This week's song is none other than Super Junior's Magic! Skipping the long introductions and getting right into it since I'm sure if you've been following this blog and so these weekend song reviews should be rather familiar.
Another one of those love at first listen kind of songs. I think the first time listening to this song I instantly felt like I travelled back in time to the first time I started liking Super Junior. In my head I kept going why are they so handsome and those voices, they sound so good! I think this MV reminded me of No Other's MV with a set and all. Despite the disappointing album cover.
Also, Magic was released to commemorate Super Junior's 10th anniversary on 6th November so according to some fan analysis, they said the dance moves for Magic is actually a combination of various popular Super Junior songs! Unfortunately I'm not really a dancer so I'm not able to dissect the dance moves and pinpoint exactly which dance move is from which song. But nonetheless, if it's true then it's indeed pretty cool!
Wow, I can't believe it's already been 10 years since Super Junior made their debut. They're like a sunbae group already and yet they still have many fans all over the world. I can't say if they've a large fanbase in Korea though as I've heard that it's not a large as before since fans are moving to liking other groups. But anyway, they're still my favourite group. Hehehe.
That's all I have for this week's song review! Hope you've enjoyed listening to this song! And stay tuned for next week's song review!
Do check out last week's song review here!
Hello friends! Here's another beauty product review for you! I'm sure many of you would have heard of this product before. This is Innisfree's Super Volcanic Clay Mask.
It's one of their bestselling products! Initially I wasn't thinking of purchasing it but after trying a sample, I really liked it and ended up getting a tub for myself. It's funny how I got the samples in Korea but only waited till coming back and then getting it locally. So for a 100ml tub, I paid about SGD $32. It can last about a year or so depends on how many times a week you use this, usually once or twice a week is good enough.
How to use
The tub doesn't come with a spatula or something to scoop the product out so most would recommend using something to scoop the product out for hygiene purposes. However, I'm just lazy so I would wash my hands with soap before using this product and I won't double dip.
Before applying this product, you need to cleanse your face and apply toner.
So basically, you just need to spread out the mask over your face. It's actually a little thick but you don't have to spread a thick layer. As long it covers your face and it looks smooth, that should be just nice.
Something like that. You shouldn't apply this too close to your eyes as well and maybe you'd like to avoid your eyebrows too. Leave the product on for about 15 to 20 minutes or until it hardens and your face feels stiff. Do not leave it for too long as it does dry out your skin.
Once you feel that it's a little stiff, you can rinse it off with lukewarm water. It should wash off but if it doesn't come off easily, do not rub roughly as it might cause your skin to stretch. So just gently use your fingers to rub it off with more water. It should leave your skin feeling cool.
My Thoughts
I like how this product has a cooling effect and it also helps with the redness of my skin. If I have a pimple outbreak, it does help reduce the redness of the pimples and helps to dry it out a little bit as well. It also helps to exfoliate so my skin feels clean and refreshed after using it.
However, I wouldn't recommend leaving the product on your face for too long. It would make your skin really dry. So I think having it on for about 15 to 20 minutes should be just about right.
That's all for this short review! Hope it was useful and this is definitely a product I would recommend as part of your skincare routine. It does make your skin look better and you can see the difference after a few times using it!
Do check out this space for more beauty product reviews coming soon!
Hello friends! It's the weekends again! That means it's time for another song review!
This week, we have D&E's The Beat Goes On!
Although the title of this album is The Beat Goes On, this song isn't the title track. The title track is 너는 나만큼 Growing Pains. However, I thought if this song was the title track, it would've been pretty cool as well.
This song has a pretty unique style. To me, it kind of feels like it represents the styles of Donghae and Eunhyuk. Donghae sings and Eunhyuk raps so in this song, there's a good mix of both. They're really a pretty good team, compatible and they look good together. I think SM did a good thing by releasing this sub group.
Also, I'm sure most of you have heard by now that Donghae and Eunhyuk would be enlisting in the army this year. Most of the ELF wanted that to happen since they were best friends and all so like since it's really happening this way, hope that they'll enlist together and be discharged together too. I think with Kpop groups, the friendship bonds are really quite strong since they've been together for a long time.
So that's all for this weekend's song review! I'll be back next week with more a new song to recommend!
Check out last weekend's song review here.
Hi friends! This is really an overdue post. Hehe. It's another food post on this Korean fried chicken joint I tried out some time ago. It's none other than Choo Choo Chicken. For a period I felt as though I was eating a lot of Korean style fried chicken. But anyway, let's get on with this food post!
It was my first time hearing of this restaurant. I probably only heard of the more popular Korean chicken joints in Singapore. I went with a group of food bloggers, Janel, Hannah and Luna, so they definitely know a lot more about food places than me!
As seen in the photo above, the restaurant is really quite small. I think it seats only around 20ish people? It's pretty cramped too. Customers had to sit back to back. It wouldn't be a good idea to bring a large group of friends there for dinner.
We didn't take too long deciding what to order since ordering Korean chicken is rather straightforward. You can check out the menu hereon their Facebook page. I think it's a different menu from when we went there. Then we ordered a whole chicken and could choose four different flavours. If I'm not wrong, the current menu allows you to choose only two different flavours.
So for our chicken, we had four flavours and there were: Garlic, Soy, Original and Yangnyum (Sweet and spicy).
Hmm, honestly I wasn't too impressed with how this chicken tasted. The crispy part of the chicken, no doubt it was very crispy, but it had a strong flour taste. Also there wasn't anything special amongst the flavours, there was only a slight difference. To me, it mostly tasted like the original fried chicken but with flavouring. So I wouldn't say that there was anything particularly outstanding or impressive.
Along with our chicken, we ordered some beer as well as Korean rice wine, Makeolli!
It was my first time ordering alcohol together with a meal and must I say, I can understand why Koreans enjoy drinking beer with their chicken. I can't explain the taste but the feeling is really refreshing! Anyway, that's besides the point. It's quite cool that Choo Choo Chicken actually serves Makgeolli like in the traditional teapot and even the aluminium bowl. According to Janel, the aluminium bowl makes the Makgeolli taste better because of some reaction the drink has with the bowl. Makgeolli is pretty good though. Overall thoughts on this food place. Hmm I'm not impressed with the chicken served at this place. Not to mention, I don't feel that it's worth my money. It's lacking the wow factor. Nonetheless, after eating fried chicken in Korea, my standard has increased a lot. So for people who have not tried authentic Korean chicken, they might enjoy the chicken at this restaurant. Food reviews are subjective because it's really based on your own opinion and well, tastebuds. One man's food is another man's poison! So, hope you've found this food review useful and although I don't write such posts often, I hope you've enjoyed reading this!
This goes out... Man, you know who you are... Let's go!
Hi friends! This weekend's song is none other than Jay Park's Joah 좋아!
Although this is a pretty old song (released in 2013), I'm sure those who have heard it would think that it's a pretty good song! I have had friends who aren't into Kpop but they like this song as well.
This song, despite it being a Korean song, it has a somewhat western style. Maybe since Jay wrote it himself he would have infused some of his own style into it. I think that's the appealing factor that made this song popular amongst many different people. Even the MV was filmed in USA which added on to the western aspect.
Jay's voice complements this song very well too. The high notes were indeed very impressive. It's probably something only Jay can do. Back in the day when he was with 2PM, he was one of the main vocals of the group so there's no doubt that Jay is a good singer. I think after he left the group, he could do music that was more related to his own style.
That's all I have for this week's song review! It's not a very long post but do take a listen to this song if you've not heard it before! Feel free to let me know what you think of this song in the comments!
Hi friends! Let me get this out first, I honestly have no idea where and how to start this drama review. I just enjoyed watching this drama so much I'm afraid my feels will cloud my thoughts and this post will be all over the place. Although I'll try my best to write coherently, I'm not sure how that'll turn out. So thought I should at least warn you first before you start read this post. Haha.
This review will be on SBS's 너를 기억해 I Remember You. It's also known as Hello Monster as I believe it was the working title before they decided on this title. I prefer I Remember You as the title so I shall refer to this drama using that title.
I finished watching this drama 2 weeks ago but I had to watch the last few episodes again to fully internalise the plot. There are a few main themes for this drama - good vs bad (right vs wrong), family, different type of crimes and also romance. I'll go into detail later on in this post.
Genius profiler Lee Hyun returns home to Korea after something from a case he’s been sent triggers a memory he thought he’d lost forever. Unbeknownst to him, one of his team members, Detective Cha Ji-an, has been investigating him for some time. She is aware that his father was murdered and his brother disappeared under mysterious circumstances involving a criminal named Lee Joon Young -- whom they both want found and incarcerated. Each seeks to unravel the other, unaware that they’ve been drawn into a dangerous game of cat and mouse by a master player and that both truth and evil are closer and far more twisted than they think.
Description of the drama taken from Wikipedia. Without further ado, let's begin this drama discussion!
Note: This post will contain spoilers so for those who have not watched the drama, you may not want to continue reading.
The Characters.
There are seriously more male actors in this drama than normal but I guess that's expected from a crime drama. It would be unrealistic to have so many female characters in a police department.
The main character for this drama is Lee Hyun, played by Seo In Guk. The whole plot is related to him somehow so like his character is definitely the most important one. He's basically this cool charismatic guy who is really good at solving crimes. At least that's how he's introduced to us. Of course, if you continue watching you'll find out more about his (dark and oh so complicated) past.
The female lead, Cha Ji An, played by Jang Na Ra, is a female detective and from the starting scene, we see that she has some sort of relationship with Lee Hyun. She isn't the typical kind of female character, however, I do want to point out that she does get herself in tough situations quite a lot. Of course, these situations would be necessary since it would give the chance for Lee Hyun to come and rescue her, which would then allow their relationship to bloom.
Lee Joon Young played by Choi Won Young, is the cause of all the problems! He's a psychopath that existed from Lee Hyun childhood.
Psychopath definition: A person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc. - dictionary.com
Lee Joon Young, had murdered many people and was known for his bodiless kills. Without the body, there wouldn't be any evidence to convict him. So basically, he was a very clever criminal which also led to his escape from prison. And with his escape, he killed Lee Hyun's father which made the plot thicker. I'll probably continue to explain this more later on. It's pretty confusing as it is already.
The next character also played quite an important role in the drama, Lawyer Jung played by Park Bo Gum. It'll be revealed later on in the drama what his real relationship with Lee Hyun was. But of course, in this sort of crime drama, the writers would purposely want you to be suspicious of every character. It's really like guilty until proven innocent. It could be just me, since I've watched tons of crime shows, I'm always suspecting everyone. Haha.
The supporting roles were pretty good as well. The other detectives that worked with Cha Ji An and Lee hyun, and also a few other characters. I felt they provided the comical relief to this otherwise rather serious drama.
The Plot.
The plot of the drama is pretty complicated. I mean you would expect something like this from a crime drama. However, I liked how this drama took time to reveal bits and pieces of information to us instead of bombarding viewers with information. With complicated story lines like this, this was pretty good as it gave viewers time to process the information before moving on. Also because viewers are kept in suspense, it would keep them watching. So I thought it was pretty good! I was kept at the edge of my seat throughout the whole drama. I basically forgot which episode I was watching the day before as I just kept clicking 'next episode'.
The plot line was quite similar to a few crime shows like The Mentalist and also Criminal Minds. Maybe the producers got their inspiration from these shows. Then again, you can't differ very much since there's a certain standard format to solving crime. I thought that Lee Hyun resembled Patrick Jane from The Mentalist in terms of attitude and his keen eye for details but since Lee Hyun also did some profiling, that part was similar to Criminal Minds.
Earlier on, I mentioned that this drama has a few main themes. The main theme of the drama would be crime and related to that would be the theme on good versus bad. They're linked because the characters asked this question a few times, "Why is it wrong for a person to kill another person?" So basically the crimes in the drama are like murders that are thought to be 'good' murders because they're helping someone out. So it's like they're punishing the person that ought to be punished by killing them. And because these murderers are psychopaths, they do not feel any emotions as they commit their kills. So to them they're thinking that they're helping someone by removing the bad people so why is murdering them wrong? I think they looped around this topic quite a fair bit. Of course, Cha Ji An does answer the question in the end when she tells Lee Min that it's not up to them to decide what's wrong and what's right, and ultimately murder whatever the reason is still wrong.
Also, they do point out the fact that crime is a choice. So although one may be born a psychopath like Lee Min or have some characteristics of a criminal, with the correct upbringing and good choices, it can all be avoided. As shown through, Lee Min and Lee Hyun's life. It wasn't pointed out surely that Lee Hyun was a psychopath as he was covering up Min's deeds but nonetheless there was a contrast in how both the brothers grew up - Hyun being the good one and Min on the total opposite side.
The next big theme would be on family. This would be a pretty obvious one because it was frequently seen throughout the drama. From the beginning, we were introduced to Lee Hyun's past with his family - dad and brother. It was a pretty complicated beginning. Lee Hyun like grew up alone as his father was murdered and his brother went missing. He also had selective amnesia which caused him to forget the painful yet important parts of his past. (Therefore the title of the drama is I Remember You, geddit geddit?) So Lee Hyun returned to Korea to try figure out and remember his past. I think most people would've guessed or suspected that Lawyer Jung would be Lee Hyun's younger brother because of the stark resemblance to the younger Lee Min. Seriously, how did they find a kid actor that looked so much like the adult actor! Even the young Lee Hyun resembles the adult Lee Hyun. And I think it was because of this, the drama received alpha more cool points from me! LOL.
See what I mean?! They look alike!
Lastly, there's also a theme on romance. It was kind of expected that something romantic would happen between the two main leads especially since they had a past together. Also, the writers incorporated scene where Lee Hyun had to save Cha Ji An and although it is very cliche, it's usually how the male lead falls for the female lead, vice versa. Or rather it makes them own up to their feelings since it was already suggested that the two characters might have started developing feelings for each other since the drama started. Am I making sense? I hope so. Haha.
Although in the romance area there were intense scenes, there were also pretty funny, light hearted scenes. I think my favourite scene would be the one where Cha Ji An slid down the pathway of this really cool lecture theatre in a rolly chair. And Lee Hyun just stared at her with this totally unimpressed look on his face.
The scene where she was slight concussed as well. It was funny! I think it was mostly funny because they over exaggerated and it got me all cracked up.
There were other scenes that were just so awkward it became funny. Like who would say things like that in a real life situation? It was good to have some comic relief as well. They couldn't really add much comical moments in the other few theme components because they were just serious in nature so they had to compensate by making their relationship a funny one.
The Ending.
Honestly as much as I like the ending, there were a few parts that I found confusing. I mentioned I had to watch the last few episodes to make sense of things. It might just be me though. Despite the confusing parts, I felt the writers tried to answer as many questions as possible.
The last episode was quite intense especially with the unexpected turn of events when Min got stabbed. I literally was like WHAT?! After watching the whole episode, I think they needed that scene to direct the episode to the end.
It gave an opportunity for the writers to include a part where Min finally gets to make a choice. A choice on choosing the right path. Since it's been mentioned quite frequently throughout the drama that the life of crime isn't inborn but a choice. So I thought it was necessary for them to end with that and I'm glad they did write it in. It was seen that Min was given an envelope containing a new identity from Lee Joon Young. Min then says that Lee Joon Young is giving him a choice to continue hiding or live openly as Lee Hyun's brother and admit to his crimes. The scene closes with Min leaving the envelope on the hospital bed and walking out confidently. Yay!
In the romance department, Lee Hyun and Cha Ji An finally ended up together! Yay! I think most of the viewers would be happy with a conclusive ending like that. Although I liked how the romantic scene was somewhat interrupted by Lee Joon Young walking by. And then the couple turns around. I thought it was pretty cool like how it was captured on camera. Of course, the ending statement by Lee Hyun was indeed a powerful one where he vowed to catch Lee Joon Young.
That's the end of the long review for I Remember You (finally)! It took me sometime to complete writing this considering the rather complicating themes.
Aside from this, I left the best for the last! Do Kyungsoo! I'm sure everyone who watched this drama would have noticed how convincing his acting was. Even Korean netizens were singing his praise! It's not easy to act as a murderer and make the viewers believe it. Watch the video clip below and decide for yourself!
Hope you've enjoyed reading this drama review! Do check out the other drama reviews on this blog! And I'll be back with a new drama review soon!
Hi friends! This week, instead of recommending songs that I am currently liking, I decided to use the old method of choosing songs to review! So how did I choose this week's song to recommend? I opened my iTunes library and pressed shuffle! This song started playing and it'll shall be the song for this week.
#42 사랑하면 안될까by Changmin and Jinwoon from the Dream High OST.
This song is actually a pretty nice duet song and also it suited the vocals of Changmin and Jinwoon well too. I've always been impressed with 2AM's vocal capabilities.
Before listening to the track from the OST, we were introduced to this song from this scene in the drama where Kim Soo Hyun and IU goes through a sight singing test. I'm not sure if in real music schools they do such tests but it seems rather impressive to me. I'm not someone who can sight sing much less harmonise on the spot.
On a side note, it was sad to read that the future of 2AM is rather complicated. Only Jokwon is left in JYP whereas the rest have signed with various companies. I'm not sure if it'll they'll be able to continue their promotions from different companies so I think everyone's assuming that they have just disbanded just like that. Do groups officially announce their disbandment?
Anyway, it's sad to see a group like 2AM go their separate ways because they were good together. They just seemed to match so well in terms of sound and concept. So it's just 2PM left now. They can never be One Day again... Now that does sound sad...
That's all I have for this week's song review! It may not be a popular song but I do hope you'll enjoy listening to it! Stay tuned for new song reviews every weekend!
Check out last week's song review here!
