Claymore

I finished a really old model kit while I was on holiday: the blue-and-gold armour of Kaiser Maximilian II. I had painted the face during the year, aibrushed the armour in a dark metallic blue enamel (with a gloss coat), and spent a long, long time doing all the gold in Bright Gold. Not a fantastic result, but the gold looks good.





For Model of the Year, I also dug out the Erzherzog Siegmund armour I did many years ago, painted in Humbrol polished metal paint. 

Another old kit finished: the Airfix 1/72 Westland Whirlwind. I built one of these in 1981 in boarding school. A nice neat kit of a pretty WW2 plane. It's relaxing to build these old kits; they lack detail, but they're quick, easy builds.









Full build album here

My current model is a Heller model of a Bloch MB.152, a Fresh fighter plane from early WW2. It's not a great kit, so I'm scratch-building a complete cockpit for it, including instrument panel. Finding the right colours to use is a challenge; French military aircraft were not consistent nor well documented, and there aren't any survivors.

I finished the Revell 1/72 BAe Hawk T.1 model, depicting a plane flown by 208 Squadron for their 100th anniversary in 2016. Nice kit, very detailed for the size. The all-black colour scheme is eye-catching.













Full album of pictures

I've watched the following shows since the last time I posted:

Watched:



Healer (2014) - interesting one

Melo Movie (2015) - good

Chocolate (2019) - enjoyed it

Taxi Driver (2021) - excellent drama

Hyper Knife (2021) - with the brilliant Park Eun Bin as a disgraced neurosurgeon, who deservedly got awards for it. Brilliant.

Captivating the King (2024)

Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung (2019) - excellent, lots of fun; female historian meets prince who is an undercover novelist

Our Unwritten Seoul (2015) - twins swap places, really enjoyed it

Ongoing series:

Beyond the Bar (2015) - legal drama, enjoying it

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty (2025) - chef flung back to the Joseon era. I thought it'd be a rip-off of the amazing Mr Queen, but it's so much fun, with the same talented actress as I am not a Robot.

Partners for Justice (2018/2019) - legal/forensic drama, enjoying it.

Ghost Doctor (2022)

Dear Hongrang (2025)

Kinda abandoned, got bored:

Where Stars Fall
That Winter The Wind Blows
Man to Man
Vincenzo - good, but long episodes
Alchemy of Souls - apparently good, but I'm struggling with it
The Trunk
Tastefully Yours

An interesting movie I watched on the plane back from the UK was Companion. It's set in a world with "companions" - basically human-like androids, but most are really fuckbots. The owner of one hacks her overrides in a murder plot, and things go a little wrong when she become a bit to self-aware.

Really fascinating thinking about the implications.

Finished, the CMC Leopard model kit, a 1/72 scale Amodel kit. It's tiny! The CMC Leopard was a British 4-seater passenger jet with two engines, and was significantly smaller than a Me-109 or Cessna 172. It first flew in1988. A nice simple kit, though it didn't fit together well. I tried a new clearcoat, Mr Color GX110. Very nice indeed, better than even the normal clearcoat.














Full album here.

I finally got around to watching The Wheel of Time TV series season 2 and the newest episodes of season 3. Absolutely loving it. Season 1 was a little slow to start, but 2 and 3 kicked off with a bang. Obviously there are differences from the book series, given the 14-book series's length, but so far the changes have been for the better, or have compressed things a lot. 

One thing I do like is the sheer diversity of the cast and the characters. I mean, among the main cast members, we have a few English actors; Irish; American/Korean; NZ; Aboriginal Australian; Dutch; Indian; Nigerian English; Jewish/Nigerian English; Japanese; Lebanese Swedish; Spanish; Indian English; Scottish (with received pronunciation); and more. There's even a trans man actor who plays a woman. 

I've also been watching Reacher season 3. To be honest, I'm really plodding through it; it's a bit wooden.

I've watched the following Korean TV series over the last few months

Romance in the House (2024)

Love Next Door (2024)

Marry My Husband (2024)

Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol (2020)

The Doctors (2016)

Memories of the Alhambra (2018)

Because This Is My First Life (2017)

Love in Contract (2022)

Warm and Cozy (2015)

Cinderella with Four Knights (2016)

Shooting Stars (2022)

I think we've had rain every day since around Christmas - sometimes just a sprinkle, sometimes a whole day of pouring rain. It's actually been lovely. It's not hugely unusual to have a lot of around around this time of year, though it's not common to have it so continuous. Of course, we had a number of long heat waves in November and December, so I guess it's not surprising.

To put it in perspective, though: Johannesburg (and most of Gauteng province and part of the Free State province) are supplied from the gigantic Vaal Dam, and we need the dam to have a lot of water to get through winter. Two weeks ago, the dam was at 23.9% full - very low. A week ago, it was 24.3%. Today, it's 47%. The dam, when full, is 321km² in area, with a capacity of 2.57 billion m³ (2.57 billion tonnes). That's an enormous amount of water in a week. (It is a bit more complicated, because it's part of a system of 7 dams, so the upstream dams are at or near capacity and releasing water).

We've just loving the weather. So are the flies and mosquitoes...

Here's Northcliff Hill on an overcast day. This is a full colour picture.



We've had some spectacular sunsets when there has been a bit of sun.

I entered about 18 models in the Gold Reef Scale Modellers' Model of the Year show on 7 December, almost all being models I'd built this year. I think there were a total of about 170 models entered by about 30 members. A local N-gauge model railway group joined us, and they set up some amazing displays on the stage of the school that was the venue.

The foyer had a huge D-Day diorama, really brilliant work. Judging was pretty straightforward, and everyone who entered had to judge. Judging didn't get into technical nitty-gritty; that can get quite acrimonious. There are a whole bunch of categories, so different scales and types of aircraft, armour, cars, ships, figurines, and other stuff.

Anyway, the models I really wanted to win, my Airfix Gannet and my Saab Viggen, sadly didn't. :( However, I did win in 5 different categories:

My De Havilland Sea Vixen won in the 1/72 Military Jets category; it's a big category, so that was cool.


My recently-completed Antonov An-2 won in the 1/48 & Smaller Biplanes category; I was pleased about that. Its the one in front of the centre placard.



The Soul Huntress won the Fantasy and SciFi 75-90mm Figures category. Admittedly the only entry in that category, so I was bound to win it. :)



My Edgely Optica won the 1/72 Scale Civilian Propeller Aircraft category. Only entrant in that category, oddly.



And, biggest surprise of all, my Ekranoplan A-90 Orjanok won the 1/144 Scale Military Propeller Aircraft category. I built this model like 25 years ago, brush painted and all, and it somehow won.



Prizes were assorted vouchers for hobby stores.

Along with all the models, I also built bases for most using picture frames, and sandpaper (painted, weathered, and with lines) as tarmac. It was quite a mission getting all the models there and back in my car. Even with my car's boot full, I had models in the front.



The overall show winner was Arthur's samurai horseman. Arthur is club chairman, and his absolutely amazing figurine work often wins the show. This samurai is just incredible. You have no idea how complex it is; there are knots in the bowstring, the horse is the correct breed and colouring, and all the tassels on the horse started out as flat white metal pieces, he had to put them in motion.



There was an "Open Category" for non-club-members to enter. Winner of that category was this, by one of the railway people:




Here's a link to a full album of pics I took randomly: MOY 2024

I finished the Antonov An-2 model kit, Italeri 1/72. It was/is the largest single-engined biplane in the world, with an 18m wingspan! This one is in the markings of North Vietnam. Not a great kit, and I had to fabricate a missing bit of cockpit glass. I did learn the use of oil paints for oil leaks and weathering, and doing the wire rigging was interesting (lots of tiny holes to drill!)





















Full album here

So Trump won the US election, managed the popular vote, and Republicans control all three arms of the government. It's going to be a mess, and lots of people will be hurt. As many as Trump allowed to die last time around? Who knows.

To be honest, I'm gobsmacked. I truly don't understand how people could have voted for a rapist and felon with a string of personal and business disasters behind his name, even if he'd been running against a trained dog. 

Voters were supposedly worried about the economy, but apparently too ignorant to realise that Biden's economy is the best in years, with record low unemployment, stock market highs, inflation dropping and much less than other G7 countries, with infrastructure investment, record oil production, illegal immigration lower than in recent years (and record numbers of illegal immigrants being apprehended), and more. 

This was an interesting read on some of the religious right-wingers behind Trump: How Opus Dei Conquered Washington, D.C.

Project 2025 is going to be very unpleasant if any of it is actually put in place. 

Frankly, I think the US has some very, very deep-seated social ills that may take generations to fix, if ever. 

Of course there are all sorts of recriminations on the Democrat side - they should have had a different candidate, Biden should have stepped down earlier, Harris laughed funny, they attacked Trump, they didn't attack Trump, people are worried about inflation, coastal elites, blah blah blah.

To win again, I think the Democrats need to focus their policies on the people who matter in elections: billionaires, tech bros, right-wing podcasters, Russians, Saudi princes, Israeli hawks, and media conglomerate owners. Don't waste time on the disadvantages, the middle class, minorities, and so on, they don't get votes.

Incidentally, one way of knowing if you're supporting the right side or not: if Nazis openly support your party, you are on the wrong side of history. It doesn't matter if your leader got the trains to run on time, or built autobahns, you're on the wrong side. 

Finished, my Italeri 1/48 Saab AJ-37 Viggen. It was a rubbish kit, and the masking was a nightmare (and my paintwork could have been better), but it came out looking pretty decent. The "fields and meadows" camouflage is iconic. Bonus pic of my 35 or 40 year old Matchbox kit. I took the Viggen to the scale modellers' club on Saturday, and it got lots of attention and interest.

The Saab Viggen was a Cold War interceptor/fighter-bomber. The AJ-37 version I did is the fighter bomber, and it could carry a whole collection of rockets, fuel tanks, air to ground missiles, and air to air missiles, and more. The Viggen is the only aircraft ever to get a missile lock on the legendary SR-71 Blackbird
.

Full link to progress pics album here.





















Alongside the 1/72 scale Matchbox Viggen I built probably in the late 80s. Back then I thought gloss varnish looked great, and of course it was rather amateurish. I had painted the camouflage by hand with a paintbrush, no masks.

Spring started off pretty hot (30C+), and then last week we had a cold snap; we haven't had on at this time of year since the late 2010s. Saturday was rainy and cold, the cold-in-your-bones sort of cold. Sunday, thankfully, was cold but not wet, a good thing as I was doing a 15K race. On Saturday, 53 parkruns around the country were cancelled, the highest ever!

Conditions countrywide were cold too. In fact, the N3 freeway, the biggest inter-city freeway in the country, was closed at Van Reenen's Pass because of snow, and 1800 cars were trapped in the snow. Locals and farmers were helping the people in cars out. 

The weather is hot again, but I hear it may be cooler over the weekend.

So last month George at the model club has a workshop on doing decals on models, and how to make them look good. There are various decal setting solutions - Mr Setter, Mr Solver, Microset, Microsol, etc.- that help, but I've found some can mark the paintwork, and they're not perfect. George's method is a hair dryer: it heats the decals so that the decal moulds itself to the plastic beneath it perfectly, no solutions needed.

I tried it with my Gannet models, and wow, it looked good. 

Here's the hair dryer I bought for R128 ($7.15):


Here you can see the result. This is a zoomed-in pic of the bottom of the Gannet, with three decals there: the rectangle and "R", the dot and "BT", and the two squares ("Sling point"). All have decal film around them and in the centre of the rectangles, but you can see how the decal film around the oblong inside the R rectangle is invisible, and the decal at the sling point has moulded itself to the sunken rivets. Pretty amazing; no silvering at all.

 Here are the TV shows I've watched since July:

The Atypical Family (2024)

This was entertaining. Do Do-hae is a con artist who has been tasked with marrying the eligible bachelor in a wealthy family. The family, unbeknownst to her, has superpowers, but due to modern lifestyle issues, can't use their powers. The matriarch, Man-heum, can dream the future, including lottery tickets and stocks, which is why they're wealthy, but she now has insomnia and can't dream. Her son, Gwi-ju, can travel back in time to times he was happy - but his wife died, and all the happy events of his life have been tainted, and he's now an alcoholic. His sister, Dong-hee, can fly- but she's massively overweight, and can't fly anymore. And his daughter, I-na, thought the family doesn't know, can read peoples minds if she looks directly into their eyes...but she's short-sighted, and wears strong glasses. Very amusing! Lots in interesting time travel twists (did Gwi-ju save Do-hae from a fire at school? Or will he?)

Love in the Moonlight (2016)

This highly rated series set in the Joseon Era features the amazing Kim Yoo-jung (in her first lead role) as a young woman, Ra-on, raised as a boy. Due to debts, "he" is sold off to the royal palace as a eunuch, and she manages to cleverly avoid the eunuch process. She becomes a personal servant to the unpredictable prince, Yeong, and starts to fall in love with him, and he to her (though he doesn't know she's a woman). What the prince doesn't know is that Ra-on is the secret daughter of the leader of an uprising a decade before, and the prince's father is still terrified of another uprising. This was a great series, lots of fun, with good characters.
 
Clean With Passion For Now (2018)

Jang Seon-kyul is a man with a phobia of dirt and bacteria, and he runs into Gil Oh-sol, a young woman who is messy and untidy, when she joins his cleaning company. It's a pretty entertaining series, but Kim Yoo-jung (again) takes the show. Lots of good supporting characters too. The only thing that irked me is that the male lead, Yoon Kyun-sang, is a little odd looking - he is tall, but his head seems too small and his hips too wide.

Backstreet Rookie (2020)

Another series starring Kim Yoo-jung, as Saet-byul, a woman who has been a bit obsessed with a handsome man, Dae-hyun (played by the excellent Ji Chang-wook), she meets in passing when she was at school. Years later, she applies at his convenience store as a part-timer, and she proves to be excellent. Dae-hyun is dating a wealthy woman at the time. Things get very much more complicated, with a rival for Dae-hyun's date, Saet-byul's sister going off to a talent agency, the sisters losing their home, and a budding romance between Dae-hyun's friend, a reggae soft-porn comic writer, and Seat-byul's friend, the writer's biggest fan. I loved the characters in this show, and it was so much fun. 

The Heirs (The Inheritors) 2013

This is a show about a group of wealthy heirs at an exclusive private school. Eun-sang (played by the talented Park Shin-hye) is a poor young woman who runs into Kim Tan in LA, where he's been exiled by his family. Back in Korea, Eun-sang's mute mother, player by the prolific Kim Mi-kyung, works for Kim Tan's family, and they grant a scholarship to the school to Eun-sang. The show is complex, but there are a lot of good characters, and it was very highly rated.

She Was Pretty (2015)

As a child, the pretty and popular Hye-jin befriended the overweight boy Sung-joon, but then he moved away. Years later, he has returned to Korea from the US, and wants to meet up. He now now handsome and well-off, while Hye-jin got her dad's prominent freckles and frizzy hair. When she sees what he looks like, she sends her beautiful friend in her place, and Sung-joon and the friend start seeing each other. Meanwhile Hye-jin gets a job at the glamour magazine that Sung-joon now runs, and works there still in love with him while he things she is just a clumsy, idiotic intern. She reminds him a bit of his childhood friend though... A good show, and I enjoyed it.

Reunited Worlds (2017)

A senior schoolboy, Hae-sung, is dating Jung-won. Jung-won is preparing a birthday party for him, and sends him to the school to delay him. There he stumbles on a murdered schoolboy, and as he's rushing to get help, he is killed by a car, and subsequently framed for the murder. His siblings, who he'd been looking after, fall apart. 12 years later, he wakes up, still 19, in the school grounds. His girlfriend and his best friends are now 31, and his siblings are not doing well. He comes back into their lives, and tries to fix everything that's gone wrong, while trying to solve the 12 year old murder mystery that can exonerate him. He finds out he only has limited time there. This was a good show, and I liked the plot and characters a lot. the weakest point, I thought, was the male lead, Yeo Jin-goo; I like him a lot, but he only seemed to have two expressions when the show was on in 2017.

I'm currently watching Romance in the House (which is only two episodes in), and the highly-acclaimed Alchemy of Souls.

I did a demo of the black-basing technique at the monthly model club meeting on Saturday. I'm sure there are others there who can do it better, but I volunteered and took all my equipment in.

The technique is pretty simple. The idea behind it is (especially with military aircraft and equipment) to make the surfaces look less perfect and even. You want to provide a slightly weathered or used look, with some irregularity in the paint surface. Many modellers use a method called "pre-shading" where they spray darker paint on the areas where there are panel borders, followed by the main colour, but to my eye it often looks too emphasised and unrealistic.

So what I do is paint the entire surface with a black paint (I use Mr Surfacer Black 1500, which is a bit of a primer). The in the areas between the panel lines, I use Tan paint in mottled patterns, so that it looks irregular. Then I use the final colour, laying it down in thin coats till most of the black and tan are gone. How thick it's laid down will determine how worn it looks. If it's a thin coat, it looks more worn, and thicker will look cleaner, smoother, and newer.

For camouflage, I do the whole area (like the wing), then mask off the areas I want to keep in the original colour (like brown), and re-do the black-basing process with the next colour (like green). 

Here was the final result of the demo. I did the lower wing in a blue-grey; the right hand side had a thicker coat, while the left hand side looks rougher. Same with the camouflaged top wings.



The demo was pretty well received, I think, and it came out better than many of my actual models do.

The second of my three German aircraft is this one: A Messerschmitt Me-109G-6 in service with the Swiss air force. The Swiss bought or acquired a bunch from Nazi Germany.

The model is a Fujimi 1/48 kit. I bought it second-hand for R200, and it came two (mostly) two sets of decals. Unfortunately, one set was welded to the decal paper, and wouldn't come off. The other set were old and yellow, and also pretty fragile. I figured they wouldn't look good, so I masked and airbrushed the Swiss markings, and I found aircraft numbers (the 706) in my collection of spare decals, and I made the J - out of an O and an I. The mottling on the side, like the other two planes, was done by hand with my airbrush, and this Me-109 has four different colours of mottling.

Here's a link to the full album for all three models













The instrument panel is on the left, and the cockpit is the one on the left:

Here are the TV shows I've watched since April:

Run On (2020)

I actually watched this quite a while back, but forgot to post about it. It's about a former sprinter who had a neglected childhood who gets into a relationship with a film translator who is an orphan. The male actor I have found can be quite unemotional at times, but the female lead, Shin Se-kyung, is quite charming (and is in Black Knight, below). All in all, a pleasant series with nice characters.

Doom at your Service (2021)

Dong-kyung is a woman who has a really, really shit day, including discovering she has terminal cancer. That night she sees a shooting star, and wishes for the world to be doomed. Doom himself, a messenger between gods and humans, hears her wish, and comes to fulfil it. She signs a 100 day contract with Doom. I enjoyed this; lots of good characters and interesting subplots. 

Queen of Tears (2024)

This series was really, really good. Hyun-woo is a formerly poor lawyer married to Hae-in, the heiress to the Queens corporate empire. Hae-in is cold and unemotional, and Hyun-woo has decided to divorce her when she discovers she has a rare case of brain cancer. The series is about the re-kindling of their marriage, all while her family's corporate empire is destroyed and her family fights amongst themselves. I'm not a fan of the male lead actor, Kim Soo-hyun, but he was good here. The female actor, Kim Ji-won is brilliant. 

Yong-pal (2015)

Tae Hyun is a talented surgeon. He needs to pay for his sister's medical bills, so he adopts the name Yong-pal, and secretly offers emergency services to gangs and criminals. Yeo Jin is a corporate heiress who is being kept in a coma while her half-brother controls her company. Tae Hyun, working in the corporation's hospital, is assigned to the VVIP section, and rescues Yeo Jin from her slumber. A very enjoyable series.

Black Knight: The Man Who Guards Me (2017)

Soo-ho is a wealthy CEO who has been trying for years to track down the daughter of his childhood guardian who looked after him when his father died. Finally he stumbles across her by accident in Slovenia. However, they were lovers in previous lives about 200 years before, and the woman who killed them both is still alive, running a clothing boutique, and she wants to make Soo-ho her own. Complicating it all is a mystery - was his father murdered? A really interesting series.

Oh My Venus (2015)

Joo-eun was the "Venus of Daegu", the most amazing girl in her hometown. Now she's an overweight lawyer, just dumped by her 15-year boyfriend. Her new boss is stunning - but was the "fat girl" at the same school, and is Joo-eun's new girlfriend. Joo-eun runs into Young-ho, a personal trainer returning from Hollywood after a scandal, and he helps Joo-eun to start getting healthy again. He has his own issues though - he was sick as a child, and is expected to take over the family corporation. There are some entertaining side characters. It's quite a fun series, and Shin Min-a, who starred in My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, brings an entertaining charm to the show. The whole "fat" transformation is really well done.

Hierarchy (2024)

This is a short TV series - only 7 episodes. It's set in an exclusive school for the children of the super wealthy; the kids are dropped off by chauffeurs driving Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Merc, etc. every morning. Apart from the wealthy, there are a few "scholarship kids", brought in out of a sense of noblesse oblige, and of course treated like the working class scum they are. Kang Ha is one such boy - but he's secretly there to find out how his brother died, and who was responsible. Of course there's bullying, but lots of layers in the students and their relationships. And the mystery: who actually killed the brother? There's bullying, conspiracies, blackmail, and more.

I'm still sort-of watching Queen for Seven Days, but very tired of the Joseon politics, and finishing up The Atypical Family, which is amusing. I also re-watched one of my favourites, See You in my 19th Life. 

Here are the TV shows I've watched since January:

Welcome to Samdal-ri (2023)

This stars one of my favourite actresses, Shin Hye-sun, as a fashion photographer whose life falls apart; she returns to her childhood island where she meets up with her childhood friend, now a weather forecaster after his mother died in bad weather. Nice romance, and some good subplots with other characters.

My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (2010)

An aspiring action star accidentally releases a magical gumiho, a nine-tailed fox, and she gives him her fox bead that enhances his physical abilities, while she wants to become human. The story is amusing enough, but the male lead is a bit of a bastard at first, and the meat-loving gumiho is a little dim.

My Demon (2023)

This was a lot of fun. An heiress (played by a ridiculously talented Kim Yoo-jung - she's 24, and has done 24 movies and 33 TV series!!!) makes a marriage contract with a demon who has lost his powers; he helps her against her predatory family, while she, by proximity, helps him with his powers. This series has some really nice k-pop songs in the soundtrack.

Abyss (2019)

This was so entertaining! A wealthy but unattractive man is accidentally killed by aliens. They revive him with a device called Abyss, but it revives him with looks matching his soul; he is suddenly tall and handsome. The model-like woman he's always liked but who rejected him is murdered by a serial killer; he revives her with Abyss, but she is revived is a short, cute woman (in fact, a clone of a local lawyer); she's not happy, of course. They have to somehow track down the serial killer (oops, he got revived too!) while negotiating looks that don't match their official identities, especially when the lawyer who looked identical comes back to Korea...after major plastic surgery. Lots of fun.

Forest (2020)

A doctor is sent out to a rural hospital in a forest, close to an emergency response unit. A financier with childhood trauma who runs an acquisitions company wants to develop the forest area as a resort, so he goes undercover in the response team to see how to persuade them to relocate, and he ends up renting part of the house the attractive doctor is renting. There are, of course, lots of background issues in the area, and financial machinations. It was amusing that both leads were left-handed; I knew about Jo-Bo-ah, she's been in a few series I've enjoyed). It was interesting, but did drag on a little, I thought.

Doona! (2023)

A beautiful but troubled k-pop idol takes up residence in a shared house and strikes up a relationship with an engineering student there. The female lead, Bae Suzy, was in fact a k-pop star turned actress. The series is short and sweet, but a little frustrating and meandering at points.

Doctor Slump (2024)

This was such a good series. A brilliant plastic surgeon, Yeo Jeong-woo, has a patient die on the operating table, and his life is destroyed; he's forced to move in to a cheap rooftop flat. He discovered that his downstairs neighbour is Nam Ha-neul (played by the always-excellent Park Shin-hye), a brilliant anaesthesiologist; she has resigned from her work suffering from severe burnout and depression. The two of them were high school rivals, but but they start coming together to help each other. I really enjoyed this. Great characters and a good story.

Queen of Divorce (2024)

Kim Sa-ra, a lawyer, is framed by her wealthy husband, and goes to prison. When she's released, she starts a company that focuses on divorce, while she struggles to get access to her son. She gets Dong-Ki-joon (played by Kang Ki-young, who I've seen as a supporting actor in heaps of series, including one I'm watching at the moment), a lawyer, to help her, and they start liking each other while solving peoples' marriage problems and getting to the root of her husband's evil deeds (and his mother's!). Lots of fun. 

Hi Bye, Mama! (2020)

I watched this on a whim, and was absolutely hooked! Cha Yu-ri died in a tragic accident the day before she was due to give birth; her baby was saved. She spends the next 5 years as a ghost, watching her husband fall apart, watching her daughter grow up but fall behind her peers, watching the pain her parents and her best friend suffer. Finally, angrily, she curses the gods, and she becomes mortal again...except she has 49 days to get back to her place in the world, or she gets taken up to heaven. Her husband has remarried...but his new wife loves Yu-ri's daughter, and does her best for her, and is a good person. Her husband, a surgeon, has PTSD, and can't do operations anymore (he was busy with a surgery when his dying wife was brought in). Then there are the group of ghosts who all have their own tragic stories. The series makes one think about the pain one leaves behind, and what you make of your life before you die. It was thought-provoking, and sweet. I loved this series so much. heatherbubbles , watch this! Something a bit sad was that the actress who played Yu-ri's younger sister died a couple of years ago of unspecified causes. :(

I'm currently watching Queen for Seven Days, and Doom at your Service.