They may be known for their sexy, sassy dance moves.

But away from the brightly lit stages, the gals of Korean pop quintet Kara emanate cuteness and girlish charm.

In an e-mail interview with LOUD, ahead of their first upcoming gig here, Park Gyuri, 24; Han Seung Yeon, 23; Goo Hara, 21; Jung Nicole, 20, and Kang Ji Young, 18, punctuate their sentences with comic book-style sound effects.

The word "giggles" is stamped after a reply no fewer than three times.

When quizzed about what they were looking forward to while in town, Kang, the baby of the gang, said candidly: "Our friend told us there's a place in Singapore where we can see dolphins up close... All of us would love to go there."

We're sure their hordes of male fans would gladly volunteer to take these lovely ladies on a trip to the Underwater World.

Kara, who recently wrapped up their Japanese concert tour, which saw them performing at 12 sold-out concerts in six cities to a total audience of 150,000, will hold their first ticketed Singapore concert at Resorts World Sentosa next month.

They will then join Canadian pop star Justin Bieber and fellow K-pop artiste Jay Park as headliners at the MTV World Stage Live In Malaysia 2012 in Petaling Jaya on July 14.

Anticipation is in the air, not just for their fans but for the group as well.

"None of us has ever been to Singapore, so we're very excited," said leader Park.

"Our impression of Singapore is that it's an extremely beautiful country, with both Eastern and Western aspects of beauty."

Meanwhile, the lasses became the first Korean artistes in K-pop history to launch their own fragrance - K5J - last week.

Besides being sold at department stores across Japan, K5J can also be bought online in a handful of other Asian countries, including Singapore.

Said Jung: "Last year, we specially flew to Paris to play a part in the creation of K5J, which is short for Kara 5 Jewel.

"Now, if someone asks us to describe our favourite scent, we can just show them K5J. (Giggles.)

"It is precious to us as we personally selected the fragrance and contributed a lot to its overall design."

Jung also revealed that a second Kara fragrance line is "in the works" and updates will be posted in due course on their Facebook page and Twitter.

As it turns out, the members of Kara have no qualms identifying themselves as fashionistas in the know of the latest trends.

Said Han: "We're very much into fashion and each of us has our own fashion sense. (Giggles.)"

Maintaining their svelte, slender figures is simply part of the job.

"As a girl group, we have to stay in shape, no matter what," she added.

"We work out and watch our diet, but that's partly because we love feasting on food.

"So now you know, we work out because we love to eat. (Giggles.)"

A household name in Japan, Kara bagged five major accolades at the 26th Japan Gold Disc Awards in January, including Song Of The Year, Best Music Videos and Best Asian Artiste.

Not bad for a pop act which has released only two Japanese studio albums - on top of their three Korean full-length albums, The First Blooming (2007), Revolution (2009) and Step (2011).

Learning Japanese

While the girls may sound fluent in their Japanese tracks, learning the language wasn't easy, admitted Goo.

"Our command of Japanese is quite all right now, we no longer need a translator for TV shows," she said.

"But it was really hard learning a second language. We had a difficult time recognising kanji characters and mastering the pronunciation of some words.

"Nevertheless, we felt it was essential to know the language, especially when we have to perform on stage... If we don't understand the meaning of our songs, it's really hard to put emotions into them."

If there's any secret to Kara's success, perhaps it's the fact that the tight-knit group of gals are bosom buddies.

Said Park: "After five years as a group, we have become the best of friends.

"Even when we're super busy with our individual schedules, we still make it a point to send each other text messages."

There's no stopping Kara from scaling even greater heights in their blossoming showbiz career.

Said Jung: "We're aware that there's room for improvement... The only way for us is to continue moving forward.

"We want to keep climbing upwards, till we feel like we've conquered the top of the mountain."

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This article was first published in The New Paper.