Ever since I started watching Korean movies, I’ve wanted to taste Soju. It looks like it could be pretty disgusting, but I want to try it anyway.

The problem has been that soju isn’t available in Sweden. You can get it at Korean restaurants (which aren’t aplenty), but it isn’t available at bars or “Systembolaget” (the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly, the one and only liquor store chain in Sweden). You can’t even special order it unless you find an importer yourself that can supply Systembolaget with the items you want.

A while ago I, more or less by chance, found an importer that carries soju and today I got the two bottles of Jinro Chamiseul soju that I had ordered (as depicted)!

I haven’t tasted it yet, but soon…

edit: now I’ve tasted it

As I mentioned briefly before, Tae-yeon of Girls’ Generation has been cast to play Kaoru Amane in the musical version of Taiyou no uta (Midnight Sun). A role previously played by YUI in the movie version and Erika Sawajiri in the drama version. Taeyangeui norae is the Korean title, which I believe is a literal translation of the Japanese title (song of the sun).

According to Daily K-Pop News Tae-yeon has been practising playing the guitar a lot for this role. It’d be so cool to see her play and sing as Kaoru. She has a lot to live up to though, after YUI’s performance as Kaoru.

[…] there’s more! »

Innovative Language Learning, who run KoreanClass101, are celebrating 101 million downloads by giving away 101 free life-time premium subscriptions to any one of their language sites.

To enter you just need to sign up for a free account (click the link below).

KoreanClass101

The contest ends when they hit 101 million downloads, which is pretty soon.

I watched the Korean movie Our School E.T. the other day. I bought it because Park Bo-young (from Scandal Makers) is in it.

The movie is about a gym teacher who goes the extra mile to take care of students who are having troubles. E.T. in the title first stands for his unorthodox/alien ways to handle things, but then it stands for English teacher once he is faced with the “choice” of being fired or start teaching English.

The story has a nice message and there are a few good moments - I got a little Great Teacher Onitsuka vibe once in a while - but the delivery of said story is not very good I’m afraid.

I’m a very patient person, but […] there’s more! »

The walls of my “new” apartment (I moved in nearly eight months ago) have been empty because I haven’t been able to decide what to put up on them (except for the SNSD poster I have in my bedroom ).

I wanted to find some nice artwork or framed photos that would give me positive associations as well as look a bit more “grown up” than the J-Pop posters I had in my old apartment.

I was thinking about how I wanted something that represents me and what I like. Besides Asian pop music I also enjoy […] there’s more! »

Here’s another video where Tae-yeon of Girls’ Generation performs the theme song of Beethoven Virus. Once again accompanied by Seo-hyun on the piano.

Tae-yeon ~ Can You Hear Me Live@SBS 36th Korean Broadcast Awards 20090903

25MB 3:52 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

(download | thm | preview)

Credit: source video from yoobin.skyrock.com

Today (well, technically yesterday) I received two sets of Asian movies that I had ordered. One was the Blu-ray version of the Korean movie Welcome to Dongmakgol.

It was listed as Blu-ray region A and B at YesAsia, but the case only said “region A”, so I got a bit worried and popped it into my PS3 (region B) just to check if it would play, which it did (phew). I was planning on taking a nap before my late Brazilian Jiu-jitsu class, but I couldn’t stop watching the movie once I had started it.

Welcome to Dongmakgol takes place during the Korean war. The story is about two South Korean soldiers, three North Korean soldiers and an American pilot who end up in a strange village in the mountains called Dongmakgol, where the inhabitants don’t even know that a war is raging outside. […] there’s more! »

안녕하세요!

Since I started studying at KoreanClass101, I’ve had to start typing more in Korean (there are writing exercises in the Premium Learning Center). This is harder than typing Japanese, since you have to know where the Korean characters are on your keyboard to enter them.

To make typing Korean easier, I ordered a set of stickers that you put on your keyboard that shows which Korean character the key represents.

The stickers are transparent, so you can still see the original letters on the keys, with the exception of special characters like the € and µ character on European keyboards and the superimposed numpad keys on a laptop, which are partially obscured. You can see how it looks in the photo. It’s a Swedish laptop keyboard.

Perhaps yellow would have been a better colour, because the orange can be a little hard to see if the lighting is poor.

I came to a halt in watching You Are My Destiny when I reached some episodes I hadn’t been able to download. Luckily there’s mysoju.com, where you can stream the drama.

Now I’ve watched those episodes and I can once again watch the downloaded videos. Let’s celebrate with a couple of wallpapers

Credit: pictures from himnae.net

I still love this drama. It has some negative points though. For example, the drama is pretty crudely edited. Sometimes you’re thrown into a scene where they refer to a previous scene that has been deleted. Like when […] there’s more! »

I’ve been wanting to take a Korean course for a while, but there are no classes where I live any more. I’ve previously checked out Pimsleur’s Korean and Rosetta Stone. Both are OK, I guess, but I wanted to go to a class. Mostly because I want to practice speaking with other people, but also because the previously mentioned courses felt incomplete.

A few weeks ago I, as I do some times, searched for a Korean course and I bumped into a set of audio files from KoreanClass101. I listened to a couple of lessons and was pleasantly surprised. I found the lessons to be very good. The teachers are very nice to listen to. They speak a lot about the dialogue in the lesson and you get good information about what’s being said and why.

After listening to a couple of lessons I went to KoreanClass101.com to see what the site was like, and to my surprise I found that all audio lessons are free for as long as you want! You can download them to your MP3-player if you want. On top of this you can pay for a subscription of the extra features that exist in the Premium Learning Center. There are many nice features. The one I like the most is the quiz for each lesson. The PDFs are also very useful. They are making new lessons all the time, so it’s good to know that you can listen to them even if you’re not subscribing any more.

You can check out the lessons for free and also get a 7-day trial of the premium features if you head over to KoreanClass101.

One funny thing is that Seol looks almost exactly like how I imagined from hearing her voice in the lessons

PS. Right now (until the 7th of July) they have 25% off on new subscriptions. Look for the “summer gift” after you’ve signed in.