Summer Vacation with Rain

As announced, supa-star Rain held his fanmeeting and birthday party (called "Summer Vacation with Rain"), at Olympic Hall in Seoul’s Olympic Park on July 27.

The event commenced at 3pm, hosted by MC Kim Jae-dong, who made his TV debut around the same time as Rain’s singer debut. That familiarity made for a light-hearted time with lots of joking around as Kim interviewed Rain. The star also sang "A Day" (haru do) and "How to Escape the Sun" and danced to "Instead of Saying Goodbye."

Approx fans 1,300 were from overseas, making for an overall total of around 3,000.
Some interview highlights:

His "worldwide album" planned for September has been pushed to next year, mainly in part because of his filming schedule for upcoming film Ninja Assassin. However, he does plan for an “Asia special album” for October, to be released — and performed, and promoted — in China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and throughout Asia. He explained, "The Asia special album is about 50 percent complete. Actually, I’m holding up completing the remaining half because I want to perfect it."

(What does "worldwide album" even mean? Is that a euphemism for his U.S./English-language album? Is this his way of backing off from Western ambitions without actually admitting to it? Did he finally realize that despite overwhelming domestic popularity, the U.S. watered-down-R&B-pop-music machine is saturated with homegrown pop-star aspirants? Is he going to sing in multiple languages?)

As for his Hollywood film, Rain trained rigorously for his role as the titular assassin, learning swordplay as well as how to throw a blade attached to a chain. He lost a lot of weight while training, although he expressed having a hard time with the strict diet: "If I stayed away from food for too long, I’d end up overeating, and my insulin levels would shoot up, which isn’t healthy." Thus he mostly stuck to a 30-30-40 diet (30 percent protein, 30 percent fat, 40 carbs, aka The Zone diet).

Rain also revealed, "I thought filming a Hollywood movie would allow for more sleep and more comfortable shooting, but I was wrong. Because daily production costs are so high, I ended up sleeping five hours a night and started filming at 8am and continued all through the day."

Asked what event in his six years of fame has left the strongest impression, he answered that it was meeting with the now-deceased cancer patient Ahn So-bong: "When I visited the hospital room, he was sadly in the late stages of cancer. Afterward, we spoke many times over the phone, but because I was working overseas, I couldn’t visit again, which was painful for me. Up till that point in my life, that was probably the one really good thing I’d done with my celebrity."

His cooking? "I’ve cooked for myself a lot," he explained, prompting Kim Jae-dong to ask for the recipe for his kimchi chigae. (He’d cooked onstage at a previous fanmeeting last year.)

Acknowledging that he’s spent quite some time away from home, he promised, "After I release my Asia special album in October, I’ll be doing promotional activities so much that my fans will get sick of me."

(Restraining... self... from retorting… to last comment...)

English Translation Credit: dramabeans.com
Original Source: Hankook Ilbo