Bonus Episode #178 – Once in a Lifetime

Hello and welcome to bonus episode number 178 of the Q-Loop's English podcast. How's it going? I hope you're doing well. Thank you for clicking play and joining me for an English lesson today. Of course, my name is Andrew, I am your humble host and your English study buddy. I'm originally from Canada but I live in Seoul, South Korea now and what I do in these bonus episodes is I just tell you some stories from my everyday life and I hope that by listening to them you will be able to improve your English fluency and to grow your English vocabulary to become more knowledgeable about the culture of English speakers and just in general to become a clearer and more confident English speaker. So if those are some of your goals then you're in the right place and I hope you'll enjoy today's story. And just like always there's a free interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary available for this episode for everyone plus a comprehension quiz if you're a Q-Loop's member. Speaking of Q-Loop's membership, if you're an intermediate level English learner who wants to take your English to the advanced level then membership is perfect for you. As a Q-Loop's member you'll get access to our weekly speaking classes. We have three to four speaking classes each and every week that lasts for one hour and it happened on Zoom with me and with our other amazing teachers as well it's a great way to build your speaking confidence and to improve your fluency and really to make the most of what you hear in our Q-Loop's episodes because each speaking class is connected to one of our topics that we talk about on the podcast. So the idea is first you listen to the podcast and then you can think about the discussion questions and prepare in advance if you want to or if you want to just think on the spot and do it on the spot that's okay too and then we'll talk about it during our classes which happen on Zoom. Like I said three to four each and every week are members that participate in these classes tell me that they love them that they're very helpful and I see the same members come back week after week after week which is so good and really creates a sense of community and it's just fun so definitely we'd love to have you join us for the speaking classes but of course when you are a Q-Loop's member you also get so much more like our helpful study guides for each and every episode add free audio so you don't have to listen to any ads like this one and wow there's so much more I won't go on and on just check out our website qlips.com you can read all about it and sign up and become a member today for an affordable price and of course thank you to all the members out there for your support we couldn't to Q-Loop's without you so thank you so so much. I have lots to talk about in today's episode I always have lots to talk about but especially today I have lots to talk about the first thing just a quick announcement that this episode is an audio and video podcast if you don't know for many of the bonus episodes I actually make a video version as well which is on our YouTube page. I know many people like listening to audio when learning English and me too actually I think audio is best however video also has its place and some people prefer video if you do like video better than audio check out our YouTube channel we're right at the precipice of 100,000 subscribers the precipice means like the edge it's a big fancy word meaning the edge so we're almost at 100,000 subscribers I think we got 99,500 or something around there so if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel go ahead give us a subscribe and maybe that will put us over the edge we can reach 100,000 subscribers that would be a great achievement I'd feel happy for myself proud of myself you know I don't really think of myself as being a YouTuber or anything but I guess if we get 100,000 subscriptions on our YouTube channel then I could officially call myself a YouTuber and I think maybe you get even one of those silver buttons that YouTube gives to channels with many subscribers which would be pretty cool I do love YouTube and I spend a lot of time watching it so come on over give us a subscribe and help get the QLOOPS English podcast channel to 100,000 subs let's get started in earnest for this week's stories and I guess I should start with a shout out to everyone who joined us this past weekend for the QLOOPS meetup in Seoul we had our first meetup here in Seoul South Korea after having meetups in different places in Europe that were led by Alina and then a couple of meetups over the past couple of years in Japan as well we had a NoSaka meetup and a Tokyo meetup and I thought come on we got to have a meetup here in Seoul as well so we finally did it we finally had it and it happened last weekend on Sunday and a huge thank you to everyone who participated we had a great turnout the venue was packed and it was a lot of fun I hope the participants who came as well enjoyed it for me you know often I feel like I'm speaking into the void or talking into the void which is an expression that we use to mean talking to no one because here I am just sitting in front of my microphone in an empty room looking at a camera as well and it's kind of like I'm talking to myself now of course I know in reality there are people out there listening and I can see the statistics online about how many people are listening this kind of thing but it's still very abstract it's not really real I don't know who the listeners are so much but over the last couple of years as we've been doing more and more meetups I've got to meet many of our listeners and so that was so awesome to be able to do that last Sunday and yeah to meet some of our great listeners here in Seoul south Korea and I was really impressed by everyone's English level like wow QLips listeners speak really good English so I thought that was amazing no communication problems at all and also just like really interesting people I know I'm probably biased but I think QLips listeners are the most interesting people in the world like every time I have an opportunity to meet QLips listeners everybody's got a fascinating story and an interesting life and I just love getting to hear about our listeners as well and yeah I'm so proud to be part of an awesome community like this with with some great listeners from around the world so thank you to everyone who came out to the meetup thank you to everyone who contributed somehow by sharing some snacks or bringing some food or writing me a little note I got a lot of really touching heartfelt letters from listeners as well so thank you to everyone who wrote a letter I read them all and I was very touched and some people gave me some little gifts as well really really nice you guys didn't have to do that but I do appreciate it so much so we had an awesome time at the meetup we played some games together mixed a mingled and if you would like to have a meetup in your city next well I can't promise that I can definitely do it but let me know if we get a lot of interest out of one particular place in the world especially if it's kind of close to me either in North America when I go home to visit Canada or in Asia then maybe we can make it happen another surprising thing that came out out of this last meetup was that many people told me that they're into running and I was really taking a back I didn't think there would be so many people who are both into culips and into running and I guess it makes sense like learning a language is a great activity for your mind and running is a great activity for your body and I think when we think about language learning we have to think of it as being not just a brain activity of course it's mostly in our brain but everything's connected if our physical health is good then we're going to learn languages better if we exercise well then we'll sleep better which will make speaking languages and learning languages better and when you exercise a lot then usually you're more interested in health and you eat better and your overall health and condition is better so I think they're all connected so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised that a lot of listeners are into running but many people told me oh Andrew I run too and yeah that was really cool so what we decided to do in the future is have a culips run club here in Seoul and people from other parts of the world want to participate as well then maybe we could do that virtually but that's my next activity that I'm planning for people living in Korea is to have a culips run club will meet and we'll do some light running nothing intense and in fact right now we're in the middle of the rainy season it's pouring rain and super super humid here and the super super hot in Seoul as well in fact this morning I wanted to go for a run but it was just pouring rain and the local river where I usually go running there's this nice path beside the river it's closed there's gates that come down and block you from going in there during the rainy seasons so kind of stock can't do any running right now that's okay but we will have a culips run event maybe be in the early fall when things cool down a little bit and the rainy season is finished. So look forward to that if you are a soul listener, hopefully you can come and join us for a run. Okay, but that's not what I wanted to tell you about today. My main story for today is actually about my bloody Valentine, this band, my bloody Valentine, who maybe you remember, if you're a regular CULOPS listener, I saw play a concert back in Tokyo in February of this year. Now we're in July, so about five months ago, I saw them play in Tokyo and it was a fantastic show. I really enjoyed the concert. However, my concert experience, although the band played the songs well, there were some elements of that concert which weren't ideal and I actually tell that story in one of our recent fluency files episodes. Fluency files is our member only series with short stories that are designed for intensive listening practice, repetitive listening, all of these techniques that are designed to make you build your English fluency faster than ever the fluency files. So I told that story in a fluency files episode, so I'm not going to repeat it here now, but if you're a member and you want to check that out, just log into our website and you can listen to that story. So I saw my bloody Valentine play. My bloody Valentine are this amazing Shougaes band from the 1990s, 80s and 90s, but their peak was in the 1990s and one of their records called Loveless was really a high watermark of music in the 1990s, super, super influential album in my life and also in many people's lives, an amazing album. Many people say one of the best rock albums of all time and I certainly agree with that. So I've been a huge my bloody Valentine fan since I was a high school student and I first listened to them ever since then I've been a fan. However, they're older now, they're in their 60s and they don't play concerts very often, they don't release records very often, although they've been a band for over 30 years. They have only ever released three albums, so they're not very prolific in that sense. They really take their time to perfect their albums before they release them. And so when I saw that my bloody Valentine were doing a short Japanese tour earlier this year, I decided, hey, it's now or never. This is my once in a lifetime chance that I'll get to see my bloody Valentine. So I shall know, the cash is not cheap to travel to another country to see a band, right? So I had to pay for my airline tickets and hotel and concert tickets and food and all of these things. And of course, I love going to Japan, so I had a nice time in Japan as well. We did the Q-lips meet up in Tokyo, so it's not like I was going only for my bloody Valentine, but that was certainly one of the reasons that pushed me to go on the trip. So I enjoyed that concert and I thought, okay, there it is. My once in a lifetime, my bloody Valentine experience done, I'll probably never, ever, get the chance to see them again. Okay. However, a little while ago, I got a couple of messages on Instagram from Q-lips listeners and shout out to the people who sent me this message because I probably wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for you, so thank you so much. I got a message saying, "Hey, Andrew, you know that band you like? My bloody Valentine, they're playing in Seoul." And I was like, "What? They're playing a concert in Seoul. I was shocked. I couldn't believe that they were coming here because they don't tour very often. They don't play shows very often. And they had just finished coming to Asia like to play in Japan and then go back home. They're from the UK or Ireland, I believe, maybe based in the UK. So to go back to the UK and then to come back to Asia just seems really unexpected. So I was shocked to see that they're playing in Seoul and they're playing as a part of a festival. They're the headliners for a festival event. And so I thought, "Hmm, okay. Should I go?" Of course, as a huge fan, I wanted to go, but I thought, "Can I convince my wife to let me go?" like, "I already spent a lot of money to see them this year." And concert tickets are not cheap, especially festival tickets. Although I do have to say that this particular festival was pretty affordable for a big music festival. It wasn't outrageous. I thought it was actually quite affordable, but still when I was doing the mental math and adding up how much I had spent on this band, I was like, "Can I really justify paying the extra money to go see them again?" And so I mulled this over and I was thinking, "Should I buy a ticket? Should I buy a ticket?" One thing that made me hesitate about buying the ticket in addition to the money and spending the money was that the venue for the festival hadn't been announced yet. So the festival lineup had been announced. The festival was selling tickets and there were rumors online about where the festival would be and they said it will be in Seoul by they, I mean the festival organizers, they said it will be in Seoul, however a venue will be announced later. And so I thought, "Okay, I m just going to wait until they announce the venue and then I ll make my decision about whether or not I ll buy a ticket because I just felt like it is a little sketchy if they don t announce the venue yet. Is it official? Is it real? Are they just trying to steal people s money?" Like I don t know, it just seemed sketchy that you could organize this huge festival with major international touring acts, like some of the other acts that are playing on this festival lineup are huge bands, like the XX, like Turn Style, these really popular bands, of course my bloody Valentine. So to throw this big festival to have it be disorganized to the fact that your venue is not announced yet just seemed sketchy to me. So I thought, "Okay, I m going to wait until they announce the venue and then I ll decide whether or not I want to buy a ticket." And so as I was waiting, I was mulling it over and to mull something over means to consider it deeply and to weigh the pros and the cons, the good points, the bad points, I was mulling it over and I thought, "You know what? Let s do it, let s buy the ticket because you only live once, right? Yolo and I love this band, I ve been a fan for so many years and who knows, maybe this will be a twice in a lifetime opportunity for me. Maybe I ll be able to see them twice and when you have a chance, like you should take the chance. When you re giving an opportunity, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, as we say. So life gave me the lemons here, I could see my bloody Valentine a second time. So I thought, I m going to make the lemonade, I m going to buy the tickets, however, just when I was making this decision to buy the ticket, something really interesting happened. The venue was announced, but I guess it was a venue that was different than many fans were expecting and that rumors, the rumors that were circulating said it was going to be a certain venue and then it ended up being a different venue. And I didn t really follow the drama too much on Instagram, I don t have time to like read into the deep story and find out what s going on behind the scenes at this festival. But in a nutshell, what I learned was the venue was different than the rumored venue. And so what the festival organizers did was really unique and I ve never heard or seen anything like this before. What they did was they announced the new venue and then they canceled everybody s ticket who had bought a ticket already, they canceled all of those tickets and they said, okay, we are going to sell tickets again for this new venue. I don t know, maybe like the original venue they had in mind could hold, let s say 50,000 people and maybe the new venue could only hold 30,000 people, I m wondering if that s what happened. I don t know, I don t want to speculate. But for whatever reason, they canceled all the tickets, they announced the new venue, which by the way, isn t in Seoul anymore, maybe that s the reason, it s in one of the neighboring cities. And so it s not in Seoul, so they canceled the tickets, the venue is different, they announced the venue, but they also dropped the price. So the entrance fee dropped substantially, maybe 30 or 40%. I can t remember what the original ticket price was, but the new ticket price was really, really affordable, 50,000 won for a one day pass or the regular ticket and 90,000 won for a premium pass where you get access to a better view and there are some seats. And this kind of thing, 50,000 won is probably like 35 American dollars. So that s crazy cheap for a festival. Compare that price with other festivals, not only in Korea, but around the world. I think this is going to be one of the cheapest festivals ever. So when I saw that, I was like, okay, now my mind s made up, I m 100% going, like this is crazy. Life has given me two lemons now, like not only are my bloody Valentine coming, but the ticket price dropped, like when do you see that? in 2026 that the ticket price drops like amazing. So I was super stoked and I thought, okay, I'm going to buy a ticket for me and my wife as well. And this is also another sign because originally my wife had some plan on that day. I can't remember what it was, but she was busy. So she said, Andrew, you're going to have to go alone or with different friends, which was fine. However, that plan got canceled. So then she was like, I'm free. We can go together. So amazing. Maybe three lemons now, like everything's lining up. The universe is saying, Andrew, you got to go to this concert. So what they did, the organizers was they reopened the tickets and they said, okay, on this day, at this time, the tickets will be opened again. And you can buy tickets. And so I put it in my calendar and I waited for that day to arrive. And I got already, like, I know that ticketing, buying tickets can be pretty hard these days for popular concerts and popular festivals. So I did all of my preparation in advance, the app that you needed to buy the tickets through the certain ticket seller. I got that all set up. I made my account. I got my payment information, my credit card in there. So I could check out quickly. I was all ready to go. I changed my internet from my Wi-Fi to my just cell phone provided internet. I don't know what that's called. LTE, maybe. I'm not sure what that internet is called. But you know, it's a little bit faster than your home internet connection, right? So I had that all hooked up. And I went into this app a few minutes before tickets opened. And there was a button that had a countdown. And so all I was getting nervous is it's counting down like 10 seconds, 9 seconds. I'm getting ready. I got to check out I got to buy these tickets quickly. And then it finally hit zero. And as soon as it hit zero guys, I'm talking within milliseconds of the button hitting zero, I hit go, like, buy the ticket. And I was in there. And I was shocked. As soon as like the next page loaded on my phone, it said I was positioned 3000 and something in line. I was like, how am I 3000's place? There were 3000 other people ahead of me in line. And so I was just dumbfounded. I had no words. I was like, I don't know how all these people beat me, but it is what it is. And hopefully there will be a ticket ready for me still as the other people buy tickets. And so finally, it was my turn after a few minutes. And you can see that like that number is getting smaller and smaller, 2500 people in front of you in line, 2000 people in front of you in line. As those people check out and buy their tickets, then you move up, right? And so after just a couple of moments, it was my turn. And I quickly selected, I decided to splurge because I felt like really thankful to the festival organizers that they dropped the ticket price. And now the premium ticket was about what I was expecting to pay for the regular ticket originally. So I thought, okay, two premium tickets. I'm old. I like to sit down when I watch a concert now. I don't want to stand all day watching a festival. So I went for the seated area and yeah, went through the checkout, paid. And I was like, amazing. Okay, we're going to see my bloody Valentine again. However, after you make your payments, I'm not sure if every country has a system like this, but at least in Korea, you have to open your bank app or your credit card app to make the payments. And then after the payment is completed, you hit a button to go back to the original app. So I had to hit a little button to go back to the ticketing app and just was waiting for my confirmation email and number and ticket number, all of these things, right? However, it was just one of those loading spinners and I kept spinning and spinning and saying loading and loading and loading. And then my heart dropped. I was like, I think maybe this ticket sale is not going to go through. And that's exactly what happened. Eventually, the app crashed. And when I tried to open the app again, it said tickets were sold out. But I thought, oh, maybe it worked. Anyways, like it charged my credit card, right? So I went in and checked my banking app and yeah, my credit card was charged. So I felt, okay, they charged me money. Like, there must be a ticket out there. So then I was going back to the ticket app to figure out, is there a customer service number I need to call or what do I have to do? And then I got a text message saying your credit card has just been refunded. So no, I guess my ticket purchase didn't go through and it didn't work out. And so in the end, now I can't go to my bloody Valentine. So yeah, I guess I'm not going to the festival. I guess in the end that Tokyo show, that was the once in a lifetime chance that I had to see my bloody Valentine. And good thing that I did go and see them. So no regrets there, no regrets spending the money to go to Tokyo and to watch them. But yeah, just a little bit disappointing. And some funny drama that happened surrounding this festival and surrounding that concert and buying the tickets for that. So that's a story I wanted to tell you all today. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was great for building your English fluency. And I hope you were able to learn some new words and expressions as well. Don't forget about the interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary and also the comprehension quiz for members that are great resources that you can use to get even more out of this episode. But you made it to the end. You got in some solid English listening practice today. You can pat yourself on the back. You can feel good about that. Keep going. We have other episodes for you on our website, qlips.com. And yeah, you know, English learning is something where you get back what you put in nothing comes for free with English. Unfortunately, you have to put in the time. You have to put in the effort. You have to put in the work. But the results do follow. So yeah, you did a great job today. But keep going with your English learning. And we're here to help you with that on our website qlips.com is where you can get access to the thousands of other lessons that we have available for you. So definitely check that out. But as for me, I think I'm going to take off now. Thank you for listening again. Please take care and we'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, bye-bye.