Happy Tiger Year!

Wishing you all a Happy Tiger Year and Happy Valentine too..

It's my first post after a while since I'm just back from a long holiday, nearly two months since my last post around Christmas last year so hopefully I'll be able to catch up with latest issue soon.

Merry Christmas!

My posts have been slowing down over the past month, it doesn't mean that I have given up blogging neither I've lost my passion about Korea. It's merely just because I've been very busy lately at work, working back for every single day including weekends. Well, it's Christmas time! It's the busiest time of the year, hopefully after new year I'll manage to update this blog with interesting post about Korea.

Well... Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a joyous Christmas ever!

My tiny Christmas tree..

Good Morning Panda

The first Hallyu Star I fell for, Song Hye-kyo, has been appointed as Asia's first panda goodwill ambassador by the Chinese government in June. Song will shed the light on the pandas' hidden world and the threat of their extinction during the documentary, 'Good Morning Panda,' co-produced by South Korea and China. It will be broadcast through EBS TV's Docu Prime Wednesday.

Song, who visited a panda habitat in Sichuan Province after becoming a goodwill envoy, has been working to publicize the need to preserve pandas across Asia while calling for international support for the project.

(source: Korea Times)

Ninja Assassin

Jeong Ji-hoon or better known as Rain, said that he did over 90 percents of stunts on his new Hollywood movie 'Ninja Assassin' himself. Actually it's his second Hollywood movie after his supporting role in 'Speed Racer' which was a flop.

Ninja Assassin is a ninja movie set in modern world, full of action and graphic violence so it's definitely a movie for fans who love martial arts and action. I am looking forward to seeing this in the cinema but I think I have to wait a bit longer since it won't be showing in my city till next year.

'Bump Bump!'

BoA has released her 28th single, "Bump Bump!" in Japan on Oct.28, a dance with jaunty rhythm. She plans to hold Christmas concerts in Tokyo Dec.4-5 and in Osaka Dec.8.

Here is BoA with her fresh look, some says her short hair cut just looks like Utada Hikaru's style.

Hallyu Festival in Tokyo

The craze for Hallyu stars has spread all over Asia and especially in Japan, some Korean stars have huge number of fanatic fans since the success of Winter Sonata which triggered the Korean wave culture in Japan. In recent years, the wild success of Korean dramas driving up the popularity of Korean actors in Japan.

Four Korean drama stars: Lee Byung-hun, Jang Dong-gun, Song Seung-hun and Won bin will take part in a special 'Hallyu' festival in Tokyo in this December. The event, to take place December 17 at Tokyo Dome, will be directed by renowned Japanese writer-producer Yasushi Akimoto. The four actors will give a theatrical performance set to an audiovisual piece by acclaimed Korean director Hur Jin-ho. The top stars will also introduce fans to their latest films and TV dramas and take part in an interview session.

(source: Korea Times)

2009 Mnet Asian Music Awards

2009 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) is the new form of KM Music Festival previously organised by two cable channels, Mnet and KM. This year, Mnet Media announced that they are creating a new event that would attract not only Korea's most popular singers, but those from around the world. MAMA will be held at Jamsil Indoor Stadium on Nov.21, 2009. The six-hour event will be aired live on Mnet.

Mnet also enabled foreign fans to vote for their favorite singers and groups through a separate web site. Those who have overseas IPs will only have the chance to vote through this particular web page.

Talented artists will compete in 29 categories divided into five different sections, including singer, genre, music video, grand prizes and others. The nominee for the Best Male Singer are Drunken Tiger, Rain and G-Dragon, among others, while the Best Female Singer category includes Bada, Baek Ji-young, and Son Dam-bi.

Who would you vote? For me, definitely I'd vote for one of my favorite singers, Son Dam-bi!

(Picture courtesy of: Korea Times)

(Source: Korea Times)