Red Velvet Vol 1. The Red - Album Review

I thought I had done a Red Velvet review on the blog in the past however turns out I actually haven't! Red Velvet is a group that I used to be quite into but have dropped off in interest in recent years. Like I like their music, I just prefer their old stuff and that is mostly what I have in my collection. The Red album was the first Red Velvet CD that I got in my collection and I even recall buying their debut single Happiness on iTunes when it first came out. I used to post stacks of Red Velvet images on my Tumblr back in the day before Yeri joined and I'm sure I would post more now with Yeri as she is my bias in the group.

Vol. 1 The Red is the first full album from Korean girl group Red Velvet and it was released on September 9th 2015. The album only comes in one version from what I researched even though some sites list there being a blue and red version. I looked this up and couldn't see this supposed red version which is just the booklet inside the jewel case with a red background instead of blue. A version of the album was released in Taiwan in October and everything is the same with that one. For the photocard I got Irene who is the member I tend to get besides Yeri. Funny how you always end up pulling the same members. I brought my copy of The Red from a local (now sadly closed) K-Pop store and it came with the following contents:

• CD - 10 track album
• Sleevebox
• Jewel case
• 24 page lyric booklet
• 48 page photobook
• Photocard (Random 1 out of 6 types)

July Favourites

Apologies for the late posting of the monthly favourites for July and you can blame my computer for that one. I think a part in the tower is worn out/broken as the computer is struggling to do anything. Finally got it to load this morning without crashing so I shall try to post this before it dies again. July was a pretty busy month mainly with work. The weather has improved slightly as in its not freezing cold every day. There was one day with some crazy fog and it was a task to drive to work in it. Let's get onto the monthly favourites! Starting off with this cute Gomamon Pop Vinyl I got last weekend! I placed an order as soon as I saw it announced. Not the biggest Pop fan but I do like to pick them up when the figurine looks cute or is some IP that I love.

Gaming

Finally finished my One Year Challenge for New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star. It was a long journey and a lot of screenshots to post. Might take a short break from Style Boutique outfits as I'm worn out from it. I have been playing lots of other games in the meantime. Last month I talked about Pretty Princess Party which I have been playing a fair bit. Not as much as the sequel Pretty Princess Magical Garden Island! I brought it on sale and been playing it every day since. It's basically an Animal Crossing clone where you are on an island and do random activities like fishing, catching bugs and crafting stuff. Absolutely love how easy it is to move buildings and bridges in the game. Animal Crossing needs to get on that level. 

Besides a stack of digital games, I also picked up a few new physical games for the switch. I got the remake of We Love Katamari and Little Friends: Puppy Island. Only played the Katamari one so far and it is amazing. I had played the original one on the PS2 but this port is way better. Always fun to roll around and pick up random stuff. Haven't tried out Little Friends yet however it did come with some cute joy-con grips. They look great on my Nintendo Switch and are quite nice to play with.

March Favourites

OMG I cannot believe I forget to post the monthly favourites for February :( It was such a busy time and the first week went by rather fast. Well I'm here for March at least and have a few things to report for this month!

Gaming

Been obssessed with pixel art games on the Nintendo Switch and have played way too many hours. I brought a stack of them during the Boxing Day sales and it is so relaxing to sit down after work and colour in. Even brought a stylus for my switch and now I cannot go back to not using one. It was a life changer and is also great for jigsaw games which is my other obsession! My top games are Love Colours, Calm Colours and Pixel Paint. For jigsaw ones, I love Hatsune Miku Jigsaw Puzzle and Jigsaw Masterpieces.

Seems like old news however I haven't mentioned it on the blog yet that there is a new fashion game coming to the switch. It is called Fashion Dreamer and honestly I'm not really going to say much on it until we know more details. All I know is that I'm definitely going to miss the management simulator aspect if it is missing. I'm not sure about the whole influencer thing or maybe I'm just too old haha. I will be patiently waiting for more information regarding game play especially if it is mostly to be played online.

Beauty

2023 was going to be a low-buy make-up year for me but I have zero self control so that went out the window quickly once Colourpop had a sale. Picked up a number of lovely items including some last-call products. The package is taking a long time to reach Australia though and is just going around in transit circles at the same facility. I did manage to buy a few items this weekend whilst shopping but they were just repurchases. I needed a new NYX glitter primer as mine had expired and the Chi Chi lip balm set was to match the other set I brought a few months ago. This one comes with Cherry, Blueberry and Grape which two smell amazing whilst the Cherry doesn't have a strong scent. Picked up more Wet N Wild brushes as I was pleased with the last one I got.

January Favourites

Ah this month has been mental! I feel like I didn't accomplish anything and now we are somehow at February already. I'm not even ready for this months favourites and I have no clue what to talk about. When I was in town the other weekend, I did come across this gorgeous Barbie display in a toy store. Look at all those collector Barbies!! They even had the new Rewind line which is super cool and I like the designs of those dolls. Unfortunately I didn't find what I was actually looking for in this store which was some Sylvanian Families toys. They are my new obsession and I'm trying to find the perfect one to buy as my first one. Sadly I haven't come across it yet so I shall keep searching.

Gaming

Finally got a stylus for my switch! I've been playing stacks of pixel art and puzzle games on the console and its much easier with the stylus. Totally obsessed with the games I got during the boxing day sales and I've somehow played 7 hours of Hatsune Miku Puzzle. Like it's really good and I haven't even started the hard levels yet with the 300 pieces!

Beauty

Ordered some products from Revolution Beauty even though I wasn't originally planning to. I was going about my life when they sent an email for Buy 2 Get 1 Free. So I thought why not have a look however I ended up buying all sale items which is what I usually do on the site. You can get such good deals! I love their brushes and wanted to get more for my collection. I do have Morphe brushes but I find they wear out quicker and the Revolution ones work better for me. Picked up the Beetlejuice set as it had all the eyeshadow brush types I like. Also got two lip glosses because I'm obsessed with Revolution lip products. The other two items were a coffee detox eye cream thing and a lip scrub which ended up leaking all over the package. Luckily only the brush box was damaged and I wasn't going to keep it anyway. One of my lip glosses was also cracked but no serious damage. Didn't have much luck with this order but it can happen.

November Favourites

I'm finally here with the November favourites and apologies for the late post as I've had things on every day since the start of the December. Found some time to quickly update you on my favourites for the month of November which was an eventful one! Had a power outage for a long time due to some insane stormy weather which they said was a mini cyclone. Now we don't get cyclones in the part of Australia that I live in so it was pretty serious. Took out a huge amount of trees around my area and they're almost all been cleaned up now.

Quite a busy month for me workwise as we have a big Black Friday style sale as most retailers do in Australia. The shops here like to keep extending them out and some even start at the start of November now instead of just the one Friday. I did pick up some great bargains myself which was mainly beauty products and electronics. I won't post about my gaming favourites as I just didn't have time to play any games! I skipped my normal gaming meetup with friends as I had to work for the Black Friday sales. I will hopefully get the Style Boutique Shopdo and Caprice Chalet updates up this week. December is the busiest month for me so it can get difficult to update the blog.

Beauty

Ended up placing two orders of beauty products for Black Friday. Brought a bunch of Colourpop items which are on the way to me now. Took advantage of their great 30% deal and found enough items to get the free shipping to Australia. Hopefully that shouldn't be too far away and I'll see it at my parcel locker soon! The other order was from Revolution Beauty I ordered it on the 26th and received it on the 29th which is insane shipping wise for this time of year. Here are some of the products I brought minus two eyeshadow brushes which are pretty boring. So far I've tried out the Glam Balm Tropic Baby Pineapple, Party Pets Lip Gloss and the Curl Elevation Mascara. All are totally amazing especially the mascara which actually makes my lashes look the way I like. The Glam Balm are always good quality and I love the glitter of the lip gloss.

Music

I actually went to a concert this month which is rare for me. I'm not much of a concert person but I saw randomly one day that Five was touring in Australia. Like omg really? I just had to go and the tickets were super cheap! It was absolutely amazing and well worth it. The crowd looked like they were having a good time and there was definitely a demographic to the audience. Women in the 30's I'd describe it as but that is because we all were the perfect age to like Five when they were popular in the late 1990's early 2000's. It was truly a concert I will remember forever and it was crazy to be able to hear their songs played in 2022 live.

Zenmarket Haul - Red Velvet, Orange Caramel, E-girls, April & Pungdeng-E

Received an exciting Zenmarket haul recently that contained some releases that I have been after for quite some time. I finally found Type A of Pungdeng-E's first Japanese single 側にいて Stay which I have searching forever for! I randomly checked Yahoo Auctions before work one day and came across a listing for Type A and was so excited about it. Told all my workmates about it all day who probably think I'm crazy haha. Anyway, all the items I got are pictured below and I even got photocards with three of the releases.

First up is April's first Japanese single TinkerBell which was something I was looking at collecting for a little while. They're a cute group with some great Korean releases and have only released two Japanese singles so far. I got a brand new unopened copy of the limited edition CD+DVD of TinkerBell. Originally I wanted to get the fanclub edition but it's rare to find so I picked up this one first. The group comes from the same company as KARA who always had great Japanese releases so I'm happy to see DSP sticking with the quality of single designs. 

TinkerBell Limited Edition CD+DVD

Next up is the limited edition CD+PHOTOBOOK edition of Red Velvet's first Japanese mini album #Cookie Jar. I only heard the song recently and decided to pick up the mini straight away after falling in love with it. I found a listing of the mini album in great condition that came with the special HMV sticker with it. It was a decent price and I love this design and concept. It's so typically Red Velvet and has a book design to it which I don't usually see with Japanese releases.

#Cookie Jar HMV Sticker

May Favourites

Almost halfway through the year now that May is over and we've moved into June. It's been freezing here lately considering it wasn't even winter yet. Managed to squeeze all my blog updates into this weekend because I had the time. I only realised it was time for another monthly updates yesterday as the start of June really crept up on me. Just a short monthly favourites this month as I didn't have much going on and it's mainly just music related stuff.

Gaming
I've been really into Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp lately and there has been heaps of events recently. I didn't do the rock themed one as I didn't really want the items and I thought the cat themed fishing tourney was adorable. Found it a lot harder than the school one where I got all the items and a high score. Maybe the previous one was easier or I had more time to pay. At the moment, there's a gardening event on which has some gorgeous Gracie rewards. Managed to collect quite a lot of creatures from it this weekend as I've been able to play a fair bit. Bill finally showed up in my game which I was excited for as I love him in the 3DS game. Time to max out his friendship level!! I've been working on my campsite a bit lately and will post another play journal soon. Snapped this super adorable pic of Goldie sleeping at my campsite. It's so cute!!!!

Music
Brought some exciting new CD's from Japan this month so I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival. One is a very special single I've been on the lookout for ages and couldn't believe I finally tracked down. E-girls also announced a new single which will include EG-ENERGY. OMG you can't believe how excited I was to see that announced as I was dying for the instrumental version of that song as it's one of my top E-girls releases. Looking forward to that in a few months then and will pick up some other E-girls singles I'm missing at the same time.

You may have noticed I didn't post any of MOMOLAND's recent releases on here even though I usually get all their releases. Basically I just wasn't into their recent mini-album so I didn't buy it. I am planning to get the Japanese version of I'm So Hot later this year as I much prefer that version to the Korean one. Lately I've just been not interested in the group really and been annoyed about the lack of information about Taeha and Daisy. Like the company said they'll be back next comeback but how long away is that? They aren't even attending any fanmeets or anything, like are they still in the group or what? It really made me lose interest in following the group once they announced the girls wouldn't do I'm So Hot and honestly wasn't into this song as much as their previous releases. Seriously BAAM is still hot on my playlist and that's both the Korean and Japanese versions.

Anyway here are some songs I've really been enjoying this month. Actually been listening to some new girl groups on Spotify such as Weki Meki. I don't mind their songs and they have a certain fun and edgy feel to them.

My K-Pop Collection 2017

During 2017, I focused mainly on building up my Japanese Pop collection and didn't really work much on my Korean Pop collection in terms of physical albums. I did purchased a lot of digital albums this year from a variety of groups. This post will only look at my current physical album collection though. Here is a photo of all my albums which are a lovely selection of crazy sizes.

The albums in my collection include:

• Crayon Pop - Evolution Pop_Vol.1
• I.O.I - Mini Album Volume 1 - Chrysalis (Special Edition)
• T-ARA - Mini Album Volume 11 - So Good
• Strawberry Milk - The 1st Mini Album 
• Crayon Pop - 2015 Mini Album Volume 2 - FM
• Orange Caramel - The Fourth Single - My Copycat/Do It Like Me
• Orange Caramel - The Third Single - Catallena
• I.O.I - Single Album - Whatta Man
• Crayon Pop - Single Album - Uh-Ee
• Hong Jin Young - Mini Album Vol 2 - The Most Beautiful Moment In Life
• AOA - Vol 1 - Angel's Knock (Taiwan Version A)
• April - Single Album Vol 1 - Boing Boing
• Red Velvet - Vol 1 - The Red
• Girls Generation - 2011 Girls Generation Tour (2CD + Photobook)
  
• Crayon Pop - Mini Album - Streets Go Disco (Australian Version)
• Girls Generation - The Boys (US Version)

Crayon Pop makes up the largest part of my collection as they were one of my favourite groups whilst they were still together as a five-member group. Nowadays they don't release anything, so I haven't had anything new to add to my collection. The Evolution Pop album I ordered from KpopMart which I had never used before. I enjoyed getting the free poster, but I was surprised the order reached me as the box was badly beaten up when I received it. I also found (and I know other fans found it as well) that the product was faulty and the CD's weren't held in place well. I easily fixed mine but I heard you could've sent it back or something. I was lucky enough to get the Australian version of Streets Go Disco a few years ago when the group had a deal to sell the album at a local music store chain. The one thing that I don't like about the Crayon Pop albums is the fact they don't come with photocards (the ones I have didn't come with any). FM would've been an amazing album to have photo cards for!

Crayon Pop collection

Orange Caramel is another favourite group of mine and I'm so disappointed that they no longer promote as a group. Cmon on Pledis, just announce that After School and Orange Caramel are disbanded already and put me out of my misery!! Anyway I only have two physical Korean albums from the group and I would collect more if they weren't ridiculously overpriced. One day I like to get the rest of their Korean singles and albums, but for now I'll just stick with the digital versions.

Orange Caramel collection