Ha Ji Won's Go Go With Unnie - Ep 6

Sorry this took a while! I've been watching The Time I Loved You instead >< I did a short review but I'll only post it after I finish the recaps for this!

Ep 6

We start off with Jiwon in the recording studio to record her song about Zoe the donkey. She says she wrote some of the lyrics in Grasse and finished them on the day after they returned to Korea.
But she's very worried about recording. "Can I disappear for awhile?"
Music producer: Seeing the lyrics, they're really good
Jiwon: Really??

Ha Ji Won's Go Go With Unnie - Ep 5

Ep 5

They're headed to Nice this ep!

In an interview, Jiwon says "To be honest, it's not like every moment is good. There are hard times and frustrating times and times when I want to cry but....it feels like I'm on a roller coaster."

Hahaha it was super hot in the car so Jiwon was trying all sorts of ways to use her hat to shield the sun but it wasn't working.

So she used her sister's scarf to cover her whole face:

LOL!!!!

Upon reaching Nice, they start squealing over how gorgeous the place is. "Look at the colour (of the sea)!"
Then she starts talking a whole bunch of nonsense about how they're from this neighbourhood and how the people from the other neighbourhood (just random passersby) are chic.

Jiwon did a lot of research so they go to the place she found which serves bouillabaisse.

Omo she says she only eats 1.5 meals in Korea, but here she's really hungry and eats all 3 meals. No wonder she can stay so slim!
"I think Grasse and South France's soul and energy matches me. When we were going out this morning, the donkey even shouted loudly. It's so cute."

Next on their checklist is a shop selling French candy. On the way to Nice Jiwon said that she wanted something sweet and was even researching about it on the plane. As usual, Jiwon's reactions to these stuff are lol-worthy.

 
And because she's so likable, she gets free stuff again!!

Jiwon wants to buy a gift for her sister in return for the Pinocchio puppet she bought so they enter a shop where there are handmade skirts and figurines and stuff.

Yookyung: Hey there's Zoe here!
Jiwon: Really? But it is not as cute as our Zoe.
Jiwon wants to buy a skirt for her sister but thankfully she thinks to check the price since it's handmade and its about 453eur so nope, too expensive! 'I'll sew one for you at home with a machine!'
In an interview later, Yookyung says that honestly the skirt wasn't really her style haha.
Jiwon ends up buying a scarf for her unnie.

They go the beach for a stroll and to take pictures. Yookyung managed to take a series of pretty shots while Jiwon was running to her.

So they tried to recreate it but Yookyung wasn't happy with the result LOL.

And then suddenly, Jiwon hears someone calling 'Ha Jiwon!' A bunch of French fans spotted her and she's super happy haha.

She spots a merry go round ahead and starts skipping towards it. And they decide to ride on white horses cos Jiwon likes horses. 'Usually the parents will wait and then you have to wave to them when you pass by.' so they do that to random people and look a bit crazy.

They end up in a park and Jiwon falls in love at first sight with this handsome little boy so they start playing. Gosh she's really like a child. And she gives him a kiss! Actually she wanted to kiss him on the cheek but he turned his head so in the end she kissed him on the lips :OOOO

At night, they suddenly start drawing the places they've visited and the house. Jiwon: "We must draw the donkey! It. is! very! important!" So Yookyung drew it, and it looks a bit strange.
And worse, Jiwon colours him the wrong colour!! He's grey not brown!

Jiwon asks unnie to draw the dog, and she just collapsed when she saw it

Because:

HAHAHAHA.

And then they realise there's no road. Jiwon wants to discard the thing and redo it but Yookyung is like no!!

When they finally finish, they talk to the camera and ask for it to be turned off since they're done and want to sleep. Jiwon is so happy she starts dancing hehe. 

Then we skip to another day where they're headed to a couple's house for a lunch made of olive stuffs.
In the interview, Yookyung says that Jiwon and her have many differences (eg their reactions to stuff - Jiwon will squeal while Yookyung will just say wow quietly) due to their age gap, they have many similarities too like being sensitive to scents and liking olive trees.  

After the greetings and admiring the view, they visit the compound. Omg so cute there's a hotel for fleas!!

Jiwon is very fascinated by this plant with heart shaped leaves.

Next is the lunch. Wowwww the food looks amazing.

When the hosts were about to remove one of the dishes that she hadn't finished but put aside, she hurriedly took it back and was like 'I'm going to eat that!' So cute haha.
Jiwon: "Can I faint for a while?" because the food was so amazing.

Jiwon's english has improved so much. So proud of her ^^ She started telling the man about how Yookyung made a massage for her using olive oil and concluded "We love olive oil." hehe.

That's it for this ep!
And Merry Christmas everyone! 

Ha Ji Won's Go Go With Unnie - Ep 4

Ep 4

We're on the day that they went to the market to buy raclette cheese. Now, they gotta make dinner with that cheese!
In her interview, Jiwon still can't pronounce raclette.
She can't find the cheese....

Ha Ji Won's Go Go With Unnie - Ep 3

Ep 3

We start with the sisters back in Seoul in their house. It's been exactly 2 weeks since they returned from Grasse. She brought back the cardboard cutouts of Zoe the donkey and Nita the llama from the press conference hahaha.

Ha Ji Won's Go Go With Unnie - Ep 2

Ep 2

We rewind to when Jiwon was preparing her fail dinner.
There's this sequence of Jiwon staring at stuff in the kitchen looking confused, preparing coffee, washing dishes, keeping dishes and looking confused again, then washing more dishes before she finally starts working on her kimchi pancake.
I love the question marks that the editor puts haha. She's so adorable when confused.

Ha Ji Won's Go Go With Unnie - Ep 1

Recently, Empress Ki started airing in my country on the public broadcast channel so it reinvigorated my HJW love. But since I've already rewatched Empress Ki like 50 times, I decided to watch her reality travel show to Grasse, France that she filmed in April earlier this year.

She's so so cute in it but unfortunately not many people watched it because of the lack of subs. I'm downloading the torrents and watching them raw. I don't understand Korean fully so I can't sub (and I got no time anyway :/) but I understand enough to get most of the jokes and so I decided to do mini recaps for the episodes. Mostly about the scenes I found particularly funny. It's really quite entertaining, especially if you're a HJW fan because she's ridiculously adorable.

One thing I find annoying is that the editing is done such that the events aren't in chronological order, so random parts of different days of their trips get mashed into 1 ep. (You can tell since their clothes changed.) So it's abit confusing.

Ha Ji Won's interview in iWeekly (English)

I translated Ha Ji Won's interview in iWeekly from Mandarin to English because it was so interesting! The first part is the journalist's introduction. Enjoy~

She is ever-changing. No matter whether incarnating as an evil lady, action female or empress, it is always convincing.
I like the her in the show who is unyielding, strong, and never bows her head.
In real life, she happens to possess similar qualities.
"I have experienced countless failures. Before debuting, I failed more than 100 auditions. When filming, I experienced many setbacks. But without these failures, I would not have achieved any success."
Success, is never accidental. Behind it is always painstaking hard work.
Last year, while promoting in the little red dot (Singapore), she went to the extent of preparing 5 outfits, changing clothes quickly during the short breaks between the marathon interviews. The reason? Only to maintain the freshness for the local media.
We have never met, but this is already the second time we have done an e-mail interview.
She remains the same as that in my impression - seriously answering with long answers. A big Korean star like her does not need to but chooses to. It is impossible to be unable to feel the brimming sincerity.

July 2015 - Austria & Czech Republic (Part 3) - Cesky Krumlov + Prague

I'm back with the last recap of my trip! Gosh I took so long to write this because school's been crazyyyyy. Finally got some time now as holidays are approaching which also means I can finally watch my dramas! My progress has been horrendous!

Day 7 - 21Jul2015
Headed to another country today!
We woke up early to check out and left the hotel at 815. Made our way to the meeting point which was really near our hotel, and had some pastry for breakfast while waiting for the shuttle van that we booked to come. 
We booked under Bean Shuttle for 800CZK per person. We shared the van with 2 other couples cos the van can fit 8 passengers. The service is really good - the driver was really friendly and we were given bottles of water, which is pretty useful for holidays. And the driver drove really really quickly so we only took 2.5h to reach Cesky Krumlov! Also, I never knew that you didn't have to go through customs going from one EU country to another. I was so fascinated haha.

July 2015 - Austria & Czech Republic (Part 2) - Salzburg

School has started and I'm so busy!! That's why I took more than a month to post this. And this is already the term with the least work.

Anyway, continuing with my trip recap.

Day 4 - 18Jul2015

We check out at 820am and headed to Schwedensplatz to take the subway to Westbahnof station. We managed to get some breakfast while waiting for the Westbahn train to arrive. There are 2 trains to get you from Vienna to Salzburg - OBB or Westbahn. Research online showed that many people recommended Westbahn so that's what we went with. Caught the 938 train that was packed with people because you can buy your tickets on board so the number of passengers is not regulated. The 2.5h journey was pretty enjoyable because Austria has such awesome scenery!

July 2015 - Austria & Czech Republic (Part 1) - Vienna

It's been a week since I came back but I'm still stuck in that timezone, waking up at about 2pm everyday!

Over my very short summer holidays, I visited Austria & Czech Republic for about 11 days. The itinerary was Vienna > Salzburg (with a day trip to Hallstatt) > Cesky Krumlov > Prague.
We flew via Emirates, so we had a 3h stopover at Dubai airport there and back. At Dubai, we disembarked from the plane outside and boarded a bus that took us to the immigrations about 10 to 15min away. We didn't expect it to be such a long ride so we kept joking that we were getting kidnapped haha.
Air tickets cost us slightly more than S$1900 per person. Expensive because we booked pretty late, as usual.

Day 1 - 15Jul2015
We landed at Vienna airport round 1pm. After our own impressive Changi airport and the equally (if not more) impressive Dubai airport, Vienna's airport was really underwhelming. Anyway, we bought the 72h regular transport card from the tourist information (marked with a green 'i') at 16eur per person. We later realised it's not worth it as train prices are 1.10eur regardless of distance so you need to travel at least 15 times over that 72h to make your money's worth, which we didnt. We also got tickets for the City Airport Train there at 12eur/person.

Korean Film Recommendations (Part 1)

Over the holidays, I managed to watch 5 Korean movies - Big Match, The Attorney, A Girl At My Door, Han Gong Ju and Roaring Currents.

I watched Big Match because it's BoA's film debut! About Choi Ik Ho (Lee Jung Jae) who is dragged into playing a 'game' (mostly doing seemingly impossible tasks) to save his brother. It was a lot of fun watching the action scenes but I thought the story was super messy.

The Attorney is set in the 80s and stars Song Kang Ho as a lawyer who helps to defend a bunch of university students, including Im Si Wan, against accusations of being communist. The first half was all set up but the second half moved into the court room and that is when the drama hooked me in. Worth watching, but it was the latter 3 movies I watched that I really loved.

Drama Views - Healer (2014-15)

About a night courier guy, Healer/Seo Jung Hoo (Ji Chang Wook) who receives an assignment from Kim Moon Ho (Yoo Ji Tae) and ends up meeting Chae Young Shin (Park Min Young), leading to the unravelment of a 22 year old secret.

I wasn't planning on watching this but it was so wildly popular that I had to know what made so many people go gaga over it. After watching it, although I didn't love it thaaaaat much, I can see why it garnered so many die hard fans.

Drama Views - Producer (2015)

Producer follows the lives of 3 variety PDs - Tak Ye Jin (Gong Hyo Jin) as PD of Music Bank, Ra Joon Mo (Cha Tae Hyun) as PD of 1 Night 2 Days and Baek Seung Chan (Kim Soo Hyun) as a rookie PD and one starlet, Cindy (IU).

It started off as a mash of drama cum documentary but this wasn't well received in Korea so after the second ep, it was essentially a normal romcom. I enjoyed both formats and overall, I thought it was a well made, well thought out and well acted drama.

Drama Views - Hogu's Love (2015)

Hogu's Love is about Hogu (Choi Woo Sik) meeting the lady love of his life, Do Do Hee (Uie), again after many years and realising she's pregnant. Together with Byun Kang Chul (Im Seul Ong), also from their high school, they somehow end up taking care of the baby together.

The show can be very very hilarious and I enjoyed it loads though I didn't exactly love it.

Spazzing over Ha Ji Won

My exams are finally over!!! Just in time for me to write a spazz post about my favourite Korean actress, Ha Ji Won to coincide with her birthday and the start of her new show, The Time We Were Not In Love.

I first watched her in Secret Garden which I loved, but mostly for Hyun Bin. I didn't care too much about Gil RaIm ><
Then in 2012, she acted in King 2 Hearts which had massive popularity on Dramabeans. I watched that, then followed it with classics What Happened In Bali, Damo and Hwang Jini, partly because these were so highly rated and partly because I wanted to watch more and more of Ha Ji Won. After watching all her dramas since Damo, I proceeded to watch almost every movie she's been in. I think her drama hits are more consistent than her movie hits - I loved Duelist and Closer To Heaven, but hated 100 Days with Mr Arrogant.

Drama Views - Bad Guys (2014)

My first drama review in a long time because it's the first drama I've watched in 3 months! Grrrr school. But it was a great choice for a drama watching comeback because this was AMAZING.

Bad Guys is about a team of 1 cop and 3 criminals coming together to capture other criminals. There was a nice mix of episodic cases and explorations of each character's back story. Highly highly recommended! To all those people who keep saying Korean dramas are all about chaebols and poor girls, it is not true and Bad Guys is just one of the many that isn't AND of high quality.

Spazzing over BoA + SMTown World Tour 3 in Singapore

With BoA releasing her 8th album to celebrate her 15th anniversary since debut this week, it seems apt to dedicate a post to one of my favourite female soloists. (She'll be THE favourite if Kahi didn't leave After School to become a soloist too.)

I first heard of BoA when I was a kid. She debuted at a tender age of 13 in 2000, and gained massive popularity in Japan, Korea and even Asia when she was still in her teens. I clearly remember in 2006, when she released her Made In Twenty album, I was exclaiming to my brother 'What?! She's only 20 years old?! But she's been around FOREVER!!' Because of her insane success in the early 00s, she remains a household name here.

January 2015 - Tasmania

I have always wanted to go to Tasmania after seeing an article on it in 8days, and the desire tripled when Rui En went there to film Sudden.
Unfortunately, due to my pathetic amount of holidays, I could only spare 4.5 days in this lovely place. But it was a good break away from studies and everything in real life.

We booked this really last minute, about a month before we flew, so everything was really expensive. I couldn't find any direct flights to Hobart or Launceston so we had to transit at Sydney while going there and Melbourne while coming back. It is advisable to arrive at Hobart and depart from Launceston or vice versa to save time travelling back and forth the 2 cities. But it was cheaper to fly in and out of Hobart so that's what we did. We paid about $1600 per person on Qantas.

Drama Views: Kill Me, Heal Me (2015)

This will probably be my last drama review in a few months since my exams are coming up :(

Kill Me, Heal Me is about a chaebol named Cha Do Hyun (Ji Sung) who has 7 personalities due to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), and the female psychiatrist, Oh Ri Jin (Hwang Jung Eum), who helps him overcome the problem.
I had pretty high expectations for the show from the rave reviews, and it met some while it faltered at others. But overall, I really enjoyed it, especially Ji Sung's fantastic performance. A lot of people were highly annoyed by Hwang Jung Eum's admittedly excessive screaming in the first few episodes but I personally was fine with it. Don't let that minor point deter you from watching this show!

Korean Music Recommendations - Non-idols

People always judge me when I tell them I like Korean music because they always associate it with typical K-Pop - mindless noise and repetitive hooks. But there is a side to Korean music that not many people know about. K-Pop also has some really good hidden gems, but I will cover these in another post.

So here's a post about some of my favourite songs and artists recently, with a focus on non-idols.
I usually don't intentionally go finding these songs, but happen to chance upon them while reading forums or blogs.

Spazzing over Rui En

 

Rui En is a Singaporean actress cum singer. She has also been my idol since I was 13 years old.

I first started watching her in dramas in 2004 (I was 9, but somehow I can still remember) in a show called My Mighty-in-laws where she was still young, inexperienced, and honestly not very good at acting. Her Chinese pronunciation was terrible despite debuting in Taiwan as a singer. But I thought that she was quite pretty.
In 2005, she acted in a few more Channel 8 dramas, and gained her first leading role in A Promise for Tomorrow. At that time, she had already become my favourite Channel 8 actress...because she was pretty hah. What does a 10 year old know about acting?

Med School + May/June 2014 - Seoul & Tokyo (Part 3) + Bonnie & Clyde Musical starring Kahi

My posts are getting more and more sparse because exams are coming up in 1.5 months time! We are the uni course the ends the latest in Singapore....or maybe the world. I'm also quite sure we study for the longest period of time. The academic year starts in August and only ends in late June for us :( Our holidays are pretty pathetic too. 2 weeks in December, 1 week each in September and March, and 1 month in July. So we study for a total of 10 months, while those in London study for 5 months? We only go to school for about 3 times a week on average though, due to our unique system of Team Based Learning (TBL), where we study at home though video lectures and come to school for 'quizzes'. I was initially quite apprehensive about this system but have come to love it a lot. No more worries about not catching what the lecturer said! Literally study at your own pace!
Med school has been pretty great for me so far but the pressure is only going to increase from now with our first finals coming up and the eventual progression into clinical years. But I love what I study and cannot wait to use my knowledge to benefit others so all the hard work is worthwhile.

It's Labour Day today + weekends + no school on Monday so it's technically a long and relaxing weekend...but nope. I've got a summative reflections due on 11th May and Anatomy Spots test on the same day. Plus continuous, never ending preparation for TBLs.

But I have some time to write my final post about the Seoul & Tokyo trip in 2014.

Drama Views: Liar Game (2014)

Liar Game is about a naive girl, Nam Da Jung (Kim So Eun) who finds herself playing a manipulative TV game show, with the help of a handsome swindler and ex-convict, Ha Woo Jin (Lee Sang Yoon). Despite being a remake of a Japanese show, tvN's Liar Game still manages to be thrilling and engaging. I watched the Japanese version several years ago under the coercion of my friend, and was highly bothered by the extremely OTT characters like Fukunaga.
Korea's Liar Game managed to capture my heart in a way the Japanese version failed to do so. tvN, give me season 2 asap please!!!

Drama Views: Misaeng (2014)

A workplace drama about Jang Geu Rae (Im Si Wan), his beloved Sales Team 3 comprising of Chief Oh (Lee Sung Min), Assistant Manager Dong Sik and Chief Chun, and his fellow interns - Ahn Young Yi (Kang So Ra), Jang Baek Ki (Kang Ha Neul) and Han Suk Yool (Byun Yo Han).

May/June 2014 - Seoul & Tokyo (Part 2)

Continuing my adventure in Tokyo...

Day 3 - 30May2014
We woke up really early, around 530am and took the airport limousine to Incheon airport. We reached 3hours early!! So we got breakfast from Paris Baguette (whose model is the gorgeous Jeon Ji Hyun) before starting on our long journey to our gate, which included taking the concourse and walking a lot. We took a budget flight on Eastar Jet that cost us about $300 for a round trip. While checking in, I left my handphone on the latch and walked off without it. Luckily, one of the service staff ran after me to return it, otherwise my whole vacation would have been ruined!
The journey to Narita airport took about 2hours. We had to walk a really long distance to get to the customs area again since these airports are huge. We consulted the tourist information center for the cheapest way to get to Shinjuku which is the city center and where our hotel is located, and bought discounted tickets on the Narita express which is a train that specially connects places in Japan to the Narita airport. There is even a space to put your luggage so the 2h ride was really comfortable.

Drama Views: Empress Ki (2013-2014)

I can’t call my ramblings on dramas reviews since I may be biased and I don't write in depth. So they’re just my drama views.

My first one is about Empress Ki, starring my favourite Korean actress Ha Ji Won. The whole drama is about Ki Seung Nyang’s ascent to the throne of the Yuan dynasty, and 4 men pining over her – Goryeo King Wang Yoo (Joo Jin Mo), Yuan Emperor Tahwan (Ji Chang Wook), Yuan advisor Taltal (Jin Yi Han) and evil Tanggise (Kim Jung Hyun). It is 51 episodes long so lots of stuff happen, but they are all very fast paced so there is hardly a boring moment.

Variety: The Human Condition (Female)

A brief intro to The Human Condition: 6 members come together to live in a house for 5 days and 4 nights with a mission. There are 2 versions in the first 2 seasons – male and female. Originally, there were only male members. But when they did a Female Comedian special and it garnered double the ratings of the usual show, they changed it such that males and females alternate. I have only watched the female version.

May/June 2014 - Seoul & Tokyo (Part 1)

Last year, I went to Seoul and Tokyo with my best friend as a graduation trip. We wanted to go with 2 other friends but they couldn't make it :(

It was a really long trip spanning 2 weeks so I'll probably take a few posts to record it completely. I kept a record of everything I did and spent on during the trip so it's still quite fresh in my mind.

In February, we booked tickets to Seoul on SQ at a discounted price of around $800. And a return ticket from Seoul to Tokyo from Eastar Jet, a budget airline from Korea. So our holiday was 2 days in Seoul -> 5 days in Tokyo -> 7 days in Seoul. It is quite a waste of time travelling back and forth, but it was the cheapest option since the discounted SQ tickets were only for return tickets for the same destination.

We booked our hotels in March and many were already sold out due to the peak season so we paid quite a bit...so book early! (Unfortunately the schedules of myself and my family are very unfixed so we always end up booking really last minute, which means a waste of money!)

Before the trip, I was working in a really awful place while waiting for university and I was so traumatised working there. Was so grateful to board the plane and escape everything here.

Hello!

This new blog is to record my travel experiences, encounters with korean celebrities and other random thoughts. Mostly about korean entertainment.
My personal blog to record daily occurrences is getting too messy.