Krazy over Korean Drama

Having paused my dramas since I've delivered B, I'm back with a vengeance. Started watching about a month ago and now, I've watched a number of them! I love that each one is better than the earlier one watched! *happy*

1. 秘密花园/ Secret Garden (Korean)
 
Episodes: 20
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Fantasy, Melodrama
Casts:Hyun Bin as Kim Joo Won, Ha Ji Won as Gil Ra Im, Yoon Sang Hyun as Choi Woo Young/Oska (Joo Won’s cousin), Kim Sa Rang as Yoon Seul
Synopsis: The drama tells the story of Kim Joo Won (Hyun Bin), an arrogant and eccentric CEO who maintains the image of seeming perfection, and Gil Ra Im (Ha Ji Won), a poor and humble stuntwoman whose beauty and body are the object of envy amongst top actresses. Their accidental meeting, when Joo Won mistakes Ra Im for actress Park Chae Rin, marks the beginning of a tense, bickering relationship, through which Joo Won tries to hide a growing attraction to Ra Im that both confuses and disturbs him. To complicate matters further, a strange sequence of events results in them swapping bodies.
Review: I thought this started a little slow. I was waiting for the swap to take place and it didn't happen until ep 5. Then, it started to get more and more interesting and engaging. Overall, I find it nice. I like happy endings. However, I do not think it is as nice as what others claim it to be. Was it because of Hyun Bin? He cute but I find the cousin (Aska) cuter. The profession of the actress (stuntwoman) is very unique...


2. 绅士的品格/ A Gentleman's Dignity (Korean)
 
Episodes: 20
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Casts: Jang Dong Gun as Kim Do Jin, Kim Ha Neul as Seo Yi Soo, Kim Soo Ro as Im Tae San, Kim Min Jong as Choi Yoon, Lee Jong Hyuk as Lee Jung Rok, Yoon Se Ah as Hong Se Ra, Kim Jung Nan as Kim Min Sook, Yoon Jin Yi as Im Me Ah Ri, Lee Jong Hyun as Colin
Synopsis: A Gentleman’s Dignity’ is a drama about the careers and love lives of urban professionals. This drama will tell the story of four men in their forties as they go through love, breakup, success and failure.
1. Kim Do Jin (Jang Dong Gun), an architect with a scathing tongue have romantic relationship with strict high school teacher Seo Yi Soo (Kim Ha Neul), who moonlights as an umpire at amateur baseball games.
2. Im Tae San (Kim Soo Ro) is dating a cold-hearted woman but wonders if there is someone else out there for him.
3. Choi Yoon (Kim Min Jong) tries to heal his heart after losing his wife four years ago.
4. Lee Jung Rok (Lee Jong Hyuk) marries an older woman for money but may lose his comfortable lifestyle in a divorce.
Review: This is fantastic! I enjoyed every episode of this drama and I love the actors and actresses! It's a modern show about BGR. However, I thought some of the jokes are men's jokes and could only strike a chord in men only. I love the short 5-10mins intro at the beginning on the 4 men's early lives and how these are linked up and evolved in the drama. Haha, I like that Gandnam Style dance was shown more than once. This drama made me take notice of Samsung Galaxy Note which was the sponsored phone! :) Just a sidenote, Jan Dong Gun looks smaller build than I thought! And, I thought his face was very big and round last time.


3. 屋塔房王世子/ Roof Top Prince (Korean)
 
Episodes: 20
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Time-Travel
Casts: Micky Yoochun as Yong Tae Yong / Lee Gak, Han Ji Min as Park Ha / Bu Yong, Jung Yoo Mi as Hong Se Na / Hwa Yong, Lee Tae Sung as Yong Tae Moo, Lee Min Ho (1993) as Song Man Bo, Jung Suk Won as Woo Yong Sul, Choi Woo Shik as Do Chi San
Synopsis:‘Rooftop Prince’ has themes of time-travel.

Joseon era (300 years ago)

Lee Gak (Micky Yoochun) is the Crown Prince. When he is ready to marry, Lee Gak wants to marry a beautiful woman. Bu Yong (Han Ji Min) and Hwa Yong (Jung Yoo Mi) are sisters. Hwa Yong, the older sister wants to marry Crown Prince Lee Gak, but her father makes it clear that younger sister Bu Yong will marry the Crown Prince. Hwa Yong is so upset, she uses an an iron to burn Bu Yong’s face, pretending it was an accident. Now, Bu Yong carries a big scar on her face. Eventually, older sister Hwa Yong marries Crown Prince Lee Gak. Time passes and are now adults. Younger sister Bu Yong is now a smart woman, good with needlework. Older sister Hwa Yong is uneasy that her husband, Crown Prince Lee Gak, and Bu Young get along well. One day, Crown Prince Lee Gak wakes up in the early morning. He finds that Hwa Yong is not next to him. He feels something strange about the situation and calls for an eunuch. At this time, an eunuch comes running to the Crown Prince and informs him that Hwa Yong is found dead in a pond. Lee Gak suspects that his wife’s death is not by accident. He puts together a team to investigate his wife’s death. When the team awaits to interview a witness, a group of assassins appears and chases them. Crown Prince Lee Gak and his men are chased to the edge of a cliff. The group jumps off the cliff. The Prince from the Joseon era travels to the future with his entourage Song Man Bo (Lee Min Ho), Woo Yong Sul (Jung Suk Won) and Do Chi San (Choi Woo Shik).

Seoul 2012

When Park Ha (Han Ji Min) was young, her father remarried and Park Ha gained older step-sister Se Na (Jung Yoo Mi). When their parents left for work, older step-sister Se Na despised having to take care of her younger sister. One day, while younger sister Park Ha sleeps inside a truck, the truck suddenly departs. Even though Se Na sees the truck leaving, she turns around and pretends that it isn’t happening. Time passes, younger sister Park Ha is now living in America. While, Park Ha sells fruits as a sidewalk vendor, Yong Tae Yong (Micky Yoochun) sees her and feels a connection with Park Ha. Yong Tae Moo (Lee Tae Sung) appears in front of Yong Tae Young. They are cousins. The following day, the two men boards a yacht. While the boat is sailing, they have a small fight and Yong Tae Yong falls into the water. His cousin doesn’t attempt to save Yong Tae Yong and actually attempts to hide evidence that he was there. He then jumps into the water and swims away. At this time, younger sister Park Ha receives a phone call that her family has been located in South Korea. Park Ha travels to South Korea and learns that her father has just passed away. At her father’s funeral, Park Ha meets her step-mother and older step-sister Se Na. Park Ha has no memory of how she was separated from her family. Park Ha settles down in Seoul. One night, when she comes back to her rooftop room, she discovers four men, in Korean traditional clothing, sitting in her room…..
Review: This drama was the best of all I've watched this year! I like that the story gels back to the beginning and the mystery at the beginning was resolved. Some of the scenes are really funny! Some of the things get unexplained, e.g. did the aunt and that man get together? What happened to the prince in the end? etc


4. 信义/ Faith@The Great Doctor (Korean)

Episodes: 24
Genre:Romance, Historical, Fantasy, Time-Travel
Casts: Lee Min Ho as Choi Young, Kim Hee Sun as Yoo Eun Soo, Yoo Oh Sung as Ki Cheol, Lee Philip as Jang Bin, Ryu Duk Hwan as King Gong Min, Park Se Young as Princess Nogook
Synopsis: This drama shows the love between a warrior from the Goryeo Period and a female doctor from the present day, their love transcending time and space.
Yoo Eun Soo (Kim Hee Sun) is a 33-year old plastic surgeon in the year 2012. She was originally a general surgeon, but quickly found that it was an overworked, under-paid profession and jumped ship to plastic surgery. Her dream is to someday open her own practice. But one day, Choi Young (Lee Min Ho) kidnaps her and takes her back to the Goryeo era because needing her medical skills. Their love story spans centuries but also warring beliefs. He gave up on love to be an unflinching warrior.
Review: I'm now watching this. It's currently still showing in Korea. I'm not too fond of this but I'll complete it. Watched because of I like time travel dramas and I'm curious how different this drama would be compared to the rest of the time travel dramas (e.g. rooftop prince, etc). The Lee Min Ho and Kim Hee Sun combination look weird to me...


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It's mid-autumn again!

And, like last year, we held our celebration at my parents'.

We had yummy steamboat. A, B and cousin Enda had their equally yummy fish porridge. It's like the chinese new year, everyone was present. It's a wonder how fast the family has grown from last year, we had 2 new babies this year!

A got himself a new lantern from his aunt (Thanks!). We went to the badminton court downstairs for lantern walk. A enjoyed himself so much more compared to last year! There were lanterns, music (from the musical lanterns), fireworks and bubbles! The bubbles were from Enda's lantern. Even B enjoyed herself! It's a pity the moon was not seen...

We ate moon cakes after that. This year, we ate the champagne truffle snowskin moonies from Sze Chuan Court, Fairmont. They were yummy! Also bought some double yolk baked ones from Peach Garden. We didn't get to eat the baked ones, everyone was full from the steamboat.

When it was time to go back, A didn't want to go home! He like my parents' place! :)


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B is 9 months old

B is able to transfer things from one hand to another and she could pick up things in both hands! She loves to play with her bottle cap.

She knows how to pull off the towel on her face, I played the little peekaboo game with her every night before her night feed. It's such a joy seeing her giggled when she took off the towel and saw me! :)

She could tear tissues very well, into very very small pieces!

She knows to look at the ground for things that dropped off from her hands, that amazed me! :)

She could cruise on her cot along the railings. However, she hates being placed in her cot and always cried to be carried. She has quite a fiery temper. She'll scream and then throw herself back and cried whenever things didn't go her way esp when someone took away things from her hands.

This month, she had bad rashes, ugly mosquito bites and some scratches. We've applied lots of lotion on her before they were all gone... she has quite sensitive skin. I've also reminded her nanny to change her into cloth nappy.

She is on solids now. We've introduced her to cereals (nestle milk and brown rice and Eu Yan Sang's) and porridge (plain, ikan bilis, fish, chicken soup base), puffs (sweet potato, peach), some bread, bannas and cheese. She is getting better and better at eating solids. :) However, she's still not using her hands very much to push the puffs into her mouth (starting to do so this week).

She's still on ebm during the daytime. I've increased her milk intake from 180ml to 240ml at night. She could complete all but since this week, she's starting to reject milk! She wakes up very often during the night, 12am, 2-3am, 4-5am and 7am! This makes me very tiring during the day!

We brought her to Rasa Sentosa for her first staycation. She has her first swim too and she loves it as much as soaking herself in her tub! :)

She went to her first lantern festival, she likes the lanterns but seems to be afraid of fireworks. And, I thought she was fearless of everything, haha...


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A is 3 years and 2 months old

DC was full of praise for A this month. He thinks A is more well-behaved. It's a good thing because he gets less scolding from DC but I actually thought otherwise! He's more naughty and mis-behaving in my opinion!

He's also more reluctant to obey orders, demands for things he know he shouldn't and keeps hitting people although he's still smiling a lot. "NO" should be his favorite word this month!

When asked to shower, he said "NO".
When asked if he wants to go swimming, he said "NO".
When he was given a puff, he said "NO, 妹妹的". (No, it's his sister's)
When asked to play with B, he hit her instead.
When he saw his sister making noise or play with his toys, he sternly looked at her and said "Aunty place!". (Aunty place = B's Nanny's place)
When it's time for school, he said "NO! No school! Jia jia home!" (Jia jia = grandma = my mum)

Nowadays, he's always requesting to go my parent's place. He likes it there. Of course, his grandparents keep stuffing and tempting him with good (sometimes, junk) food! When it's time to go home, his usual answer would be "NO!" He'll eventually go home with us but on the journey back, he'll keep wanting us to "TURN BACK!" haha...

Talking about food... I happened to buy a packet of organic brown rice rings at Taka for A to try and he grew instantly in love with it. He calls it "O" because the rings look like the alphabet O. He asked for it every day and can eat lots of it. I had a lot of trouble coming from him when we run out of his "Os"! Luckily, his Ah Ye (grandpa) found it from NTUC and now, he takes his vit "O" at his grandparent's home. :)

He is still very into cars, this month he was very busy spotting his daddy's car on the road. Whenever he saw one, he'll exclaim "Papa car car!" and he is usually accurate! :) Fortunately, there were at least 2 (about 5) of the same car as ours parked in the nearby carparks for us to satisfy A, otherwise A would request to go into every carpark he sees in his sight until he found one "papa car car".

A has grown taller. He could even turn on the tap on his own! He also outgrow his shoes. We got him a new pair with his "Pony". He loves it. :)

A seldom jump and I actually saw him jumping up once. Not with joy though but with anger. He was so angry that he jumped! Haha...

We brought A and B to Rasa Sentosa during the school holiday weekend to stay for a night. It was also the first time he slept on a bed on his own. A loved it! I was stressed and kept worrying if he would roll over the bed, lol! We got him a waterproof camera and took lots of photos of him in the waters there! Here's one:

Lantern festival is coming up, we had a cozy lantern walk session with his cousins last week. I'm so happy that he enjoyed it better than last year.


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Coffee DIY

A freebie from Stanchart cards Great Singapore Sale promotion again. This time, I qualified for the Nescafe Dolce Gusto coffee maker redemption. I think I will enjoy it as it's so much easier to make a cup of coffee or latte at home now! Minimal cleaning too!

Resident Evil Retribution

Resident Evil: Retribution

CAST: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Sienna Guillory, Kevin Durand, Shawn Roberts, Colin Salmon, Johann Urb, With Boris Kodjoe, and Li Bing Bing
DIRECTOR: Paul W.S. Anderson
LANGUAGE: English with Chinese subtitles
OPENING: 13 Sep 2012
RUNTIME: 97 mins
RATING: NC16 - Violence

The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race’s last and only hope, ALICE (Milla Jovovich), awakens in the heart of Umbrella's most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex. Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun.

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We watched all of the previous "Resident Evil" movies and DC played the game before... I like this but DC thought that the storyline was quite plain. It was not as scary as the previous... Love Milla!

The Expendables 2

The Expendables 2

CAST: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger
DIRECTOR: Simon West
LANGUAGE: English with Chinese subtitles
OPENING: 16 Aug 2012
RUNTIME: 102 minutes
RATING: NC16-Violence


The Expendables are back and this time it's personal...

Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) -- with newest members Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) aboard -- are reunited when Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) enlists the Expendables to take on a seemingly simple job. The task looks like an easy paycheck for Barney and his band of old-school mercenaries. But when things go wrong and one of their own is viciously killed, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are stacked against them. Hell-bent on payback, the crew cuts a swath of destruction through opposing forces, wreaking havoc and shutting down an unexpected threat in the nick of time - six pounds of weapons-grade plutonium; enough to change the balance of power in the world. But that's nothing compared to the justice they serve against the villainous adversary who savagely murdered their brother. 

That is done the Expendables way....

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If you like violence and action, then this movie is for you. It's a men's show, you'll see how a seemingly simple job turns into a revenge.

Or if you like to see many old time macho action actors like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, then this movie is for you too. They are still in tip top condition with fab bods! :)

Unforgettable A

I was on leave today and decided to bring A for breakfast at m. So, DC dropped us at the nanny's place and after A and me sent B to the nanny's, we went on our way to m.

This was the first time A walked on the park from the nanny's and now he knows the park connects the two blocks i.e. our block and the nanny's block! :)

At m, after we ordered our breakfast, the manager went to us and showed us a photo on his handphone. It was a photo of A and the photo was taken more than 1 year ago!

Haha, so the manager remembers our A and still keeps him in his handphone (and his heart)! We chatted for a while before the place got busy. I didn't expect to see him still working there! I certainly didn't expect him to still remember A after more than a year!

It seems that A also caught the attention of another couple who was sitting behind us. They started talking to him and A was in good mood and was smiley to them throughout! :)

When we were done, A said "Bye, Bye" to everyone whom he interacted with there. My A is so adorable! :)


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A beats me at memory

If there's anything, there're three things that A definitely surpasses me and they are his great memory, his sense of direction and an eye for details.

These 3 traits (also found in DC) could be found in his demonstration of great interest towards his favorite car (his daddy's) and through these recent examples:

- He could remember correctly where his papa parked his car the next morning and he could also amazingly remembered where we parked in shopping malls' basement car parks! Sad to say, I couldn't remember which lot we parked most of the time and had to sometimes rely on him to give me "hints". I'll asked, "Where did papa park his car?". Then, he'll point to the correct direction and replied "There!".

- He could give directions and he "drives" his little wheel towards the same direction he directed! :) "Turn left", "right", "直直走", he'll say these on the way to B's nanny's place and to his grandparent's place each morning! And, he's correct most of the time! Me? I don't even know the route to my parents' even though I've been driven there so many times!

- He could recognize any passing or parked car that resembles his papa's car! Recently, a car with the same model and color as ours parked next to us and A instantly recognized it, saying "Papa car car!". We were amazed that he could even know it from the side. Not only that, last night, he wowed me when he showed that he recognized his papa's car from the top from our home window! Haha, till now, I am still having problem finding DC's car when he picked me up from my office! Oops! :P

This match, A wins me hands down, 我甘拜下风!


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Love her chuckles! :D

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B's sick (again)!

She started having runny nose. Oh no, we're going for our first staycation this weekend, hope she'll be well by then! Or else we would have to cancel the stay (again)!

[07 Sep 2012: She seems well today. Yeah! We're going for our staycation tomorrow!]

[09 Sep 2012: Her runny nose came back, maybe because of one night in air-con...]

[10 Sep 2012: Thank God, the runny nose was gone today!]


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