What I did for my drama craze addiction was staying up 4 days 4 night watching Glass Slipper...and the bad part was introducing my mom into it causing her to be influence with the addiction and so she ended up staying 4 nights with me to watch the entire drama, causing in sick and taking vacation days off...we just couldn't let it down...that was my worse craze since on the 5th day, my mom and I were walking zombies...and that was how mum and I ended up falling for So Ji Sub...lol...good times good times :D

AWESOME!!! I better start writing now!!! :D

OK, so when I was about 13 or 14, I was secretly following "Successful Story of a Bright Girl" (Jang Na Ra & Jang Hyuk) on TV. I use the word "secretly" because I wasn't allowed to watch TV on weekdays but kdramas only show on weekdays! Unfortunately for me, during the final week of the show, my parents were home early a lot and at that time I had not learnt of streaming or downloading yet so I was frantically trying to find a way to watch the last few episodes. Sooo what I did was call up one of my good friends and ask her to watch it while telling me exactly what happens, all while I pretended to be asking her about school work. She was really sweet, she turned her TV up louder so I could listen (it was dubbed in Mandarin so I could understand) and then she would semi-explain facial expressions and what they were doing. Ever try to LISTEN to a kdrama? Yea, it's not easy! Haha but in retrospect, it was kinda fun!

fun fact: i only started downloading stuff when I was 17 or so because I had to miss the final episode of "Let's Go To The Beach" due to exams. I didn't have cable tv at the time so episodes only showed once and tht was it. I remember thinking how unlikely it was that i'd be able to download it but there it was! And thus my beautiful journey of not having to panic when I miss episodes of kdramas began..

Well this isnt Korean but its Autumn's Concerto's Taiwanese dram .
I remember that I NEVERRR wanted to watch it,my friends bugg me to watch it since it was so damn good,.
But I never could put myslef to watch cause of Vaness Wu and I was like TYPCIAL storyline for Taiwanese so i never watch it and so after it ended for a couple weeks,
and nothing was good to watch since my faves dramas episode dint air yet ,
I decided to watch a mv on Autumn's Concerto and.
I was like I well give this a try, and I ended up watching the whole thing in a night and day ,broke the charger for the laptop and the laptop itself since it was tooo overheated,
and then went to school the next day and my friend was like WOW!
And I like Vaness after that.
XD!

Thanks for not publishing this but I want to share my wackiest experience for being a kdrama addict.

I was watching a drama that has 16 dics and it got into me that I want to know the story and what happen to my dream guy and his love affair. I was sleeping until 4am and has to go to work at 7 for how many day... until I can not wait anymore and my head hurts every time I go to work... after finishing the first book wich was about 8 DVs and met all the characters and their stories..... and coz of my craving I went ahead to watch disc 16 and ahhhhhhhhhh... what a relieve..... then I had to go back to disc 9 and watch the entire drama again.... ha..ha..ha...

My Kdrama peers says... I'm crazy... but what can I do I cannot last more sleepless nites..... thinking about the drama i need to know what happened.....ha..ha..ha..

I enjoy reading your recaps.....often it is our basis to buy the DVD... i'm just curious what happened to "Smile You" was it not worth recapping? it stopped behind the ending...... Thanks for all your effort ..

shalom,
geri

I think this was a good 4 years ago. I was at a friend's house and we started watching My Girl. I had work the next morning at 9AM mind you and I stayed at her house until about 2AM just watching it. I then promptly went home and downloaded the rest of the episodes and stayed up watching them. Needless to say... work was not fun the next day.

The more common ones i have done is staying up the whole night trying to finish up the whole series. When i got my first laptop, I told my mom i was going to sleep early that day, but in fact i was secretly watching Stairways to Heaven DVD on my laptop. I was completely aware that if i'm going to keep the lights on in my room, my mom will know immediately i wasnt going to sleep. So i took my jeans and stuff it under the door. (there's this small gap underneath the door, between the door and the floor). This gave her the impression the lights are off.

I have skipped CCA (which is some compulsory afterschool activities here in S'pore) just to go home early to watch my drama :D one of the most outrageous thing i have done was to get addicted to Swallow the Sun one week right before my O Levels. I was even watching it the day before my paper. If my mom would to know this, she's definitely going to kill me.

there are a lot of things i did for the sake of my kdramas. it would be unfair just to say one thing. so, there are but some of the things i did:

1.i still didn't have a laptop then so i borrowed from a friend saying i BADLY need to finish something. i had it for two weeks and when i returned it, she was even apologizing that she needed to get it back. i was like... you have no idea!

2. Sleep is less important. there have been so many times that i would stay up all night just to finish a series and work the next day.

3. and yes there have been times that because of number 2, i was forced to call in sick the next day.

4. when i am currently watching a series and some friends invite me to go out - i usually don't reply to any of their texts, calls and even if they were right in front of my door.

to be continued...

This would be fun!! I would start to think about my kdrama habits and addictions now.. and see if anything can be considered as wacky and fun as everybody here. I already have that DVD anyway but I think being a part of this "game" is a good way for us to get to know each other.

And JB.. Here here!!! I am already admitting to the fact I did what you did too!! I called off sick just because I know I would be thinking about the episode ALL day! And with my line of work, lives are at stake there, you can't slip up!

a few years ago, i got so addicted with the drama Winter Sonata that i would watch my vcd religiously everyday for almost 5 months. i was so caught up with bae yong jun's character that i think i truly believed, like believing in the very depths of my soul, that we are soulmates and that something will happen to lead us both to each other's paths. i was so deluded i would even tell my bestfriend about it and i can still perfectly remember the expression on her face whenever i'd tell her about my obsession. like she want to bitchslap some sense straight into my addled, frenzied brain. hmm, i think she actually did, once.

i just laugh now and shake my head whenever i'd remember how naive i was then. not to mention crazy.

Oh! I have lots. But we can only share one, so this might as well be it:

In 2004 when I was 11, my mom got all the tapes of Stairway to Heaven from the Korean market. Well, on the weekend I had to attend a convention with my family for 3 days.. it was about a 4 hours drive to get there as well. Well, the previous night I HAD to finish ALL the episodes of StH... and watched it til 5 am the next day... which happened to be the same day I had to attend an 8 hour convention. If you ask why my parents said nothing: they were sleeping.

There's always the traditional cup ramen to eat while watching dramas, but when it got to the part where Han Jung Suh's brother died I started crying and I sniiffed too hard, which made the small pieces in the soup to go up my nose. Sigh.

Unfortunately, the after affects of Han Jung Suh's death was too powerful for me to handle, I had to skip school days from a cold and several days of depression.

Soon as I hear the beginning drum beats of Ave Maria the tears start pouring like no end. During the car ride I kept hearing the song stuck in my head (drum beats. ahhhhhhhh----veeeeee-mmmmaaaaa-rrriiiii----aaaaaaa) and I started crying in the car. One minute I'm in deep sleep. The next minute I'm like "Nyooooo!". Than sleep. Than crying. GAHHH.

Little did I know that this was the beginning of K-drama addiction when I missed half the days of my school year to finish off series and not being able to attend school due to overwhelming tiredness.

This incident occurred about six years ago. The first time I had ever watched a Korean drama and a pretty funny memory too. Before K-drama I was a manga/anime fanatic. After a long day of a scavenger hunting, I was eager to catch up on my DNAngel episodes. As I went to me my room, my friend Melissa was using my laptop and right away I was annoyed. She was laughing hysterically and that didn't help at all and I thought to myself, "is she insane listening that mambo jumbo?" After after 5 hours of non-stop laughter I told her it was time to sleep. I waited to make sure she was gone so I could continue with DNAngel. She hadn't exited the drama and I was curious to find out what the laughter was all about considering she laughed on for hours. The drama was "Wonderful Life" and boy was I hooked. I watched the entire drama within a 12 hr period skipping through a few episodes to find out what happened to the main couple. Then I called up Melissa requesting for more drama titles and sites. Ever since that day my life has never been the same. You rock Korean drama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a certified k-drama addict. I've watched more than 50 kdramas already. I can give you my entire list. :) Since I am the type of person who wants to finish an entire show in one sitting, you wouldn't want to know what kind of life I've led just to finish all of them. Here are some the most memorable stuffs I did:

1. I have a field trip and the meeting time was 7 AM. The day before I started watching Beethoven Virus. It's a 16 -episode show right? I watched the entire show and didn't slept the whole night. By 6 AM, I wasn't done yet with the last episode. I was thinking to stop already but NO! I watched till the very end. After that I had to hurry up to prepare for the trip. When I arrived the bus was about to leave and my teacher asked where the hell did I come from since my dorm was only a walking distance from the meeting place. :) Beat that!

2. I got addicted to YAB when it first came out. At work, we have a very fast internet connection so I try to sneak and download the YAB episodes. I can download an episode in about 30 mins so in a day I try to download 4 episodes. One day my boss told me that the IT head wants to talk to me. I got nervous because I thought I am so gonna be deed. When I talked to our IT head, he told me, "I noticed you're downloading."

I didn't want to lie so I said, "Yes sir. I'm sorry sir. I promise it won't happen again." He replied, "No. It's okay. Just make sure you just download one at a time." I was like... what? Hahahaha. And here I thought I was going to hell.

So there you go. :) I'm having run reading the stories of other people.

Is it ok to share a couple of stories in one post?

April 2004

After graduating a week ago, all graduates are still at the university because of a mandatory summer class/review for the licensure/board examination that will take place on June. I live in a dormitory with no TV! Back then, I do not have my own laptop and PC Cafes' internet are slow for streaming videos. Stained Glass just recently started airing dubbed in our local language. And I was so in love with Lee Dong Gun because of Lovers in Paris.

So I had no choice back then to watch it as there is no Tivo either.. so I had my bestfriend promise me to record it with her digital camera during its broadcast. Back then the popular cameras boast 3-5.0 megapixels, with no HD! And all the while she records her TV while the Stained Glass was being aired!!! It's like watching The Blair Witch Project bec of the movement plus with my friend's younger brother passing by their family room every commercial break. I DIDN'T CARE!! At least I was able to watch Stained Glass every morning before class started on a 1.5 inch (or was it 2?) screen of my friends digital camera..

had a Boys Over Flowers party and watched the last episode together with our F5 girlfriends (we called each other F5 because there were 5 of us). we made gu jun pyo face do-shi-rak just like in the drama. we each brought a dish such as ramen, o-deng, dduk bbo kki, etc. to share. we emailed each other constantly and commented about the episodes throughout the whole drama series. one F5 member's 4 year old daughter knew all of the lyrics to the BOF soundtrack and would request to listen to it whenever they were in the car. when we got together for the finale party, we discussed BOF the whole night. we couldn't get enough. we drooled over the guys and bonded over BOF. we had SUCH a good time that night and during the whole series. one F5 member took pictures of the evening and made a snapfish photo booklet for each of us to remember the night. BOF is THE drama that truly got me HOOKED on kdramas!

Like most Korean drama addicts, I have stayed up countless of nights watching dramas. When there was nothing else to watch, I would re-watch my favorite dramas over and over again. One thing I am a little—okay maybe a lot—embarrassed to share to you all is how I would re-act as the main actress of a drama I was watching. What I mean by this is….
Since I was like ten, I started to pretend I was the main actress and my pillow would be the main actor. I would go over all the cute interactions the couple had together but with my pillow. When I started to understand Korean better, I would go over the lines in part Korean and part English. I would act this out after almost all dramas I watched. This has become a habit of mine and I cannot seem to stop it now—I am not eighteen. I think I am pretty much the only person who does this. Since I have been watching dramas for the longest time, I now understand Korean and can understand what my Korean friends are talking about when they converse. Korea is also one of the top places I want to visit the most behind Europe.

Hey Javabeans & Girlfriday!

Let's see, the craziest thing I've ever done for a drama,,
I remember when Samsooki (<3 your awesome recaps) was recapping City Hall. I was on the border line of watching it, or to watch Cain and Abel (a drama that was showing on the same days as City Hall) Anyways, after reading all of Samsooki's recaps, I started watching City Hall and was really hooked. I did the most logical thing I could think of (which,, wasn't so logical) and called in sick at school for 2 days. Before these 2 days, I had it all set up; I knew that I would have no access to a computer during the days that I had to fake sick, I asked one of my drama-obsessed friends to download all 20 episodes onto my mp3 player. With that tiny screen, I watched, arguably, the best drama that was ever made in 2 days. Having the little screen hidden in my bed covers with one of the headphones in my ear, the other alert for my mom if she decides to check up on me. That was the best 2 days of my drama-life. =)

I have to open your site every 30minutes-1hour to check if you posted the review for the new episode of you're beautiful and personal taste and next to facebook yours is the second site that I checked once I open my laptop and last website to read before I go to sleep <i'm checking if there are new updates with the dramas that I watched. and I bought my 64gb ipod touch for the sole reason of putting all my fave kdramas in it, but the space still not enough!!

Lastly, my friend and I are planning to go to south korea by the end of this year to tour the set locations of : coffee prince, full house and N seoul tower and boys over flowers.. ^_^

I'm going to KANYE this to make me noticed.haters.

I WAS WATCHING EP 1 OF FANTASY COUPLE AT A FRIENDS PLACE AND COMPLETELY GOT HOOKED! AS I DIDN'T HAVE INTERNET AT MY PLACE AT THE TIME, I LITERALLY SCOURED ALL OF BOSTON (where i live in the us) BUT TO NO AVAIL. AT THAT MONENT OF MINUTE DEFEAT I BOUGHT A BUS PASS TO NYC TO BUY THE DVDS THERE. FINALLY I FOUND A SHOP IN CHINATOWN NYC AND WAS ECSTATIC. AS I WAS ABOUT TO BOARD THE LATER BUS BACK TO MY STATE I JUST COULDN'T WAIT AND BOOKED THE LAST BUS BACK SO I CAN FIND TIME TO FIND A SUITED PORTABLE DVD PLAYER. FOR THE LONG RIDE BACK OF COURSE =P

you wanna know what I'll do for THIS dvd?! *raises fist*

I've been a Kdrama fan since the early Hallyu years, back when Autumn in my Heart was shown in our local television. I know my stories are pretty normal, but I'm having fun reminiscing them and reading the other posts as well.

Back when I had no laptop/ computer at home to watch/ download these dramas, I can only rely on our local tv.

I remember when Winter Sonata had reruns for the nth time, I raced home everyday from work just to watch it, even spending most of my salary just to arrive home in time before the show starts. Or when Delightful Girl Chun Hyang, Full House, Autumn in my heart where shown, I raced home from school, eyes glued to the screen, with my homework on the side.

When I had my laptop, I was introduced to the wonders of downloading and streaming videos (which can be bad, I know), I remember downloading all kinds of add-ons just to watch Coffee Prince.

Late nights for drama watching are pretty normal to me, so I'm kind of used to it by now. I think it all takes practice to master the art of drama watching at night and working in the day.

During the craziness of BoF, I alarmed my watch just in time to watch a streaming episode, and after that, I get ready for school, then head to work. Sometimes, I even miss classes when after watching an episode, just to hang out at soompi and discuss speculations (what speculations?) and attack crazy fangirls ( I kid.) who are in the Jandi-Ji hoo ship.

A month ago, I watched a lot of drama to relieve the stress of having two jobs, that I willingly sacrificed my other job in the morning to watch my dramas at night. I watched a lot of dramas at night when I come home from my other job that I call in sick the next day to miss my morning job so much, that I received a written warning a while ago as I had 8 absences and 2 lates for the month of May. This was the first time I had a bad record at work, but so what. Those dramas were worth it anyway.

You're Beautiful started my addiction- and my sister. Her daughter's classmate who's Korean recommended this (were Filipino) and we got hooked. I would start watching at 8pm until 4 in the morning and get to work by 6 ! Then at work, during my breaks I would watch it on my iphone. My sister bought me the dvd set which I watched again and again...My sister ordered pig rabbit and the ribbon on line. I ended buying the same instant film camera ( or I think, I got the fuji instax) that was used in the show. But I truly believe my addiction became full blown with Boys over flowers. After watching the Korean version, I watched the Japanese version ( Hana yori Dango) and then the Taiwanese version (Meteor garden). Then I watched the animated version. What started out as a kdrama addiction, turned into an asian drama obsession. My recent purchases on ebay was goong S- arrived last mon, and I bought Mei chan no shitsuji and ottomen both japanese dramas last week at the LA chinatown. Yes, I have a growing collection.. I decided that to truly appreciate my Kdramas I should try to learn the language. So I bought myself a cd for Korean Language tutorial, I have the korean dictionary on my iphone and im currently learning the Korean alphabet on youtube. I have the princess hours soundtrack playing in my car..Sarang in gayo...oh yah.. im into etude makeup now...go figure....

My drama addiction was Stairway to Heaven like three years after it was aired. That was when I got into kdramas and when I heard about this drama, I HAD to watch it. At the time I was like... 12/13 years old and the only version of this drama I had was dubbed in Vietnamese. This was literally the worst since I wasn't fluent in Vietnamese so I watched all 20 episodes pretty much without understanding any dialogue. XD Probably later that year I watched the drama with subtitles for the first time. I then bought the box set from Barnes & Noble with all my birthday money and watched it another two times.

Looking back, it really wasn't that great of a drama. I can name five others that I've watched that are much better but HEY. That was my addiction.

I loved YB btw and I hope whomever wins enjoys it!
Thank you! (:

I once stayed up to watch a kdrama the night/morning (until 4am) before my final exam. I finished the drama the same night/morning, but needless to say, I failed the final and failed the course.

lol i don't think i have anything very exciting to share. /sits back and watches.

So my craziest K-addict moment had to involve non other then You're Beautiful. Was watching the english translation week after week and reading your fantastic recaps (THANK YOU). Well it got to the point where the story was so good that I couldn't wait just for the translations and recaps. So I started streaming it live. Well, since I don't understand a single word of Korean, this proved challenging enough. But hey, at that point I already felt like I knew the characters and could guess what they were saying (I was wrong 90% of the time). So basically towards the second half of the series, I was watching the episodes LIVE, then reading your recaps the next day, and then finally rewatching the same episode but with the english translation. But that wasn't the craziest part. The absolute craziness had to occur of course with the finale. I had to go to Japan on a trip the same week as the finale. Absolutely could not wait until I got home to find out what was going to happen. Soooo, I sneaked off to the hotel's business center at night and watched it streamed LIVE on the Japanese hotel's business center's computer.

So fate would have it, I recently was in Hong Kong and checked into the same hotel as Jang Geun Suk AT THE SAME TIME. Well we arrived at the same time. I checked in at the front desk, he got the VIP treatment, but we got into two seperate elevators at the same time. So I saw him like 2 feet away from me. Then I later shared an elevator with his assistant, so I figured out that he was just a few floors above me. Yes, I think Fate is trying to tell me something.........

I got my friend addicted on Korean drama by giving them copies of Full House, so this summer, my friends and I decided that one of the things we had to do while vacationing in Korea was to visit the Full House house. We didn't speak a word of Korean except "Full House", "Shidori" (the name of the island where the house was located) and "Sammock sagori" the pier to take the ferry to the island. Because we didn't understand any Korean, we ended up getting off on the wrong island and then running back on board the ferry and convincing the people to let us back on w/o tickets by repeating "Full House" and "Shidori" over and over again until the ferry master just gave up and let us back on board the ferry b/c we obviously got off on the wrong island and had no tix. But, it all ended up ok b/c we did get off on the correct island and found the right bus to take to the house and it was a blast. We pretended to clean the house like Song Hye gyo. I would have love to lie on Rain's bed, but that wasn't allow. I think this qualify as one of the craziest thing I've ever done to satisfy my Korean drama addiction.

Hello javabeans! I started my kdrama addiction in 1998 (Whew! A long time ago and thank you Arirang TV!). I had my first glimpse of Kim Seung Woo playing the prince charming to both Hwang Shin Hye and Lee Seung Yun in Cinderella (1997) and got hooked eve since.

But my wackiest moment or shall we say my most irresponsible moment was watching “You’re Beautiful” for sixteen hours straight, not minding that it was a work day and with a work deadline to finish. Turned off my mobile phone and watch the whole series.

The bad part was that when I reported for work the next day, my office mates were worried because I was living alone and thought something bad happened to me and couldn't contact me. Guilty as charged but just told them got so tired from working all week that I decided to just rest yesterday. He He, Lord forgive me…

Started watching You're Beatiful EP13 when it showed on TV, and got hooked immediately.
I went online and tried to watch it streaming (Youtube, Tudou, etc). Due to my crap broadband, it took about 30 minutes to buffer about 1 minute worth of video, but I still watched the first 2 episodes in one sleepless night, while reading all of your recaps.
Once the video shop opened, I rushed over and bought a copy of it, and watched the whole thing in one go, then proceeded to re-watch the whole thing again. This, of course, causes the kind of fatigue that causes one to have to call for a sick day. Upon returning to work, unable to stop thinking about, I listened to it streaming online (I can't understand Korean) while I was working, while ripping it off youtube. Due to the poor quality, I begged my co-worker to copy her RMVB copy for me, so I can listen (and peek) at it at a better quality.
To wrap it up, I went and bought the Director's Cut so I can watch all the BTS, and watching all the actors in their interviews (and not understanding a word of it). So, to date, I have 4 copies of YAB.
And because of all of this, I went and learned the Korean alphabet online.

[this entry is only for talkies, not a contest entry]

hi hi!~

i don't have a k-drama obsession ... yet... BUT.... i am hopeful.

maybe if you guys penned a story and it got made into a movie/tv series then it'd be my first, only because, as koreans are wont to say in variety shows, "you guys are my style!".

i did, however, become obsessed once. in college, i arranged 1 semester's class schedule around kung-fu theatre because well yeah, it's kung-fu! so what happened to me was i had to wake up really early to go to a 7AM class just so my afternoon kung-fu theatre watching would be left uninterrupted.

-dimmy who's hoping to find something to be obsessed with soonest-

I honestly don't even want the giveaway, I just want to post my drama addiction story.
Thanks for the opportunity.

One of my most memorable moment about my drama addiction was when I first got the dvd boxset of Damo. The first episode got me hooked and the time was already 1AM, and it was also a school night but I decided to watch the whole disc since there's only 2 episodes in each disc. Man, that was a mistake.

When I got to school that morning I was SO sad because the emotions that the characters expressed got to me. So basically I was just crying and friends being friends ask me what's wrong. I couldn't get anything out except "She's an orphan *sob* and they *sob* can't be together. " They really thought that I was talking about a person until I told them it was korean drama. Of course they got confused, they don't watch korean dramas.

So skip to the weekends I finished Damo on Saturday and Sunday, and was bawling my eyes out. Of course everybody does but I cried until I got sick. Isn't that funny. And I blame it on the last couple of scenes in Damo for it. Hint Hint its the beach scene and capture scene, and if you watch it you will understand why.

Till this day, those scenes still make me cry till I get sick but it's all worth it.

This isn't the greatest but it's one of my addiction story. Well I wouldn't call it a addiction story either. I honestly don't know what to call it. Anyway love reading other people stories of their addictions.

Thanks JavaBeans for creating a blog that expresses our k-drama addiction and Girlfriday for helping out.

I have always loved Korean dramas even from a young age.
I was born in Korea and my mom told me as a 3 year old I would be able to watch weekly dramas and memorize the story and characters then be able to remember it the next week it aired. Sadly, for my Kdrama obsession I immigrated to America when I was 5.
I have loved Korean dramas my whole life, one of the greatest joys was watching Korean dramas in Korea 10 years ago in one summer.

Of course having Korean parents, they didn't like that I would watch Korean dramas or get so into it. I would get so into dramas that I couldn't hide my addiction much. We only had one Korean channel on our cable television so I would watch dramas on the internet. They even thought of cutting off the Korean channel but they liked it so much and they thought it would be a good chance to for me and brother to keep up with our Korean. Although I couldn't watch many dramas to keep up with school, I would use every opportunity I could. Being a "goodie-two shoe" I could never skip school for a drama. Although in school I would be so distracted where my body was in school but my mind was on the specific drama I was watching at the time. I was even in history class one time and when the teacher called on me, I had no idea what he was talking about or asking. He wanted a definition from a reading he assigned but I didn't know and luckily wasn't the only one that didn't know. At the end of class my friend asked me what Korean drama I was into during that time, oh friends you gotta love them for knowing you so well.
In high school at the end of every semester I would watch Korean dramas which meant less time for studying but still managed to get decent scores. In the summer I would have drama marathons where I would only get a few hours of sleep per night having a drama marathon which was very often.

Last school year when I started college, our math homework was due online at 11:59PM after every class. I have not completed some online math homeworks just to watch Korean dramas or translated articles for a forum. I believe that one of the best Kdramas is 내 이름은 김삼순. Thank goodness it was the summer when it came out or I would have been totally distracted from school work at that time. I love rewatching endings of dramas or parts that are touching imagining all sorts of things, like if I was in that situation or if anything like that could even have 1% chance of happening to me in the future.

I can really relate to all the stories here about K-drama addiction. Though mine is not really that interesting (for me I think) but anyway I'll share mine as well

January 2007

I was really addicted to Jumong which was aired a year prior and I even didn't have my DVD set nor donwloaded the episodes, for the love of Song Il-kook I religiously followed the Soompi thread on Jumong, juggling between work and Jumong that is until January of 2007 when one of the TV stations here in Manila decided to air the drama even if it hasn't finished its Korean Run so I've been posting like mad on Soompi about Jumong and then a friend informed that one of my posts in Soompi got featured in the TV ad to promote the drama and at first I can't believe it so I waited for the teaser and yeah I couldn't believe I was seeing my own message in a TV plug haha so the next day at work I told it to my officemates and they were laughing like crazy since they've seen the ad as well..

another thing is when I get addicted to a drama, I watch all its versions, original, dubbed, reruns, name it even if it's aired and dubbed in a language that I'm not good at I'd still watch it keke

and since I deal with foreigners sometimes due to my line of work, I get happy actually when I talk to Korean customers even if in reality, I just know basic Korean and once I greeted a Korean in the language and she talked straight Korean! I told her after that I can only speak basic and I can't grasp all that she is saying haha

My Korean obsession actually started with k-pop with G-dragons heartbreaker it was a video fitured on youtube and I got hooked... this lead me to big bang. Which made me wanna watch a drama with T.O.P. in it but it was wierd so I stopped watching it half way through. But this didn't end my interest in finding out more about Korean dramas... I think the it was a couple mouths later when kpopsubs posted the song Jeremy sang on episode 14 which later caused me to watch the whole season in two or three days it was intense I even got my sister addicted to watching it with me. And I believe that was Christmas Break and since then I've seen like around 25 show haha its so intense and I've even missed school from staying up and watching a show... I also kinda got bad grades this year... oh well it was worth it! My sister finds it funny because I'm white and can't understand Korean very well but I love it... Pretty Good for a white girl huh? I hope I haven't bored you with this boring story... But thats what started my addiction! LOL
Later! ^-^

So here's my story...

I was working as an HR supervisor in a semi conductors factory when Meteor Garden mania hit Philippine shores... Before that time, Asian dramas were practically unheard of here and i was really clueless as to what the frenzy is all about until i caught an episode... I WAS CAPTIVATED AND LIKE ANY TRUE ADDICT, I WANTED MORE...

Problem is, they air the show on a local channel every 5:30PM for 30 minutes only daily and my office dismissal is at 5PM... that means that even if i leave work early the commute would be about an hour and by the time i got home the show would be over...

I was really antsy and panicked as to how i could get my fix as i seriously did not want to miss any second of this wonderful discovery... I didn't know of downloading or streaming yet at that time so i have no choice but to watch it on schedule the old fashioned way...

Until one day, i stumbled upon our guard in the guardhouse of the factory after office, watching TV on a 14 inch black and white Television set which was soooo old that it even had a fork stuck in the antenna to get a reception and it was as if angels came down from heaven and my problem was solved!

From that moment on, i would spend every dismissal time at 5 camped in front of that staticky, crackly TV set watching Dao MIng Sz woo San Cai and would often stay later since the local news also have segments of BTS that they show during the showbiz news section...

Just imagine the look of surprise on the factory workers face when they all file off to leave the office to see their HR supervisor in that guardhouse seated along with the security guard like i was also doing that job part time... hahaha!

Not only that... my grandmother thought i was doing so much work that i'm always going home late and on overtime and i didn't have the heart to tell her that i just go home late because of Meteor Garden...

The good thing was word spread around that i was soooo addicted to Meteor Garden that come christmas everyone gave me everything that has to do with the show... (Playing cards, placemats, posters etc... ) I still have the collection up to now...

Another story...

My boyfriend and i just started living together when i discovered MY NAME IS KIM SAM SOON around 2005... This show became my most favorite KDrama everrrrrrrrrrr and since i tend to become pretty obsessive, i watched all 16 episodes in one sitting that i filed for sick leave the day after...

Now, my boyfriend was soooo angry that i was not sleeping at all watching the show that i had to pretend i was sleeping when he wakes up ... I would turn the TV off in a panic when he alights from sleep and pretend that i am already in bed and then stealthily turn it on again and watch in silence while just reading the subtitles when he's back to sleep...

The next day i even lied to him that i went to work even if i didn't because i finished the show... That weekend he called my grandmother up and told her "MA, can you please tell your granddaughter that sleep is something essential? She stays up all night just watching her dramas..." like it was something that was really a cause of our fight...

The thing is after watching Kim Sam Soon... i rewatched my favorite scenes about 100x after on a daily basis (no exaggeration) That the minute my BF hears that song in the introduction where the title episode is he'd roll his eyes and say... AGAIN???

He had even memorized the lines of Daniel Henney unwillingly about the porridge his mom makes him because i watched that part too much...

Now, i'm still as addicted but thank goodness that online viewing is now more accessible that i don't have to go anymore to such extremes ...

Forgot to add by the way... that after My Name is Kim Sam Soon our PC crashed and my boyfriend was aghast to find that there were more photos of Hyun Bin stored on it than that of us, family and friends... hahaha!

I grew up to a household that would rent 30 VHS tape long dramas from the local Asian video store every week. Eventually, I grew out of it, but then in Spring of 2007, while watching the Asian channel, I discovered Full House. It was on episode 2 or 3, when Han Ji-Eun was living with Young Jae and she was his maid. I found the characters so delightful (and good looking!!!) So after watching it on repeat (b/c this channel aired the same episode over and over per week), I went to work the next day with ear phones and watched some episodes. Here I was the "new girl" at work, and I was watching a Korean drama when I should be filing and typing emails. And my computer screen was visible to everyone!!!! Luckily, I didn't get in trouble. So after a day or so of this, I was like, "I have to have this drama!" Didn't having Internet at home, so I drove to the nearest Asian Movie store right after work and bought the DVD set. It got so bad that I poured hundreds of dollars on DVD sets and had their business card to call the video store to see if they had certain dramas in stock. Eventually, I got Internet installed at my place, watched a billion dramas, and started following dramabeans' blog daily. I still watch Full House at least once a year. And when Rain was supposed to perform at Madison Sq Garden, I signed up for the Madison Sq Insider weekly email list so I could have first dibs on tickets. On the day of the sale, I went to work 1/2 early to purchase the tickets online and booked a trip to NYC months in advance. Eventually, Rain's show got canceled and that was that. Full House will forever be my all time favorite drama b/c it got me obsessed with Korean dramas and culture and really opened my eyes to other cultures as well.

Ahhhh the evil korean dramas!! How I hate you and yet I can't stop watching you!

For me, it all started 4 years ago. It was the summer before I was entering college. I spent that entire summer watching dramas nonstop! My condition got so bad that I would wake up early in the morning just to stream dramas online and then stay up until 4pm to finish the dramas. I was ADDICTED, still am. I would abandon my family to eat alone so that I could watch the dramas, bail out on plans with friends so that I wouldn't miss the next episode...even if I could easily watch it later with a click of a button--but I didn't want to lose the continuity of the drama. My dad got really mad and threatened to destroy my laptop many times. He even took away my laptop, but nooo that didn't stop me. I borrowed my friend's laptop!

Now, in present day, my friends would make fun of me as I have false hope of what my ideal lover should be like--oh korean dramas! Now I want to date a rich-bad-boy-gangster-but-deep-down-sweetheart-who-loves-me-for-my-dorky-self!

lmao #27

It's june right now, late june, and Im watching king of baking when I should be studying for my provincials. I'm in this "elite" program called IB in my high school that's quite similar to AP. Finals and Provincials are well under way right this moment, yet I'm watching 5 kdramas (Oh My Lady!, Cinderella's Sister, Personal Preference, King of Baking, Prosecutor Princess), a few jap ones, and You're beautiful for the fifth time.... I stay up till 5 everyday, yes, 5a.m every single day, from god knows when watching dramas without my parents realizing it on my laptop. I feel guilty, sleepy, yet still craving for more drama goodness every single day even with all those drama actions going on. My grades are slipping, but who on earth is powerful enough to deny that smile of Jang Geun Suk? Im proud to say I got at least 20 people addicted to korean not just drama, but music as well since last year. hehe~

-reads posts-

Alert, I LOVE your story. Rat's hole and back, indeed!

Great stories, everyone! I don't have anything to share yet, other than my obsessive dramabeans stalking. :)