Hello, fellow K-Poppers! How are you guys today? We hope you guys are fine and ready to read another piece of news coming from the Korean entertainment world. And today, in this article, Byeol Korea will provide you with a rundown of another reality show in Korea. And yes, it is KBS’ Battle Trip.
For you guys who don’t know yet, Battle Trip is a South Korean television program that is distributed and syndicated by KBS. This show started airing on April 16th, 2016. Battle Trip shows you a documentary-traveling genre starring Lee Hwi-jae, Kim Sook, and Sung Si-kyung as the main MCs of this reality show program. Battle Trip is produced by Lee Chang-sun, Kang Bo-young, Sohn Ji-won, Youn Min, and Koo Min-jung. And it’s written by Park Won-woo, Choi Eun-young, Ha Seon-jeong, Park Ja-young, Lee Hyo-yeon, Hwang In-sun, Lim Sang-hwa, Song Da-in, and Yu Hee-sun.
For their special trip in Taiwan, Battle Trip invited BTOB’s Eunkwang, Sungjae, and Hyunsik to join the show. It was such a good and fun episode. Enough for the intermezzos, let’s move on to the main topic!
Mission Explanation of KBS ‘Battle Trip’
The show, on July 30th, 2016 (on YouTube, they published it on September 11th, 2016), as their 16th episode, Lee Hwi-jae, Kim Sook, Sung Si-kyung, and San E (a former Battle Trip MC) opened the show with cheerful and energetic moves and a piece of cheerful background music. After Lee Hwi-jae said, “Travelling is a war, Battle Trip!” along with the audience, Sung Si-kyung told them that according to the news he had watched, from July 30th until August 5th (2016) was the period when most people go on vacations. Then, all the MCs suggested the audience to still watch Battle Trip during their vacation.
As Sung Si-kyung said that this episode should be fun, then, the show began as the MCs brought two teams as usual into the show to meet each other and talk about the planned special trips. The teams were Old Boy Tour, such as Kim Jong-min and Ji Sang-ryeol, and BTOB Team. In this episode, BTOB members who joined the episode were Sungjae, Eunkwang, and Hyunsik.
Kim Sook introduced BTOB Team as her team, as she said that they sang the theme song for Battle Trip. And then, Sungjae, Eunkwang, and Hyunsik greeted the MCs and audience on the same beat, and sang the Battle Trip theme song with great harmonization. The MCs and the audience gave them applause.
The trip that will lead them was according to client’s request or question. For this episode, the client told them that they didn’t have much time as office workers in Seoul. They want to go to Taiwan as it’s close to Korea and then reserved their plane tickets, but haven’t planned what kind of trip is the best suited for them. They asked Battle Trip teams to suggest them the best way to enjoy a trip to Taiwan for one night and two days.
As the country has been designated, both of the teams had to make the best suggestion for the trip plan. Kim Jong-min and Ji Sang-ryeol made it into “the trip that will increase the stamina,” as it was a food-hunting and relaxations trip. And for BTOB team, it was “the trendy Taiwan,” like an active trip to go food-hunting at a famous street or place and refresh their minds by going to an amusement park or historical place. Kim Jong-min and Ji Sang-ryeol named their team Old Boy Tour, and BTOB team named their team Ttuittui Ppangppang Tour.
Day 1
On July 11th, 2016, at 5.30 AM, BTOB team arrived at Incheon International Airport. Eunkwang, Sungjae, and Hyunsik wore matching outfits, as they said that the matching outfits would make it feel like a real trip. They looked very excited to go to Taiwan. Truthfully, the destination was made an advantage for BTOB team, as Hyunsik can speak Taiwanese, and he also has a friend in Taiwan.
First, they searched the sites for young people in Taiwan on their phone, but they were not quite sure about that. So, BTOB team chose to ask the viewers on SNS to get some information about a good restaurant, street food, and famous places in Taiwan.
Places They Visited
After two and a half hours of their departure from Incheon International Airport, finally, BTOB team arrived safely at Taoyuan Airport. After that, not wasting their time, they went to the first place that most of the viewers recommended them. The name of the place is Ximending, a youthful street that looks like Myeong-dong in South Korea. At Ximending, the first food that they tried was Tripe noodles at a famous restaurant among the locals. There are a lot of tourists, too, especially Korean. BTOB team was satisfied with the taste of the noodles.
Next destination was an iced dessert shop on the same street, Ximending. In the shop, they bought iced fruit dessert and iced pudding dessert. Eunkwang said that usually, he doesn’t eat pudding, but when he tried the pudding dessert, suddenly Eunkwang said “Megaton!” that it was the caramel ice cream. And the iced fruit dessert had kiwi, strawberries, and mangos with ice cream on top that brought the sweet and sour balance between each other. BTOB team were also satisfied with the taste, as they said that was such a unique texture and mixed well together.
The last thing that they had in Ximending was the king-sized cheese potatoes, fried potatoes with some toppings like broccoli, bacon, corn, etc. And then a lot of yellow melted cheese was squeezed on the top of that. The serving was huge, and BTOB team said that the taste was really good. A lot of calories in there, but who cares when it comes to a portion of really good street food?
Hyunsik’s statement was supported by the following statement, “I’m on a diet right now. I think I should give up on losing weight.”
After the food-hunting, BTOB team went to 101 Tower, the famous iconic landmark tower in Taipei, Taiwan. They went inside the tower, tried the fastest elevator in the world by the Guinness Book of Records, as to go up to the highest floor, it took just about 37 seconds. From the top floor, they could see Taiwan’s landscape. After that, BTOB team tried the CG photos inside the building and made funny poses.
Next, they went to Jiufen to search a tea house café with a nice view that is known as the motive of Spirited Away, a beautiful animation movie made by Ghibli Studio. The café had such a nice view, especially when the sunset came and turned into the night.
