More on those 49 days

So in my previous post last night I wrote about 49 Days. I really didn't expect it to leave a lasting impression like I Remember You, but the story stayed in my mind almost all night and I am still feeling melancholic thinking of the characters, so I will write a bit more about it.

Spoiler alert! Anyone planning to watch the drama should stop reading here.

Stopping?

Not stopping?

You've been warned.


So, the main thing to talk about here is the ending. There is no happy ending in this drama. But to talk about the ending, first we need a little background.

From the beginning, we know that the main girl Shin Ji Hyun's fiancé will not turn out to be her soulmate, and that Han Gang, the guy who quarrels with her, will be the one who really cares for her. Then Song Yi Kyung, the girl who tries to kill herself (and causes Ji Hyun's accident in the first place), has been sad for the past five years after someone she loves died, and it isn't to hard to guess that Ji Hyun's scheduler (the one who helps her understand the rules of her 49 days) is the person Yi Kyung is pining for.

Ji Hyun's soul is allowed to use Yi Kyung's body when Yi Kyung is asleep (she works night shift so Ji Hyun gets to use her body in the daytime), but is not allowed to tell anyone that she is really Ji Hyun. So of course Han Gang, who has been in love with Ji Hyun all the while, manages to figure out that the Yi Kyung that he meets is actually Ji Hyun, due to their similar characteristics. All this is pretty much expected, and the plot twists and turns with Ji Hyun finding out about her fiancé betraying her and her family, and trying to fix it in her 49 days. In the process, of course Ji Hyun starts falling in love with Han Gang.

All this is very much expected, and fortunately the storyline was still told well enough to be enjoyable.

What I didn't like so much was some parts of the ending.

Firstly, Ji Hyun managed to collect her three drops of tears and wake up from the coma. She was supposed not to remember anything from her 49 days as a wandering spirit, but her scheduler told her that she was destined (i.e. scheduled) to die in 6 days, so she was given a choice whether to keep her memory of the last 49 days. She accepted to keep the memory, but (this is where I think it's stupid) she decides to let Han Gang think that she didn't remember anything. It is only when Yi Kyung came to see her, thinking that Ji Hyun would not remember her, that Ji Hyun told Yi Kyung the truth. And lucky for Han Gang, Yi Kyung decided to go against Ji Hyun's wishes not to tell him about her impending death.

What is also stupid about Ji Hyun's decision to stay silent, is that she still decides to go on a picnic with Han Gang, pretending that she just needed a pretend boyfriend for a day. Haih, this is so silly...wouldn't both of you be happier if you could continue where you left off from the past 49 days?

Okay, over with that, there is a second part of the ending that I wasn't happy with. It seemed to me that they wanted to add something unnecessary. When Ji Hyun collects her three drops of tears, we see that Yi Kyung was crying for her. The only knew each other when Ji Hyun was a spirit, so this was a touching moment of how much they had shared with each other during that short time. However, later we discover that *jeng jeng jeng!* (eyeroll here) that Yi Kyung was actually Ji Hyun's real sister who had been kidnapped a a child.

I guess in a way they wanted to give Ji Hyun's parents a way to deal with the loss of their "only" daughter, by finding their other daughter back. And allow Yi Kyung to recover from her past five years of misery by finding a family. But I would have preferred them to keep in contact, without being blood-related, and dealing with the loss of Ji Hyun together. With the ending they chose, it seemed like they were telling us that they couldn't recover without finding family.

Aaaaand, since they wanted to make Yi Kyung Ji Hyun's real sister, and family member's tears were not counted in the 49-days journey, that meant they needed another person's tears to be the third tear. And turned out that the tear came from Ji Hyun's best friend who had betrayed her (her fiancé's girlfriend). I especially didn't like this, because after all the events in the drama I really can't believe that this girl could cry 100% pure tears for Ji Hyun. Even if she had regretted her actions. Shouldn't there be a longer time before her feelings can change from wanting to hurt her friend to being really sad for her?

So, that's it! Really, I could have accepted that they let Ji Hyun die in the end (though I was really sad about that, I wanted to see her properly together with Han Gang!). I just couldn't accept those three points that I mentioned. They could have done better. I have totally no complaints about the whole drama, except the ending.

Edit: By the way, I wasn't the only one who didn't like the real-sister connection. A review I read didn't like it either, but their reason was because the hints were "too subtle". Another review mentioned "Yi Kyung and Ji Hyun's mother's inability to process oxtail soup" as a hint (Ji Hyun loves oxtail soup, and after she ate it in Yi Kyung's body, Yi Kyung threw up). I totally didn't get that hint! Not sure whether my brain would have gotten to it on its own after being stuck on the story for a few days :P

Edit 2: I found an error! lol They made Yi Kyung a year older than Ji Hyun. But Ji Hyun's birthday is 5 May while Yi Kyung's birthday is 8 November. That is not possible for sisters who share the same mother! (Unless if Ji Hyun was born highly premature, which would explain her smaller size compared to her sister :P )

49 Days

I just watched 49 Days, a Korean drama. It's about a girl who falls into a coma and her spirit is given 49 days to find three people who shed 100% pure tears for her. Then she would be considered worth saving and can come back to life.

Some parts were quite predictable, but somehow I enjoyed the whole drama a lot. The ending was slightly disappointing because I felt the main character acted pretty stupid (silly noble sacrifice kinda thing), and they weaved in too many coincidences for my liking. But still... pretty good overall.

This drama is from 2011, which is quite long ago now, and I realized that they used the same actors as adults and as teenagers. In more recent dramas, the teenage version of the character is usually a younger actor. I guess that trend of using different actors was started less than eight years ago?

Another duck meat kuey teow thng

My parents and I visited a new kuey teow thng place (new to us): Loh Kei. It seems to be a popular place, with some online articles saying that it can be sold out at 9am.

We went on a weekday, and every table was occupied. We managed to get seats at a table where the person was finishing up.

this one is the intestines, gizzard, etc

there's a third bowl of kuey teow thng on the right, which did not make it into this photo

One great thing about this place is that they have red and green chilli (already sliced) at the counter, and you can just go and get it yourself if you need more (emphasis on red!).

However I still think the kuey teow thng at 7 tiao lor (Cecil Street Market) tastes better. For now, that one is still unbeatable!

Finally photogenic mee bandung

I have posted about this mee bandung twice before, the first time for takeaway, and the second time at the stall. When my parents were here, we went to eat at the stall again, and this time the mee bandung came looking quite good (egg spread nicely on top of the noodles, and one prawn smack in the middle.

Since it's a rare occurrence, here's a photo.

A meal at Brussels

It's again time to catch up with food posts that I had not had time to write!

Brussels Beer Cafe was having a lunch promotion on weekdays. It cost RM17.90 for a main dish, a drink, and a salad/entrée/dessert buffet. (still need to add on 10% service charge and 6% tax)

crispy thai fish salad with rice

fried pork chop with mushroom cream sauce

grilled lamb chop with frites and spicy yogurt

Everything was pretty decent. As you can see, the main dishes did not come with any salad, because we could get it outselves at the salad bar (with a choice of vinaigrette or thousand island sauce).

The salad bar had purple mashed potato (or should I say mashed purple potato?), which for some reason had small cubes of chicken in it. The soup of the day was chicken soup, and was a bit on the watery side, so it was not that good. The fruit (of the day?) was watermelon, and the first tray was very sweet, but the later refills weren't as sweet. So that would depend on luck.

A cup a day, and a cake to share

The other day we had a farewell lunch for Jackie (the name is important, as you will see :P )

We went to a place called A Cup A Day, although for some silly reason it was actually registered as Acupaday, which bring "acupuncture" to mind.

I like the decor, though some of the others said that it seemed very simple. The photos of the decor are courtesy of our guest of honour; I only took photos of the food! :P 

I find that the food presentation is a lot better than the actual taste itself. Though the taste was not "bad"... it was just normal.

I initially didn't plan to take a photo of the coffees... I thought, it's just a leaf pattern, we've seen it all before! Then I saw the swan on the other cup. On the left is regular latte, and on the right is butterscotch latte. I tried a sip; there was not much butterscotch taste in it though.

Then there is the most photogenic drink of all, "espresso cube in silky milk" (RM15). I'm not sure whether that's the regular price or the lunch price. For lunch, some drinks come free of charge (like my peach tea which I didn't take a photo of), and the coffees above were charged only RM5 instead of the actual menu price.

the instructions

While waiting for our food, we ordered a slice of cake to share.

Belgian cheese cake, RM14

 When we saw that they had written so much stuff on the serving board, we requested that they write "Jackie" for us. The server looked puzzled, but complied. :D

See the added word?

This was the best-tasting thing at that lunch! First layer was chocolate cake, second layer was cheese, and at the bottom, more chocolate (not cake).

Then on to the main course...

bagel rendang chicken, RM20

just to let you see the top of the bagel

This is a fusion dish, and it looks great, but unfortunately it didn't taste as great. The bagel was very good, the top piece was perfectly toasted (in my opinion), slightly buttered and crispy. The bottom piece was definitely not crispy after the rendang chicken was placed on top of it. The rendang was okay, but just not that good. Maybe there was just too much sauce, but the two of us who ordered it just left some behind in the end. (however that does mean that the portion was huge :P )

salted egg-crusted chicken chop, RM28

This one looks really good, with cornflakes on the crust, and fortunately with the salted egg sauce on the side instead of poured on top of it. I tried the sauce, but unfortunately it did not taste that much of salted egg.

summerglitz chicken chop, RM25

I think the glitz of summer comes from the apple slices (yes, those are apples).

And after eating, a group photo (guest of honour in the middle)

Mentai

Recently I went to Sakae Sushi not once, but twice!

The first time was with Snorlax. We had a "buy 1 free 1" promotion with the Maxis app.

mentai zukushi, RM8.88 for a plate

The three pieces of sushi came with prawn, octopus, and white fish (I call it white fish because I don't know the actual name). The octopus was very chewy and even the fish was slightly chewy, so it wasn't very good. The mentai sauce was good though.

chicken teriyaki jyu, RM11.88

tempura & sushi bento, RM17.88

The chicken teriyaki rice was very good. As for the bento, it was a hesitant choice on our part. Snorlax wanted a tempura bento, and this was the only one. It it came with rice, it would have been perfect for him. As for me, I had wanted to try soba for some time now, but always hesitated because I was afraid I wouldn't like it. So we decided to share the chicken teriyaki rice: he gets his rice, and I get to try soba.

The soba was actually quite nice after squeezing the lime on it. I tried it without the lime first, but felt that it wasn't so good. The only thing is, it's still a cold dish so I am unused to it making a complete meal. (the same as when I tried Korean cold noodles)

That was the meal with Snorlax... then another time I went alone and made use of the "buy 1 free 1" offer for mini don with my Watson's member card.

gyu kinoko mini don, RM9.88

I knew that gyu was beef, but turns out that kinoko is mushroom. The beef was stir-fried with brown beech (shimeji) mushrooms. This was just as good as the chicken teriyaki rice.

tamago mentai mini don, RM6.88

Since this costs less than the other mini don, it was the free item. There were only four mini dons to choose from, and this was more special, and something that I would definitely not order when there are other dons to choose from. So I took this opportunity to try it. Tamago is egg, the Japanese rolled omelette. Actually in the photo from the menu, we can see the slices of tamago and the mentai sauce is on top (similar to the mentai zukushi at the top of the post), not fully covering the egg. I was surprised (pleasantly so) to see so much mentai sauce when the dish arrived.

The dish tasted good, but... I think I still need my meat. :P

Just a photo of both mini dons. The beef one arrived first, so I was already halfway through eating it when the second don arrived.

The prices above are all non-inclusive of 10% service charge and 6% SST. One thing to note was that even for the free items, we were charged for the service on those items. The actual price and the SST were the ones that were waived.

As for the title of the post, I thought it was worth mentioning that I usually don't order mentai dishes because they are quite expensive. So the "buy 1 free 1" deals gave us a chance to try some mentai!

An unusual tandoori

Some time ago we went to Indian Palace. My friend had raved about how the tandoori there was not dry, unlike the tandoori at most places. So I tried it, and really, it was moist and juicy!

I made sure to ask for the thigh part, so that I wouldn't end up with the chicken breast. As you can see, the end of the drumstick is wrapped in foil, presumably so that it wouldn't dry out.

Vampire bunny

I just read an article about Bunnicula, a vampire rabbit. The name Bunnicula sounded so familiar, and after doing some Google research and reading the story of A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery on Wikipedia, I am convinced that I have read that exact same book before.

Finding the bunny at the movie Dracula and naming him Bunnicula? Check.
Two holes in the vegetables that turned white? Check.
Bunnicula sleeping all day? Check.
Using garlic against Bunnicula? Check.
Bunnicula thriving on a liquid diet for a happy ending? Check.

All these plot points definitely sound familiar. I'm pretty sure I found the book in a library and that I don't have it myself. Now I wish I can find the book again to read it.

When someone rejects AirAsia free seats

So what do you want? Free airplane? :P