130208-10 Paris for Teen Top

note: as usual, this is a personal travel account, not an ordinary whatever that means fanaccount, so if you don't wanna listen to me rant about everything, you can just scroll to the bottom for pics and cams

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I am not a superstitious person, but when the security check point person said that our tickets gave him the result "not departing from this airport" after we had checked in both at home AND at an airport self-service machine, I quietly muttered, as we had to trek to the other end of the airport to check in at a service desk, "let's hope this isn't an omen for the trip in general.."

well.


I was gonna say let's skip the immensely boring details on this one, but.. I can't /snorts

so. after having literally JUST paid for our train tickets to get from Charles De Gaulle airport to Gare Du Nord, they announce over the loudspeakers that there's been some sort of accident at GDN so all trains from CDG to Paris have been cancelled. instead there are buses from terminal 3. we were in terminal 2. 
and of course they only announced it in French, so most of us just stand around with blank looks on our faces until the first (obviously non-touristy cos no luggage or anything) people start to move and then we just all follow. baa....

shuttle train to terminal 3, our 20€ train tickets were no good for the bus - who were completely sold out anyway :)
so much back and forth and asking a million different people who gave a million different answers and, just- uGH
so, yeah, long story short, after 2½ hours we finally managed to get out of the airport, and after 4 different trains (yes, apparently some trains did run??) and a walk we arrived at the hotel only about 4 hours late SHISUS CHRIST.

I was so done with Paris at this point 


and then at check in at the hotel the lady took her sweet-ass time to confirm our reservation, and for a moment there I thought they had given it away cos we hadn't told them we were coming late-ish to begin with, and then the delay so by now it was 9:30pm.
fortunately their computer system was just being an ass.

and fortunately, "if we didn't mind French food" which we didn't!, she could recommend a place close by, that were still open, to get some dinner cos we were surprised at how many places were already closed on the walk from the metro to the hotel.

it was this amazing brasserie and we instantly fell in love with the place, but not only cos it fed us the most delicious meal at a reasonable price. it was just cosy and down to earth and all the waiters were really nice and smiley and hospitable. 
and we immediately agreed that if they had opened after the concert we would come back so we didn't have to hustle around late at night for a new place.

I've always had a strange relationship with snails, and to be honest I only like the garlic butter aka nothing that has to do with the actual creatures, but I thought, when in Rome! and what's more 'French brasserie' than escargots, huh?! 
so I ordered half a dozen (no need to get too carried away), and OH. MY. GOD. they were totally amazing!!! I have clearly never had a well-prepared snail before because this was just in a whole nother league. 
I had a small Pretty Woman moment (though not AS bad) with the snail..holder thingy until I didn't care and picked the shells up and placed them in the holder, then everyone around me could breathe easy again.

hubs had dry cured ham for starters, and it was beyond amazing. 
for mains he had Entrecôte Bearnaise, and I had Gigot d'Agneau and the squeals of yummy delight around our little table were just endless.
yes, we're one of those couples who stick fork-/spoonfuls of our food in the others mouth before he/she can even think to ask if he/she can have a taste, and we totally raved about each other's food, so when we had finished our meal and hubs said he actually liked mine better, I told him he was an idiot cos he should just have asked if we could switch. I wouldn't have minded either dish!

anyway, almost as soon as the last mouthful was downed I got hit by tired like a bolt of lightning, like, seriously. bright and chipper one moment, and then next I could barely keep my eyes open. it sound exaggerated, but unfortunately it happens like that for me, sometimes even when I'm driving.

we stopped by Carrefour on the way back cos we needed some water for the night/my meds. of course we came out with two huge bags full of different desserts and drinks and chips to sample as well. 
we usually do this when we're abroad, and everywhere it's in search of fun new drinks (we're talking sodas and smoothies and such, no alcohol) and good vinegar chips (we can only get one decent kind here, and they aren't even that widely common cos it's not a Danish flavour, and for some reason I'm a little sad to say it's from Lays).
and for France specifically it's an eternal search for the perfect tarte limone. so far, the clear winner on that one is a small bakery in Lausanne, Switzerland, though.

yes just smoothies, but look how cuteee 

back at the hotel I got a second wind while hubby crashed. how it always goes with us.
so he went to sleep and I stayed up til 5am. I really didn't intend to let it get that late (I was sorta sick/fever-ish and we had a long day ahead of us), but I got completely caught up in this fic I was reading and time just flew cos I just had to read the next chapter, too.. and the next... and...the next.. and- 
there were tears and it wasn't pretty and made me sleep way too late.

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our plan for the day was to swing by Trianon to see how big the queue was around midday, cos considering the weather forecast of lovely almost minus degrees C and rain showers and my sickness, it wasn't really an option to queue all day (plus hubs would never agree to it this time of year), and then maybe go down there around..2-3pm? 
we weren't sure when doors would open, but the tickets said show should start at 7, so we assumed around 5:30-6-ish.

our shoe box 

I felt shitty and ended up sleeping until almost noon, but then hunger drove me out of bed.
and huge bonus, it was a beautiful sunny winter day!

the view from our tiny balcony was straight out of The AristoCats!!

in other words it would have been perfect to just walk around Montmartre all day, but alas~ we had standing around to do, so.

in our search for a bakery or some decent sandwich shop of sorts we did first walk past Trianon (did I mention our hotel was only 100 meters away? convenient) and looked at the queue. there were two queues, a really tiny one with maybe 30 people, and then the big one, so we assumed the little one was for the VIP tickets.
but even in the long queue I think there was about a couple of hundred people at this point, maybe 300?

nothing major anyway, so we walked on and strolled the streets of Montmartre and it was just beautiful, and not too many people, and sunshine and. perfect.

Sacre Coeur

we ended up at this little square with a big carousel, and about 30 police officers in the heaviest battle gear I've ever seen outside of an actual war zone. but there wasn't any commotion and they didn't stop people or do anything besides stand around in little groups talking amongst themselves..
but there were families picnicking, children on the carousel, people hanging around on benches enjoying the weather.. it gave a very eerie feel to the picture..

we spotted a Kushmi shop and went to check it out to see if they had my tea cheaper than back home. we had barely closed the door behind us before the sales lady offered us a sample of some..floral thing, I can't remember what exactly. she spoke fast and in a heavy French accent so lol
but the tea was good (as expected of Kushmi), but what I especially noticed was that it was at perfect drinking temp right from the start. no blowing on it for five mins and then still burning the tip of your tongue.
anyway, in the end they didn't have the prices I wanted so we just had our little tea party and left. 
and we still needed food.

we went back down the hill to the big street.

"our" brasserie <3

here were tons of police, too, and at this point we assumed they were having a drill of some sorts.
we finally found a bakery and got some food, and we stopped by a pharmacy to got hubs some earplugs. he had forgotten his own custom made ones at home, so he had to do with cheap regular ones. 
he got tinnitus when he was young from playing in a death metal band and listening to too much of that stuff without earplugs, so now he's very responsible about it, and we never go to concerts without him using them. 
me... I don't have tinnitus yet so I'm still acting like an idiot.

aaaaanyway, as we walked back towards the hotel along the main road we suddenly saw some police flashes and a big crowd all the way down by Trianon. 

the white building by the red flags is Le Trianon

it was a coincidence that they happened to be by Trianon, it's not like the Angels had anything to do with it. but it turned out that there was a demonstration coming, so that was probably the reason for all the police in the area.
as we got closer we chuckled cos it was a tiny demonstration and they could've managed with a fraction of the man power they had shown up with to be honest. or so we assume. 

okay that was a sidenote.

queue to the left of the door is the short one, and down the road on the right, further than you can see in this picture, is the long queue. quite a difference!

we quickly went back and ate and changed our clothes - yes, we had special concert clothes.
first of all, we had buried deep into our closet to find anything remotely purple since that is Tintap's colour. it was surprisingly easy for hubs and surprisingly (idk) difficult for me, but I found 1 old top. 
not the prettiest, and definitely a couple of sizes too small by now, but, oh well, it was purple. besides no one cares once there are pretty boys on stage so.
secondly, I had brought  long underwear cos despite the ear plugs issue I'm not a complete fool, and just standing around outside in winter.. I'm too old to freeze my ass off, to be honest. but since it was such a nice day, even though cold, we actually opted out of that.

and since this is Europe, home to tall bishes everywhere, I had of course brought my high heel boots cos shorty Korean here.
anyway, when you usually spend 340-350 days a year in flip flops, suddenly having to squeeze into boots on heels can be quite the challenge for huge flat feet. but I got in them and off we went. 
we didn't get further than the elevator, though, cos I could barely walk already, and hubs could barely contain his laughter over how ridiculous I looked when I tried! 
so he gave me a stern look and convinced me (it wasn't really that hard, to be honest) to go back and change into my Adidas high-tops. thanks hubs I love you ♥

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I don't think we made it down to the queue until close to 4:30, and by that it seemed like every single ticket holder had shown up already. the queue just went on foreverrrr.
we didn't really care cos it wasn't our plan anyway to get all up in front. our plan was got go stand somewhat in the middle of the room, and then when they'd come on stage everyone will push forward, and then we would be fairly close, but without being pushed and showed around too much to be able to take pics and film.

after a while a Swedish girl and her dad (or so we assume) came and stood behind us, but they took turns disappearing and lurking around, and after a while they left the queue and didn't come back.
that made me very suspicious........ 

at around 5:45 I had to go pee back at the hotel, and on the way I saw the two Swedes in the short queue??! so they probably had VIP tickets.. but...then why would they come down to our long queue first?? so what? maybe it wasn't a VIP line after all??? 
sigh if only I hadn't been too shy and awkward with people I could've just gone up to them and asked what the deal was.

on the way back from the hotel I really noticed just how short the little queue was and I was just kicking myself for not having the courage, and finally, as I walked by, I just said, fuck it, and turned around and went up to the two girls who were last in line, and asked them if it was a VIP queue or what. they didn't know either LOL
so instead I asked the security guys who were having a little pow-wow by the side of the road, and !!! they said both queues were for everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cut to me semi-running back all the way down to the-almost-end of the long queue, and dragging hubs off to the little queue!

so not only did we just beat like 8-900 people in the queue, but it turned out that another perk of being up here where all the security guys roamed, was being able to listen in on what they talked about amongst themselves, and the answers they gave others. 

and that's how we found out that some of the guards did call this the VIP line - which was when we decided to play stupid foreigners who couldn't speak French if the need arose - and, 2) the doors weren't set to open until 6:30..!? 
guess it takes a lot less time to have to herd only around 1000 people into a venue than the audience capacity we're used to at concerts. supposedly Tintap still managed to top the sales charts or something upon release of the tickets even with capacity being this small. 
so good job, boys! <3
oh, another plus was that on this side the Trianon had a music store as a neighbour and so there was music while we waited. that may not sound like much, BUT TRUST ME.

there were several times where the security guys yelled something in French, and then everyone started waving their tickets (aka print out papers) and IDs around, and meanwhile we just stood there looking lost.. 
and we did see different prices on people's tickets, but we still stayed calm.
of course it also helped that the guy I had asked was one of the guys who were apparently gonna be checking tickets before entry so hopefully he wouldn't give us any problems.

the wait did go by a lot faster than for Big Bang cos this was right on a busy street and I love to people-watch anyway, so that and the music helped a lot, but towards the end I was really freezing, so when they finally started letting people in I was so ready.
it turned out that we got through the door just fine, but inside the people clearly thought it was VIP ticket holders who were getting let through first cos we had barely made it inside until we got goodie bags (aka a big envelope) stuck in our hands. we had no clue what it was but we happily accepted. 

we went straight to one of the merch tables so I could get my lightstick, and for a weak moment I contemplated getting the signed CD as well, but.. nah, already got 3 so I controlled myself.

we had originally talked about wanting to get up on the first balcony to avoid the pushing, but they checked tickets to get up there so instead we went to the bathroom, and then just went in to the main hall.
this was such a cute place! totally old and theatre-ish, and once again I found myself happy to be here at such a small venue, but at the same time I felt a little bad for the boys that they didn't get a bigger place than this cos they could easily have sold double or triple the amount of tickets.

there were almost 100 girls already packed right in front of the stage, but there were still a lot of free space, so we just planted ourselves right in the middle of the room, dead center.
after we unpacked the cameras and the lightstick we contemplated just leaving our bags off to the sides along the walls like all the girls, but hubs was a little skeptical so we went looking for a coat check. and they did actually had a coat check on the first floor.

when we came back there were obviously a lot more people by now, but still only about half full so we could easily get the same spot as before.
and then we just waited. yawn. 

test shots

there were definitely some noonas on the lower balcony head on. Koreans, high-end video gear, tripods, and the position fits perfectly with the cams they've uploaded

although they did play Tintap songs and people sang along - to the English parts anyway, it actually gave me goosebumps to hear the fanchant for To You. I mean, if you can even call it fanchant since it's just their names, but it just made it all feel very Korean all of a sudden.

sidenote: the Swedes were sitting up on the balcony aka they must've had VIP tickets which made me wonder why they had come all the way down to our queue at first.. anyways.

for once nail polish didn't match cos I didn't have purple and didn't have time to look for it before we left :(

and then the lights went out, people screamed even more and everyone except us surged forward towards the stage and before we knew it we had a decent amount of space to move around on. 
plus screamer girl, as I had dubbed her after 2 seconds of the sing-along songs, of course 
pushed far ahead and out of mine and my camera's ear shot.

oh, another sidenote. I think I heard on twitter later that people had complained to the organizers or something because the audience had screamed so loudly and security hadn't made them stop..... or something.....??
if that's true.. yeah. I just had to share that little tidbit.

again, I'm not gonna attempt a play by play, I was far too emotional to be able to do that properly. I'll just tell you what I remember.
besides, we filmed almost the entire time, and took pictures of everything, except a few short ments and VCRs cos our arms really needed a tiny break to be able to film most of every performance, so if you look through everything you won't have missed much.

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the best thing to get to experience was happy boys were happy ♥ 

of course I can't know what was in their hearts, but they seemed happy, and relaxed, and in such a good mood, and laughed and goofed off, and just.. like they were truly living their dream. 

they interacted a lot with the audience and as usual both Ljoe and Niel really stood out in this area, just like last time I saw them.

another thing I noticed, though, and it was really evident when you get to see them for this long, is that Changjo is really the introvert of the group, at least to me. 
maybe people might have bet it would be CAP or even Ljoe cos they aren't as loud as Ricky and Niel and Chunji, but they're both full of humour and smiles and mischievous and playfulness anyway. 

and this night in particular, I've never seen CAP more smiling and laughing and just generally playing around and enjoying himself. it was a joy to see.

anyway, about Changjo, it's not like he's in a bad mood or he doesn't wanna be there, he's just stands back often with not much facial expression going on, and by now I sorta just take that as him being him, and not something necessarily negative.
I just think it stuck out for me this night because everyone else seemed so up-beat and out-going so with the contrast it became more clear. 
I'm sure Changjo biased people will be disagreeing, but this is just my observation on this night. and the other time I saw them, but more about that in another post.
and like I said, I'm really not judging him, I'm an introvert myself, it's just what struck me.

THEY ALL LOOKED SO GOOD, LIKE, ALL OF THEM. except I really don't like Niel's hair, oh dear god. can he please get Crazy flat hair back cos gorgeous. 
anyway, his mood made up for the hair by far, so.
loving Byeongheon's hair! he was gorgeous with all his previous hairstyles, but it's nice to see him with a tad of edge for once, and I think he's had the other hairstyle in some form since forever so yay for a change!

there was a good flow to the show. it was a good mix of group performances, 1, 2 or 3 acts, ments and VCRs. 

holding up big signs for almost the entire concert when you're standing in the middle is just so fucking inconsiderate I don't even.. you'll see.. /sigh

sure, my arms felt like falling off towards the end, but it wasn't until we looked through our cams that we realized just how many songs they performed cos time just flew by.

there were only one song of theirs, Where's My Girl, that I had never heard before. and after having heard it I doubt I'll be hearing it again.

there was no point to all the smoke they filled the place with even prior to the concert. it just made everything blurry ugh 

their English have really improved! I mean, sure it was probably mostly rehearsed sentences, but pronunciation was a lot better than expected, especially Ricky's.

for me, Tintap might be cute young boys, but they are not exactly brimming with aegyo, they really aren't.
sure, they're cute with Mickey Mouse ears or big bows on their heads, and they are really cutie pies when they aren't trying, but once they start trying.. oh lordy, I cringe, I'm sorry.
and so their little aegyo..sexy ment or whatever it was, was somewhat tough to watch, some more than others, and Chunji's...sexy hand slide? I dunno what to call it even, but from our spot it looked like he just turned his back to the audience, bend over a little and spread his butt cheeks to the audience. .... /blinks 
I bias him why?? 

oh, right. cos he can hold a solo stage like he did, and just make me weak in the knees and hurt in my heart with just his voice. 
he killed it ♥
sure, hubs thinks he was out of tune in the beginning, and maybe he was a little - I'm half tone-deaf, I think, so who am I to argue, but I did nevertheless cos biased, but.. he might have been, I'm not gonna be blind and say he never is. 
I'm just glad he wasn't obviously off key and his voice didn't crack once at all that I noticed. 

I thought it was really interesting to have Niel and CAP do a, I dunno, hip hop stage? or what do you call that? 
point being, beforehand I wouldn't have thought this to be very "Niel", but they were both totally into it and having such a good time :D I'm wondering how much of the lyrics they understand... 

they have a lot of songs with "girl" in the title.

I cried. of course. but oddly enough it wasn't at a performance, it was during a montage of their promo songs since debut, but seeing it listed like that just made me so incredibly proud of them. 
they started so young and have just worked their asses off to succeed, and they have done that, and managed to stay the young bunch of kids that they are without becoming jaded or big-headed by their success. 
they have grown, and evolved, and matured, and made some great catchy hit music along the way. 
that warranted tears.

they did all my faves ♥

I appreciate the sentiment, but I thought it was a little weird and.. I dunno, misplaced somehow, to have them end with an English song. 
I get it's a song most people over here or everywhere know and can sing along to, but I don't want them to do English as the grand finale. 
I want that to be something arch Tintap that would leave my senses filled with them, not the Beatles. 

but very minor grievance cos the entire night was perfection. 
to attend bias group's solo concert on my own continent, I feel extremely fortunate ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ 

and maybe that's also partly what made me cry here cos I realize that the chances of me ever seeing them again are extremely slim. 
I mean, it's not like they will be back once a year or something, and they have comebacks and Asia and national activities to tend to, too, so it will probably be a good while before they swing by Europe again. 
they will probably go to the Americas first, so my best chance of seeing them again might be to accidentally stumble into Korea at a time where they just happen to be promoting a comeback. 
but can I really be that lucky twice...?

it was interesting to see how, even before they had even left the stage after All You Need Is Love, there were people bolting out of there. clearly people who wanted to get to see them leave and knew that this was the end and they wouldn't be coming back out cos the rest of us stayed until they turned up the house lights.

I was burning up with fever, but I pretty much forgot all about it - except at one point where I got really light-headed - but under those circumstances I think I did really well.

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we got the backpack, and quickly headed out - and when I say quickly I mean very slowly cos even though my feet were fine cos I didn't wear the heels, my entire body was sore and slightly cramping in back, lover back, and arms and shoulder and just... 
you don't just use your hands to keep a camera steady under those conditions, it takes your whole body, and then when it's for that long a while it's murder /whines

but towards the brasserie we went cos we were starving by now. we dropped by the hotel and left the backpack, but we still brought one of the cameras cos I was super impatient lol

fortunately they had a free table though this seemed to be peek hours or something.
we quickly ordered and then I went to the bathroom, and oh OH funny story about that! they had a Dyson Airblade!! in this little brasserie OMG.
I dunno why, but I've been obsessed with this since I first saw it many years ago. 
if you don't know what it is, it's a hand dryer where you just move your hands up and down a few times through this air jet stream and they're dry in seconds!

I really want one but they're $1600. yes, I actually checked prices and stuff.

okay toilet sidenote over.

this time I went for the full dozen of snails. hubs got a Roquefort salad.

poor bb hadn't had anything to drink for nearly six hours, he was parched 

for main I had the entrecoté tonight. poor hubs was a little confused after the day's excitement so he ended up ordering the lamb, when what he meant to order was the Boeuf Bourguignon lol
it was still all delicious and it was nice to have an actual nice meal and not just a sandwich or something fast food.
I never really got around to watching anything on the camera cos it's hard to watch and eat at the same time.

again we stopped by Carrefour on the way back cos we needed more water. I'm actually not sure if you can drink Parisian tap water, but even if you can it smelled and tasted a little bit chlorine-y so I'd rather drink bottled.

back at the hotel we finally had time to look and see what VIP goodies we had accidentally gotten. it was a rolled poster and a couple of badges and... I feel like there were something else, too..
we tried starting to edit when we got back to the hotel, but we hardly made it anywhere before we just passed out cos we were so beat.

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the next day we had to fly in the middle of the afternoon, but since it went so well with getting into Paris we figured we might as well just get up, check out, and leave, and then find a nice spot in the airport since we were just gonna sit and edit videos anyway.

turns out it was a good idea cos all direct trains were cancelled so once again we had to make a detour. 
in the end we just made it out there, ate a quick sandwich, and looked at a few videos before we had to board. 

- and by board I mean, had to volunteer to have our hand luggage put in the cargo hold cos Easyjet had over-booked hand luggage and there wasn't room for everything so volunteers were needed for take off to happen.
but we volunteered and saved everyone's timely departure not really cos ours wasn't enough alone so there were other volunteers as well and once again I fell asleep even before we had taxi'ed off.
that is such a neat trick if you're scared of flying, and I'm definitely gonna try and nap on other flights from now on. no hearts racing, no sweaty palms, no panicking, it was awesome.

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and now for the fun stuff! 

first of all, some technical details.

the floor that's laid out in Trianon for events like this is wood boards meaning that when everyone jumps at the same time you can't help but be bounced around which makes it completely impossible to keep a steady camera. 
hopefully the stabilizer made it so you won't think it's too nauseating to look at. 

I dunno if you would have noticed, but the sound on Perfume and a few other songs is different because they turned up the bass so much on those songs that it totally screwed our cameras.

but considering pushing, and annoying people with their fucking signs, and the fact that I was burning up with fever during the concert I think everything came out okay.

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about pics and cams.

please, DO NOT RE-UPLOAD my cams without my permission, but feel free to spread my youtube links around, preferably with a "do not re-up" note.
and DO NOT crop, edit, gif, vine, or whatever else you can think of that would alter my original material.

as far as the pictures are concerned, feel free to share if you find them good enough for that, but DO NOT crop my watermark, DO NOT edit, and please re-up in full size. please credit.

other than that I hope you enjoy, and as usual, if you actually read through the entire post THANK YOU ♥

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1. Teen Top - Supa Luv

2. Teen Top - 나랑 사귈래? 

3. Teen Top - introductions ment

4. Teen Top - 향수 뿌리지마 

5. Chunji - Beautiful Girl (long cut)

6. Teen Top - Baby U

7. Teen Top - First Kiss (long cut)

almost Ljoe version

8. Teen Top - 손등이 스친다 + Angel

9. Teen Top - ment

I think it was supposed to be ageyo? or sexy? in any case. . .  nO

10. Teen Top - Troublemaker

covering Olly Murs feat. Flo Rida

11. Teen Top - Good Time

covering Owl City & Carly Rae Jepsen

that bouncy floor...

12. Teen Top - 박수 

one of my fave songs ♥ 

13. Chunji - 박수 

14. Chunji solo - Count On Me

covering Bruno Mars

ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ♥

15. Ljoe, Ricky, Changjo - special dance stage

16. CAP, Niel - Bed Rock

covering Young Money

17. Teen Top - To You

18. Teen Top - Girlfriend

0:37 Ricky.... 

19. Teen Top - Where's Ma Girl

20. Teen Top - Shake It!

passing hearts and otp butt patting at 2:31 

21. Teen Top - 미치겠어 

22. Teen Top - All You Need Is Love 

you did good, bbs ㅠㅠ~♥ 

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뽀뽀ㅋㅋㅋ

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rawr

I--