Unproductive day

I didn’t do much of anything today, sighhh. I was feeling really tired, after getting up with N this morning, who had an early flight to catch. I never really recovered from the early start to my day 😔

After a shite trading session, I just consoled myself by watching more of my current Korean drama, Go Back Couple. It’s not a bad series; it takes you from laughter to sadness to anger and frustration all in one episode. And does it all over again in the next one. It’s mainly set back to 1999. Even though it’s in Seoul, they still have posters up in the kids’ rooms of some western movies that were out at that time – eg The Matrix and The Truman Show. It takes me back to that time, and also back to our uni days, which is where a lot of the scenes also take place. It’s quite a fun series, but with some serious themes running through it as well, so I think it’s quite well written. But I can see the ending from a mile away, though, and I normally can’t predict where storylines will go. So let’s see if the writers can surprise me with a different ending 😊

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MyDramaList.com

I created a profile on mydramalist.com, which is sort of like an IMDb equivalent for all (North?) Asian dramas and movies – all in English! You can create a list of all the dramas and movies that you’ve watched, are currently watching or want to watch (or decided not to watch!), rate them and add reviews. I selected all the dramas that I could actually remember watching, and I came up with 13. I’ve watched 13! 😲 And they’re the ones that I remember, I might have missed a few that I just don’t recall anymore. And I also haven’t included the Singaporean dramas that I watched while we were in SG, as the site only seems to list North Asian shows (although I have seen a Thai drama listed in there…) That’s actually much more than I thought! 😳 After you’ve listed all the dramas that you’ve seen, the site then gives you a summary. Here is mine:

Apparently for someone who doesn’t like them, I watch a lot of dramas with a supernatural theme! But when they are in the dramas, most of the time it’s not scary at all, so it’s not quite the same as watching The Ring or anything similar (I’m not listing any more examples, otherwise I’ll freak myself out 😂).

And apparently almost all of the dramas that I’ve watched had a romantic component in them, which was also quite surprising, as I normally don’t choose dramas to watch on this basis. But I’d say that in general, the vast majority of Asian dramas have a romantic element within them, though, so this number is probably slightly overstated…

Nonetheless, it was still quite interesting to see this summary! 😊

TV, movies and Tandem

I spent more time using that Tandem app again, sending more voice message than I normally would, as I’m trying to push myself to speak more. I keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter how slow I’m talking, just as long as I’m talking. The more I talk, the more comfortable I’ll get with sentences, and sooner of later, my speed should get faster. Well, that’s the theory, right?! And since I’m speaking to so many people, they ask me the same questions and I keep repeating the same answers, so over time, I’m hoping that these standard questions and answers will somehow stick, with me hearing enough native speakers speaking that I can actually make out what they’re saying, and soon I can progress to an actual conversation! I’m just not quite there yet, so in the meantime, I’m working with voice messages 😊

We watched Isn’t It Romantic today, with Rebel Wilson and Liam Hemsworth, two Aussie actors. Liam Hemsworth turned on the Aussie accent for the movie, so I felt even more at home watching it 😊 I needed a bit of a break from all the Marvel movies that I’ve been watching lately, so we went for a light-hearted comedy. I really enjoyed it, it was much better than what I was expecting, especially given its mediocre IMDb rating of just 6.0/10. It pokes fun at rom coms yet is one itself, so I thought it was really well written. It’s not going to win any oscars, but that’s not its intention, and I think it delivered what it wanted to in quite a clever way. It was fun 😊

And then I finished off the evening with an episode of Yanxi Palace (a Chinese drama) and Go Back Couple (a Korean drama). The Korean drama is more the type of series that I like to watch, despite the former garnering a bajillion views when it first aired (I’m always late to the tv or movie party, in case you haven’t noticed 😂). I’m not a fan of period dramas, I think it is partially because of the strong patriarchal attitudes of the era, which absolutely do not sit well with me. And based on this journalist’s opinion piece on the series, I probably won’t enjoy it for the same reasons. Plus, needless to say, Go Back Couple has lured me in already. So I’m still undecided with Yanxi Palace. If it didn’t have the popularity vote already, I would’ve given up on this one and moved on to another drama already. But it has the vote of the masses, so I am tempted to give it some more time to lure me in. Plus it has 70 episodes (!!) so maybe it’s taking its time introducing the audience to the characters and laying out the scene in great detail. So let’s see how far I can go with it without me getting too annoyed with the patriarchal attitudes of the era – especially since the first episode has already irked me 😠

In contrast, Go Back Couple has me intrigued. It has already made me laugh and made me cry in its very first episode, and I’m ready to go back for more. It has time travel, which I absolutely love, and it’s only twelve episodes! No contest. There almost never is.

2019 is all sorted!

N’s determination in improving his Mandarin is rubbing off on me too, which is great 👍 I logged into Tandem again today, that language exchange app, making a conscious effort to talk more, which is helping me reach my short-term goal for Chinese: basically to improve my speaking and listening! Chinese speakers in the app are always very impressed with the limited amount of Chinese that I do speak, but I need to move on from my basic sentences and start speaking longer and more complex ones. They’re hard, and I sound so stunted and slow when I hear back what I just said. But then I remember how slow and stunted they sound when they’re speaking in English, yet I still have the patience to listen to them speak and I still also want to help them improve. So I hope they feel the same way about me fumbling my way through their native language! 😆 So at the moment, we’re pretty much learning Chinese all throughout the day. But just like with dancing, the improvement is so incremental that you don’t even notice anything on a day-to-day basis, but when we look back after a few months, that’s when you notice just how far you’ve come. So I’d like to see how far my Chinese can go by, say, June, halfway through the year 😊 Which, really, isn’t all that far away – especially when I remember just how fast the first two months of the year came and went! 😱

I continued my Marvel journey today: Ant-Man was next on my list. I actually enjoyed this one! There was more of a story, and quite a fair bit of humour.

But the highlight of my day was N telling me about this website: icdrama.to. It seems to be like a Netflix for Asian dramas, O-M-G!! WHY DIDN’T HE TELL ME ABOUT THIS SITE BEFORE?!?? 🙄🙄

OK, so I do vaguely recall him telling me about this site back when we first moved to SG – but that was before I went all k-drama crazy, so I would’ve barely been interested back then. But now… I’m in K-DRAMA HEAVEN!! 🤣🤣 I think this whole year is going to be directed at three things: my trading 👩🏻‍💻; my Chinese 🇨🇳; and now, Korean dramas 🇰🇷! 2019 is all sorted! 🥳

Content

We went and had lunch in Kowloon with a friend from Oz, and then just wandered around Elements mall afterwards, checking out what stores they have there. I was still on the lookout for a replacement black handbag, as the straps on my current one are literally falling apart, to the point where it is now rather embarrassing walking around with it 😂 But somehow, I found the replacement bag today 😲 I still can’t believe it, after looking for aaages now. Apparently it’s a new product in their range, so it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, I think. Happyyyy 😊😊

We then just went home and watched the second half of Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the movie that we’re up to in the Marvel series, followed soon after by Avengers: Age of Ultron. Both weren’t too bad, actually, these Marvel movies keep surprising me 😊

And I watched some more of Devilish Joy, my current Korean drama. It’s not bad too, a light-hearted rom com, which is a nice break from all the intense dramas that I’ve been watching recently 😊

We didn’t get to go to the gym as we were hoping to, so we’ll have to make more of an effort to go tomorrow 💪

It was a fun, relaxing day 😊

End of CNY week

We went to Mong Kok today, to check out the Ladies Market and the Goldfish Market. The Ladies Market is like Paddy’s Market in Sydney or Queen Vic Market in Mebourne, but without the fresh food. But the Goldfish Market… Now that’s different. It’s basically a street with all these stores selling fishies and aquariums, and other pet stores as well. It’s quite strange how all these stores are all right next to each other. Wouldn’t they want to spread themselves out over the city?? I don’t get it. It made for a fun afternoon in any case 😆

We watched Guardians of the Galaxy tonight, continuing to make my way through the Marvel movies. And then I watched the first episode of Big Mouth, which was totally weird and out there, but hilarious at the same time. I’ll see if it gets any weirder and more outlandish as the episodes go on, like South Park did…

And today marks the end of the Chinese New Year week, and our lives go back to normal tomorrow. How sad… The holiday period is always so much fun 😔

Not much luck shopping

I am so into my Korean drama at the moment, Sky Castle. It is sooo good. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a drama as much as this one. It’s all about how wealthy parents in Korea push their kids into medicine or law. I think it’s relevant all around Asia, with parents being so competitive in this part of the world. I wonder how the drama was received in Korea. Of course it’s a satire, so there are elements in it that are just so silly and ridiculous, which adds to the fun of the show. But some scenes are also pretty full on, and unfortunately, I can see some of these being re-enacted in real life 😔 So I am totally loving it! I’d like to finish it this weekend, if possible, I only have a few episodes left. Just need to do a bit more binge watching to get to the finish line! 🏁

We went to Wan Chai today to visit a Victoria’s Basement of sorts, only to discover that the store was closed for Chinese New Year – and will reopen on Valentine’s Day! So I guess they’re taking a nice long break 😊

So we then proceeded to head over to Causeway Bay to buy some Crabtree & Evelyn. And there I find out that their store has closed down! 😩 So I went online to find another Crabtree & Evelyn store in HK, only to find out that they’re slowly closing down all their physical stores in both HK and SG! Whaaat?!? Apparently they’re moving 100% online. Boohoo… So I guess I have to embrace this whole online shopping business a bit more now!

And we finished the evening with the next movie in the Marvel series: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Not bad, and definitely much better than the first Captain America movie 😆 But I have to say that out of the ten movies that I have seen so far, the Iron Man movies are probably my favourite. The two Guardians of the Galaxy movies are up next 😊