Show review - Doona! (Netflix)

 Did I binge this show? Yes. Am I frustrated? Also yes.

* * * Please be aware that there will be spoilers here as I do not watch what I say, especially if I'm ranting lol. Make sure that you're okay with spoilers or come back after you've finished watching the show. * * *

Doona! poster

So for the couple of weeks I've been watching a new Netflix show - Doona! It's a Korean drama that was released on October 20th, 2023, so only a few weeks ago. It has 9 episodes, each around 45 minutes long. It has hit top 10 lists in 67 countries, which is pretty impressive. Although, nowadays Korean obsession has hit the whole world like a storm so it's not that unpredictable. I'm reminiscing of the days 10+ years ago when I had interest in Korean culture and people wouldn't really say much about it. Nowadays people just make silly comments once they find out "Oh So YoU'rE oBsEsSeD wItH bTs ThEn? 🥴" - No, I actually don't really listen to them, I simply have different interests than yours, surprise. 🙄

I'm not really that surprised about the success of this show, considering the main actor is Bae Suzy, a member of the now disbanded Kpop girl group miss A. I was actually a fan of that group, since it was so different at the time (2010), especially their debut song. So pretty sad they've finished their career as a group. 🥲 

Kpop girl group - miss A

Suzy was definitely one of the most popular members of the group towards the end of miss A's reign and the group was often labeled as "Suzy and friends", this usually occurs when one member of the group becomes significantly more famous and having a much larger fanbase than the rest. I am not into digging too much about the intricacies of Kpop (I rarely read into idol's personal lives), so I can't give you much more in terms of knowledge or perspective. If you're interested to find out more, you can read an interesting thread about it on Reddit. 

Doona! poster

Yays of the show: 

• If you watch K-dramas, you know how notorious they can be when it comes to product placement. If the drama is extremely well anticipated and got good investors, you bet you'll see product placement from episode 1 onwards. Thing is, when it happens they're not even subtle about this. You'll get full on 5 minutes of different angles and sometimes even "how to use" section or even discussion between characters. Please make it stop. 🥲 Surprisingly I didn't see (potentially, unless I missed) any of that. I was slightly concerned at the beginning of it, when the male protagonist first moves to his shared apartment and finally sits on his bed and grabs some juice/vitamin (?) drink and mentions the flavour. I was slightly confused on the purpose of that scene but we didn't get a full on shot of the product he was drinking so even if it was a product placement, I can let this one go lol.

• Realistic relationship scenes. I can't believe we are finally seeing more and more realistic relationships in Korean dramas. I'm so tired of the fish lips and dry kisses. "Oh, I'm so passionate about this girl, I'm burning with love and desire, let me just touch my dead, motionless lips onto hers with my eyes wide open". Yeah... That's definitely what happens... 😐 Well, surprisingly Doona! offers a pretty good look into realistic passionate relationships with ACTUAL decent kissing scenes. Maybe just tone down on the extremely OTT overdub of the kissing sounds. As somebody who despises ASMR this sounded like nails on the chalkboard to me. 🤣

• Talking about the issues within the entertainment business - manipulative managers, extreme binding contracts, destructive scandals, family issues.

Nays of the show:

I'm sorry but what the heck is that ending??? Here I was, eating my breakfast and before I even took 3 bites the show was finished?! I didn't even realise I was watching the last episode! I was so confused, I thought maybe there was a glitch and there is another episode still, but nah, that was it. So then I went on Google trying to find out whether there's more episodes coming in the next weeks or what, because you can't tell me that's it. I can accept the fact if it doesn't get renewed for season 2 as it's such a common occurrence but you can't tell me that the writers decided "yeah this ending will do". I even read some articles stating that it had a "bittersweet conclusion". What conclusion exactly? Ok so the main characters can't/won't be together for whatever reason, and then they pass each other while in different country on business trip. The end. Eh??? That is neither bittersweet nor conclusion. I don't care what anybody says. 🙃 This felt so unfinished and unresolved! Look, I'm not opposed to some good old bittersweet cliffhanger to finish the story forever, the situation where you kinda have to create your own ending and ponder the character's lives. But this is just not it, no. 

The show wasn't on the top of my list anyway, considering some recent stuff that I've loved like "The Glory" or "Mask Girl". So at least I've expected some sort of resolution, a more defined ending. Call me fussy if you like. 🙃 

Ah, I'm just a little bit disappointed. I need to find something new to watch. So I started watching another K-drama called "Agency" and I'm already not sure lol. Within the first 15 minutes we had 2 very obvious product placements. Ah, please tell me this will get better and wish me luck. 🙃

My Podcast: A Pint Of Rice | My IG: Lina B 🦭

Byeee~

Lina (Rinatsu)

Weight loss journey - Week 1

Keeping with the traditional from 8+ years ago, here I am with another dieting journey. Kinda same but so much better this time!

So over the years I've been struggling with my weight. It seems like no matter what I do I just need to watch myself all the damn time. I cannot let myself go at all because I'll just gain weight. Sometimes it makes it seem like if I'll gain weight from drinking water. It's ridiculous (hello, body dysmorphia).  Throughout these 8 years of me being away from blogging I've tried so many diets and workouts and I think I came to the conclusion that my genetics are basically crap. I'm currently biggest I've ever been and I cannot stand myself (did I mention body dysmorphia?). It seems like I'll never be able to just chill and I pretty much need to watch what I eat 24/7 and do workouts every single day. So that's what I'll be doing now and I'll be sharing my progress with you. 

Something to note is that within last 3 years I was also diagnosed with endometriosis. To really simplify it, it's a chronic illness that messes up your hormones, causes pain and can mess your body up massively. I don't have a proper confirmation because of how under-researched this illness is, but I'm pretty certain it is also making my weight control much more difficult.

Also to note, I won't be going on any super crazy diets. I had a look at my last diet post on here from 2015 and I was a little bit scared how some days I was eating as little as ~700kcal. No wonder I was complaining about fatigue. Wtf... 🙃

Sooo...this time I'll try doing something a bit more sustainable. I'll try doing a more drastic calorie cut on some days and having more normal meals on others. This will depend on my activity levels - if I'm just working on the computer I'll probably eat less, but if I'm moving around a lot, I'll eat more. The idea is to get into a habit of being mindful and making it into a long term thing. 

If you think about doing a calorie deficit diet, pls pls pls make sure that you're not overdoing it. Especially if you're doing it for more than 2 days. It can really hurt you so please be careful and look after yourself. A great way to get a guideline on your calorie cut is finding out your BMR - basal metabolic rate. It's basically how many calories you'll burn even if you did absolutely nothing. You can calculate it yourself using a formula but it's much easier to just use one of the many calculators online. I found out that my BMR is ~1800kcal a day. Once you do that you can easily just take away 100-300kcal for a safe weight loss. Try not to go below 1200kcal as it can really affect your body. I am not a dietician. I have got a nutrition certification but I'm not confident on actually doing the nutrition work professionally on others lol. Most of the knowledge I have is through the many years of research and testing the theories on myself. 

So after getting all of this off my chest, follow my first week journey below! 

Week 1 Day 1

Week 1 Day 1 Breakfast

 

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs, 0.75 cup of egg fried rice, 5 cherry tomatoes, 1 nori sheet, 1 spring onion.

Snack : 2 mini scones with butter, 2 digestive biscuits. 

So I skipped lunch today because I sort of got busy during the day and when I finally started getting hungry it was a little bit too close to dinner so I just decided to skip it and have only dinner so I don't overdo with calories. I did have 2 mini scones and 2 biscuits in-between so I wasn't completely starving myself lol. 

Dinner: Egg noodles with beef and mushrooms in soy, hoisin and oyster sauce; mini scone.

Total calories: ~1239 kcal 

Workout: 18 minutes of Kiat Jud Tai Chinese workout ~126 kcal burned. 

Week 1 Day 2

Weight:  -0.1kg

As much as I would love to see an instant change (especially after quite a low calorie amount yesterday), it's not gonna happen overnight so I'm just keeping positive. Also don't forget to drink enough water! I definitely haven't yesterday. When you're dehydrated your body can actually start storing water in your body which will make you weigh more and look bloated! 

Feeling pretty good today but also my biceps are dead sore lol. The exercise that I've done yesterday involved a lot of arm action. Not sure why my biceps in particular would feel sore but then again, I'm not too knowledgable about workouts lol. I just follow the instructions haha.

Week 1 Day 2 Breakfast

Breakfast: 1/2 banana, 125g soya yogurt, 45g high protein granola, 2 tsp sunflower seeds.

Lunch: 2 white bread toasts with kimchi, pumpkin seeds, sunflowers seeds and 2 eggs.

Dinner: Ramen noodles with beef and mushrooms in soy, hoisin and oyster sauce, 330ml can Brewdog Elvis Juice.

Total calories: ~1410 kcal

Workout:  16 minutes of Kiat Jud Tai workout and 8 minutes of ab workout ~105 kcal burned.

Any of the home workouts I've done are simply Youtube workouts. They work great!

Week 1 Day 3

Weight: no change.

So normally when I start a restrictive calorie diet I get really upset when I don't lose any weight but this time it's actually different because before I started this diet I've been doing these Chinese workouts (they're on YouTube) and even though I can't see any difference on scales I can definitely feel it! I feel more energetic and stronger and can definitely feel the effects the next day (my biceps are on fire lol). It's a win for me so I'll definitely take it!

Breakfast: a very small (probably only 1/4) leftover portion of last night's noodles.

I had things to do this morning so had a quick bite of leftovers and left the house. Just over 200 kcal. After running errands hubs and I popped to the gym. There's no need to go to the gym to lose weight. You can easily do that using Youtube workout videos and phone apps. I do like weight lifting and building strength so enjoy a trip to the gym a few times a week.

Lunch: 2 eggs, 2 sausages, tomato, 1/3 cup sautéed mushrooms, a few chips with a small amount of ketchup and mayo.

Dinner: roasted beef with jollof rice.

Total calories: ~1823 kcal

So today I went to the pub with hubs, which is why the calorie count is higher than my goal. This is not something I recommend and you should definitely watch what you eat and reduce/eliminate alcohol from your diet but I believe that being realistic is important and I wouldn't want to lie to people who are possibly trying to achieve the same thing as me. 😉 I think being realistic about different lifestyles is more important, especially when trying to create a sustainable, long term diet. 

Workout: 50 minute session at the gym (a mixture of cardio on the elliptical machine, pull ups machine, seated row machine and curls) ~300 kcal burned.

Week 1 Day 4

Weight: -0.6 kg (-0.7 kg total) 

Surprisingly enough I did lose weight even though I had a pub session lol yay! 

Breakfast: 1/2 banana, a few black grapes, sunflower seeds, high protein granola and soya yoghurt. 

Lunch: 2 eggs, 2 sausages, tomato, 1/3 cup sautéed mushrooms, a few chips with a small amount of ketchup and mayo.

Snack: 1 Royal Gala apple. 

Dinner: roasted beef with jollof rice.

Total calories: ~1512 kcal

Workouts: 50 minute session at the gym (a mixture of cardio on the elliptical machine, deadlifts, RDLs, grip training and lunges) ~209 kcal burned.

The day went pretty well apart from the headache due to last night's drinks lol.

Week 1 Day 5

Weight: no change (-0.7 kg total)

Breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 sausages, tomato, 1/3 cup sautéed mushrooms, a few chips with a small amount of ketchup and mayo.

Snack:  mini scone with butter.

Lunch: roasted beef with jollof rice, 1 digestive biscuit.

Dinner: homemade flatbread with Sriracha mayo, roasted beef and spinach.

Total calories: ~1754 kcal

Workouts: no workout today.

Week 1 Day 6

Weight: +0.6 kg (-0.1 kg total)

Not too worried about this one. I've seen this happen in the past. Weight often goes up and down, it's just the matter of staying on track and being resilient. 

Breakfast: Oat porridge with peanut butter, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Lunch: 2 eggs, 2 sausages, tomato, 1/2 avocado, 1/3 cup sautéed mushrooms and spinach, a few chips with a small amount of ketchup and mayo.

Dinner: bulgogi beef with white rice.

Total calories: ~1248 kcal 

Workouts: 50 minute session at the gym (a mixture of cardio on the elliptical machine, shoulder press and dips) ~203 kcal burned. 

Week 1 Day 7

Weight: -0.9 kg (1 kg total)

See? Told you lol. 

So yesterday I had some health issues and due to nausea I'm taking it slow today. I won't be eating much but because I want to make sure I'm getting a decent amount of nutrients I've made a nice vegetable soup. 2 ladles worth of soup is only 75 calories but 3.6 g of protein since I've added bunch of different beans and peas. I do need to eat more soup so that sorts it lol.

Breakfast: Jollof rice with spinach and 2 boiled eggs.

Week 1 Day 7 lunch

Lunch: homemade veggie soup with a spoonful of soya yoghurt.

Dinner: egg fried rice (or more like bin rice since I just used whatever leftovers and veg I had in the fridge lol).

Total calories: 1287 kcal

Workouts: no workout today because I'm not feeling well. ☹️

Aaaaand week 1 is over! I think I've done really well. It was pretty effortless and I think it's a very sustainable way to lose weight. I'll be continuing this and documenting my progress. It's a great way to track your success and keep your accountability in place. This is what I've missed when I was looking at people's weight loss stories. A lot of the stories I've read had very minimal documentation or unsustainable methods. I hope you enjoy this, let me know if you have any questions in the comments below and I'll update you all on my progress in a week's time! 

Read my Week 2 journey here. 

My Podcast: A Pint Of Rice | My IG: Lina B 🦭

Byeee~

Lina (Rinatsu)

Experiencing discrimination in the UK

We have a lot to catch up on, so why not start with something that happened most recently?

One of the reasons for coming back to blogging is my craving for creative work. For the past few months I had to abandon everything because my husband and I started a new business together. As we have worked in hospitality for many years, and been in higher up, management positions in the past, as well as having a drive for business (we also ran a business together in the past), we decided to have a go at running a pub. To save ourselves from too much risk we decided to get into a special "partnership" agreement with a massive PLC brewery (although it's not really a brewery anymore, more like a corporation that manages real estate), let's call it M (I'm not trying to hide anything, we haven't signed any NDAs, I simply don't want to mention any specific names for the sake of my own peace). 

We decided to take on a pub that was in desperate need of new management. It's an amazing 600 years old Grade II listed building and was in the most beautiful village we've ever seen. The village the pub was in was rated as the poshest village in the country by The Telegraph, and they were spot on. We thought it was a great location, and surely being in a posh place means lots of polite, well mannered people, that will help us create a great atmosphere for everyone. Well, we couldn't have been more wrong...

Let's get one thing out of the way - we've done so well. In the matter of almost 3 months we've managed to build the reputation back up, pretty much double the profits and create a great atmosphere for the visitors, as well as staff. But we were absolutely destroyed. Both mentally and physically. For almost 3 months straight we worked nonstop. Can you imagine working 3 months straight, doing 14-16 hour days with not a single day off? I can not only imagine it, but I've lived through it. It was hell. We simply couldn't find staff. We had plenty of young students and casual staff who wanted to work, but we couldn't find anybody who treated hospitality as a serious job. Oh, how the times have changed from when I worked as a simple waitress many years ago in a restaurant. Plentiful of staff - full time, part time, casual. Whatever you want! Oh, you're leaving? That's ok cos we'll have somebody else replacing you tomorrow lol. I'm not saying it's good, as there was a lot of competition for jobs before Brexit but now you don't even have the workforce at all. What is better? Definitely not this what we have now...

But the thing that hurt me the most was the mistreatment I've received from people...

I know my beer and I understand it. I'm not some top class expert in every single thing and I'm open to learning new things (which I do), but the fact that men wouldn't accept my word or wouldn't trust my recommendations, constantly talking over me was ridiculous. Mate, you do realise I'm the one who orders this beer, tries it, does the research, cleans the lines, looks after the cellar? I was the only one in the pub that had knowledge to do all of that and more. Your beer belly does not define your knowledge, or even intelligence, and yet here we are, dealing with the audacity...

It wasn't just the ignorant men that made my life living hell. Ever since Brexit happened in this country something changed. People became much more hostile. I'm fluent in English. I barely speak my first language on a day to day basis, as I do not have any Lithuanian family or friends around and I find it easier to express myself in English. Yes, I have an accent because I came to this country as an adult. I'll always have an accent and I'm okay with it. I don't feel the need to go to accent classes or whatever to change it because my pronunciation is great and everybody understands me. 🤷‍♀️ Well, that's not what some Brits think. You have an accent? You must be an idiot unintelligent person! The amount of times I've had people slow down their speech as soon as they heard my accent is actually insane. If don't speak a lot people don't even notice my accent! But no, those pesky "r" rolls, and undefined "v"s and "w"s means I'm dumb clueless, of course! 

"What made you come to Europe?" - I've lived in Europe all my life. "Do you like it here?" - It's okay. "Only ok???!!!". These are only some of the legitimate questions I've gotten. The "what made you come to Europe" actually made me speechless for a second lol.

Look, I get it, this might not sound like a lot because I'm retelling things that happened months ago. As always, my trauma response is to slowly delete the events from my memories so all I have left is the very uncomfortable and hurtful feeling, which will happen eventually lol. I wish these things were discussed more widely, that's why I need to share this. The British are always put on such a high pedestal, as such a perfect country yet the members of the society are often racist and xenophobic. It's not a perfect country - far from it, just look at the news. We're allowed to criticise the government but we should also be looking at the people. What happened? I've been here 10 years - that's a whole damn decade. I felt more at home when I had a stronger accent and worked rubbish jobs to survive in my early 20s. I'm now in my 30s, with an extensive CV and experience, yet I feel more out of place than I've ever been.

"Don't like it here? Why don't you leave??" - a common expression from a regular Brit. You know what, mate? It's a good shout, I might do in a few years, who knows where my life will take me. Don't get me wrong, I've met hundreds of amazing people throughout this decade. But this experience was like a concentrated version of all the hatred people have to offer, which really left a bad mark on my soul. I'll rise above it, as always, I just didn't deserve this experience, that's all. Nobody does and nobody will. 

But for the time being I'll stay here, in the UK, mind my own business, as usual, and see what life has got to offer because the country is not completely 💩 yet and there's still some nice people around. Peace. ✌️

My Podcast: A Pint Of Rice | My IG: Lina B 🦭

See you soon~

Lina (Rinatsu)

I'm...back?

 Oh, hi! It's been...8 years?? It almost feels weird yet somehow right..? How's it going, everyone?

Few days ago I started feeling nostalgia for certain things. I recently closed a business that I ran with my husband (yes, I'm married lol), which greatly affected me in a negative way and I've been struggling trying to find my creative bone again. I've been in hospitality industry for 10 years now and I sort of ended up hating it. Especially after running a hospitality business. That bloody k*lled me physically (almost) and mentally (definitely). I should probably write a separate blog post just about the experience I had with it because the story is a rollercoaster lol. I've met so many people through 10 years in hospitality and somehow all of them moved on with different things, yet I'm still here... It's because I am really good at it! Doesn't mean I enjoy it... You could sort of compare it to a useless skill to have. I guess it's not completely useless since it brings you money...but nothing to brag about really. It's inevitable that a creative soul will eventually burn out doing such repetitive and tedious jobs. 

So, it's been over a month since I've been out of this industry (at least for now) and I've been doing some soul searching. My husband suggested a career change (although I wouldn't even consider hospitality a career, especially the way hospitality workers are treated in Britain). So at the moment I'm going through some online studies. I have no idea where this will take me but I'm trying my best to work through mental issues and find myself again. 

In need of some cable management lol

So, all of this has made me remember something that I started almost 14 years ago. My blog! Omg isn't it just a great place to vent? Hahaha. Ok, not really the main purpose of it but yeah. What even is the main purpose of my blog, now that I think about it? I'm not even sure. Scrolling through the years of posts, I'm confused about it lol. From crafts, to movie "reviews", to make up "tutorials", to general life posts. Shall we call it lifestyle? Sure, let's go with that. Even though my life is a mess lol. 

Cute capsule treasures I got on my trip to Hong Kong, May 2023

So here I am, currently spending most of my days in front of the computer, as if it's mid-late 00s again lol. Let's see where this will take me, eh?

I'd say I'll update you all soon but I can't make promises. I'm not good with deadlines (yet). In the meantime, catch me on my other projects!

My Podcast: A Pint Of Rice | My IG: Lina B 🦭

Byeee~

Lina (Rinatsu)