Why Fukuoka, Not Vietnam? – My Holiday Trip While Still Recovering From Schizophrenia And My First Overseas Concert Experience in 2013

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April – May 2013
It’s been a few months I was distraught with hearing voices and feeling like I was being chased after by evil spirits since SNSD’s IGAB comeback
Going around to various worship places with my father didn’t seem to help much
There was nothing wrong with me, they mostly said
Just mildly depressed
I just needed to cheer up

My friend, Elaine asked me if I would want to join her for a short holiday trip to Vietnam during the upcoming summer break
Yeah, sure!
I agreed.
However
Even though the monk later assured that it would be safe for me to travel to Vietnam
My parents were still worried about letting me go especially given my condition at that time

I had a phone call with Elaine one night
Telling her my parents’ concerns about us going to Vietnam
Citing security in a third world country like Vietnam as a reason
Elaine then suggested an alternative plan to travel to Fukuoka instead
She, who was a fan of BIGBANG especially Daesung, said she had always wanted to go to one of his live concerts in Japan
He was having an ongoing national tour at various Japan cities
And Fukuoka would be one of the stops
Yes why not!
Actually I had already been to Vietnam before
In fact it was the first farthest country I travelled to without my parents
It was a school trip when I was in primary 5
At a very young age of 11
Japan on the other hand was completely new to me
So Japan was definitely a much better and safer choice
Both to me and my parents
And so we went ahead to have our tickets to Fukuoka and the concert booked

After our exams for the semester ended
We met up at a cafe to discuss our itinerary plans
Honestly I, who never had experience with travelling free and easy, was completely clueless about planning (also given my deteriorating mental condition at that time…)
I wasn’t able to give much input
In the end I left it all up to Elaine
And being a travel enthusiast, she said she would be more than happy to plan the itinerary by herself too
Unknown to her, I actually got admitted to IMH not long later…

After one-week stay at IMH
I got discharged
And in just another 1-2 weeks
We would embark on our trip to Fukuoka
Before our flight
My mum specially asked Elaine a favour to keep an eye on me
Only telling her that I was suffering from depression
As she felt it was not necessary to let her know about my actual condition…

Early June 2013
It felt strange when we arrived in Fukuoka
Curious voices followed me wherever we went
Walking on the empty streets on our first day
Sound of the traffic lights at the pedestrian crossings echoed in my ears
Every car that whizzed past us startled me
I was too scared to speak much
Yet still trying to put up a strong front
Just sticking myself as close to Elaine as possible
Blindly following her everywhere
Not having the slightest idea of where we were heading to
Slipping in and out of consciousness
I was having trouble with cognitive thinking
My brain couldn’t fully process what Elaine was trying to say to me
Often she found herself having to repeat a few times before I could barely answer a thing
Over time she also grew impatient and slightly agitated so we stayed quiet most of the trip
At night when we went to sleep at our hotel
Voices started to speak with a foreign accent
Filled with all the Japanese phrases I might have heard earlier in the day
Repeating incessantly in my mind
Voice of Elaine speaking to me in a much livelier tone
As if I was hearing her inner voice excitedly sharing with me all the new sights and sounds we experienced around Fukuoka
In contrast to her much colder and quiet outer self earlier in the day

D-LITE D’scover Tour 2013 in Japan ~DLive~
Fukuoka stop
6-7 June 2013
I can’t remember which day we attended
Fukuoka Sun Palace Hotel & Hall
It was quite a small theatre hall
We were seated on the second level
Elaine was very excited to finally have her dream come true
She managed to smuggle in her camera
Eager to document her first Japan concert experience
But as Japan is very well-known for their super strict concert policies
Just minutes into the show
She was caught by one of the Japanese security for taking photos at the concert
Not only was she demanded to delete the photos on her camera
She was also asked to leave the hall immediately
It was an extremely sad and disappointing thing to happen to my friend
The one who badly wanted to watch the concert was actually her
But I was the one who ended up watching the rest of it by myself

Unlike Elaine who could understand and speak some Japanese
I couldn’t at all
Even if Daesung also spoke Korean at times, it would be translated in Japanese still
Neither was a language I could understand lol
I also hadn’t listened to any of Daesung’s Japanese songs before
But it didn’t really matter
Since I wasn’t mentally well and fully conscious at that time too
In fact I was having some hallucinations during the concert
All I could hear was voices of the spirits
Every time Daesung sang a love song on the stage
It was a different spirit singing inside of him
It was like a karaoke PK session
So who could sing better than Taeyeon and win over my heart?? (lol)

Soon it was already our last day in Fukuoka
Before our flight back to Singapore
We had a walk at a nearby park after lunch at a restaurant
We sat down on a bench facing a river
Elaine finally opened up to ask me what my actual condition was
She suspected that it was more than just depression
I then finally revealed to her that actually I was diagnosed of schizophrenia
She seemed enlightened after hearing the symptoms that I shared about my condition
Finally she could understand why I seemed very distracted and zoned out
Even caught me murmuring to myself sometimes
All because I was hearing voices that she couldn’t hear

Long after we returned
Daesung released the concert DVD of his 2013 Japan tour after it concluded
Can’t remember if I was the one who came across it and probably bought a copy for Elaine and kept another copy for myself
Or it was Elaine who gifted it to me
I still have this DVD in my store room 9 years later today
But I still have not opened it yet to watch it even once
Maybe one day when I’m ready, I would play it and watch what happened at the concert in a much more conscious and normal frame of mind now (provided I have a DVD player too haha) even though I’m quite sure it wasn’t filmed at the Fukuoka stop we went
Nonetheless this DVD would serve as a memorabilia of my very first overseas concert experience in my life back then!