Greetings from South Korea!
Remember that series “One Day Off”? In the final episode, the heroine went to Gyeongju, a city on the eastern side of the peninsula, filled with antiquities from the great dynasty of Silla. I decided to do a “meta” travel of sorts, and retraced the footsteps of the heroine who was retracing her footsteps with her schoolfriend who had long passed away. For full effect, I left my hubby in Seoul and explored Gyeongju solo.
Anyway, this was the bridge where the kdrama female lead said her goodbye to the ghost of her good friend. Was I also saying goodbye to my kdrama addicted soul? Who knows?
Anyway, what dramas am I watching this month? Not many.
After spending a whole day in a palace, museum or market, it’s hardly a shocker that I want to immerse myself in something different when I come home to our rented apartment. Nowadays, I’ve been watching cdrama, notably this cdrama called “The First Jasmine.”
The First Jasmine (2026)
Cast: Ryan Cheng (“The Legend of the Female General”) and Bai Lu (who doesn’t know her?)
Episodes: 40
Start Date: June 9
Airs an episode or two everyday
Where to Watch it: Viki
Network: Tencent
I’m sorry @agdr03 and @ibisfeather, but I tabled “Pursuit of Jade” for now.
IMO, “The First Jasmine” is a female version of Alexander Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Instead of pretending to be a member of the French nobility, the main protagonist in this cdrama is the granddaughter of the founder of the acclaimed Li Shan Academy. Instead of being imprisoned for 14 years on an island, she’s trapped for 8 years in solitary existence in the mountains. And instead of exacting revenge of those who wrongfully jailed her, she sets out to destroy the men who killed the scholars of the academy as well as her beloved mother, and to seek justice on behalf of the male lead. I don’t mind the cold-blooded way she manipulates the events to punish the wicked, given that she herself is suffering from deep psychological trauma. I especially admire how she accomplishes to avenge the sufferings of those she cared about … except her own ordeal. She’s her own blind spot.
What are you watching this month?
Hi @pkml3! I hope the S Korean weather is better than my rainy yet hot/sticky days over here. BTW, I believe the July WAWW thread will already be due next week!!!
I should not have, but I did start the Kdrama “See You At Work Tomorrow” for Seo In Guk. Two episodes of set up so that we know where everyone stands and now it’s a long wait until Monday for Ep 3. However I’ll not be able to catch Eps 4-6 for a couple of weeks. It’s been good especially to see SIG again. I don’t seem to remember the FL although she’s been in dramas I’ve watched, but she’s heartily watchable. It will be a workplace romance with the intensity that SIG normally brings.
I tried the Cdrama “Love has Fireworks” for the ML and FL but the story is too predictable and bland, and therefore boring. There are long moments where editing would have helped a lot. It might be nice if one wanted to just while the time away with nothing much to think about. I have dropped it for now at Episode 6.
The best watch is still the rewatch of Pinocchio. The writing there is so good, other shows pale by comparison.
Other than that, if I only have an hour here or there, I just head to YT for a quick watch of any British whodunit. 🙂
It is good to hear from you, @pcml3!
I started First Jasmine lazily and suddenly woke up to how great it was somewhere after about a dozen episodes. Grace is watching it too, and Monmor.
I loved AShes to Crown, a crazy wild melodrama with a truly flawed heroine and a really intense Zhou Yi Ran, but it is only 24 episodes of crisis after crisis and the three main antagonists look way too much alike for me to recommend it to you.
Otherwise, like GB my rewatches are the most exciting events in my life, except for more movies, animes and crime stories than usual.
Oh, but I could recommend Legend of Kitchen Soldier to you — it was really relaxing — maybe better for your evenings than more complicated fare.
I have 3 rewatches:
— the BOD group’s Pinocchio
— Monmor and I are rewatching (or in my case watching for the first time) Jang Ok Jung. The watch was triggered at first by Royal Nemesis, which I then dropped, but we happily stuck with the sageuk.
–I am on a personal rehabilitative retrospective of Kim Soo Hyun’s roles, which right now has me watching My Love from the Star. A real treasure.
I am really looking forward to East Palace in July.
I said I wasn’t in the mood for kdramas but I glanced at “See You At Work Tomorrow” because of you, @GB. As to be expected, Seo In Guk is good in these tsundere roles. Will open a thread for us.
I can relate to the subway experience of the female lead. I seldom take public transportation so it was verrry enlightening to join the throng of people getting on board an already crowded car. But since I’m using my cane again (long story), Seoulites had been kindly offering the disabled seat for me.
Hi @pkml3, I have a cane!! I loved it when I had reason to use it. All made way for me like I was some queen. Now it’s with my father-in-law, but he does not want to get about with it… he uses the wheelchair!!!
Thanks in advance for the SIG thread lol (I mean the SYAWT thread). I like SIG’s tsundere style. He’s so earnest in this role. ML and FL both have the same background in electrical engineering, I think. They should be able to understand each other ‘technically’ 😉 although as boss and underling they will have their tensions.
How many episodes is the drama? Hah! Asianwiki does not tell us but MDL says it’s 12 episodes, so the romance should get underway sooner rather than later!
I am still watching Perfect Crown. I adjusted my viewing lens, so now I enjoy the show as an old-fashioned melodrama.
I was interested in Royal Nemesis, but the reactions online are not too positive. I might give a try to Doctor On The Edge, solely for Lee Jae Wook.
I am interested Kitchen Soldier.
I am also looking forward to East Palace and Spooky In Love.
Kalimera.
I do hope you are all okay. I have missed you @Packmule3 and @GB Unnie.
Hello there @Snow Flower and @ibisfeather.
For several reasons, I am not watching dramas as I used to.
I managed to finish “My Royal Nemesis” the only show I started on a whim, and I really enjoyed. Also, “Perfect Crown” has come to European Disney Plus, so I have started it. But I am taking my time with it, since the spoilers were everywhere when it was airing and I am not in an hurry to finish it.
I may start “My First Jamsmine”, but for now I haven’t.
Lastly and importantly, I have heard that an earthquake happened to Venezuela.
Is @FGB safe? I do hope he will reach out.
Hi @Cleopatra. Yes, I hope FGB has time to reach out from Caracas. The death toll is very high, I see on the BBC, so she probably has a lot to do.
Hello dear Friends, how are you doing?
We had a great scare yesterday. My cat got his hips near ground before earthquake was felt. The lowkey rumbling of Caracas stopped, then a strange rumbling that I attribute to windows vibrating akin a cellophane membrane (As a MSc. in Materials – Metallurgy, not Ceramics that would be the proper degree – I am pretty sure it was NOT the case… but it surely felt like that).
Then the movement started.
As an old schooler I did my best to turn down my PC then stood under a door frame waiting the world to stop moving, also calling Mr. Kitty… which went missing for a good while under a sofa.
Some ceramic ornaments broke, a horse head statuette fell off and took out one of the four antennas in my Router.
I consider myself lucky. No one in my immediate circle lost its life.
Spent the next two hours still at home, calling the chicklets (going through my contacts to see if everyone was OK). My beloved friend and door-to-door neighbor of over twenty years did not appear, so I couldn’t leave my post… only to look at the street, see her car and understanding that she left as soon as the first two quakes happened! ^_^U Went down to our building’s parking lot and felt very happy to meet her and our neighbors.
Seemingly a neighbor had his wife visiting La Guaira and now he is a widower. Haven’t personally asked tough.
I sent a lot of messages, received also a lot o messages, including my high school best friends. Couldn’t sleep until 2:30 AM (at some point around 1 AM a good aftershock was felt – thankfully my cat serves as a good earthquake early warning signal, now that I can understand more of his feline wisdom).
Today I went down to my usual supermarket and also checked the people at the drugstore I go to read my tension to see if everyone was OK. Thankfully they were!
Lately I am not really in a Drama watching mood. I have been rewatching “Okaeri Mone (2021)” but at this moment her trauma on the March 11 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami feels a little bit close to home, so “Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You (2026)” feels like decompressing to me.
As always, happy to read you all!
BTW Dear @GB, I sent you a small e-mail from my cellphone, with a photo of my view here in Caracas.
Lately I’ve been doing more photographs. It is a good exercise to romanticize the life you have to live, in order to find the beauty in it and its people. If you want, you can share it among our Friends!
Also “Pain of Estrangement” is still growing, if only in the notebooks!
Read you soon!
Dream To You
just showed up on the coming soon rakuten-viki in US list.
The couple are a filmmaker and a reporter, which draws me in.
I can take or leave the leads, but many here will love Lee Hyeri and Hwang In Youp.
Following my theory that the broth is just as important as the main ingredients, I will watch for the sake of Baek Sung Chul (the adorable lanky 2ML in Brewing Love), the evergreen Lee Sang Youb, and Park Ji Young who has done so much great work (she will play the mom). I dont recognize Lee Yeol Eum from her picture, but she was one of the the female leads in Nevertheless (and others)
It is rainy and cool here and I just put together a version of Manhattan clam chowder, so soup is on my mind.
MCC uses (besides the usual) tomatoes, no milk. I tried canned clams which turn out to be just as good as the fresh for this purpose, now that I have left my snobbish youth far behind.
@FGB, I was just thinking about you right now, and I’m relieved that you are ok.
I saw how devastating it was on the news and they talk about lot of victims.
Keep safe.
Dear Bro @WEnchanteur! How have you been?
Sorry for dissapearing for so long. Routine, even if boring, has been swallowing me. Even if “Pain of Estrangement” is still growing (and I am learning Python using Harvard’s CS50 YouTube Video with Dr. Malan), I am afraid I am getting duller.
This Earthquake has shaken me up, of course in nasty ways (thanks Lord Buddha me and my family are OK), but also in enlightening ways.
I haven’t get out of my routine in my very small bubble. Still steeling myself to take a walk and see with my own eyes what happened. My part of the city is OK on the surface.
Rewatching “Okaeri Mone (2021)” for a third time, but since Momone deals with her trauma on the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami and even if this Asadora deals with it honestly and constructively, at this moment it falls too close to home.
Enjoying an Anime, “Smoking behind the Supermarket with you (2026)” about a sassy and beautiful cashier trolling and getting to know a fan of the working version of herself through her real persona. It is an inversion as the one leading the situation is the younger woman while the middle aged customer is the innocent one. So far so good!
Hope you are OK,
FGB4877
Good to know that you are okay @FGB!
Hello @ibisfeather!
Good to hear from you! I do hope you are okay!
Yes, the death toll is very high…unfortunately.
Hi all!
Another cdrama alert from the wilds of viki rakuten.
I have been watching much more cdrama romance, my only excuse is that I dont really have a good intuition about cdramas yet, so I tend to watch a lot more out of curiousity.
In consequence I do a lot of ]retrospective watching for newish actors/actresses.
So Viki has in the queue for the US two of the latest 2026 Song WeiLong shows — The Eternal Fragrance should be soon, but also Love For You is coming, probably later in the summer.
Looking him up I see that viki has enough shows, eleven of them, to run a little Song WeiLong festival through the summer. He is the latest green flag boy, from Shine On Me as the excellent and thoughtful lead.
It seems impossible that he has any right to choose his own roles, so no guarantee that those shows might all be so pleasant.
This is almost a hijack of this thread, but Happy July the 4th (250 years of Independence!) to our American Friends here.
Your Nation has achieved what no other civilization before. Hope you keep the good work!
Dear Cleo, Kalinichta from my side of the World! Hope everything is OK in Greece. Here in Caracas we are going through very strange days. The somberness in our folks is not normal. On the other hand people are fighting this event with solidarity and goodwill.
Good Korean shows are coming out all over the place for summer.
Looking at an mdl list for next weekend more or less, the new ones are all short!
The airing schedule for Nam Joo Hyuk’s (E.Palace, 8 eps) and Jung Haein’s (St.Love, 12 eps) is ONLY ONCE A Week. Thats sort of new.
Dream to You (12 eps) and Spooky In Love (12 eps) follow the more usual (recently) two ep schedule, length and size.
Anybody else enjoying Blossoms of Power? It reminds me of a fluffier sageuk somehow. It appeals to my lazy side and can be watched without stress in between World Cup games.
Everything is explained and crystal clear.
The FL and ML are definitely made for each other.
All of the characters are easy to tell apart.
The plot is predictable and sometimes a little loose.
But the actors are personable and sometimes even oddly funny.
I am enjoying Blossoms of Power, but slowly~~ I agree, it does not feel complicated, but it seems well done. I will be disappointed though if the princess loses her edge when she starts to actually care (more so if she loses it before then of course).
Key the Pheonix Heart also dropped yesterday, and although I started it for Hao Minghou I felt second-lead sydrome before the second lead even showed up 😅 Yao Yao (FL) is very convincingly infatuated from the start. I just want her to have her A’Mao 😂