Maria Juwita | Blog

I'm coming back with another korean drama post! Finally after a long wait, a drama that's really worth your time is here.

Regarding the statement, I know as a k-drama lover, any kind of korean drama with your favorite oppa(s) is always worth your time. But let's be honest here. You do feel a little guilt while watching your oppa instead of being productive doing your job, don't you? Or at least that's what I've been feeling lately. I always consciously try to shift my attention out of my responsibility, and watching drama is one of my guilty pleasure because it does indeed kill my productivity in a way that I enjoy 😂

Dark and gloomy (?) poster for the drama! Although I must admit it doesn't look interesting and convincing tho.
(image: soompi)

But this one is different I promise. This drama called "Tunnel" is like no other korean drama you have watched. A complicated storyline, unpredictable twist, and also of course, my favorite oppa (aka Choi Jin-hyuk), it's all in here. Like other drama I have written about, you won't find any cheesy line or cringey-awkward-kissing-scene in this drama. Instead, you will find many scenes that involve a corpse, a body part, the act of strangulation, handsome detective (I'm talking about Choi Jin-hyuk here), and again, a corpse (I'm telling you in advance so you won't be shocked by the visual later--like I did).

So... what is this drama about actually?

"HIT THAT PLAY BUTTON"
(video: dramafever Youtube)

Tunnel is a mystery, crime, and thriller drama. The main character is Park Kwang-ho (played by Choi Jin-hyuk), a detective who lives in year 1986. He was trying to solve a (suspected) serial murder case which shows the same pattern: young women being choked to death with some dot marks on their heels. One day, he was chasing the culprit down the tunnel but unfortunately, he got attacked and became unconscious. Then, he regains his consciousness in year 2016, at the same place, same spot, same tunnel where he was attacked in 1986.

Okay, that's a little bit of the background. Now, I'm writing down a short FAQ to answer the possible questions that popped up in your head while trying my best not to spoil the whole plot:

---POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT---

I don't think I spoil anything here, but please do continue on your own risk. If you don't wish to continue, you can start reading at the next red mark.

How did he go to 2016? Can he go back to 1986?
Of course he can!
But.. how?!
Sssttt.. I'm telling you this one way to know the details: go watch the drama!

How about the case he was working on in 1986? The culprit? The investigation? Is he going to solve the same case in 2016?
Yes, somehow he will (surprisingly) be going after the same culprit and investigate the exact same case from 1986 in 2016.
But how????
He will work with the investigation team obviously, which consists of people who are actually related to him in a very very very surprising way.

Who are this lady and that oppa?!
(image: hancinema)

Who are they?
Sorry I have to stop here. But you can watch the drama if you want to know their identity :D

What happens with his family and friends in 1986 while he's gone to 2016?
This is where the interesting part is. In 1986, Kwang-ho did marry a girl he loves (aaw!) but unfortunately, he has no choice but to leave her in 1986 while he's stranded in 2016. This drama shows both eras (?) simultaneously, which means the people in 1986 know that Kwang-ho is gone but have no clue regarding his whereabouts. And by the time Kwang-ho leaves to 2016, there's something happened to his wife that leads to his fate in 2016..................................................................................

"You want to know more, huh? Please watch Tunnel!!!" - Detective Kwang-ho and detective Sun-jae in 2016
(image: kdramapal)

Trust me when I say I really want to spoil all the details here, but I must not spoil anything so let's just end this short FAQ with one conclusion: please do watch the drama if you wish to figure out the story :D

---YOU MAY COME BACK NOW (PLEASE?)---

Enough with the FAQ! Next I will explain 3 reasons why I love this drama.

#1 It is NOT a rom-com
I love romantic-comedy drama (who doesn't?). But finding a good rom-com drama is so much harder than it looks. Statistically speaking, about 70% out of all 1,784 k-drama falls into rom-com category (p.s I made up the statistic because, why not!), yet, I can only name less than 10 rom-com dramas that are actually good enough to watch and the most importantly, those which won't bore the hell out of you. So, it's good to finally watch a drama that's out of your usual taste. But don't worry, there is also a refreshing comical scene in "Tunnel" (because I bet people don't want to witness a never-ending criminal act for the whole series, right?).

#2 Unpredictable
Have I told you earlier that this drama has an unpredictable twist? It's not that kind of drama where you can guess the finale right after you reach the first half of its pilot episode. There is a lot of twists you can't imagine, when you think it's going to be A then it's actually Z. In short, it's mind = blown. Boom. Also, the storyline is not boring at all and the suspense and + the mysterious plot kinda make your brain stays alert--especially for a coward like me, so you will not only sit there staring blankly at your monitor screen, wondering how many episodes left or deciding whether or not you should finish the drama because you're not sure if you like it or nah (cause this happens to me A. LOT). You will automatically hit the next button and suddenly find yourself on the last episode already :(

#3 Choi Jin-hyuk

Throughout this post, isn't it obvious that I have major crush on this guy? I have been keeping my eyes on him since the Emergency Couple (2014) era and been waiting patiently for his comeback. Now, the time has finally come. Jin-hyuk has discharged from his mandatory military service and coming back through this drama. Can we please take a second to adore his oh-so-perfect smile here?

O.M.G.
(image: allkpop)

So, that's 3 simple reasons why I love this drama. Please keep in mind that I can write for 10 more points but I choose to stop here before I spill everything out and my fan girl side disgusts you :'D All I want to say is... this drama really needs more recognition and popularity because it's different and good and the chemistry between the casts is real and it doesn't bore you at all with its complicated storyline. My one and only advice: be careful with your binge-watching habit because I don't think you can apply them in this drama--especially with many scenes involve strangulation and a sight of dead body.

"See you when you finally decide to watch us on Tunnel!"
(image: dramabeans)

pexels

One of the perks of being last year student in college is busy finishing your thesis while having an internship you have to take. This comparison is probably going to be unfair, as I have only gaining my title as a freelancer 2 weeks ago, while on the other side, having experience as an intern for around 10 months at 2 different tech companies. But I will go anyway!

Internship Life

Both of my internship is done at newly founded startup company. One is 3 year-old company in wedding industry, the other (where I'm currently having my internship at) is an e-commerce company in health industry. I super love my first-ever internship job and was enjoying every second of it! Mainly because I'm so into wedding, and the job itself it's quite challenging for the experienceless noob like me. Both company have different cultures. First is where you can literally wear sleeveless or sweater with sandal and no one would giving you a weird look because it's completely normal to wear casual everyday. Second is where you can only wear formal outfit in particular color every other day but Friday. Plus, no sandals.

What I love the most about my life as intern is I get to try and involve in various job/tasks. Your supervisor could ask you for help beside your main job which is good for learning and adding more experience. I can learn a lot. Not so lots, though, but surely more than I can get in freelance job. Especially when your job fits your passion, you can gain a connection and probably have a chance to become a full-time employee there. The only thing I dislike about internship is when I feel like everyone is underestimating me, especially when there is seniority which creates a huge gap between interns and employees (like I-don't-want-to-eat-on-the-same-table-with-you-because-you-are-not-on-the-same-level-with-me kind of seniority). I can easily become forgotten and invisible there. This kind of seniority doesn't apply in all companies though. Overall, the people is great and friendly but there is a slight chance some people would treat you like that.

How about freelancing?

I guess many people would agree that one of the biggest advantage I can have as freelancer is flexibility. I get to work every time I want, not having to wake up at 7AM and have a typical 9-to-5 job everyday. I also get to work everywhere, not having to go to same place everyday, even I can get my job done in my bedroom while munching on my favorite snacks. What could be better than having a job with minimum rules? Plus, for introvert like me, I super love freelancing because I don't have to meet a lot of people. Yay!

But the cons is... I don't get to meet new people. I know I just said the exact same thing above, but this also could be a cons because I will have lesser connection as a freelancer that I do as an intern. Freelance job also only allows you to do monotonous job, which sometimes makes you bored and start questioning the worth of your job (lol!).

The verdict

I can't decide which one I like the most! While reading the title, I know you were hoping to know the clear verdict, weren't you? But seiously, every job, either freelancing and interning, has its own pros and cons so I couldn't really decide which one works best.

But for you that insist to get a clear result, I would go for freelancing at this time. Simply because now I'm also busy with my thesis and I wish to have more flexibility for a better time management. Internship is still great though, and I never regret to walk my path as an intern.

Okay, so first....

Happy New Year!

We are four days into 2017 already. Oh My God. This year I will be writing my final thesis. I will be graduating. I will be entering new chapter of my life. Feels like yesterday I just got into university, attending orientation week. hang out with everyone happily without having to think about what kind of job I want to do after graduating.

2016 taught me a lot. Last year I experienced failure and success. I laughed and cried. I got to understand myself better, I figured out what kind of future I want to have, and I started to love myself more and more each day.

To sum it up, here are the notable (?) moments I had in 2016:

Failed to join an internship program at my campus. This is the moment where I started wondering why did I always fail at anything I want to do (and I was seriously concerned about my future and my luck).

But, the I got accepted as an intern in the wedding startup. YAY!!

On June, I spent my birthday with my friends. <3 b="" nbsp=""><3 b=""> I also went through a friendship breakup this month. A toxic one. So I'm actually glad this happened.

Enjoying my life as a loner intern for the first 3 months because I used to be the one and only intern there. Then finally new interns got there, and we had good times together. Three words to describe this: so. much. fun. I also learnt A LOT from my experience here, and from my senior at the office.

I finished my internship, got farewell gift and card from my mentor there, and back to my old status as student.

and here I am today. Safely arrived in 2017. Ready to experience more adventure.

and my 2017 slogan will be:

Fuck it.

Just like what Alden Tan wrote on his blog,

Just live. Do your shit. Do your work. You’re not an idiot. You learn shit. Just keep on keeping on and stop overthinking the shit out of everything. That’s pointless.

If at this point you feel like you’ve a ton of questions and you’re like, “But, but, but…”

Whatever, just, whatever, okay?

Fuck it.

It will be okay.

My kind of k-dramas are usually the ones with light story line, often revolved in romantic comedy genres. Judging from the poster and the cast of this drama I just finished called 'My Wife's Having an Affair This Week', I assume that this will be my usual kind of dramas: romantic with a bit of comedy, but thankfully my verdict was wrong, because it's actually much deeper than a cliché love story or cringe-worthy kissing scenes (but don't worry, the little dose of comedy is still there).

dramafever

---SPOILER ALERT---

Please don't continue if you have yet to watch the drama and do not wish to figure out the plot details here.

'My Wife's Having an Affair This Week' (literal title of 이번 주 아내가 바람을 핍니다) brings up taboo topic which is not usually discussed openly and widely. This drama depicts a story about Do Hyun-Woo (played by Lee Sun-Gyun), a producer whose marriage with Jung Soo-Yeon (played by Song Ji-Hyo) is on the edge after he finds out that his wife has an affair. Unfortunately, he is too embarrassed to ask his family/colleagues for advice, so he's going on a social media instead to ask anonymous people for their opinions regarding what he should do to save his marriage.

To make this more interesting, Do Hyun-Woo is surrounded by people who also have similar issue regarding commitment, marriage, and cheating. First is his co-worker, Kwon Bo-Young (played by BoA) who is a divorcee and not considering to remarried after her first failure until she meets Ahn Joon-Young (played by Lee Sang-Yeob) who is pretending to be married for 3 years because he is too ashamed by the fact that his wife left him 3 days after their honeymoon. Then there is Choi Yoon-Ki (played by Kim Hee-Won) who is a total womanizer and going around sleeping with tons of women behind his wife's back, Eun Ah-Ra (played by Ye Ji-Won), whom he definitely takes for granted.

After Do Hyun-Woo finds out about his wife's affair, he's becoming anxious, afraid, and confused about what he's going to do next. He opens up a thread on a forum and asking anonymous people for their point of views and asking for a guide. As might be expected, the responses are divided in 2 popular opinions: those who want him to try to make things work with his wife and those who want him to divorce her right away.

Lee Sun-Gyun definitely portrays the emotion precisely. In this phase, I was watching while thinking "Why don't you just calm your damn self and listen to your wife first instead of going crazy yelling here and there?!" but then I started to try to view this in his perspective, as I'm imagining what if it was me who was in his position. It must be really hard to accept the fact, to face the reality that there is a chance his marriage might be ruined because of this, and most importantly, the fact that the one he loves the most deceives him.

I'm not married. In fact, I'm a total noob in romantic relationship matters and have zero experience in this field. But I have my own views on cheating and affair. Thanks to this drama, I'm inspired to make a comparison between my own perspective vs drama perspective (based on what I perceive) regarding cheating, and marriage.

Second Chance

I believe that cheating can be a habit if you keep compromising with it, therefore I personally wouldn't bother to give a second chance to my s/o if he cheated on me, regardless of what his reason is. Being unfaithful simply means you are not committed enough to make you relationship works. Instead of cheating, if you really have something that bothers you, I think it's better to talk it out with your s/o and working together to find any possible solutions, especially when you're married. You are tied with law (and your vow) and divorce is not as easy as breaking up when you were still dating.

The Bad Cop

In this drama, the husband is seen reflected a lot after his wife explain the reason she cheated is basically because of her husband, who doesn't seem able to understand her struggle as a working mom and housewife, even though she's also feel sorry herself. For me, the one to blame for cheating is never the third person but the doer itself, be it the wife or the husband. Once you're unfaithful, you automatically become the bad cop because no intruder would step into your home if you're not opening the door. Remember that both of you have the same responsible to keep your home safe from the intruder.

Forgive vs Forget

After the husband declaring to the anonymous audience in the forum that he has decided to forgive his wife, the wife asked him the last, real question: can you really forget the fact that your wife was held by other man? There's a conflict here where he wants to start over, wants to try to give a second shot with his wife and continue to live together as if nothing happened, but his subconscious mind forbids him to do so, because the answer is you can't. You simply cannot forget the fact that your s/o had been held by other man than you, unless you hit your head to the rock and loss your memory.

JTBC/Dramacool

Overall, I recommend everyone to watch this drama! This is not your typical romance k-drama, it has serious topic and comedy as well so it's still fun to watch (plus Lee Sun-Gyun, the korean actor with sexiest voice is starred in this drama!!)

In the end, faithfulness is definitely one of the must-have-traits you should find in your partner, because we're all deserve to be with someone who love us as much as we love them ❤ And if you have other thoughts on this drama, please let me know by leaving your comment below! :)

Happy Sunday everyone! Before Monday hits again, I would love to enjoying my weekend by watching, not only dramas but also vlogs on YouTube (so unproductive, I know). I've been so interested in vlogs lately since I found vloggers who's worth the time to watch, and I'm gonna share a few of them here.

My number 1 favorite is 영국남자 Korean Englishman (영국남자 = yeong-guk nam-ja--which literally means "Englishman"). The team consists of some english guys who loves Korean culture, Josh, Ollie, and their friends, Rev. Chris, Joel, Johnny, Dan, Ted, etc. Their vlogs are effortlessly funny and so entertaining. I swear this is not your ordinary vlogs. My favorite series is "English People try Korean____" where they let english people try some of korean foods & drinks, from the most normal to the weirdest ones. The reactions and comments are hilariously funny *insert rolling on the floor laughing GIF here*

Their newest vlog series is where they take english Priest (Father Chris) to Korea for the first time and giving him the tour around Seoul. Watch the series trailer here!

anddd Joel is the main character on their on-going series now. He is currently having intermediate Korean experience, unlike Rev. Chris who is a first timer in Korea.

Next up is 데이브 The World of Dave. Dave is American who has been living in Korea for years and he also super creative with his vlogs. Particularly like the way he edits and puts on some funny BGM to his videos 😂 My favorite series out of all his vlogs is the world languange series, where he compares pronunciation differences between languange around the world with his friends, Erina (from Japan), Vai (from China), Jae-in & Hee-sun (from Korea), Blair (from Australia), and many more.

He also once invited the Korean Englishmen to make a comparison between UK & US english, and they try to impersonate each other's accent LOLLL. This is where he invited Joel (whose laugh is so funny, you have to turn your speaker volume up to the max). Love them!!

I guess that's all for this today. Now I'm giving you more time to stalk and watch and subscribe them on YouTube :) Anyway, here is the bonus GIF where Erina has no idea about what FB is 😂😂😂

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by rissaprana

Hello my dear fellow interns,

Indri, the jajan initiator,
Cepe, the ex-finalist of miss UMN 2014,
Tassya, the one and only interior designer at Bridestory e.v.e.r,
El, the most on-time person I know,

I wish we could've met sooner, so we got to spend our jajan time longer! :')) Can't believe it's already time for me to parted with you guys 😢 Just so you know, I never regret my decision to extend my internship period on June, because I wouldn't have met you all if I did't do so. Thank you for giving me the best memories at Bridestory :) You are the source of my strength everyday #gombal #inibohong #tapibenar (?)

I'm so sure I would miss all the times we spend at FoodHall and Indomaret together :')))))) How Indri would immediately send the jajan invitation (aka ngajak jajan) at around 4PM everyday, how Cepe would ask for pulang yuk, how Elisa would be so busy she couldn't go out for jajan more than 30 mins, and how Tassya who has to give up on jajan because of the event layout for more than 700 vendors 😂 #AllAboutJajan

Because of you, I get to stroll around Bellezza to its highest floor (thanks Elisa for discovering our lunch spot di lantai atas). I used to be that one shy and introvert girl in the corner who had no one to talk to except the printer (lol) but since I know all of you, I have brighter and happier days at the office 😁 #gombalpart2

Eventhough we have a love-hate relationship with our lunch catering, I would still reminisce our lunch time everyday, when we would talk and laugh about stuff and planning our getaway to dumdum land aka ITC Permata Hijau.

Thank you for every smiles and the good times you bring at the office. I'm sorry if you might find me annoying or over-talkative at times. I hope you all can finish your internship happily (?) and please don't forget each other (especially ME!) 😂 Good luck and God bless you all my loveliest intern squad! See you next year (hopefully)! :)

(So) much love,
Maria Juwita
Your ex-fellow intern buddy

So... what is this drama about actually?

Second Chance

The Bad Cop

Forgive vs Forget

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