One year anniversary of MBC The Birth of a Star Competition

Exactly one year ago to this day, I was getting off a plane to land in Korea to participate in the famous MBC 위대한탄생 competition. I managed to get past the primary Youtube round so I was then invited to go to Seoul, Korea for the next round.
(Here you can see my original audition video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNs0GGkysAQ)

It was all a little crazy, none of us really knew whether we were coming or going but I rocked up to London Heathrow airport in time to catch my flight. In the queue to board, I was lucky enough to meet another UK based contestant, Tammy, who was also flying out for the competition.

We flew Korean Air - I have to admit that I'm a sucker for plane food and the food they served was actually pretty good. We got Bibimbap and a little thing of kimchi - really rather cute :D

When we arrived in Seoul, it was snowing fairly heavily and it was absolutely freezing. Around 5 of us were arriving at similar times - we all quickly realised we had not really come dressed for a Korean winter!! Having just landed, many of us coming off long haul flights, we were asked by the camera crews to do a variety of things to provide footage for the show. We had to go back through the arrivals gate and pretend to arrive (again) in the airport and walk through the gate with looks of happiness and amazement on our faces, then walk into the terminal and then come back out a few times together, pretending to be best friends already - I even got asked to walk around the airport singing....in Korean...which left many of the people in the airport rather confused!

We arrived at our 'officetel' (kind of like a long-stay hotel...except we weren't long stay) close to the MBC Studios and the next day it was off to the TV studios for our official auditions! Here is a picture of Tammy and I while we were waiting to audition in the dressing rooms;

Although neither of us passed, we had a really good day and I made lots of friends from all over the world.
In fact, those of us that didn't pass took the opportunity to go have a look around, eat some good food and go to 노래방! (Korean karaoke!)

Look at Daniel still wearing his audition sticker ^^ We all had an amazing time and funnily enough, we actually all still keep in touch via a facebook group...except we're all a little depressed at the moment, reminiscing over the times we had in Seoul exactly one year ago. What I wouldn't give to have the chance to go back now...!