Golden Child: 2019 Season's Greetings Review

It's the holiday season which means it's time for season's greetings! On November 8th, Woollim gave a preview of Infinite's, Lovelyz', and Golden Child's season's greetings via Twitter, with the information that pre-orders will begin the following day for release date December 14th. All three groups' season's greetings have the same packaging and inclusions, but in my opinion why must Golden Child's pouch design be the least classy >.<

The preview revealed that there would be a special calendar poster. I'm fairly new to pre-ordering season's greetings and thought that exterior posters were usually just a freebie if purchased in person in Korea (this was the case when I bought my Infinite 2014 one). After websites listed this season's greetings, they specified that the poster was for first press only (though I feel like season's greetings don't have more than one press), so I jumped on pre-ordering to ensure obtaining the poster. 

On November 15th, Woollim released another preview of individual member photos via Twitter. Golden Child's concept looks similar to last year's, where it's youthful and bright boys this time eating junk food instead of playing with toys.

I had originally ordered this item from Ktown4u and was supposed to receive it on Monday, December 17th, just 3 days after its release, but Ktown screwed me over and sent me Exo albums instead. I re-ordered from Kpoptown and received my season's greetings on the following Monday, December 24th. You can read more about my ordeal here.

I ordered two sets of Golden Child's 2019 Season's Greetings with unfolded posters. The season's greetings came protected in a sealed bag. Note that there is nothing random included within this season's greetings; I only ordered an extra one for a friend.

The season's greetings is bundled in a pouch package. The design on the pouch even includes Golden Child's logo just for this season's greetings. This pouch is made of canvas, like the Goldenness tote from the first generation fanclub membership. The backside is blank. Previously Infinite's season's greetings came packaged in a cardboard pizza-style box, but Woollim has really upgraded Golden Child's season's greetings packaging to make them functional, with a coin bank for 2018 and a pouch for 2019.

Here are all of the contents placed inside the pouch. The dimensions of the pouch are just under 13.5" by 9.375". The zipper is red, matching the red color scheme of this year's season's greetings.

Here are how all the contents were placed inside the pouch.

This season's greetings set includes a special message card set, a postcard set, a photo diary, a desk calendar, and a special calendar poster.

The special message card set comes with 12 photocards contained in a sealed plastic bag with the red card on top, followed by the group card, and then each member's card from Daeyeol to Bomin. These selcas are all taken from the photoshoots. These cards are glossy and have the same dimensions and roundness of the corners as Goldenness, Wish, and Goldenness first generation photocards.

The first card has the QR code for the making of video on Golden Child's official YouTube account. The second card is a general season's greetings message. And the remaining cards have the members' individual messages. They are all so creative and artistic; I was so impressed with the drawing on each card!

The postcard set came in a glossy red paper sleeve and placed in a sealed plastic bag. There are 20 postcards from 2 photoshoots (the snack photoshoot and the graffiti photoshoot), and they were placed in age order first with the snack photoshoot, then the graffiti photoshoot.

The postcards are 4" by 5.875" and have a glossy front and matte back. Oddly enough the postcards arrived pretty curved. Here is the backside of the sleeve as well.

The photo diary is the only item that doesn't come in a plastic bag. There is a large exterior sleeve with a group photo from the snack photoshoot. The dimensions are 5.875" by 8.25" by 0.3125".

The backside of the photo diary is pretty basic, with the sleeve matching the design of the pouch.

The front of the diary has Golden Child's logo for this season's greetings, and the bottom has "GOLDEN CHILD PHOTO DIARY", both printed in white. The inside of the sleeve also states "2019 SEASON'S GREETINGS".

The first page again shows the logo.

The following page has a space to fill in the date and your signature. I really like just how flexible this diary is; my previous photo diaries were stiff and hard to open, but with this one I can easily open it all the way without damaging the spine.

The following 2-page spread includes a 12 month calendar for 2019 and 2020, with no holidays highlighted.

The next 2-page spread shows each date of 2019 with each month per column and each date per row. I've never seen a calendar displayed like this, but I really like it! Important Goldenness dates (each member's birthday, Goldenness anniversary, Golden Child anniversary) are highlighted and decorated with red hearts, and national holidays are also highlighted.

The next section is for the monthly calendars, and begins with another group photo from the snack photoshoot. These pages range from December 2018 to January 2020.

Each 2-page spread is dedicated to a month and lists national holidays. The following month is also printed at the bottom.

The following section is for the weekly calendars, and begins with a group photo from the graffiti photoshoot.

Each page is dedicated to one week and is customizable where you circle the month at the top and can write the dates of that week. I love how the top states "2019 with GOLDEN CHILD". 10 individual member photos by age order from the graffiti photoshoot are spread throughout the weekly planner section. Tag's pose is so cute!

Seungmin looks especially nice throughout these photoshoots! His hair grown out like this suits him so well and he looks so much more mature!

The last section contains lined and blank pages for you to write down notes. There are 10 individual member photos by age order from the snack photoshoot in this section. The first half has the lined pages and hyung line photos.

I can't get over how adorable Seungmin looks! He exuded such mature charm in the graffiti photoshoot but here he brings back his cuteness.

The second half has the blank pages and the maknae line photos.

Bomin looks so cute in his pajamas!

The last page has space for you to write your personal data, such as name, address, mobile phone, and e-mail. The inside of the sleeve also states "GOLDEN CHILD".

And now onto the desk calendar! The desk calendar also comes in a sealed plastic bag. All the pages are matte (but prone to fingerprints!). The front cover has random glossy circles, giving the design a nice, lowkey touch. There are a total of 14 physical pages, or 28 including both sides. When flat, the dimensions are 11.5" by 8".

The backside of the desk calendar is made of a thick cardboard, creating a sturdy base for when the calendar is standing. Oddly enough there is a long white streak down the middle of mine, but luckily this defeat isn't visible while on display. When standing, the calendar is about 8" tall and the base is about 2.75".

The first page is labelled "2019 YEAR with GOLDEN CHILD" and highlights the 12 important Goldenness dates. Again, I love how this labeling personalizes the year for Goldenness.

Next are the monthly calendar pages, with two pages per month, from January 2019 to December 2019. The first side is always from the graffiti photoshoot while the other side is always from the snack photoshoot. We're starting off the year with a group photo for January!

Here is the other side for January. All monthly calendar pages display the days of the month at the bottom of the page in one long line.

The monthly calendar at the bottom always highlights the important Goldenness dates as well as national holidays.

From February to November are individual member photos by age order, with Daeyeol for February all the way down to Bomin for November. Daeyeol looks so soft here!

Jangjun naturally poses so well!

Tag poses really well too even with his extraness!

Here is the other side of Tag's month.

I still can't get over how Seungmin fits this photoshoot so perfectly, shedding his cute image.

And Jaehyun is back with his headband!

Like Seungmin, Donghyun also sheds his cute image well in this photoshoot.

Donghyun here looks so heartwarming!

Bomin is hanging onto a chain link fence again, also showing off his more mature charm!

We're also ending the year with another group photo for December.

And here is the other side for December. The downside about the group photos of this photoshoot is that there is a lot of wasted space on the sides.

And to my surprise, there is also a "2020 with GOLDEN CHILD" page! Seeing Golden Child's third anniversary printed on here, I can't wait to continue my journey as a Goldenness and to see this day!

The last page is the "2019 GLOBAL CALENDAR" and shows national holidays for China, Japan, the U.S., and Thailand.

Lastly is the special calendar poster, which is the same image as the photo diary cover. The bottom displays all the dates of 2019 and highlights the important Goldenness dates. The poster was the first thing I looked at and I knew all of the highlighted dates until I reached May 4th...I didn't realize Goldenness' naming anniversary was so important, but it feels special with Woollim officially listing this date in the season's greetings! The poster is just a few millimeters shorter but longer than Woollim's typical exterior first press posters, but it seems like Woollim's recent releases have been using these new dimensions.

Overall, I love the inclusions of this year's season's greetings (except the postcard set, I'm not sure what to do with this!)! I also like how the photoshoots show off a different side of Golden Child. I'm excited to start using the desk calendar in just a few minutes!

Golden Child Photocard Collection Part 2

It's been a jam packed year for Golden Child with three album releases and numerous international events. As the year is winding down, I'm happy to say that I have finally completed by photocard/ticket/book in book sets from Golden Child's first single album Goldenness and third mini album Wish. Here I'll be showing my complete collection for these two albums. I previously showed my collection for Gol-Cha! and Miracle here.

Goldenness: 1st Single Album

Goldenness was released on July 4th, 2018, and each album includes one photocard and one ticket. There are 20 photocards (one red version and one black version per member) and 10 tickets, for a total of 30 goods from this era. July was a busy time as I was putting all of my time and energy into creating a Damdadi jersey for KCON LA. It wasn't until a month had passed that people had stopped selling Goldenness cards and I was left to really dig around and find the cards I was missing (especially Daeyeol's and Jibeom's red cards!). It wasn't until just yesterday that I received my last photocard, Daeyeol's red one!

I really wanted to collect Gol-Cha! photocards because I love baseball, and Miracle photocards because I love school. But with Goldenness photocards, the entire era just felt very special because Golden Child promoted "Let Me" in KCON LA and I'm in love with the fanchant.

Here is the backside of the photocards.

The 10 tickets are personalized to each member.

Here is the backside of the tickets.

Wish: 3rd Mini Album

Wish was released on October 24th, 2018, and each album includes one photocard and on book in book. Like Goldenness, for Wish there are also 20 photocards (one white version and one orange version per member) and 10 book in books, for again a total of 30 goods.

This set of photocards are also very special to me, because these photos were taken in LA shortly after Golden Child finished their KCON LA schedules.

Here is the backside of the photocards.

I also absolutely love the book in books; these are such high quality inclusions. Above is page 3.

Now that I have all 10 books. I'll share all the pages. Here are pages 4 and 5.

Pages 6 and 7.

Pages 8 and 9.

Pages 10 and 11.

Pages 12 and 13.

And page 14.

I'm looking forward to what 2019 has in store for Golden Child and to see what inclusions will be in their future albums!

Ordering My Golden Child 2019 Season's Greetings and Switching from Ktown4u to Kpoptown

Here's another post about my ordering experience, this time with Ktown4u and Kpoptown. As a summary, I had mainly ordered from Kpoptown from 2013 to 2015, but switched to Ktown4u in 2015 and stayed loyal because Ktown was cheaper and provided free posters, while Kpoptown had asked me to pay additional shipping fees and my Infinite That Summer 2 DVD set I ordered from them arrived damaged. Ktown4u had asked me for additional shipping fees before and even sent me the wrong magazine that I ordered along with my Sung Kyu Shine Live CD just a few months ago, but because they fixed the situation by sending me the correct magazine (worth about $2 USD) and they covered the shipping, I even told them that I would stay a faithful customer. Actually for Golden Child's 2018 Season's Greetings, I had pre-ordered from Ktown and it wasn't until they began shipping out orders that they asked me to pay additional shipping fees. This obviously delayed my order, so I asked for a refund and ordered from Kpoptown instead, receiving my set after the new year. I simply overlooked these issues and continued ordering from Ktown.

Pre-orders for Golden Child's 2019 Season's Greetings began on November 9th. I pre-ordered on November 14th from Ktown4u. My friend and I decided to combine shipping, so our purchase of 2 Golden Child's 2019 Season's Greetings with a poster tube and DHL shipping came out to just over $115 USD. As a note, selecting this DHL service to the US is only for packages up to 5kg (11lbs). DHL's information on my package showed it was 3.3lbs (this should have been the first sign that something was wrong). Purchasing just 1 with a folded poster and registered mail cost about $53 USD, but by combining shipping, I'm able to have an unfolded poster and a faster delivery time of 2-5 business days for just about $5 more. Furthermore, Ktown capped the pre-order for this product at 20 sales, so I was glad to have placed my order on November 14th before their pre-order closed.

On December 13th, I received an email from DHL with my tracking information and that my package would arrive on the 17th, just 3 days after its release! My package most certainly did arrive on the 17th, all in one large cardboard box. My package was unexpectedly rather narrow and light, and to my even greater disappointment, my package only contained 2 Exo Love Shot albums and a poster tube. Exo's latest album was releasd on the 13th, one day before Golden Child's Season's Greetings.

My heart completely sank. I was so excited to splurge on shipping for the first time and receive an item so quickly after release (especially so that I could be one of the first to blog about it), but Ktown completely screwed up my order. The item description they submitted to DHL even said "SEASONS GREETINGS" and the itemized receipt even states 2 Golden Child Season's Greetings. Literally Ktown's only job is to fulfill customers' orders by delivering the exact items they ordered, but how does one mix up a CD with a season's greetings?

As a side note, this is my first time ordering an unfolded poster from Ktown. The poster tube came inside the cardboard box, but weirdly enough they don't put a lid on one end.

I immediately used Ktown's 1:1 Service on their website to explain my situation. Because they messed up my magazine order before, I knew the procedure well. Their 1:1 Service is lacking as I'm unable to attach photo proof, so I also emailed their b2b_help@dvdheaven.com with photos of what I received and in my 1:1 message informed them to check their email for my photo proof.

Within a few hours, Ktown replied to my 1:1 message asking for photo proof. I replied again for them to check their email. They replied with the following:

Dear customer, 

Firstly, we are sorry for causing this issue. 

Because of now the season greeting is out of stock now .

Do you mind we refund you the item fee? You can keep those EXO albums for free. 

I replied right away questioning their lack of doing business properly and confirmed that I wanted a refund. Exo albums are certainly no consolation to this mess and if someone else ended up receiving Golden Child Season's Greetings, I hope they become a Goldenness from this fiasco.

Immediately I ordered from Kpoptown; 2 Golden Child 2019 Season's Greetings with the Unfolded Poster option and DHL cost $138.70.

Almost 24 hours after Ktown4u stated they're out of stock, on the evening of the 18th, they emailed me again with the following:

Hi, we checked but we have them, as they were not sent to you. 

We will ship to you again. please wait xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx this is your new order no. thank you!

I went into my account and saw that this new order didn't even state any product info; at least when they created a new order for my replacement magazine previously, they included the correct product info. 

At this point I was more than fed up with Ktown. I couldn't trust them, so I replied to their email soon after asking again for a refund and stating that I ordered from another company since they already declared that the item is out of stock. A few hours later they sent me a full refund.

The following day I also went on Ktown'sGolden Child 2019 Season's Greetings page and saw that it was still out of stock. I'm not sure where my two season's greetings ended up, but certainly it wasn't in my hands.

Kpoptown sent me a shipping confirmation email on the evening of the 19th and DHL sent me the tracking information the following morning, with an estimated delivery on Monday the 24th. It also stated that my package was 7.9 lbs, which is much more reasonable for the items I ordered.

My package did arrive on the 24th, and to my relief, it is the two correct season's greetings along with the two posters. The two season's greetings were stacked on top of each other with a thin layer of bubblewrap covering underneath and the sides. Large bubblewrap filled up the rest of the box.

The posters came rolled up inside a poster tube, but with no lids. I guess this is fine since the tube was included inside the box.

Overall, I'm quite disappointed with Ktown4u and moving forward need to figure out alternative places to order. I'm still weary about Kpoptown because of their packaging from my past orders. But for now, I'm just happy to have Golden Child's 2019 Season's Greetings and will be blogging about it soon.

My Mini Korean Haul! December 2018 Edition

I'm forever grateful to my Korean Inspirit friend. I first met her as an undergraduate in the US back in late 2013; we were paired up as language exchange partners where I would help her with English and she would help me with Korean. After a few meetings, we soon learned that we were both Inspirits and quickly grew close! Unfortunately her foreign exchange program was ending a few months after we first met, and she moved back to Seoul. I studied in Seoul in the summer of 2014 and my Inspirit friend graciously took me on an Inspirit tour visiting the members' restaurants and old landmarks from Sesame Player. We even met Sungyeol and Boohyun at their respective restaurants, camped out overnight for That Summer 2 concert merchandise, sat in the same spot the members did at their favorite restaurants...that was a very special summer and I owe it to my Inspirit friend. We still message all the time and send holiday gifts to each other, though it's been over four years since I last saw her. Today I wanted to show what she got me!

First, my friend bought me a modern hanbok-style blouse! I really like hanbok style especially for modern everyday wear, so I'm excited to wear this. She also gave me a cute Seoul pin and Christmas card.

Second, at the beginning of the year my friend offered to help get me anything from Infinite's Top Seed album. I had really wanted Sungkyu's photobook and the blue/gray holographic card, and she surprised me with so much more! I received the random photobooks for Sungkyu, Dongwoo, Woohyun, L, and Sungjong, along with two copies of both holographic cards, and a set of the postcards. My friend also surprised me with the bronze coin from The Origin! And I had the most difficulty completing my Golden Child Goldenness photocard collection since I started collecting for this era too late...I asked my friend to help me find the red version of Daeyeol's photocard and though she also had difficulty finding it so late, she finally found one for me! I can't express how happy I am to now complete this set with the immense help of my friend.

Lastly, my friend gifted me with official Inspirit goods and the LED band from Infinite's 2017 fanmeeting Begin Again! Included is a slogan towel from Infinitize era; 4th generation letter; 5th generation post card & photo card & sticker set, pouch, eco bag, and exterior bag; and 6th generation special goods set.

No words can express how much I treasure my friendship with my first Inspirit friend. It was fate that we met and our relationship proves that despite living on different continents, international friendships can be just as strong, if not stronger than local friendships. I plan to have separate blog posts on my Top Seed collection, Goldenness (along with Genie) collection, and official Inspirit and fanmeeting goods.