J. in the house!

I purposely ordered the Type A version of Sexy, Free & Single after a lot of contemplation. The album was released back in July and I've held off on getting it because I wasn't sure which version I wanted. There were 3 (@__@;;)! They sure know how to take a fan's money since each version had great extras that the other versions didn't have.

The Paris photo book was released on Super Junior's 7th anniversary (Nov.6th) and is a collection of photos of all the members on their days off when they weren't performing for their concert; which happened earlier this year.

Excuse some of the weird lighting for some of the pictures. I took some pictures during the day time, and others at night at my desk. >_<;

Silver text!

 Let's start with their 6th album! There were 10 random different text color versions of this album, the original is with red text, but I'm quite happy I got the silver one. I was hoping to get silver or gold since it stands out better on the blue background. The album is a hardcover photo book (84 pages) and the main concept for the photos was natural...handsome...flower...boys? (^o^*);;

I can't quite figure it out, but I do like the concept. 

Leeteuk

Yesung

I think my favourite picture from the photobook is Yesung. He looks completely different and I didn't know it was him when they first released his teaser back in July. Plus...he's rocking out his look! He has branches on his head!! (*o*@;:)!!

Leeteuk has a really nice series of photos too.  I was really fascinated with his hair accessory and the make up they did for him. Most of all the members look completely different in this album, at first you can't really recognize them easily.

I think the only shots I don't like are Siwon's. The styling make him look like an odd version of John Galliano and it just doesn't do anything for me. (o_o);

  

Siwon

Kyuhyun!

The trend with k-pop albums is that they come with collectible photo cards. However, it's all distributed randomly and you don't know who you'll get. I like all the members of Super Junior, although I'm a bit biased towards a couple of them. I have to praise the photo card gods, since I ended up getting Kyuhyun, who is my favourite member in the group!! (*O*)! I had a 10% chance of getting his card so I was super surprised and thrilled when I turned the card over to see it was him! The back of the card has the text, Sexy, Free & Single and Kyuhyun's digitized signature on it. 

The back is where you can find the CD and it's just a slot in the back where the CD can be pulled out.

Boys in City 4 - Paris

Onwards to the photo book now! I pre-ordered the normal version which came with an extra postcard book and the poster. The special version came with an extra poster and some other stuff along with a behind the scenes DVD. I only wanted the book, so I opted to go with the normal one. There was an option to get the poster shipped in a tube on another site, but YesAsia wasn't offering that, so that's why I ended up with the folded poster. 

BIC4 Post card book

I'll start with the postcard book! It has 20 different postcards featuring the members individually and as a group and they're perforated so that you can detach them from the book to use as postcards. The back of each card has the corresponding members signature digitally printed. They resolution/print quality is great and they are printed on nice card stock. I don't think I would have the heart to use one!

Boys in City 4 Paris!

The photo book is hardcover and a little bit over 350 pages! The eye candy...!!

The inside has many comments from all the members through the pages. I can only read the English parts of the book since my Korean literacy rate is quite non-existent. I think if I got the Japanese version I probably would have been able to read it...!

Candid

Yesung

The book is separated into 6 parts to highlight the different locations and areas they were photographed at. It's nice to see some of the sights and areas they were at since my sister and I were in Paris a couple years ago. Only minor drawback is that many of the photos have a 'staged' feeling to them, especially if they're indoors, but it doesn't make the photos less appealing. I actually like the odd candid shots when they're not focused on the camera. When they're out and about in the city many of the photos are of them staring off into the distance and it looks like they're absorbing and taking in as much of Paris as they can.

Kyuhyun, Eunhyuk and photographer Leeteuk

There's a series of shots with Kyuhyun, Eunhyuk and Leeteuk, where Leeteuk is being the photographer. The shots are really funny, cute, and oddly amusing since a photographer is taking a picture of them taking pictures of each other.

So handsome! *o*

 I won't post too many photos of the book itself. That would spoil it for whoever wants to buy it. I know people have already scanned and uploaded a large portion or the whole photobook online already and fans have complained about it; that it ruined the element of surprise for them. I tried to avoid it as much as possible and it worked out well.

I'm really happy with this purchase!

Super Junior, Fighting!
♥

Of Books, food, music and movies

I've been working on a few projects this past month and trying to fill in the down time at work because it's quite slow and I don't get as many shifts right now, so it actually works out well. On a break, I was at Costco a couple days ago with my parents and I always go to the book section to see what kind of new books there are. I picked up one called, The Song of Achilles.

It might be a total coincidence, but I've been re-reading Homer's Odyssey, and this book has ties to the Iliad. So, I picked it up and started reading the first few chapters. It's a complete re-telling of Achilles' life through the life of his companion, Patroclus, from how they met and up until their deaths in the last year of the Trojan war.

It was written so well and the descriptions are so vivid. I regret returning it after I bought it because I collect hard cover versions of books and the one I got at Costco was the paperback version. I'll have to remember to buy it again when I place a book order through Chapters or Amazon.

One of the projects I had this month was to make new aprons for the maids of Cafe Delish. Over the weekend, I went to meet up with the maid cafe crew to deliver Bosu the newly finished aprons for this year's cafe. All of the old one's all turned an odd shade of orange for some reason, so we had a sewing day a couple weeks ago to make them at my place. It was really fun to work with everyone and I finished them all up last week. 

We went out to watch a movie at the TIFF lightbox theater, a movie called Jiro, Dreams of Sushi. I almost want to go to his restaurant because Jiro is apparently the best sushi chef in the world but a 15 minute seating starts from 30,000 yen! That's more than $300 and would be the most expensive meal I would have ever ate. I guess I can dream though?

It was a bit of a bad movie choice in my opinion because I was hungry before we went to watch the movie and I was drooling the whole time watching it. Needless to say, I was very hungry after we left the theater.

Yuzu's Sashimi Regular

We went to Yuzu no Hana to have some sushi! Since I didn't have much to eat that whole day I got the Yuzu Bento with chicken teriyaki. Everyone a different type of dish and I couldn't get pictures of everyone's food since we were sitting along the sushi bar. It was interesting to watching the sushi chefs work after watching the sushi documentary though.

The food was very delicious but we only go to Yuzu once in awhile since it is a bit expensive. Unfortunately, before I even started eating I got attacked by a deep fried mushroom. I wasn't impressed since it got on my dress! >__<; But the stains came out so it's not too much of a deal.

This past week, Galileo shared with me a music video of a K-pop group called SHINee. She really loves Death Note and one of boys in the group, Taemin, looks like Mello. I couldn't believe my eyes! I've been a bit obsessed with SHINee for the last week because the dancing in on another level. It makes me wish I could dance like that, but I can't imagine popping or locking, so I'll stick to our maid cafe dance routines. I shall leave this post with the music to SHINee's Lucifer so you can see Taemin / Mello dance up a storm!

♥