It’s back to civilization and high speed internet access after a week of camp- woo hoo!  A girl and her iPod, a moment in the rain, a water bottle beat down, Good Bye Baby, and Turnabout is Fair Play.   These are the 5 Things that happened in Kpop last week that I think were a little bit more special than the rest.

 

A girl and her iPod

So, I was armed with my Droid, netbook, Kindle, and iPod for camp because in between the sun, beach, rain, family, food, and bingo there would be some downtime, right?  I was able to get a signal for the internet, but it was too slow to be able to watch anything online.  So, the netbook wasn’t used much other than watching an episode of Family Outing (still soo good) and the GD&TOP epsiode of Night After Night which I can watch over and over- it was so funny.  Most of my downtime during camp was spent with my iPod and there were a few things that I realized during my week away from Kpop news.

  • I can pretty much listen to Big Bang and C.N. Blue all day long.
  • I really miss old Jewelry, T-ARA, 4Minute, and After School– their songs from way back when were soo good.
  • I especially love 2NE1‘s slow songs and Bom‘s solo tracks.
  • Rain‘s “Hip Song” is the jam even without the bump and grind performance.
  • I’ve never really been a fan and I didn’t love how the whole Alexander and Ki-bum situation went down, but I have a newfound appreciation for U-KISS.  Their song “0330” is one of those songs currently stuck in my head and I didn’t even like it when it first came out.

  • I miss Park Yoon-hwa of T-MAX. I just love his voice and became a fan after watching him on the now cancelled Kvariety show, Idol Maknae Rebellion.  One of the few songs I can still thoroughly enjoy from the BOF soundtrack is T-MAX’s “Wish UR My Love.”
  • Listening to songs from the You’re Beautiful OST still make me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Sometimes you just don’t appreciate the songs in your iTunes as much as you should until you have some down time with just you and your iPod.

A moment in the Rain

Some of you might have realized it already, but Heartstrings (aka You’ve Fallen For Me) is my new Kdrama crack.  LOVED this moment that Shin and Kyu-won share in the rain after fighting.  No words are exchanged and the cinematogrophy was just beautiful.

Too bad that beautiful memory under the awning gets shattered for Kyu-won at the end of the episode when she chases after Shin just after his performance at Catharsis after the passing of his father only to find him in the arms of Yoon-soo.

 

A Water bottle Beat down

With just two episodes left after this week’s pair, I alternately can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen next (no sad ending, no sad ending…) and can’t stand to think that such a great drama like City Hunter is coming to an end.  I can now see why the mangaka agreed to this live version of his work, where he never has before.

I LOVED this little fight scene where Yoon-sung as the City Hunter goes to help protect the strikers at Chae Won Chemical and puts the beat down on Chun Jae-man‘s scary baddie side-kick with a bottle of water.

 

Could anyone other than Lee Min-ho as the City Hunter make a plain bottle of water so sexy and lethal at the same time?  Two thumbs up to the stunt coordinator also for all the great choreography in all the escape, pursuit, and fight scenes in the drama.  And, I just gotta say because I just finished watching it- the end of episode 18… Oh. My. God…

Good Bye Baby

miss A returned with the track “Good Bye Baby” and the release of their first full length album A Class on July 18th.  The album consists of 13 tracks 4 new songs, remixes, and some of their previously released songs.  I like miss A and while I don’t think the MV was that great, I loved the song.

Turnabout is Fair Play

There have been a lot of Kdramas (and Tdramas, etc.) that were remakes of Jdoramas and mangas, but not too many occurrences the other way around.  I was excited when I heard that there was going to be a Japanese remake of the Kdrama You’re Beautiful, which has got to be one of my favorite Kdramas of all time.  So it was with much anticipation that I went to watch the first episode of Ikemen Desu Ne which was aired on July 15th on TBS and… so far have been disappointed.  The bright light though, is that due to it’s popularity and this Japanese remake the Hong Sisters have been considering a part two of the drama… Oooh.

The Jdorama stars actress Takimoto Miori along with Kis-My-Ft2 members Tamamori Yuta and Fujigaya Taisuke and Hey! Say! JUMP member Yaotome Hikaru.  I’m not sure if it’s the acting or the adapted story line that’s just not clicking for me, but I still have hope since I have begun to kind-of like Takimoto who plays Mio (Park Shin-hye‘s role) and Tamamori as Ren (Jang Geun-suk‘s role).  And sorry to be totally superficial, but weren’t there any better looking Japanese idols/actors out there?

There are actually a lot of Jdoramas out there I was looking forward to:  The Hana Kimi Remake- another remake that might have been better off not being done, and the live action Jdorama for Ouran High Host Club (haven’t watched it yet- fingers crossed).

The Hana Kimi dramas, the Japanese and Taiwanese versions, are among my all time fave dramas so the less than stellar remake is quite a disappointment.  I’m just hoping the Korean version which has been licensed by SM Entertainment turns out to be good.

Those were the 5 things that I LOVED in Kpop last week, were they yours?

(LOENENT, missA)