For EXO 2013

So I was writing about all the good things that happened to me this year, thinking I could make a post about it. When thinking about this year, I have to say, the greatest thing that happened that comes to mind is not really about me but my boys EXO.

Miss Korea vs Topokki

If you’re a looking for a restaurant in Birmingham, UK to eat some nice authentic Korean food well… there are only two restaurants LOL. Good news is that they are both awesome, cosy and the food and atmosphere is really nice. If you like kpop even better because they both play kpop (at times).

The two restaurants are Miss Korea and Topokki. Both are in close proximity to each other in the Chinese quarter of Birmingham.

Here’s the back story. Miss Korea showed up just a few years ago and I’ve been there 5 times, with different amounts of people, mostly at lunch time but I’ve been there in the evening as well. Topokki came on to the scene just about 2 years ago and I recently went there for lunch. Since the two restaurants are so close to each other and are the only Korean restaurants in Birmingham (to my knowledge), I’ve always wondered if they had any kind of rival-ship at all. Miss Korea was the place I first had Korean food ever, so it holds a special place in my heart, although Topokki has received a lot more positive reviews, well… even if there is no rival-ship between them, I will be putting them against each other in this post.

Muahaha!

>_<

Atmosphere:

I keep hearing on review websites about how small Topokki is, well lol because Miss Korea is tiny. But Miss Korea is cosy as well because of that and it's not all compact together like Mount Fuji (sorry Mount Fuji).

Now a big part of the atmosphere is what music is played. I will never forget the very first time I went to Miss Korea with a good friend of mine who was not a kpop fan. For the two hours we were in the restaurant they played just kpop songs with only two or three tops J-pop songs. It. Was. Awesome. I could not stop dancing! Really, I embarrassed myself in front of my friend that day lol. It was fun. But since then, when I went there, they started to play more American pop (bleurgh!), but I still always hear a few kpop songs while I’m there. Topokki, however, did not play one single kpop song! What the heck Topokki, this was it’s main down fall, I swear. My happiest moment is eating Korean food while dancing in my chair to EXO. Is that too much to ask for? All the time we were there they played some Michael Buble and then they had a youtube playlist of American pop songs like Miley Cyrus (barf!!) LOL We were going to ask if they could play at least one kpop song but haha, we didn’t in the end. It’s funny because I have heard they play Korean music sometimes, maybe we just went on the wrong day or the wrong time. I bet just as we left the restaurant we would have heard an ‘Awooooo…’

As Duizhang Kris used to say: Maybe next time.

The Menu:

Miss Korea’s menu is a lot more impressive than Topokki’s. Sorry Topokki. It is basically a large book with black rubber cover and there are pages and pages of delicious food to choose from with really good photography. You have lots of starters, main dishes, soups, side dishes and beverages. It’s all very affordable as well. Just to tell you what you can expect on the menu, you’ll see the classics like ddukbokki, bibimbap, japchae, kimchi jjigae, barbecued skewers, lots and lots more. If it’s your birthday, the chef will treat you to a special free dish Korean people apparently eat on their birthday which is basically a big bowl of delicious soup with my favourite kind of noodles – Udon noodles!

You are also given a tiny bowl of lettuce with vinegar before your meal, it makes you hungry. I think they give you this because it does take quite a long time for you meal to come out. I’ve never timed it like an a--hole but I’m guessing it’s around 10-15 minutes before you see your actual starter.

Topokki’s menu is smaller but I was so very impressed by the massive selection of types of bibimbap. There must have been ten or more. I didn’t even know there could be that many types of bibimbap. Miss Korea only gives you four. I’ve had the sea food one, very nice. I definitely need to try another kind of bibimbap next time I go there.

One awesome thing about Topokki is that you are going to get your food quick. Well at least that’s what happened to us, we got out food within 5 minutes I swear. It was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such fast service. You’ll probably have to wait longer in the drive-thru at McDonalds lol.

Topokki menu still has quite a variety of choices including your classics, despite it being smaller than Miss Korea’s. I found it hard to choose even though I planned to get me some Japchae before I even entered the restaurant. What you’ll see in the Topokki menu is basically the main dishes, followed by side dishes, and beverages, they do have two choices of deserts as well (ice cream lol). Soon patbingsu will be added to the menu – which I find that strange because patbingsu is generally eaten in the summer and… it’s winter now… oh well.

So lots of nice choices on both menus and great presentation. Here's my meal, I had Japchae and kimchi, but you can't see the kimchi :) 

Very Important Factor: The Kimchi:

I had to compare the kimchi because it’s Korea’s most important signature food. They eat kimchi with everything. Two years ago when my Korean teacher went to Miss Korea, she told us that the food was awesome but the kimchi was too salty. Seeing how Maangchi on youtube used a shockingly generous amount of salt, I was surprised that my Korean teacher thought the kimchi was too salty but when I went there for myself I thought it was OK. However, in comparison to Topokki, their kimchi is sooo much more fresh tasting and a lot less salty. It actually tastes like I’m eating something healthy but also delicious. I’ve heard that Miss Korea buys their kimchi instead of making it fresh themselves which may just be true with what I’ve tasted but uh… I’m not going to spread any rumours.

Topokki’s kimchi is better than Miss Korea’s. Sorry.

Customer Service:

If you are Chinese, or speak Chinese, you will get to feel comfortable speaking to the waitress in this language at Miss Korea as 4 out of 5 times I’ve been there, the waitress was Chinese. One time, I heard her speak to one of the customers in Chinese. The other time I went there the waitress was European 0.o but all the waitresses (there are never any waiters) are friendly, helpful. They greet you when you’re coming in and when you’re leaving, thanking you for eating there. In Topokki, as we were leaving, it was like no one even noticed or cared that we were walking out. I never experienced that before and it wasn’t like the place was full, because it was lunch time! I don’t know. Anyways, the waitress and waiter we had were both attentive to us in Topokki whilst we were there. Our waiter was actually really happy and chipper. I liked him lol. He gave us a 10% discount which I thought was reeeally nice. Thanks so much waiter, if you’re reading this hahaha.

Prices:

All the times I went to Miss Korea, my friends and I would all end up paying around £15 each every time with ordering a starter, a main meal and a drink (the Korean tea has an unlimited refill) and sometimes they would offer you a free bowl of rice if it went well with your meal. When I went to Topokki, the two of us had just a main meal each and a £1.50 small side dish of kimchi. With our 10% discount , the overall price came to £16something overall. This is just over half of what we would have paid if we ate at Miss Korea that day.

The Miss Korea menu is set out so that you would always naturally want to order a starter and a main meal. Topokki's menu just shows the main meals and then a few side dishes near the end of the menu, followed by the beverages.

Because of this, you're going to naturally spend more money at Miss Korea because you'll be ordering a starter and a main meal (of course you can choose not to) but in Topokki you'll only be paying for the main meal. I don't know if this was Miss Korea being clever or it's just how things turned out but for the customer Topokki is better in this aspect. In terms of business, Miss Korea has the upper hand here, they're obviously making more money by tricking customers into ordering a starter lol. Hmm... clever.

Overall Rating:

I'm going to be giving Topokki a 5/5 rating based on the fact that the price was surprising low with the portions being nicely generous. The waiter we had was really chipper (lol) and nice. We felt really welcome at the restaurant.

The only thing that would have been better is if the menu was as impressively long as Miss Korea's, but that kind of feels like nitpicking so I shouldn't even really include this point especially with Topokki's two page spread of about 10 different kinds of Bibimbap. Daebak!

And also the food came out within 5 minutes and it was hot and the kimchi was fresh, big difference to Miss Korea.

Oh, yeah, it would've been nice if they played some k-pop while we were there but I've heard they have played it at times.

Miss Korea's rating is a 4/5. I'm sorry. I love the restaurant and I will definitely go there again, but the wait for our food is a lot longer and the kimchi is not fresh. You're always going to spend more money at Miss Korea because of their tricks with the menu, lol, it's true. Also the food coma at the end if absolutely unbearable sometimes. It's nice that their giving us lots of food but gaaad; my stomach is not that big. However, I love love looove that you are always guaranteed to hear some kpop while you're there no matter what time of the day it is.

Topokki: 5/5
Miss Korea: 4/5

Reccomendation: Go to both!!

P4A 2013: Liberty in North Korea

YAAAAY!!!!

Kpopmart sent me an email saying my EXO albums have been shipped with a picture of them being packed away (like they usually do). I'm so excited, I just had to upload the picture.

I ordered Miracles in December (both versions) and 1st Album Repackage (both versions) on the day Miracles of December was released. I know I'm super late on the Repackaged albums, and I normally would pre-order EXO's albums but I did not have money at the time and I had to wait until I did. I finally decided I did when their 2nd mini album came out and I was desperate to get it. I need to support my boys!

I thought I would recieve it before Christmas, but I'm thinking that I won't now, unfortunately. I'm expecting it in early January (around the 6th). But I'm still super excited. I already have all the tracks on my iPod and phone so I've listening to it every day since. My favourite song has got to be 'Christmas Day'. (It's Lay's favourite song too! :D).

Hey, should I do a album review soon? Before Christmas?
Haha. I was thinking of doing another k-drama review on 'The Heirs', but I don't know, is there really much to say there other than me ranting my frustration on Kim Eun Sook and how she cheated us Youngdo-Rachel shippers? lol

Update on life! (Studying Korean, Japanese, Uni, The Heirs...)

Arrogance level: 3.8 out of 5

It's been just over a week since I last updated and I left you with a negativity post as well! lol. I'm OK. I didn't get depressed and kill myself. I actually feel quite happy these days. I feel a certain level of security that is rare for me to reach because of the scar left from my high school days. I wrote a post explaining about that scar so maybe you could understand me better but I'm not sure if I want to upload it or not. It might make me look like a loser or will be too sad. I think it's more sad that what you hear in those 'Draw My Life' videos on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube videos, I've been working on doing the '50 Things About Me' tag but as a post on this blog. I think it might me interesting for you to get to know me better by reading some random facts about me. Unless you don't want to know about me. But how could you not. I'm so mysterious. lol
미안...

So, moving swiftly on... I've made great progress in my studying of Korean. Basically, weeks and weeks ago, my Dad contacted our connections to some Koreans to find me a Korean tutor (that sounds weird but I don't know how else to describe it really) and an old friend got back to us saying there was a girl who wanted to tutor me (yay!). When I finally got through to her and spoke to her (because that took a while) we set up lessons straight away and now I have a personal Korean tutor that I meet once a week. Which is awesome!! I'm so happy with this. I mean, we only had our first lesson last week, my next one is tomorrow. We mostly talked. Well, she did most of the talking ...in Korean. I had to really use my listening skills. But it was all good because she's super genuinely nice and we talked about ma boys EXO and watched two EXO videos. It was awesome.
I've been really motivated to study Korean like everyday this week. I've been using talktomeinkorean.com I've known the site for years and watched a few videos from their youtube channel, but I never used it religiously to study Korean, now I do. It's awesome, I really recommend it if you want to start learning Korean or if you already are and want a useful website to help you learn in a fun way. By no means am I affiliated with this website, I just like using it a lot now. I even followed them on twitter, tumblr and facebook as well as subscribed to their youtube channels. With this I believe I can learn much faster (because I genuinely find studying Korean fun) and be able to talk to my Korean tutor better and understand her more.

So yeah, uni. We recently (well, more like 2 weeks ago) did a test in my Japanese class and we found out the results for the test and guess what.... I came first place out of the entire class! Ye-ah. No seriously, it's a big class as well. I didn't even think my %-age was that high. Ya'll should've done better. Maybe I should make a post about how frustrating my fellow Japanese class students are; maybe not. I already put all my pent up annoyances in my journal. I still enjoy my Japanese classes though, just 'cause I love learning Japanese and the teacher likes me because I'm the best. lol.
You don't understand, I'm never #1 in anything (well, apart from my Korean class two years ago).

In other news, the student union STILL hasn't gotten back to me on withdrawing my membership from the Hip Hop classes. It's ridiculous, it must have been like 6 weeks already since I first contacted them. I'm getting tired of their attitude towards this. They obviously just want my money - my entire £20 smh -__-
Oh well.
I'm just laughing at them really. How a group of people that are supposed to be professional operate so unprofessionally.

Well, I could tell you some other things but I might be the only one who finds them interesting. lol. Things are calming down workload wise, so I will be able to upload more often. If I get ideas. I might put up that '50 Facts About Me' post and I'm watching 'The Heirs' right now and plan to do a review of that once it's all over. I swear it's sooo interesting now. With *spoiler alert* Young Do pushing Eun Sang against the wall. I'm sorry (not sorry) but that was so so sexy! I actually like Young Do's character ever since last week. I was forcing myself not to like him (it wasn't that hard) because although Kim Woobin is one of my top favourite Korean actors, Young Do was such an immature bully; I wanted to put a bucket over his head and push him down the stairs (I want to do that Kim Woobin anyway..). But now things have changed: I now accept Eun Sang and Kim Tan as a couple ever since they were staring at each other with tears flowing from their eyes. But I feel so so bad for Young Do. He's kept Eun Sang and Tan's secret (just about) and he's just heart broken because Eun Sang doesn't want him, she wants his worst enemy. Poor baby. He's just such an unlucky little kid, really. I just want his mother to come back and give him a big hug while he cries into her shoulder. It'll be such a touching scene that someone finally loves him. I also want him to get together with Rachael. Seriously, they were made for each other; both troubled, both abandoned by the ones they love, they need each other and they look so good together. In fact, I ship them in real life. Forget that Yoo Ji Ahn.

Anyway, life's good. How long will this last? When will it get better?

Yo, you should follow me on google+ I post some really interesting stuff on there. :D

Negativity post: The dark world of kpop + uni workload

The k-pop world is messed up seriously.
Sometimes I just want to escape it but EXO.
I've been feeling negativity these past two days from k-pop.

• In recent news: Ailee's naked pics from when she was young were revealed online by allkpop. Her ex-boyfriend who was her boyfriend at the time of her taking those photos is the vice-president of allkpop.
• A guard at an airport in Hong Kong forcibly pushed Jessica (my Jessica /sobs/) into a railing where she hurt her head and slumped to the floor. It is believed the guard thought she was a fan.
• T.O.P.'s comeback is in like 3 days. It's very sudden (this isn't negative news but I'm just worried that I won't like his music and that's bad because I'm his fan and have been since the very start of my kpop days).
• Minzy got a nose job. Her nose is visibly thinner. Her reps are denying the allegations of plastic surgery, claiming that she "just became prettier". :3
• Our beloved Boom has a gambling scandal.
• So does Andy from Shinhwa.
• Shinhwa are beating EXO in MAMA votes.

hmm, what else...

I don't know, maybe I'm just feeling negative because I'm running on such little sleep because I have so much uni work to do and it's only my first year. The prospects of having much more work in the second year is looming over me. If I can't even sleep because of the workload now, how will I survive next year?


To leave this on a happy note:
I'm not even sad about EXO not winning the Worldwide Act at the MTV EMAs. The whole ordeal was although tiring, a lot of fun and unified k-pop fans from different fandoms together. The fact that EXO got that far to represent Japan and Korea is a huge achievement in itself. And it's something that no other k-pop idol has ever done. I think one of the greatest thing's we as EXO-stans got out of this was Directioners converting to EXO fans :) Welcome to the fandom!
I'd like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to Chris Lee. She deserved it as much as EXO.

K-Drama: 'Secret Garden' review [Almost No Spoilers]

I wrote this review this summer after watching the drama, and I'm putting it up to be read now :) lol
I hope you enjoy!

Starring:
Ha Ji Won
Hyun Bin
Yoon Sang Hyun
Kim Sa Rang
Phillip Lee
Lee Jong Suk
Yoo In Na
(Quite a star-studded cast)

Synopsis:
The drama tells the story of Kim Joo Won (Hyun Bin), an arrogant and eccentric CEO who maintains the image of seeming perfection, and Gil Ra Im (Ha Ji Won), a poor and humble stuntwoman whose beauty and body are the object of envy amongst top actresses. Their accidental meeting, when Joo Won mistakes Ra Im for actress Park Chae Rin, marks the beginning of a tense, bickering relationship, through which Joo Won tries to hide a growing attraction to Ra Im that both confuses and disturbs him. To complicate matters further, a strange sequence of events results in them swapping bodies.

Review:

I first planned to watch Secret Garden because I watched Big Bang’s parody of it for their big 2011 comeback which really took the funniest parts of Secret Garden and made it seem like a really light-hearted drama and after seeing Big Bang portray these characters from the drama I totally had to see the original. Another reason why I planned to watch Secret Garden is that it was such a huge success when it was broadcasting in South Korea. I remember that Se7en as well as other Korean celebrities were watching it at the time and were really addicted to it, so I thought it must be good. Another reason was, of course because there was a certain someone I wanted to see act in it; Lee Jongsuk that is. After watching School 2013 early on this year, I became totally obsessed with him (lol) as I’m sure a lot of girls did after watching that drama, so I began to watch Secret Garden.

Now, Secret Garden certainly isn’t what I expected it to be at all. For one, Big Bang definitely played up the whole “Freaky Friday” kind of theme a lot more than it actually featured in the 20-episode drama. However, the biggest difference from what I expected and what I actually saw from watching the drama was the depth this drama went to and the dramatic storyline. I was expecting a light hearted funny drama but instead I found a much deeper storyline. That was no relief after watching such a tear-jerking drama as School 2013 but it was amazingly clever and I can definitely say it was unlike any Korean drama I’ve ever watched.

Secret Garden starts off very slow. The first four episodes just seems to drag on and while watching those I doubted why the drama had been so successful and was so famous, but I soon came to realise that even though those few episodes were slow, they were necessary to build up the back story, because this story does not just start as the drama starts, the characters story cleverly starts many years before the time the drama begins. By episode 5, that’s when the body swap happens and things hype up a lot. This is of course consequently followed by many hilarious moments and encounters like the time when Gil Ra Im (Joo Won’s body) and Oska go to the jimjilbang – I’ll leave that to your imagination. It’s that kind of humour that Secret Garden is filled with but it’s not too much so that it takes away from the seriousness of the drama. For example, Secretary Kim’s character I find absolutely hilarious. The way he’s so OTT sometimes, his affection towards Gil Ra Im’s best friend Ah Young and the way he gets jealous of his boss Joo Won in that one episode and his little temper tantrums are the cutest thing.

There are two things that make this drama really stand out from the others, firstly it’s supernatural element of the body swap – although I still do not understand how or why that happened – I guess Gil Ra Im and Kim Joo Won could not have gotten so emotionally close without it being forced by something so extreme as a body swap. In the normal world, someone like Ra Im (a stunt woman) would not have so easily crossed paths and began a relationship with Joo Won (a department store CEO). This point is heavily enforced throughout the drama. The fact that they are not supposed to be together as it is so unusual and therefore unacceptable. As a writer who loves to write about forbidden and unusual love, I find this storyline comes very close to heart.

That brings me on to the next point that makes this drama stand out, the entire amazingly written storyline of a man and woman that came to know each other under such tragic and unusual circumstances. Unusual because of their different levels of in social class; tragic because… you’ll see when you watch the drama (but this is what I mean of how their storylines go back many years before the drama begins.

It is like Joo Won and Ra Im are star-crossed lovers, like it was meant to be that they would stir up something different in each other’s hearts. Deep, I know. But this is why this drama is so different. It’s not a cute high school romance; Secret Garden deals with death, loss, heartbreak, unrequited love and inevitability like I’ve never seen in any other drama I’ve watched (and I’ve watched quite a good amount; those for younger audiences like Dream High and Heartstrings and those for older audiences like Iris and Coffee Prince). These two characters love each other so much and do not want to let each other go despite the consequences and I’ve never seen a love more intense and inspiring in any other Korean drama I’ve watched.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

cr: asianwiki.com, dramawiki.com