Election Results

I woke up early today, around 4:30 AM, to catch the Dutch election results live. I didn’t even have an alarm—my subconsciousness (or my shorter sleep schedule from the last couple of days) woke me up just in time. I turned on the livestream on my tablet and watched the results roll in live. I remember cheering loudly at the loss of seats for the PVV, only for my joy to shrink when the number of seats for GroenLinks–PvdA was announced. I immediately started calculating different coalition options. I kept watching until the livestream ended (around 8:00 AM my time), at which point I started working.

Refactoring code

I spent the day working through some MR feedback and doing a big refactor. I think I had some good ideas, but we’ll see what my colleagues think. Around lunchtime, I did some more groceries and took a short nap. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, and there was a festival I wanted to attend tonight. So I wrapped up early—around 15:00—and headed to the COEX Mall.

Ge-Force Gamer Festival

In my second week in Seoul, I came across a Reddit post saying that LE SSERAFIM, my second favorite K-pop group, would be performing at the “Ge-Force Gamer Festival” for free! Without knowing anything about it, I registered and got a confirmation just a few minutes later (one of the few times here I actually managed to get tickets for something).

When I finally read what it was about, it turned out to be a celebration organized by NVIDIA (the graphics card company) to mark 25 years of their business in Korea. There would be booths, games, music, and a “Legend Match” between two old StarCraft players. Totally up my alley.

I arrived at the festival location on time (16:00), but after walking around the area—skipping the merch and video game booths (which had really long lines)—I checked the schedule and saw that the actual performances wouldn’t start until 19:00. Once again, I paid the sucker tax! So I decided to explore the COEX Mall a bit more, have an early dinner, and return in time for the show.

The Performances

I got back to the venue at 18:00 and waited in line before being allowed into “K-pop Square.” I was pretty close to the stage and had an okay view, but people kept inching forward, which my personal space didn’t appreciate. To warm up this crowd of gamers and K-pop fans, they brought out a DJ playing electronic music and K-pop remixes. She was doing her best, but the crowd was pretty stiff. I wanted to join in but felt awkward since no one else was dancing.

Eventually, the hosts came on stage, did their introductions, and the festival officially began.

K-Tigers Performance

The show started with a performance by the K-Tigers. They mixed Taekwondo and K-pop—it was really cool to see all the flips and synchronized board-breaking. The crowd loved it. They performed the four biggest hits from K-pop Demon Hunters, even coming out in Dark Saja Boys outfits. I’ve heard those songs so many times these last few weeks that I was a bit turned off by the setlist, but that was the only downside.

Intermezzo #1

After that, the hosts came back on stage and started a giveaway—a raffle among all attendees for a chance to win a laptop. Pretty cool, but I have no use for a gaming laptop, and there’s no way I could fit it into my luggage, so I wasn’t too phased by it.

Then the developers of Aion 2 came on stage. Aion 2 is the long-awaited sequel to the original MMO released in 2009. It became really popular in Asia, especially Korea. It’s developed and published by NCSoft, which also publishes Guild Wars—that tiny connection was the only thing that made the talk interesting for me.

The StarCraft Legend Match

Next up was a match between two StarCraft legends: YellOw, a retired player turned TV personality because of his popularity, and NaDa, one of the most accomplished Brood War players of all time, nicknamed the Genius Terran. They did some introductions, joking that they were both rusty but had prepared some fun tactics for us.

It was a best-of-three exhibition match with nothing but pride on the line, and the players were clearly asked to put on a show—and that’s exactly what they did! There were nukes, creative tactics and army compositions and strategies, and even some friendly all-chat banter. NaDa eventually won 2-0 (a third game would’ve been cool), and the show went on.

Intermezzo #2

There was another long intermezzo, with more giveaways this time. You had to jump for attention to get a chance to win one of the prizes, but I skipped it again and did some Sudoku on my phone. (How on earth am I supposed to fit a gaming chair into my luggage?)

After this round of giveaways, we got another presentation—this time by PUBG—about an AI that could play video games and use voice chat at the same time. Pretty cool idea, but since I don’t play PUBG, I just kept doing Sudoku. I was starting to understand why this event was free—it was basically one long series of ads.

The Main Event

Then, two and a half hours into the event, with only about 30 minutes left, it was finally time for the main event—the performance everyone had been waiting for, the reason people had queued for hours! With a big introduction, they were called on stage…

A bunch of CEOs!

The crowd erupted when Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA and the sixth-richest person on the planet, walked on stage. The crowd went wild—jumping, cheering, and holding up their phones or laptop screens with messages. I chuckled at the absurdity of it all (“Heh, I’d never act that way just seeing people on a stage”).

They played a video about NVIDIA’s 25-year journey in Korea, telling a story about how the competitive gaming scene in South Korea pushed NVIDIA to develop technologies for their graphics cards—technologies that would eventually lead to CUDA, the infrastructure on which almost all modern AI is built. In short: the gamers in the crowd were responsible for the AI boom. He thanked them, and some audience members held up their phones with stock portfolios displayed, thanking him in return.

After a rambling story about his love for Korean fried chicken, he called two “friends” to the stage.

The first was Lee Jae-yong, CEO of Samsung and the second-richest person in Korea. He opened with, “Why do I see so many iPhones in the crowd?” and talked about his friendship with Jensen Huang. With him came Chung Eui-sun, CEO of Hyundai Motor Group and the tenth-richest person in Korea.

They teased a big announcement for tomorrow, shot some signed T-shirts into the crowd, and left again.

The Extra

Then, as a bonus, LE SSERAFIM—the group from the Pizza & Spaghetti meal in 2025-10-25—came out to perform. People, including me, went feral and started jumping around. Many had waited three hours in line and then sat through another three hours of video game ads for this very moment! They performed Spaghetti (which is kind of growing on me), did some introductions, and then played Unforgiven and Anti-Fragile before saying goodbye to thunderous applause.

Was waiting six hours worth it to hear three songs? At least I can say I saw my second favorite group live!