Korea vol.1 - Ultra Music Festival

It has been one year since I last returned to Korea, this time I came with a new group of friends for the Ultra Music Festival. The UMF started as an outdoor electronic trance music festival in Miami, it then exploded like other festivals and carry on for the world tour. This time we went was their first time in Asia, set in Seoul Olympic Stadium.

cover photo source: electronidancemusic.com

We drank as much as we can before we entered, to make sure we could be excited to the max for the rave. The stadium is in 잠실 (Jamsil), which is an hour drive from our hotel in 인사동 (Insadong), to fit 10 of us we will need 2 Jumbo Taxis, each can fit 6 to 7 pax. These taxis are only available upon call services, but you can easily reach out to these drivers via your hotel reception. But to be honest, I think it may be a little bit difficult for you to fetch a taxi as cool as ours.....

The taxi 아죽씨 ("Uncle") is one of the coolest taxi drivers I have encountered. Given the noise us drunk/tipsy stupid adults produced in his "cabin", not only he did not complain a word, but he enjoys it more than you can imagine. He asked us whether we would like to sing, and suddenly pulled out a remote control from the driver seat and turned on a "Karaoke" system at the back seats. There is a screen in the middle row so we can sing along!

When we entered the tunnel, he suddenly turned on the LED lighting in the "cabin" as well. The experience cannot be more trippy than singing K-Pop in the jumbo taxi inside the tunnel with Neon lighting flashing all over you. This is totally meant to be - it is like a prelude for the UMF.

The queue for the ticket booth was not as bad as I expected, took us less than 15 minutes to pick up our 2 Day pass and set off to enter the stadium. We just made it in time for Steve Aoki's set. It was a really really hot August in Korea, temperature was up to 38 degree Celsius. Being at midst of the 80,000 populated crowd in the stadium, plus dancing for a good half an hour, we were all wet from head to toes. A small amount of sprayed cool water in the air made us all high and happy during the intervals. 

It was a very sensational experience, the second day was even better because we went for Tiesto's set for the finale. But the music festival is so addictive that you cannot wait but plan on the next trip to go for another one. We had small indoor parties like the Gareth Emery and Emma Hewitt tour, but the next outdoor festival for us would be A State Of Trance Episode 600 in Malaysia. Stay tune for it!

P.S.* I figured this post is rather more on the UMF than Seoul/Korea, will write something more about the city soon!