Making-of photos...

Just how on earth can a baby-faced actor play the king of Korea? Watch the serial to see for yourself :)

More making-of photos...

Whatever it is, if you're looking for a nice Korean drama, I highly recommend this one! Even Dae Jang Guem failed to keep my attention for more than 5 episodes in a row (I only watched it on and off)! But of course, u may argue that it is because of a certain lead actor and hey, I won't deny that too... :P

Work's piling up too, with the camp just over and my trainees giving me issues such as depression, suicide attempt, aggression at home, anger issues, lack of motivation issues, inappropriate public behaviour, inappropriate sexual behaviour.... Goodness... And with 3 centres on hand now (I'm covering up for another colleague who went on long leave), plus other projects, I'm finding it hard to even keep up with my case recordings! Die...

Mum and Dad are going on a Russian tour. As much as I would love to follow, I dun think I wanna use up so much leave this year. And yah, money issues too lah. Sigh...

Ok, wanna sleep... Been falling asleep a lot lately.... :(

All photos are taken from: http://www.dearjohyunjae.com/phpbb/index.php

MP3 trauma

My very first MP3 player which I bought was a Creative Zen Micro (which is no longer in stock). It worked very well. Even though I had to send it back for repair once, it came back brand new and did not give problems since. Up until a year plus later when the on-off switch was damaged, then I decided to buy a new set instead. That's when the traumatic journey began...

My 2nd MP3 player was a Creative Zen Microphoto, which, upon the first few days of owning it, hanged my computer and itself when i tried to upload songs to it. For this problem alone, I went back to the service centre (in Marina South which is sooo far for me!!!) almost 5 times and each time they upgraded something and said it was ok. Yeah, it was ok for the day but the next day it went again. Finally they agreed to bring it back fro servicing. It was returned repaired but just a month later it hanged again. Sent it back again and it came back repaired. Then it hanged again!!! It was soooo bloody mad. In fact, my thyroid condition worsened in those 2 days! So stormed back and really complained about how ridculous this whole debacle is and how Creative is not making things easy for me. Finally, the nice salesperson who endured my ramblings helped me bargain for a deal - pay just $70 extra and upgrade to the Creative Vision: M, the 30 GB MP3 player which can play videos. My anger melted way as I couldn't believe the deal he had gotten for me. So now I'm with the new player which looks alright for now. Keeping my fingers crossed, or else it would be 'bye bye Creative' and 'hello i-Pod'!


Movies

Then I watched Haven in the cinemas on Saturday. Frankly it didn't go down very well on me. It stars Orlando Bloom, Bill Paxton, Zoe Saldana (from Pirates of the Caribbean, The Terminal) and other actors and actresses whom I cannot recognize. But the story sounded intriguing enough and I was looking for just a nice indie movie to watch on a Sat afternoon. Wanted to watch Harsh Times but realized that I wasn't in a mood for too much violence, which Harsh Times was famous for. Anyway, the acting in Haven was good (yes, even Orlando Bloom!), but the story was just too disjointed and meaningless, much like how Proof was - pretty but no purpose in telling the story. What a pity.... Next movie - The Painted Veil!

Just rented the 1st season of That 70's Show!, my favourite sitcom while on-board an SIA flight, which coincidently guest starred a still-teenager Joseph Gordon-Levitt in one of the hilarious 6 episodes on the disc. Then I also rented Click and The Graduate (*Pearl starts rubbing hands in glee*).


Korean drama

The Ballad of Suh Dong is great so far, I love this serial! I'm on the edge of my seat most of the time, a real big deal for Korean drama serials. The character of Sweet Potato Boy Zhang (Jo Hyun Jae) is soooo, well, sweet! Righteous and loyal also though really down on luck. Awww... the poor boy! And Princess Sonhwa (Lee Bo Young) is also one nice, kind-hearted character whose only fault is to be a Sillian. She very pretty too, the kind who isan't like a ravishing beauty but very comfortable to look at. Ryu Jin's character, Gi Ru is quite infuriating at times for his jealousy and underhanded means in his espionage work and in getting the girl he loves. Although he really is quite a tragic character too. Very interesting storyline so far as after lots of twists and turns, Zhang and the community have finally made their way back into Baekje, only to meet with corrupt officials and politics. Meanwhile, Zhang finds out that the cousin of the crown prince has been looking for the "Sweet Potato Boy" with dubious reasons, which makes Zhang ponder over his parentage once again. And because Princess Sonhwa had jeopardized Sillan's interests while trying to protect Zhang, their relationship came out in the open (including the fact that they had lived together for a period of time!), much to the chagrin of the Sillian king, who decreed that she will no longer be a royalty. Will they ever meet again?? When will Zhang find out his true parentage?? Exciting!


Nonsensical ramblings

Well, so much for updates. It's Monday tomorrow which means another working day which means dullness and lots of unhappiness.

And I haven't done my Chinese New Year Shopping yet!! Have you??

As you would have guessed, I think I'd be pretty much hooked onto this drama for a while...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rmmk9E8dt8

The embedding code has been disabled so if you're even interested just click on the link above. That very funky 'ethic' song you hear at the 2nd half of the clip is the Suh Dong song. And I just realised from watching the serial so far that like good old Bollywood shows, Koreans also practice the act of running from both ends of the screen to embrace each other.


On other recent happenings, I just had my test for my Spanish course which means that if I pass I would have successfully gone through the beginners course and will be able to move up to elementry level. Wonder if I passed? I was quite freaked during the oral cos basically my brian is slow to process any information, more so a foreign language which I have been in touch for only the last few months. The writen test also showed that I have forgotten many vocab... Darn it, gotta get myself exposed to more Spanish medium... Any ideas how? Movies would be an excellent way for me but unfortunately Singapore doesn't bring in Spanish-language movies often.

Help!!! I'm stuck on a 55-episode Korean drama!!!!

The Ballad of Suh Dong

Yikes!! Jo Hyun Jae in beard!!!! Can I bear to watch till that happens?????

'Suh' refers to 'sweet potato', while 'dong' is 'child'. This series is based on a legend of the love story between King Mu of Baekja and Princess Seonhwa. Tne title was derived from a song which a young Mu (who was nicknamed 'Sweet potato child' then because he was so poor that he had to plant sweet potatoes and sell them for a living) wrote for the princess. See here for the legend.

In case you were wondering, the song is real, and is considered one of the oldest folk songs in Korea today.

AND in case you were wondering, "How come the costumes don't look like Korean costumes, like in Dae Jang Geum one????" That's because this happened a long long time before the period of Dae Jang Geum. In fact, in the show you do see that the costumes are very similar to those that you see in Chinese period dramas, and the wordings used in the serial are actually Chinese words.

Really, this is an interesting drama with an engaging storyline and great acting. Of course, having eye candies in the form of Jo Hyun Jae, Lee Bo Young and Ryu Jin helps a lot too.

Directed and writen by the same team behind THAT Dae Jang Guem.