Tita ARMY Tours South Korea at Festa 2025

 “We were together / Every moment was forever.” — Take Two, BTS

Our ARMY Tour, our 5 days and 4 nights in Seoul was life-affirming and rejuvenating.

What made it so was many things:

How some of us had been saving up since the Pearl ARMY Festa of 2024, turning this into our ARMY Glow Up project, a dream sustained by intention.

How bravely some of us made the decision to travel alone and join a group for the first time, choosing courage over comfort, and community over solitude.

How some of us brought family—daughter, sister, niece, to bond, uplift, and support each other’s fangirling. And in the process, we discovered how powerful our desires can become when channeled through creative ways.

How we held space for one another at the dining table from the communal and down-to-earth warmth of Yoojung Sikdang to the quiet elegance of Otsu, where stories flowed as freely as soup.

How we looked out for each other in crowded streets and alleyways of Myeongdong and Hongdae, when bodies were close but hearts stayed open.

The walks we took in forest and stadium, in silence and in laughter.

And the way we laughed. The way we wept. Seeing our OT7 together on that stadium screen, dancing to Mic Drop, then collapsing emotionally at Spring Day and Jamais Vu.

Team Labas. Team Loob. Team Hotel. Lahat tayo. We were all part of it. We were different but together.

We weren’t just in Seoul for a clique-ish girls’ night out. We came to experience and listen to the city. To bear witness to its character. To understand how it shaped BTS and how BTS shaped us, continuously so, in our own unique ways of expressing ourselves as ARMY.

Thank you Teena Ordoño of Savedbythebest Travel and Tours for making this happen!

Apobangpo! Purple and true!

BTS ARMYs Meet Up at Los Banos, Laguna

We get a lot of eye rolling and snobbery from those who could not and will not understand. We carry on knowing that loving oneself is a superpower. ApoBangPo!

@djahjumma

One sunny Sunday in Los Baños, Laguna 💜😊💜

♬ FEEL THE GROOVE - Queens Road, Fabian Graetz

Day 2 at the Pearl ARMY Muster: Holiday Ever After 2022

Here are photos taken from the event featuring the Pearl ARMY Bazaar at the PAM: HEA 2022. The PAM: HEA gathered ARMY sellers and merchants for this holiday bazaar at the Ayala Malls Manila Bay.

@zarahg_08 Yun nga ang inuna ko sa Day 1 ng PAMHEA @ayalamallsmanilabay Pearl ARMY Muster Bazaar! Big discounts! Affordable gifts and tokens for give aways to ARMY friends, family and loved ones! It’s worth going to the #PearlARMYMuster2022 ♬ Still Life (with Anderson .Paak) - RM

Lights: Companionship, Consolation and Comfort in the Songs of BTS

I won a BTS lamp in a talk show over on KUMU!

Super salamat @stillwatersph and Lee-An Rosal for taking time to talk with ARMY on the impact and the relevance of BTS beyond their hotness and the drawing power of their music and art as commercial successes. Nakakatuwa dahil may ARMY priest pa silang kasama sa show. For BTS to be a topic on an online show with the banner, Pop Theology: Usapang BTS, is proof of the extensive breadth and depth of the influence BTS has across generations. In this age of grief and loss, the BTS and Big Hit motto Music and Artist for Healing hits all the right spots.

Indeed, the Bangtan Boys and BH/Hybe have achieved their purpose. Topping the charts. Selling merch. Endorsements left and right. Collab after collab with the artists of their choice. However, Namjoon repeatedly said in many interviews and documentaries, that they want to be liked not only for their pretty faces and handsome looks. They want to matter. They want to know ARMY - our story. Such is the process of creation. This is what fuels creativity. Amazingly, the fandom is very much a part of this process of co-creation.

Never have I felt included and yes, loved by a boy band/Kpop group. Even ARMY, thecollective, has so much love and generosity to give to each other and aretolerant of the toxic ones in the fandom. There are ARMY who, with class and sass, would slip in articles, posts and comments in socmed and online communities on the value and ethos of BTS reminding everyone of the very reason why we are supportive of OT7. The relationship between BTS and ARMY has always been respectful, kind and sincere as evidenced in the art and music, reality shows and interviews that the Bangtan Boys put out on a regular basis. 

We are never short changed. We get what they promised and often times more. The Vlives last month were pleasant surprises – Jhope’s trip to the banyo to wash his hands; JK in see-through pajamas singing with nary a care in the world; V and Joonie jamming to Boys to Men; Jimin and Jin in their casual selves going live to touch base with fans but still looking so "adorkable". The boys reach out to ARMY and establishing that connection is automatic. They are our friends, brothers, children, nephews, BFFs of our children, godchildren, playmates of our kids, a student we mentor, a young professional in the office we learn from and the anak ng kapitbahay who frequents our house for meryenda or an afternoon of storytelling and games. We stan them and we see them growing up - which is good. 

We miss the boys during their down time, but the abundance of content to consume, re-watch and reread make up for it. With BTS, we never walk alone.

I have never been to a BTS concert, being a baby ARMY at the ripe old age of 47. I do share my love for the Bangtan Boys with my 20 year old daughter whose biases are Yoongi, Joonie and JK. Like me she gets wrecked all the time by Hobi, Jimin, Jin and V. In the end, we are OT7 all the way. 

Last night, as I marvel and mull over the phenomenon that is BTS and ARMY, my daughter turned the BTS lamp on. From my BTS playlist, I picked Lights from the BTS, the Best album. We listened to the song patiently waiting for the man of the house, our OG bullet proof boy scout, to come home from work in these perilous times.

“You're my light, you're my light 

Always shine into my heart 

You're my light you're my light

No matter how far apart we are 

Your light shines on me… All the angels who know pain 

Flying on damaged wings all through the night 

 Every time I’m thinking about love 

Every time I’m thinking about love…”

With BTS, their music and art, I find companionship, consolation and comfort.

Life Goes On: BTS and My ARMY Life

I think it was in late 2019 or early 2020 when I seriously started paying attention to BTS. My daughter is ARMY since 2016 and what to me, back then, was a teenager's fascination became a necessity for survival as the pandemic came into full swing in mid-2020. From there on until the present, I have realized many things about myself. I am learning and affirming a lot of life lessons from the Bangtan Boys. Being ARMY at my age and status is like a parenting and motherhood experience. The adult is learning from the child.

As a teacher and a librarian of children and young people, I take this dynamic to heart. Every year, my students bring in a newness that fuels our creativity in making sense of who we are and the process of growing a compassionate understanding of the world around us. This can be tough, but from where I come from, we eat resilience for breakfast. After all, creativity is never an easy thing. This is the context I find myself in being a young ARMY of 47. More than ever, I have a deeper appreciation of BTS.

While the Tannies have a way of sweeping you off your feet (there are seven kinds of sexy and together, they are deadly!) they are more than visual aesthetics. Kim Namjoon have said it countless times in interviews and docuseries early in their career that they are more than pretty faces. BTS wants to matter. Truly, they have been successful and more. On top of record sales and awards, a closer examination of their discography by academics, experts in the field of music and the arts, professionals in business, economists, and industry leaders in the creative arts all point to the fact that the Tannies are not just a Kpop band or group. Not anymore. The boys were awarded the Order of Cultural Merit of Korea in 2018. They are now envoys to the UN. Ambassadors of the youth. Their campaigns and advocacies impact global communities. On top of all these, BTS got ARMY right behind them when they say so.

The fandom is as amazing, as generous and as loving as the Bangtan Boys.

In less than a year as ARMY, I have gained new friends and strengthen old ones. I have shared online concert tickets, received gifts and unsolicited advice. I have been supported by ARMY parents in my journey as mother and as a woman going through midlife. I found ARMY I can geek out with over Namjoon's poetry and the books in his reading list, nerd over Suga's critical view on life and society and go kilig over Hobi's hotness. 

I celebrated my birthday last week and unexpected gifts came from ARMY friends near and far. One of them, a good friend from way back, sent me an acrostic poem. The Tannies love creating them, so she created one for me.

Right now, I am up in arms in the battle for reading and literacy. I have two ARMYs seriously working on a BTS inspired book donation project that we hope to launch before the month ends. Right in time for Literacy Day on September 8 during the month of Namjoon's and JK's birthday. What could be more satisfying than to experience this personal advocacy come to life but with two Titas of BTS.