Hospital Playlist

     My cousin recommended Hospital Playlist to me... She thought I would like it as it was relatable to me... She did warn me that the first few episodes might be confusing as there were many characters and stories that revolved around them... So I gave it a try and I loved it from the moment go... this from someone who refused to watch Grey's Anatomy at the height of its popularity... Yes, at that time I felt that my life was Grey's Anatomy enough (minus the sex and scandals) so I didn't need to watch my life happening on TV...

     Hospital Playlist tells of 5 doctors who went to med school together and were now at age 40 working together in a university hospital... There's Chae Song Hwa, the perfect female Neurosurgeon who is tone-deaf... Lee Ik-Jun, the popular funny guy Hepatobiliary surgeon who became a single father (his son U-ju has got to be the cutest kid ever)... Ahn Jeong Won, the soft-hearted Paediatric surgeon who is hell-bent on becoming a priest... Kim Jun Wan, the asshole Cardiothoracic surgeon who is actually kind and warm-hearted... And Yang Seok-Hyeong, the divorced, introverted and "slow-witted" Ob/Gyn who wanted to start a band with his fellow friends...

     No prize for guessing who is my favourite character among the 5... although I'm actually torn between Jeong Won and Jun Wan....Jeong Won reminded me of myself back then... No, I never wanted to be a nun... I'm not even Catholic... It was his passion for his patients... His sorrow when he couldn't save his patients... And his joy when his patients get better... And his love for God... Jun Wan is the ultimate cool and efficient surgeon whom I inspire to be... but I never wanted to be a cardiothoracic surgeon... he may not have been the most empathetic surgeon, but his dedication and tenacity is something every surgeon should have...

     This drama brought back a lot of wonderful memories of med school and my years working in KK... Like Jun Wan, I had highlights on my hair in med school... which I had to re-dyed black before my Professional Exam... we didn't have a band or anything back in med school... but I did play the keyboard at church (very occasionally) during my Masters years... And I miss all the karaoke sessions with my girls when we were in KK... Looking back, I'm really amazed at how I managed to stay sane throughout my Anaes MO years... how I've managed to hold it in every time I treated critically ill patients... While watching the drama, I cried so much during those ICU/ OT moments...

     There was a female GS resident in the drama... Jang Gyeo-Ul... who was totally in love with Ahn Jeong Won... reminded me of a time when I had a crush on one of my lecturer... I found his crinkly-eyed smile so endearing... Fortunately, the crush was short-lived... I just couldn't stand a guy who talked like a Mak Cik Kiah and nagged worse than a woman... Anyway, I'm just so glad that in the end, Jeong Won realized that he was in love with Gyeo-Ul and decided to stay as a paediatric surgeon in the hospital (he initially planned to leave for seminary school to study to be a priest)...

        A friend mentioned that this drama is as realistic as it gets for a medical drama... And I do agree to a certain extent... However, I do feel there's a tad too much of office romance going on... Maybe it's just me... I've never dated anyone from work... I prefer to keep my personal and work life segregated... Or perhaps I'm such a loser that no one from work ever wanted to date... Oh well, worked out fine for me... I guess if you have such good looking Professors, the residents can't help crushing on them... I would definitely have a crush on Ahn Jeong Won and Kim Jun Wan... So there's Jang Gyeo-Ul crushing on Ahn Jeong Won... then there's Chu Min-ha crushing on Yang Seok-Hyeong and Ahn Chi Hong crushing on Chae Song Hwa... And eventually we found out that Lee Ik-Jun and Chae Song Hwa were crushing on each other since med school... I thought that was really sweet... That after 20 years, they eventually rediscovered the feelings they had for each other...

     There weren't many kissing scenes throughout the drama... I think there were only 2 or 3 kissing scenes... And I can't decide which one I loved better... There was that 2am kiss between Jun Wan and Ik Sun (Ik Jun's younger sister who is an army officer) in front of the hospital entrance... Jun Wan had just finished a surgery and was on the phone with Ik Sun while walking out of the hospital... And suddenly he saw a girl who looked like Ik Sun sitting opposite the road and started walking towards him... He thought he was hallucinating... And there was Ik Sun standing in front of him... And then he kissed her... That kiss was so sensual and romantic...

     Then there was the kiss between Jeong Won and Gyeo-Ul... She went to his office to confess her feelings for him... And also to ask him to stay... Although she knew it was not her place to do so... such courage... I thought Jeong Won was going to reject her confession... But then without a word, he just walked towards her and kissed her... YES!!!! I was so happy watching them kiss... It was like, there's still hope for a 40 year-old priest-wannabe to find romantic love in this world... I wish there will be Season 2 so that I can watch how their love blooms...

     I loved their band practice and the songs that they sang...So much feels... Listening to the OST while typing this post... I guess a part of me missed my hospital years... Coz I was serving the people... And even when I became a plastic surgeon, I really wanted to serve in the government hospital for as long as I could... But I guess life has a way of working out differently from what you've imagined... I can only say that I guess at this moment in time, I'm where I'm meant to be... And I really thank God for bringing me this far...

The Snow Queen

     So it seemed that I still haven't gotten Hyun Bin out of my system... Which was why I ended up watching The Snow Queen... This drama was probably a typical tragic melodramatic K-drama which I used to swore I would never watch back when I was in med school... Everyone was crazy about Autumn In My Heart back then and I refused to watch it... I still haven't watch it up till today... Anyway, life has a strange way of making you eat your own words...

     As expected, I cried buckets while watching this drama... I think Han Tae Woong is the most tragic male lead of all the K-dramas I've ever watched... A math genius who won the gold medal in the International Math Olympiad... But whose best friend killed himself because he didn't win the gold medal... And he spent 8 years of his life as a high school dropout who was a 3rd grade boxer because he felt that he was the reason his best friend killed himself... He couldn't live past his guilt and self-condemnation...

    And as if that wasn't tragic enough, he met the girl from 8 years ago who turned out to be his best friend's younger sister...  And of course they had to fall in love with each other and her father wouldn't approve of their relationship... Then just when they were finally together and he finally had a chance to be happy, the girl had to have malignant thymoma and died... I thought he was going to kill himself too... But thankfully he didn't...

      Thanks to this drama, I now have a new bucket list... I'm going to Lapland someday to meet the Snow Queen... I wonder if I'll be able to survive the cold and frostbite...  Han Tae Woong went to Lapland too...  After the death of his beloved...  Because she left him a message on her pager that she would be in Lapland by the time he heard her message... If I had such a tragic life, I really do wonder if I would still have the will and courage to continue living...

     But as Han Tae Woong told Kim Bo Ra when he saved her from killing herself, it is better to live... To live and suffer... To live and regret... And because of that, she lived life having loved someone, even though they didn't get to grow old together... I guess it's better to have lived and loved than never have loved at all...

Hyun Bin, Hyde, Jekyll, Me and My MCO Birthday

     It has been almost 3 years since my last post here... Life has a way of distracting you and uninspiring you to write... But I thought I'd write again today... Since it's my last birthday of my 30s... For the past 4 years I've made it a point to be on leave during my birthday... I wanted to be in a new place for every year of my birthday... Unfortunately thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic which brought about a Movement Control Order in my country, I'm celebrating my birthday this year at home... Still, I'm grateful that I'm still around to have a birthday...

     So thanks to the MCO, I've had plenty of time to indulge in K-dramas...And my latest Oppa crush is Hyun Bin... It's all Netflix's fault...Actually I first saw Hyun Bin in Memories of the Alhambra...I watched that drama because of Park Shin Hye (because she was such a kick-ass neurosurgeon in Doctors) and I loved Alhambra... It didn't send me into a Hyun Bin frenzy like how Angel's Eyes sent me into a Lee SangYoon frenzy... But then I had to go and watch Crash Landing On You recently (no thanks to peer pressure from ppl around me)...

     I'm telling you, that Captain Ri totally destroyed every girl/ woman's dream guy image... I mean, how can a man be even more perfect than your dream guy? And I just couldn't help crying for Hyun Bin with his lost and forlorn puppy-eyed look... It should be a crime for men to have such eyes... Anyway, I thought I was going to go cold turkey on Hyun Bin... But a friend recommended a more gradual step-down therapy... By watching Hyde, Jekyll, Me... Yeah, much good that did...

     I've always been intrigued by shows about Dissociative Identity Disorder... So I watched Hyde, Jekyll, Me... and dang it! I got even more hooked... I loved Goo Seo Jin... and I cried so much for him... I know, I know... But he's the Hyde (bad guy) and Robin is the Jekyll (good guy)... Unfortunately, I'm medically trained... And as far as Robin is concerned, he is a sign and symptom of an illness... Robin was created by Seo Jin to protect his psyche... Of course the girl had to fall for Robin... Coz it's so easy to fall for the good guy who protected her and made her laugh... 

     But I loved how Seo Jin was slowly transformed to be a better man by love... And he is actually a good person... because even his dissociative personality is a good person... And when Robin's personality fused into Seo Jin, I was so happy coz this is probably the dream outcome of a psychiatrist for his/ her DID patients... I loved this drama so much more than CLOY... Even though a friend told me this was Hyun Bin's lowest rated drama... As if I care about drama ratings... 

     So I actually watched Hyde, Jekyll, Me for the 2nd time over the Raya break... Yes, I've never watched any drama more than once... I loved this one that much... Although I already knew Yoon Tae Joo was Lee Soo Hyeon even from episode 1... But I just couldn't get enough of Seo Jin... and even though Ha Na insisted that she wasn't in love with Seo Jin, we (Seo Jin and I) both knew she was lying to herself... Coz the words which 'Robin' spoke which she couldn't forget were actually spoken by Seo Jin... And it was Seo Jin who was smiling at Ha Na at the radio station... the smile of a man who loved her...

     Anyway, I've been on a Hyun Bin frenzy...After Hyde, I watched Secret Garden... I hated Kim Joo Won all the way till episode 17 when he decided to exchange soul with Gil Ra Im to let her live... Only then could I feel how much he loved the girl... I also watched My Name Is Kim Sam Soon... totally made me hate all those chaebols... And their mothers... Then it was Worlds Within... also didn't like the character Hyun Bin played... Are all Korean men like that? Or are only Korean men in the entertainment industry like that? I even watched Ireland...where Hyun Bin played the 2nd male lead... I had mixed feelings about this character... He was a great guy... devoted husband and all... until his wife fell for a useless bum... But I guess I can understand why he became like that... I would have became like that too if my husband fell for another woman who's worse than I am...

     I started another Hyun Bin drama... Friend, Our Legend... apparently he gave a stellar performance in this drama... But I found out that he died in the drama in episode 2... Now I don't really feel like watching episode 3 and beyond... I've also watched a few of Hyun Bin movies... Late Autumn, The Negotiation, Confidential Assignment and A Millionaire's First Love... Seems like my Hyun Bin frenzy is worse than my Sang Yoon frenzy...

     Oh well, this phase too, shall pass... I guess I'm writing this to get it out of my system... I'm typing this while drinking lemongrass mojito and watching Hyun Bin drama OSTs... I actually missed a delivery from BF earlier coz I was charging my phone in the room... Awaiting eagerly for the re-delivery... Happy Birthday to me! May I live a life God has meant for me to live...

Angel Eyes

     I've completed yet another series of Kdrama...this one is called 'Angel Eyes'...a fairly old one which came out in 2014...at a time when I was neither into Kdrama nor had the time for such indulgence...still, one is never too late to watch a 'first love which was separated by tragic circumstances only to meet again to face more tragic circumstances' kind of drama...there's only one reason why I loved this drama...and it's Lee Sang Yoon, who played the adult Park Dong Joo (who's the male lead of the drama)...yes, I've finally found my Korean actor crush in Lee Sang Yoon...him with his smiling crinkly eyes...and creased forehead when he has his serious intense look on...I know, I'm weird that way...smiling crinkly eyes get to me...everytime...I had a crush on Hugh Grant for the longest time because he had smiling crinkly eyes...Oh, and Lee Sang Yoon has a degree in Physics...totally my kind of geek...smiling crinkly eyes and a degree in Physics...perfect combination...

     Otherwise, the drama was good enough to be a tear-jerker...although personally I felt there were too many plot-twists and subplots which I had figured out way before it was finally revealed...but still, a first love that never waned definitely appeals to many...including myself...made me wished my first love had lasted...that even after 12 years of separation, we had never forgotten how we felt about each other...but of course, everyone's love story has a different beginning and an ending...like how Park Dong Joo replied to Kang Ji Woon (Soo Wan's present boyfriend) when asked how long did his first love last...and Dong Joo answered, it hasn't ended...awww....

     I really love Lee Sang Yoon's character...from the beginning when he fell in love with Soo Wan who was blinded from a tragedy which claimed her mother's life...to helping her out from her depression and guilt...but then tragedy struck again when Dong Joo's mother passed away...Soo Wan received corneal transplant from Dong Joo's mother but Dong Joo had to go to US for his sister's treatment...so they were separated for 12 years without news of each other...thanks to Soo Wan's father's misguided intervention...

     When Dong Joo came back to find Soo Wan, he realized she didn't recognize him as she had never seen his face...and she already has a boyfriend who's a neurosurgeon in her father's hospital (who eventually is revealed as the person who hit-and-run Dong Joo's mother)...anyway, to cut the long story short, Soo Wan found out about Dong Joo and they decided to be together again...and then Dong Joo proposed to her at the observatory...I must say that was probably one of the most romantic proposal ever...but then as with all dramas, the ghosts and sins of the past always come to haunt the present...all the secrets that Soo Wan's father had been keeping was eventually revealed and caused chaos in their relationships...but as with all dramas, eventually love conquered all and they ended up getting together again....finally, after Dong Joo almost died getting run over by a car, Soo Wan got her senses back and decided to not keep hiding from Dong Joo...if I had a guy like Dong Joo loving me, I don't think I'll ever be like how Soo Wan was...I won't let him out of my sight...ever....

      Oh, did I mention Park Dong Joo is a cardiothoracic surgeon? What is it about Kdramas that the male leads who are in the medical profession are either neurosurgeons or cardiothoracic surgeons? And occasionally paediatric surgeons or hepatobiliary surgeons? Plastic surgeons too glamour for kdramas is it? Anyway, love most of the songs from the OST...although I wish when they sang in English they would have worked on their pronunciation...I still have problem figuring out the lyrics for the sound tracks which were in English...oh well, I'll just indulge myself in the songs anyway...and maybe I should put in that application for my fellowship in Korea soon...a girl can always dream yea?

Beautiful Mind

    Ok, I have to say I love this one even more than Blood...and I definitely love it more than Doctors...which is why I cannot in the life of me understand why they had to cut down the number of episodes for Beautiful Mind because its viewer ratings were lower than Doctors...I mean, both dramas had a main lead who's a neurosurgeon...and Beautiful Mind had more intense medical scenes, a psycho-thriller kind of genre and dealt with more ethical and medicolegal issues...how can that be less interesting and exciting than a love story between 2 neurosurgeons? And it's not like Beautiful Mind didn't have romantic scenes...I actually felt that the romantic scenes meant even more because of the disability which the male lead had...

    Anyway, I used to want to be a neurosurgeon...look how the mighty has fallen...but neurosurgeon or not, I wished I could be a doctor like Lee Young Oh (the male lead who developed antisocial personality disorder from being brought up as such by his adopted father who is also a neurosurgeon)...I know, I know...why would anyone want to be labelled a psychopath/ monster right? He may lack empathy and be unable to feel the pain and suffering of his patients, but he had such rational and logical thinking that he is able to diagnose diseases and conditions accurately...and because he feels no fear, he is able to perform surgeries with astounding accuracy and precision...I wish I can be such a good surgeon...

    His adopted father kept telling him that he's a monster and he is different from normal people when he was growing up..and that he had to learn how to pretend to be a normal person...but as far as I can tell, the only monster in their relationship is the father...and his colleagues and superiors at the hospital call him a psychopath, gossip about him and tried to terminate his service as a doctor because he was trying to expose a big cover up for malpractice involving a multi-million dollars stem cell research...all I see are monsters around him with greedy, selfish ambitions for power and fame...he tried so hard to be like a normal person...although he cannot feel emotions...but I think it was actually a good thing that his judgments were not swayed by emotions...so his morals are not tainted with feelings such as envy, jealousy, hatred, greed, selfishness, self-centredness and fear...how many times in my life have I wished I made decisions that were not influenced by my stupid emotions? I've lost count...

     So Lee Young Oh initially had a 'love interest' who is a neurologist...he even proposed to her and wanted to marry her...but she betrayed him in order to advance her own career...so I actually fail to understand why he is the monster who doesn't empathize with patients but she isn't a monster who betrayed her lover for her selfish ambitions ...just because she has 'feelings'? How absurd is that? Anyway, the main female lead wasn't the bitch who betrayed him (although I must say she was the pretty one)...the main female lead was actually a younger police officer who had valvular heart disease and was treated by a cardiothoracic surgeon whom she had a crush on initially...the actress isn't pretty and she didn't even fix her teeth like how all the other actresses did...but I digress...

      I actually loved how the romance between the psychopathic neurosurgeon and the obtuse idealistic police officer developed...there was a scene in the first episode where the neurosurgeon looked like he was trying to murder the police officer but in fact he was draining her pericardial effusion...yea, I know...only happens in drama...I think what I find enticing about their romance is how the male lead developed an affinity towards the female lead (read: fall in love) without him (and even her) realizing what's happening...but the ultimate proof of his oh-so-true-love was this (spoiler alert ahead): he donated one of his lung to the police officer as she was having pulmonary failure from pulmonary fibrosis...damn! I cried as hard as I did when Song Joong Ki 'died' in DOTS...maybe harder... but the best part is that to Lee Young Oh, it was just a mean to save a patient's life...only made me cry harder...I mean, how many humans with feelings will even think about donating an organ to a family member? what more a person unrelated to him/ her? If a guy were to do that for me, I don't care if he's a psychopath, I'll be with him...for good...I know, it doesn't make sense...real psychopaths don't do things like that...and lung transplant from live donor is illegal and will never happen in Korea (or Malaysia for that matter)...but that's why I love fiction...coz in fiction, everything and anything is a possibility...

     There are not many songs in the OST...and I only liked 'Dirt' by Bernard Park...it's a beautiful song for such a beautiful drama...and I think the ending for this drama is just perfectly beautiful...Lee Young Oh in his mental monologue said: I cannot feel your heart; I cannot even empathize with you, the only choice I can make is to love you.” But isn't that what we've been told all this while? That love isn't just about feelings? That love is about making the choice to stay with a person for better or worse and in sickness and health?

Blood

    I'm a sucker for vampire stories...so it's a given that I would love the kdrama 'Blood'...the male lead is a top hepatobiliary surgeon who happened to be a vampire...there's even a scientific basis for his condition...his parents were conducting some research on some virus named VBT-01 and they were both infected with the virus, which produces symptoms similar to vampirism...thirst for blood, light hypersensitivity (sunlight at dawn and strong UV light is lethal), superhuman strength, ability to grow fangs and claws, and ability to change the colour of iris...so the male lead was a pure-bred vampire as he was the offspring of a vampire couple (which according to the drama, is a mutation in itself)....combining the supernatural and science is so my cup of tea...

    Of course, this drama in its essence is a romance as well...watching a vampire slowly falling for a human is such a beautiful thing...to be honest, there weren't that many lovey-dovey scenes as they needed to put in the action and fighting scenes in a 20-episode drama...there were only about 5 scenes where the male and female lead were hugging each other...a few save the damsel in distress scenes and 1 kissing scene...oh, and one 'watching the sunrise while the male lead is dying' scene...and yes, i'm not embarrassed to admit i was bawling my heart out watching that scene...probably one of the most heart-wrenching scene I've watched for a long time...

    I love how the male lead who initially was this cold, unfeeling creature (at least on the outside) slowly and awkwardly became a warm-hearted human...there was a scene where the female lead was trying to imitate another couple playing the 'find me' game...which even I felt was pretty stupid and silly...so the female lead went into this flower bed and pretended to 'hide' and asked the male lead "where am I?"...and the male lead just answered "there"...the female lead reprimanded him for not playing along and he answered, "how can I not see a talking flower?"....cheesy I know...but still amazingly adorable... 

    So I found out that the male and female lead in that drama actually took their romance off-screen and are actually married in real life...that is pretty sweet in itself...i suppose the male lead was chosen because he did look good as a vampire...and i'm still wondering how they made him look even better in his 'dying moments'...coz initially i had some issues with his looks...i'm not sure if he had gone under the knife before but if he did, it looked like the surgeon didn't do too good a job...coz at some angles, his columella looked deviated...and his lips are slightly lopsided...but then again, who am I to comment anything...this guy is a model and actor...surely his looks are good enough to be this in-demand...

    It has become a habit to listen to the OST of the kdramas I've watched...and I must say I love the instrumental OST of Blood...the songs aren't too bad...but the instrumental ones really set the mood for the dark, mysterious scenes...and then there are those few sad and melancholic ones which I love the most...namely 'Vampire's Love', 'Love and Salvation' and 'Someone's Pain'...

W - Two Worlds

    I just finished watching another Kdrama "W - Two Worlds" last night...I must say this one hits eerily closest to home than all the dramas I've watched before...just a little background on the main female lead: 30 year-old cardiothoracic resident who created her dream guy in the form of the main male lead (the main character of the famous webtoon "W" drawn by her father)...ok, I can't draw to save my own life...but if I could, I would have drawn and created my own dream guy...of course nothing is stopping me from creating my own dream guy in my imaginary world and imagine how our day-to-day sweet romance would play out...but I'm digressing....

    Anyway, I loved this Kdrama...it's a fiction fantasy, sci-fi, psycho-thriller, mystery, drama and romance all snowballed into one...my mind is still reeling from all the suspense and plot-twists...it gets a little messy at times...and confusing too...what with all the movements between the real and cartoon worlds...not to mention that I don't understand Korean and the English subtitles sometimes don't exactly convey the actual meaning of the lines in Korean...still, I loved how this drama gives you the idea that perhaps in every created worlds (even cartoon worlds), the characters in the worlds are really alive and sometimes develop their own will and desire....

    I think another concept that many would find attractive is that 2 people from 2 different worlds can meet and eventually fall in love with each other...actually that's pretty cliche...but i think in this drama it's more like the girl created her dream guy who lives in a parallel world but eventually ended up saving his life and brought him to (real) life...now who doesn't love the idea of a dream guy turning into reality? Doesn't matter if he has no identity or money in the real world...

    Although initially I didn't think the main actor of the drama is good-looking, he actually fits his character well...he does look like as if he came out of a comic book...he's tall, fair with a cute boyish charm that befits a main character of a webtoon...the main actress is quite pretty...but I do wonder why they always make the female lead awkward and easily flustered...especially when in front of the male lead...and somehow, although the male lead doesn't think the female lead is beautiful, he finds her charming in her own ways and falls in love with her...does this even happen in real life?

    In the drama, there are a lot of variables in the cartoon and real world which changes the dynamics and course of the cartoon world...and because the female lead (from the real world) went into the cartoon world and became the female lead in the cartoon world, the original female lead in the cartoon world started to disappear because she has lost her purpose of existence in the cartoon world...which got me to think, sometimes in life, your happy ending might have been someone else's sad ending...and I wonder if maybe that's why I think I don't deserve a happy ending...because my happiness is at the cost of another person's sadness and suffering...

    Anyway, there are some nice songs in the OST of this drama...and the songs are very suitably written for the drama...i don't usually like songs with rap, but "In the Illusion" feels like the perfect song for this drama...a friend asked if he should watch this drama, so I told him that if he liked the idea of cartoon characters coming to life and real people going into the cartoon world, then watch it!