kickin it like its 1999(when I found kpop)

Since I'am becoming an old fart whose about to loose her dreams....

I just started remembering when I was a teeanager, who couldn't wait to grow up and make my dreams come true. Emo..I know...does that word still even exist among the youth these days?

This was all brought on due to my friend who auditioned to be the next VJ for MTVK(MTV_Korea). And I'am thinking to myself, "boy, I don't care if you're Korean, I know kpop more than you do! Even though you lived in Korea for 3 years..."
And when I was watching the people who auditioned, I imagined myself in a
"what if.."scenario and I remembered how I first got into Kpop..
I don't remember the day, but I remember it was in the year of 1999 before I started my freshman year of Highschool, so I guess it was around summer time. I was reading one of those teen magazines, possibly seventeen, when I stumbled across a article about this girl who was half korean. She was discussing how her best friend lived in S.Korea who she would visit her every summer, and their favorite band was H.O.T.

This wasn't the photo..and since these young whippersnappers dunno what H.O.T is, its hard to find the exact image but it was from their "WE ARE THE FUTURE" era
when I saw their photo all I thought was
"OMG.................THEY'RE HOT!! THEY LOOK LIKE VISUAL KEI ROCKERS!! I MUST FIND OUT HOW THEY SOUND!!" <--was already into Jpop/Jrock =)
So I went on AOL (for you youngins out there..be happy 56k dial up is a thing of the past) and was able to download mvs and mp3s of some of their songs. I downloaded
"Free to fly"
"we are the future" mv
"Candy" mv
"Happiness" mp3
yeah I was pretty much hooked!!
I then found out that you can get korean music cds in Flushing, Queens and got my parents to drive me to the store. I was so...not nervous, asking the Korean lady at the cd shop if she had a H.O.T CD (I pronounced them as HOT) lol, and she was like
"....you know..they sing in Korean right"
"yeah, I like them"
"oh Okay.."
and her husband told me they had a concert tape too and I was like
"MOMMY, can I buy it?!"
So I bought their 4th album "I Yah" as well as their concert video from Seoul 1999!
....When I watched their concert, I didn't give a fuck that I didn't understand what they were saying, I was just so happy to see them perform...and make believe I was there. When I started High School, I plastered my locker with H.O.T pictures and this Korean girl next to me was like "YOU KNOW ABOUT H.O.T?!" and we sang "free to fly" while walking home to the train station we never really got to be close friends and she transferred schools the next semester
Sadly the group disbanded 2 years after I discovered them, and even though that seems short, they been around since 1996 *3 years late...*
But H.O.T was my first acknowledged KPOP group that I was a big stan for....and everytime I think of them, I remember a time when my life wasn't as crazy/boring/uneventful/hard as I thought it was...

I even felt more "I'am so special" with Kpop because..like most American kids..I first heard Seo Taiji when I was 9 years old due to the movie "American Ninja's Kick back". Hollywood's ignorant ass can't tell the difference between the various Asian ethnic groups, so when the three heroes were driving down Tokyo, Seo Taiji "Nan Arayo" was playing in the background. I later discovered in 2005 that the song was Korean XD.
Even though nothing could replace H.O.T
I got into Shinhwa,S.E.S, CLEO, TAKE, Click-B, G.O.D, Sech kies, Seo Taiji,and DBSK*
*Ironically with DBSK I also became a fan of them 2 years before they broke up and they were around since 2005.....well they were the next H.O.T..so thats the irony of my life.
Its hard to still have a love of Kpop now a days since the groups keep getting younger, and I'am getting older *sighs*. Not to mention I don't feel Kpop is this secret "Omg you know about kpop!? Lets be friends! kinda world it used to be since its becoming more mainstream...well not that mainstream, but sorta like..not surprising if someone knows a Korean pop artist in the world.
It sucks being an ajumma...but yeah...the Kpop era from 1990-2003 will always have a special place in my heart...
All I needed was my kpop, and playing counter strike at a PC bang in flushing to feel I was part of their world.