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 checked 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.