Extravagant Life

Everyone has these things that invoke all loss of sense and bring forward all feelings of desire to just burn their wallets away.

Typically the ladies fight a losing battle against the LVs, the Pradas, the Manolos, the Tiffanys, Fendis and the long long list of things that ladies claim never to have enough of.

Of course I like pretty bags and sexy shoes. I like the flirty dresses and stylish apparels.

However, I know there is one really extravagant life I would like to have...sorry WILL have one day...a really extravagant looking, sounding, out-of-this-world sound system.

Sounds like a boy's toy?

Well I really don't pay attention to the ever growing size of televisions, the super golf clubs, or new car models and so on.

But a BRILLIANT SOUND SYSTEM!

Eve's heart was filled with envy when she saw her brother's collection of jazz cds and audiophile collections that any self-respecting audiophile should have. Put the cds into the good system setup in a sound configured room....ahhhhhh heaven....

Eve actually looked at the sound system and said "This is why I must work hard and be rich"

Sinful...but so heavenly!

Que Sera Sera

“ Please pardon my French but

Oh my holy fucking Lord ”

Eve absolutely agrees with this reviewer’s description of the ninth episode of Que Sera Sera. The episode last night had all of us gripping at the edge of our seats. Wondering how we watched it? A friend watched it via livecam from other friend and gave us a love commentary. Yes that was how eager we were for the new installment! Eve would vote for it as drama of the year any time.

If you do not know by now, this is the current drama being shown in Korea which was partially filmed in Singapore recently.

Interesting facts:

This is the 2nd production from the famous director of My Name is Kim Sam Soon.

The film was filmed in a few locations such as Indochine, Scarlet Hotel, Little India.

Despite having only shown 9 episodes, there are already 128 pages in the discussion thread for this show in Soompi.

The show has won raving reviews from netizens and fans scramble for new episodes every week.

Enough to get you interested? Not yet? That’s not the end.

Que Sera Sera is definitely not your run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. It’s a lot darker, a lot more modern, a lot more sexy, a lot more chic and a whole lot more real and kickass. It’s not the typical K-drama. In fact, it gives one a more indie and OC kinda feeling. It’s frankly refreshing.

This show explores the relationships and attitude of modern young adults with the “take it easy, too cool for yourself and then fall flat on your face” kinda style.

The story goes that Kang Tae Joo is an ordinary employee in a department store. Shin Joon Hyuk’s is the rich and caring adopted son of a Korean Chaebol Cha Family. They both fall in love with the heroine, Han Eun Soo at the same time. Cha Hye Lin is the daughter of a President Cha and an aspring fashion designer. Although she is independent, strong, and spoiled, she is hopelss and careless in front of love. After she was betrayed by her first love Joon Hyuk, Hye Lin stops believing in true love. She then starts to ‘buy’ herself new boyfriends by paying them money and forcing them to sign contracts.

One of these men turns out to be Kang Tae Joo and during their contract relationship, Hye Lin begins to fall deeply in love again. She will be entangled in a love triangle with Tae Joo and Eun Soo, who was Tae Joo’s real girlfriend.

Honestly, the synopsis hardly does any justice to the show. You simply have to watch it for yourself to see how it gets played out. There are a lot more subtleties in the show and a lot more depth for one to think about. The little gestures, space and physical metaphors of the show give it so much more room for thought when you actually pay more attention to it.

I love how the director filmed this show. Instead of going for the easy mass appeal romantic comedy approach, the director has gone for a darker and sexier angle. Even the cinematography is a little different. It always gave me more like sex and the city feel as the director plays out the story in modern locations, stylish fashion intertwined with a mix of jazz music and wonderfully chosen songs as background music. It got me missing jazz again.

Eric and Yoo Mi did and excellent job with Tae Joo and Eun Soo. It was good to see how Eric played Tae Joo’s character to the extreme without fearing that it might tarnish his clean image. Yoo Mi showed the innocence yet strong character of Eun Soo so well I don’t think Yun Hye (of Goong fame) would have done a better job as she was the original person chosen for the role. The cast is good looking :P

I love this show because it’s real. I love how the director has carefully developed the characters and the storyline such that there isn’t a clear black and white, good or bad, or people you can love or hate clearly. Every character has different dimensions and you will feel it because you can see a bit of yourself in every character. Even when the story takes a turn that most would not like to see, you can’t help feeling that it would be the case in real life too. Every episode sees fans debating over the storyline and character development.

When this show goes into the stores or gets shown in Singapore, you really have to watch it! For those interested enough, there are great episode guides at http://javabeans.wordpress.com/tag/k-drama/que-sera-sera/

Pretty Things

Eve has a lot of talented friends and she really has to introduce this one.

Eve has a friend who has a great talent for making accessories. She not only uses good materials but comes out with wonderful and unconventional designs with often completely different themes each time. Eve has seen her go from gothic to chinese jade to now tibetan inspired creations.

You really have to have a look at www.babelittlethings.com

Here's a sneak:

Painful Times

These few weeks have been quite painful for Eve – literally.

First Eve had a strained ankle ligament which has been a recurring problem and would probably need time to fix.

The real crunch came when Eve’s old muscle knot in her right lat worsened and the entire right shoulder and lat was frozen. Movement was limited and any movement was generally painful. This did not include the intermittent spasms of pain.

If that wasn’t enough, Eve developed a serious fever and flu after a physio treatment which meant no further physio treatments were possible while the illness was present.

Mornings saw Eve cringing in pain from the stiff muscles and attempting to get out of bed by rolling to the edge and rolling up. Nights saw Eve unable to sleep from pain and stress of work and unresolved problems. The worst was one morning when the spasms were so sharp Eve was pretty much immobilized in bed yet coughing till she almost threw up and that every cough was painful as it exerted the hurt muscles. It was so painful and uncomfortable that Eve cried for a long while and had to breathe very carefully.

Right now, Eve is still not fully recovered but she has found some things to lessen the pain. It was a good learning experience too.

Eve now knows the wondrous effect of medicated plasters and how to apply them. Eve never knew how rolling a tennis ball with your body weight can help release some muscle tension. Eve now knows muscle relaxants really do work.

Eve really hopes to get better soon so she can go get these stiff muscles sorted out grrrrr

The Eve Notebook - Barfly @ Cannery

Eve realises she has not been able to write the notebook for a while so she would like to make a few contributions here.

Eve recently got into the beat of being happening (finally) and paid a visit to the Cannery at Clarke Quay which is bustling with life and very nice F&B outlets now. Out of the many places there, Eve and friends chose Barfly for the night.

The design was dark, sexy and chic with hanging chandeliers, deep red and blue backlights. The whole setting spelled Manhattan in the air and was a place to see and be seen. Eve makes a mental note to dress more atas-ly (stylishly for the uninitiated) the next time she goes there. Eve’s buddies agree on that too.

The whole joint consists of a long bar with many tables for dining as well. The menu was a mixture of Asian, Western and Japanese cuisine at surprisingly affordable prices. We were totally bowled over with the Chocolate martini as it was 1-for-1 martini promo on Saturday night.

Eve ordered Tamago sushi of all things but loved it! Dessert frankly remains unnamed to my memory as of now but it was lovely nonetheless.

Eve would definitely be back there again…albeit in nice clothes.

Oh did I mention, they had really good looking people there too? :P

Writing With A Vengeance...Marriage Contract?

Eve has not been writing…long enough for kind friends to ask me if everything was ok. Eve is blessed to have such nice friends.

More accurately speaking, Eve has been deprived from writing. For some strange reason, Singnet always fails to display the page where I publish the blog. Thus, Eve can only try to steal chances to write when she is using other networks.

Thus, Eve will be writing with a vengeance every time she does.

A friend just came back from a 12 day trip through Yunnan, Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-La. She told me of this old practice one of the tribes still practices up till today.

In that tribe, it is pretty much a matriarchal society. Women are the head of the household and are the decision makers. They hold the financial power as well. Men well, don’t do much really. What made the tribe interesting was it was one of the few tribes that had no marriage contract.

This meant that men could jump climb over walls and jump into the bed of any woman in the tribe. She has a right to refuse of course. However, a couple can stay together and not be married. Their relationship can be known publicly or left for their own knowledge only.

One is free to sleep with anyone except one is not allowed to have multiple partners. Should the woman be pregnant, it is the responsibility of the woman, not the man. If a couple no longer wants to stay together, they can simply part. Thus the women are pretty much like the men in our society. There’s a whole lot more freedom in relationships as well. Not quite the old fashioned typical traditional tribe right?

In the modern society today, the practice of not having a marriage contract is growing. More and more, Eve sees friends who decide to be together but not go through the ceremony of marriage. To them, they see each other as spouses anyway. Thus, marriage is not always necessary.

Eve thinks it boils down to the couple. Marriage is an important stage of life that Eve thinks one should never walk in without careful thinking. If a couple does not intend to have children and have enough faith in each other, marriage may or may not be necessary. After all, if a piece of paper is needed to prove love between 2 people, then maybe that love is not ready for marriage in the first place?

The Eve Notebook - Seoul Special

Well given that Eve is so into Korean everything now, food is not an exception of course.

*hears whispers Eve should just migrate there*

Yeah, yeah.

Eve has never been a person for spicy food. Thus, the prospect of eating vegetables soaked in chilli was mortifying. Thanks to the frequent trips to Korean food joints and many doses of Kimchi later, Eve can eat an impressive amount of Kimchi and spicy food without the aid of water. Enough to make Eve’s mum very proud of her at least.

It seems the Koreans like most of their food spicy. Maybe it’s due to the cold weather there. Eve’s favourite dish would be Bi Bim Bap, a dish consisting of the 5 main food groups. It’s quite a healthy and hearty meal consisting of rice, numerous varieties of vegetables, meat and topped with a raw/sunny egg. Throw in gochujang (spicy bean paste) and Eve is a happy woman.

Recently, Eve also found new interest in Kimchi Chigae or Kimchi Soup. The spicy soup never quite found its place into Eve’s stomach until her increased tolerance for spice. The spicy and sour soup with meat, toufu, vegetables and kimchi can warm the stomach tremendously. Warm is probably an understatement.

Put Bi Bim Bap and Kimchi Chigae together and Eve is left with a very satisfying meal. Eve loves discovering what side dishes each place offers every time she goes. It is as good a discovery as the meal itself.

Places to Go

Eve has tried a couple of places and together with reviews from her friends, these are the few places we liked.

Manna, the restaurant now famous for hosting Rain and ShinHwa during their visit here, has a mean dish of fried spicy squid. This is one of their most famous dishes and it certainly deserves its fame. Eve has not found another place with an equally nice serving of this dish. Rain loved the dish while he was here. The BBQ meat is yummy too. Located at a corner in Telok Ayer, this is one of the more well known Korean restaurants in town.

Eve loved the Kimchi Chigae at the Korean restaurant at Furama near People’s Park. Eve can’t remember the name but the spicy and sour soup certainly left an impression. The place had nice Kimchi too. They played host to Eric, while he was filming a drama in Singapore recently.

The best Seafood Pancake so far can be found at Crystal Jade Korean BBQ and Ginseng Chicken Restaurant in Centrepoint. The crispy pancake is heavenly and no other place does it quite like them. Bi Won near Duxton comes close but the best is still found there.

For cheaper alternatives, the Bi Bim Bap at Food Republic Wisma Atria and Century Square Food Junction is pretty good. The Kimchi Chigae and Kimchi is pretty delicious as well. Do try the beef at Food Republic.

Go ahead and try! Eve is a big fan of it now, no assistance required from any drama or superstar :)

Let Me See - Morcheeba

I like this song and the video was fanmade...not an easy watch though as it is from the provocative movie "Traffic".