The Problematic of the Unproblematic

It is here! What, you ask? The fruits of Lee Jun-ki's Swiss visit of course !!! Yes, I have been waiting for it ever since Joongi was here, in this very city. There are four items to get. A gift package (wow); two posters (more wow); an L-holder (which is what exactly?!); and a Post-It (uhm .... also not sure what that is. I mean, I know what Post-Its are, but I'm guessing the Joongi post-its are not exactly the post-its I know)

Hello chingus! Can you imagine how pleased I was when I discovered new Swiss Lee Jun-ki images in my newsfeed on Facebook this morning? (thanks, JG Family!) It has been too long since I last lusted after this pretty boy on his Swiss adventure. How much fun I had! And how much my heart broke! Ah, the memories ...  These pictures have appeared in a monthly travel magazine and there are a few pages on Joongi's travel to Switzerland in the January edition. I hear this magazine is a Jeju Air inflight magazine so it cannot be bought on the street. We are waiting for the proper photobook anyway, are we not? In the meantime, let's enjoy the pretty ...and indulge in reminiscences. In the magazine, three Swiss cities/towns are mentioned: Chur, St. Moritz, and Lucerne. And what about Zurich?! Huh. They probably thought nobody would notice, but this, my friends, is Zurich, as it lives and breathes!

Hoorray! Here I was, getting bored and a little sad because there was no more Lee Jun-ki footage ... but there is! A short clip was aired on MNet today/tonight about Joongi's Swiss adventure. Here are some pictures from it (thank you, JGFamily !). As always, I am happy to give you some more details (the video is below):

Lee Jun Ki / BG Family posted another picture tonight! Though he is long gone and currently enrapturing fans in Japan, he keeps me busy.

Will you believe me if I tell you that I did not plan to continue this series forever and ever? But here we go again - I get up, I switch on my computer, I log myself into Facebook ... and there he is! Another Joongi picture from his Switzerland trip (from Lee Jun Ki / BG Family via this blog)

Where the heck did this picture suddenly come from?! ROFL.  I got it from the Lee Jun Ki / BG Family page on Facebook and I see that someone at Mandarina Duck (the bag company) got to it sooner than everybody else ... Nice way of creating an ad! Lee Jun-ki is about to board a ZVV S-Bahn. ZVV stands for Zürcher VerkehrsVerbund, which is the local transportation organisation. A S-Bahn is a local train (they run in the whole Canton of Zurich). Joongi was most likely taking the train to go from the airport to Zurich main station (this is his look from Seoul airport , on 22 November, not when he returned). Wow, Joongi, you used our public transport! That's so cool!

Is this Lee Jun-ki whining ever going to end, you ask? Probably not! Yesterday, my Iljimae OST CD with a Joongi autograph arrived. My husband bought it for me on ebay the other week, to ease my heart that was breaking into tiny little pieces. And as a prize, because I was so good at geo-locating. But that was secondary. I will simply make myself believe that I met Joongi in person and he signed this for me. I'm good at pretending (the only thing that bugs me: the CD is still wrapped and the autograph is on the plastic (as it should be). But it means I can never listen to this CD! Damn) Doing well, Jun-ki, back in Asia? Seems so! But don't forget to pick your next drama project! It's very important for all our (or at least my) sanity to see you on screen again soon.

Hello, everyone! Ah, how I miss the days when I was still real-time stalking ... I am so glad there is video footage at least, because a) it proves Joongi was really here and b) I can do some more location-identification. I've missed it! Here's the video with English subs on JG Family's Facebook page: You see Joongi in the Rhätische Bahn (Rhaetian Railway), which is a train company that (almost) only runs in Switzerland’s trilingual canton of Graubünden, since 1888. Their network contains 84 tunnels and some pretty spectacular viaducts. It has a unique track-width, which is called "metre gauge" (cause it's exactly 1 meter or 3 ft 3 3⁄8 in wide) . Normal Swiss trains can't use these tracks. Yeah, we Swiss are train fanatics! All of us! The famous Landwasser Viaduct

"Mich laust der Affe!" ... as we say in German (Translation: I'll be a monkey's uncle.) cr: JGFamily There's first footage of Joongi in Switzerland! "Ich verstehe Bahnhof" (= It's all double Dutch - or rather Korean!- to me), but it's so funny to see him ride the same Rhätische Bahn train I often ride when I go see my parents (the red one). Seriously, it's weird . You would know what I mean if you had ever ridden the same small train. 

Lee Jun-ki is no longer here. It was confirmed by his tweet this morning (after landing): "여러분의 응원덕분에 무사히 촬영잘마치고 막 도착했습니다~ 감사합니다~~~!공항까지 마중나와주신 가족들께도 감사드려요 ~^^" ( Thanks to your support, I finished shooting without trouble and have just arrived here. ~Thank you~~! Thank you my fans who came to see me at the airport as well~^^ (trans by Elly)) . Arriving in Seoul

It does help if you have a world-spanning intelligence networks that helps with the stalking (you know who you are!). It is confirmed that at least Joongi's stylist was in Zurich this morning (10.30am approximately). That is what she posted: Swarovski Tree with Crystals It is the Swarovski Xmas Tree at the Zurich Main Station. There is no Joongi there, however. Is he hiding behind the tree perhaps? Seeing they are now in Zurich, I guess they are flying back tonight. For anybody who can go (I can't): The flight leaves at 9.40 pm. This also shows that it helps to have an iphone (cause it will give you 3G coverage). I hear from well informed sources that Joongi doesn't use an iphone but a Samsung Galaxy. He might have to go find WiFi to check Twitter and post on Twitter. If you read this, can you wander up the hill to Haldeneggsteig 4, please? My office is there. I'll be content with an autograph, no need to talk to me or anything. I'm in meetings this afte...

And so it ends, it seems. Another farewell pic this morning, this time from Joongi's own twitter account. This is a rather impressive entourage. And there is product placement! Well done, Joongi. Helibernina does Helicopter flights for VIPs and other people with money from the heliport in Samedan (a village in the Engadin) to ... anywhere you want to go. They could also have flown Joongi and crew to Mailand for a few hours. No wonder he was so hard to track... I was thinking slow ground-travel with about 3 small buses for all the equipment and staff - but no, this boy was all over this country so quickly, he seemed to have sprouted wings. He probably did. This morning, another (fan made) pic went viral on the net - it's Joongi playing the Alphorn in Lucerne. At least he had fun in Lucerne. He could have had more fun in Zurich, but he probably did not know that. Or he did and he deliberately did not come to Zurich. Or he probably is here right now. Or he is ... already on ...

Okay, I definitely need to go back to stalking school. At 9pm local time, Lee Jun-ki's photographer Steve Tak tweeted a group picture (thanks, Cheryl, from JGFamily for pointing this out!), announcing the end of the photo shoot. Standing in a snow field. Somewhere in the Bernese alps - or not.  I am NOT going to identify this mountain for you! I will not! I may be a bit tempted, but I've had it! Yes, I'm going back to loving Park Shi-hoo now, much more than you Joongi! (even though I fear his new drama will be a bit bleh). Joongi has been here 4 days, they are done shooting, and they promised us TWO WEEKS in Switzerland. Did they put a 1 before the 4 by accident? He may now very well go back tomorrow already or Thursday. Well, I hope he'll enjoy one or two days of holidays here at least. Wherever he may be. DUH!

I am very disappointed. I have been honing my human GPS skills all day by looking up random pictures on the internet and then trying to find out where they were taken. And then this? Joongi! Too easy!!! This is Lucerne , though not at its most scenic. That's more to the left, I'd say. The picture is taken from a boat at the Bahnhofquai. What you see in the background are some of the really nice hotels (the Grand Hotel National is just to the left of Joongi's photographer friend). You also see the Church of St. Leodegar. And the bad weather. Poor swans and ducks on the lake!  Random info : Whenever I see a cold lake and ducks on it, I have to think of that song "Human?" by Grip Inc. (a groove metal band). There's a line in that song that goes like this: " Only frozen dogs have spent nights cold as mine". Before I looked up the lyrics, I used to understand "only frozen ducks have spent nights cold as mine". I always pitied the poor duck...

In the absence of another tweet (but he will not keep us waiting much longer, will he?), I am writing about stalking more generally. That's a topic I've grown very fond of. There are several levels of proficiency in the ancient trade of stalking. At the beginner's level (the Tin League), the stalker is clumsy, too obvious, and will at the most get to see the object of admiration from a far distance. The results of stalking - I am assuming here that stalking is a means to an end and not an end in itself - get better in the Silver and the Gold League (where you may get an autograph or may be able to even touch the object of admiration). is this what he saw today? We will soon know. Maybe! Where you want to get, however, is the Diamond League. This Grade A stalking is no longer reactive - but proactive. The hunter does no longer simply follow her prey, but reads her prey's mind like an open book. Not a step behind, but always already there (You may know th...

Another tweet! Ah, Joongi, how nice of you ... two tweets in one day? We are so grateful. This time, he is having lunch in some Grison mountain village. As you may be able to see, there's a "Volg" in the background - that's a type of grocery shop that specializes in providing food in more remote locations (countryside, mountains). This looks like it was taken at noon. And here is the name of the village: Zuoz . You know who knew? My father. Yes, I even mobilized my father and my father-in-law this time! The "Locate Joongi"-game is becoming quite popular in my family. The one who identifies the location first gets a point. The family member with the most points when Joongi leaves Switzerland will get an Iljimae OST CD with a Joongi autograph. My husband just bought it today on ebay. Probably to finally shut me up about this guy? Not working so far, sorry! Zuoz in the Summer - same fountain, same yellow house I was pretty sure Joongi would make his ...

Hello world, this is kakashi! I was healed yesterday , but today... stalking mode, ON! A tweet, a tweet! Before lunch (unexpected pattern change). He says something about liking the peace and quiet ("좋다~~오랜만에느끼는 이 한적함ㅜㅜ") - yeah, welcome to a small town in Switzerland on a Sunday. Where there is not a single shop open. You are such a nice person, Joongi - you could also have said "how can people live in such a boring place??". If you're lucky, Joongi, you might find a café that is open! In fact, if you can, go to Café Maron. Just down the way from where you are. It looks a bit shabby from the outside, but the do have the tastiest things! But I guess you shouldn't eat sweets, should you ... Ah, yes, obviously I know where this is. He is back in Chur (on Ottostrasse), where he stayed on Friday. He may just be on his way through because he is not in the hotel. How I know? Because my husband ... called again. Will I rush to Chur on a train now? N...

I was a slightly less preoccupied with Lee Jun-ki today, which is a healthy and good thing. I feel much more like myself: The healing has set in and I have accepted that he is quite close, and yet so far, and I am now just wishing for him to have good time. Yes, we can just be friends, right?    After locating him in Chur yesterday , I was pretty sure he would either go to Arosa or to St. Moritz next. At 6.30pm this afternoon, the second was confirmed. Lee Jun-ki tweeted "스위스 생모리츠 코르바치 3305m 대자연의 웅잠함에 안기며 또~ 우리팀의전통 기념사진 ^^". I haven't had much of a chance to boast about my Hangul reading skills on this blog, but now's the time! I totally got the first part immediately (and totally didn't get the second, though Google translate allowed me to understand just now that it is about 'the traditional team picture'). So he's in St. Moritz, more precisely, he went up Piz Corvatsch . Cool. I really like Piz Corvatsch and I really like the Engadin (the v...

Hello, this is Lee Jun-ki's Swiss sideline stalker, kakashi! The stalker that only stalks virtually, but will probably never ... ah, no, hope dies last, as I said yesterday. The trip has only begun, there is still looooots of time to meet him. The @JGShock followers had to wait for a long time, but this afternoon at 6pm, the long awaited tweet came. It came with the above picture. God in heaven, the amount of luggage! That's insane!! He seems to have brought at least 50 different sets of clothing for the photo shoot. Well, nothing can come between a Hallyu star and his wardrobe, right? But ... wait a minute. I know where this is. And it's not in Zurich (=here) but in Chur (1+hour from here). Well, GREAT. If I had known that earlier, I wouldn't have had to stalkingly stalk through Zurich today, following Asian guys until I could be sure it wasn't Joongi! Yes, I was creepy. I even creeped myself out. And I was that close to being arrested! So he was not in Zur...

This was a fun day. But it wasn't a very productive day. Because I had to monitor Lee Jun-ki's flight (Korean Air 933) all the way from Seoul to Vienna and then to Zurich. AND I had to monitor the world's twitter activities related to @JGSHock. Man, there's a lot of people tweeting this guy ... I did manage to get some work done, too, but who is interested in work when Lee Jun-ki is on his way to one's hometown?! Okay, and then he landed at Zurich Airport at around 8pm tonight. Was I there? I was not. Total FAIL. UTTER TOTAL FAIL. But then, I had guests. My aunt and uncle. And my aunt even cooked for me and my family. Yes, tonight I placed my family over Lee Jun-ki. Do I feel bad about it? Not really. Here is why: Because the poor guy just spent 16 hours travelling and is probably so tired he would welcome a temporary coma (though he is used that kind of schedule from Arang , no?).  Because I am a married ajumma with kid, for crying out loud!, what has ...