Congrats Dramabeans!!!! I have been a loyal albeit silent follower of you since the Boys Before flowers days *curses Lee Min Ho n your head full of cabbage-permed hair* Now that I have fully embraced the dark side I have no plans of seeing the light of non-obsessive-normalcy!!! :)

Goong
I lived in California at the time and stumbled on this fabulous looking program an LA TV.
I was hooked !

cheers, parsnip

Congratulations on your 5th year! Many thanks to your updates too!
I got hooked onto korean dramas after Sweet Spy starring Dennis Joseph O'Neil - he was just so hot! O.O

Thanks x

I remember my father and I staying up till 2am in the morning watching Sandglass. I was born and raised in Hong Kong and I had no idea what the people were saying but I knew that I loved watching it. I cried, and laughed my way into becoming a drama addict. My father and I practically developed a long lasting bond through watching Korean dramas. He used to be a hardcore wuxia/mob action film fan but I successfully converted him into a softy. I wouldn't necessarily say Sandglass is the best drama I've ever seen but it sure left a huge mark in my heart. My love for Lee Jung Jae especially started from this. Thank you.

Hello!! :)
First off I want to say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DRAMABEANS!! :D

The one drama that pulled me into the "dark side" was Coffee Prince! I have seen other dramas previously like Full House, Spring Waltz, and Goong; however, Coffee Prince was my start of a wonderful addiction to "kdramaland" (My personal disneyland with the added swing of emotions :P)

Oh Coffee Prince <3
I loved how fresh the plot was and how animated the characters were. It was then, I started to be a fan of Yoon Eun Hye and Gong Yoo. And also started my ultimate Love for coffee and wanting to learn to make that foamy milk art baristos make on the coffee :D
ever since my magnetic pull to this drama, my kdrama addiction has not ceased since :)

Email: [email protected]

Congrats on your anniversary!

I would have to say the first drama that truly made me fall in love was a lesser known one, I think. It was a weekend drama called Golden Bride. I had only picked it up because Kim Heechul was in the cast and I was obsessed with anything Super Junior at that point (I still like them...just not as maniacal about it) but lo and behold, the entire story managed to suck me in. It was the first instance where a k-drama had me rushing home from school, ignore homework and food, and sit down with my laptop to catch up xDD

My first drama was My Girl and I've seen plenty since but it's still my first one, thus a sentimental favorite <3 Ironically enough it was a Hong sisters drama! xD

Instead of just one drama I would have to say that it was the Hong Sisters who really brought me into the fold with My Girl and You're Beautiful. However, the latter I would have to say is now one of my all time favorites with all its cuteness and music. Then My Girlfriend is a Nine-Tailed Fox really sealed the deal for me. Thank you Dramabeans for helping me to feed my addiction.

First one I ever watched for drama (cause for Korean movies I started way back when) was probably Winter Sonata (cause of how big it became in Japan). But my first like was Full House and first LOVE would have to be Coffee Prince.

First drama love...

Believe it or not: Winter Sonata.

And I still haven't finished watching it.

Once upon a time, when there was no such thing as broadband in my world... It was broadcasting on TV, hailed as the first of the Hallyu wave coming to local shores. The music, the scenery, the misery... is this love? But I missed too many episodes and so it was not to be. Picked it up here and there, as one never quite forgets the first...
(wasn't until many years later that I got sucked into this world completely via Coffee Prince and, immediately after, MNIKSS. A potent one-two, and the rest is history)

My first K-Drama was "Coffee Prince". I know it is a cliche but it is true. My friend talled me about it and I was immidiatly interested because the main lead actress Yoon Eun Hye plaied a character I couled identifie myself with, as I also have very short hair and am offen mistaken as a boy because of the way I dress...^^
Well and after the first Drama came the seconf and so on, after the 124th i stopped counting...^^

spring waltz. i remember sitting on the floor of my room for days during winter break of junior year in high school, only coming out to eat meals and assure my parents that i was still alive. man. those were the days.

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My 1st ever k drama was Autumn in My Heart. I stumbled across Dramabeans when I was googling about k drama places to watch and since then, everything is history. I love the analysis of k dramas by Javabeans and have been a loyal follower of Dramabeans since then. I noticed Girlfriday joined and really enjoyed reading about 1N2D through their published conversation, and also, reading about the summaries of dramas allowed me to choose whether I would want to follow a show too. Thank you Dramabeans! Aja aja hwaiting! Q(^_^Q)

Happy Birthday Dramabeans (And Happy New Year!!) Thank you so much for everything..I'm a Korean-American who's very thankful for your witty, descriptive drama episode plots that made up my day.
My first kdrama was Lovers in Paris..I liked it but it wasn't enough to make me love it. What drew me over to the dark side was My Name is Kim Sam Soon. First I was like "holy..the main lady is FAT" but I grew to love her character very very much. The plot was great, one of the cutest love stories ever! Kim sun ah and Hyun Bin are two amazing korean actor and actress, they never let me down! Recently watched Secret Garden and Scent of a Woman <3 From that point on, I watched drama after drama..I'll never stop watching!

My first kdrama love was You're Beautiful. I had started as an anime fanatic who started watching Jdramas and taiwan dramas and finally ended up at kdramas. I had watched a couple really bad ones and written kdramas off. My first drama was Bad Couple and the one I watched after that to give them another chance was Partners. I fell in love with that drama for all the quirky cute it doled out. Since then I have become a Kdrama addict :D

I can't seem to remember my first drama either !

I've started watching kdramas 4 years ago ..

I THINK the fist one I watched was translated in Arabic at a local channel ... " SAD LOVE STORY "
The countless tears I shed made of me my brother's favorite pastime :p He just wouldn't leave me off !
The second was " stairway to heaven "

BUUUT, after that i decided not to watch heartbreaking melodramas never again !

That's when I met "YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL " , and that drama my friends , was a complete shift in my story with kdramas ! I was compeletely into it , loughing and giggling all by myself in the middle of the night ! And I have to THANK YOU Hong Sisters for making me discover whole new side for kdramas :p

The end !

Heh...Memories....My first introduction to Korean drama was in college. The college had a cable set up with about 20 channels and half of them were in a foreign language. I was studying German but the German channel was just news and half the time it was in English. The Spanish channel with its soap operas was fun to watch but there were no subtitles, but the on the Asian channel whenever they played Korean dramas they came with subtitles....and as I discovered just a little later they were rocking awesome. Silly me though, I did not realize that Korean dramas were short miniseries. The channel would play several episodes together, so the series would switch quickly. As I only got to catch a few episodes here and there I assumed they were all the same series. ...I figured it was the weirdest drama ever. First the main girl was forced to work like a slave to get back the deed to her house, then she was forced to cut her hair short to act like a boy to work in a coffee shop, but suddenly she is a baker in that coffee shop, talking to a stuffed pig, and climbing up mountains. Yes, I recognized the characters seemed to look completely different between each section, but my memory of faces is so bad I could almost sign up for disability parking. Still the memory of that super drama was fun. My roommate from Mexico would watch them with me and we would giggle like a bunch of idiots.
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My first full drama was getting to the end of reading what there was of Goong. Hearing there was a drama and remembering my fond times with Korean dramas I decided to watch it, and I liked it a lot. Korean dramas seemed different from American dramas. Korean dramas actually went somewhere and seemed more heartfelt and lively. The romance was often the main focus and there was an end to each story so you didn't have to watch your favorite drama be canceled abruptly by annoying broadcast stations or wither to death by having to make up more and more drama for the characters to get into.
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It was the next drama that cemented the love for Korean dramas for me. It was the Hong sister's "My Girl". Unbelievably funny, the series seemed to have no qualms of making fun of itself and the soundtrack was exciting. At times the series seemed predictable but then suddenly it took the series in a completely different direction, which I appreciated. And I learned stuff too...like how to lie really well.
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Now I am an addict... And each end of a drama makes me hunger for another one. Well...its not like I reeaaalllyy need sleep.

Oh mine was back in 2006, Goong. Wow I can't believe it's been 6 years since then! The beautiful actors, sets, and clothes and the interesting plot made me fall in love with Korean dramas, they were just so addictive, and a nice change from the local (I'm Middle-eastern so I grew up with Arab dramas XD) and Western shows.

Hate to be unoriginal but it was Boys Over Flowers and after watching it I realized it was a very messy drama!

Winter sonata. My mom was watching in the living room and I came in the middle of it but we watched it for 3 hours straight. Cried like there was no tomorrow. Next thing ya know, why hello dark side!

This is a great question. The k-drama that was the game changer for me was City Hall. Something about it really resonated with me and I found myself staying up until 3 and 4am. I actually watched it twice, back to back. My best friend and I started this obsession together and after she introduced me to this site, I've been watching dramas(old and new) and reading recaps non-stop :)

"The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry" was and is the bomb-diggity and will take all the blame for my crossing into the dark side. I am a sucker for all the dramas with strong female friendships and career-minded ladies.

Congrats!

Bon anniversaire, DB ...
My first love is Boys Before Flower. It gave me my first love on Lee Min Ho. Then came in He's Beautiful and HwAng Tae Kyung made me shift my fangirlism from LMH to Jang Geun Suk. JGS got me addicted to k-drama and everything Korean. I'm now officially a k-wave addict, one of the many big time addicts in my workplace.
If there were such thing as positive addiction then my addiction to DB would be one. I am so into your postings, recaps, OT, the whole lot. I'm a fan to JB, GF, Samsookki, Red Pill and others. You surely are great writers...
Keep up the good work, DB Fighting!!

My first was My Lovely Sam Soon. While watching Kpop videos on YouTube I came across a video which made me want to watch the drama. After watching My Lovely Sam Soon I had to find more to watch. I then became addicted to Asian TV; dramas, movies, game shows, you name it I watch it. Thanks for everything Dramabeans...you have honestly kept me looking for and watching more every time.

My first love was Pure Heart (Soon Jung) with Ryu Jin and Lee Yo Won :D I've been watching dubbed versions of Korean dramas since I was little xD but now that I've grown up, I've been trying to re-watch some of them in their original forms.

Autumn Tale, Won Bin is still my favorite actor to this day.

I'm somewhat late to the party, but since this is a party without end, I'll share...After all, what k-drama addict doesn't want to talk about his/her addiction, given the opportunity?

My k-drama addiction began last year, with the best of the best, My Name is Kim Sam Soon. Pasta was the first k-drama I ever saw, and when I saw MNIKSS, I regretted giving my k-drama virginity to Pasta because both dramas had been available on Hulu at the same time, but for whatever reason, the first time around, I only saw the first two minutes of MNIKSS and moved on...SMH

I was on winter break from school and instead of grading my students' work, I spent my week watching and re-watching that drama: favorite scenes, favorite episodes, etc. I guzzled everything MKIKSS. I went back to school like a teenager in heat: I could not stop talking about Hyun Bin...or listening and downloading Clazziquai songs from the show...but really, I couldn't stop talking about the hotness of Binnie.

Game was over when I shared how I'd spent my vacay with one of my class where I found fellow addicts who proceeded to tell me about websites and shows to feed my obsession. In the middle of class, with apologies to the two boys in class, I took a mini break and began pulling up pictures of Binnie for the girls to look at. Instead of the other typical music I played in the background, I plugged up my ipod and gave the class a taste of Clazziquai. (Tthank God that class was made up of a very, very small group and we were close). OMG! How awkward must it have been for my teenage students?! But I didn't care. LOL!

I loved Kim Sun Ah so much, I looked for her other projects and ended up watching City Hall. Gosh darn it, that drama is sexy!...That kiss?...I think my panties will forever be in a twist over Cha Seung Won because of that.

To end, I've been in free fall since MNIKSS, and now, I'm in a twist, too, over Padam Padam. I'm even watching it in RAW form without English subtitles and have spent this winter break, too, not doing my work, just so that I can watch and catch up. This website is feeding my obsession, and I'm loving it.

Thank you, congrats, and Happy Anniversary!

All started with Coffee Prince, gotta start with a highly addictive one which leaves you staying up all night cos you MUST watch next episode.
My friend loves asian culture, something i didn't know anything about at the time.
For my first viewing of any sort of asian media it was a revelation, so cute, the romance that took forever to develop. The cheesy factor was load and proud and i loved it.

personal taste. first watched it on hulu. and now forever lost in the kdrama world. lee min ho, lee min ho, where art thou, lee min ho?

Wow five years, I've been a kdrama addict for about 4 years now and it all started with Hong Gil Dong (the ending of which I have yet to recover from). I was fascinated by the language, the fusion of history and modern music, the amazing costumes and endearing characters. My love affair with kdrama is still burning hot and probably will for a long time thanks to the awesome dramamakers and sites like this one :)

Love Story in Harvard. I patiently watched streaming feeds of this kdrama and you could just imagine the amount of patience one has to possess back in 2004 when internet speeds were 'so-so'. It was a struggle to nurture the addiction . . . for 3 years, I did just that. However, when Boys Before Flowers came, the addiction could no longer be contained. It just came bubbling to the surface and before the series ended, I became 100% kdrama-holic. And now, for the life of me, could not comprehend why it took me 2 years before I watched You're Beautiful. The prize for this week is motivation enough for me to write and post my first response here in Dramabeans . . . happy 5th!!! :)

Back during the early 2000s, when I was just but a naive teenager, I watched Autumn Tale with my mother, and that thing scared me away from Korean Dramas for a good 5 years. It was so good, it made me cry without my permission, and it was so damn haunting. But then I came back a few years later to support Rain Oppa and got sucked into it for reals with Full House.

Happy Birthday Dramabeans~! :D

hmm, my first drama love is Boys Over Flowers. After a couple of episodes I got really annoyed at Jan-di (seriously now, who didn't?) and I was looking around for a site where I could vent out my anger along with others who were also watching the drama. I'm soo thankful I found your site! :) I love reading your drama recaps, especially for dramas where I want to know what happens but don't have enough time (or patience) to watch.
Cheers!

Hm...I'm assuming we're talking about Korean drama first love...because my first love was Hong Kong drama. It happened when I was nine. As usual, I was getting annoyed that the TV station is replacing Hong Kong with Korean drama. But that day, they were airing the first episode of Autumn Fairy Tale, and I thought the acting was pretty good. I guess the school setting, academic competition, the young actors appealed to me at that age, so I kept watching. Without realizing it, I feverishly followed each new episode. Then I cried for the first time watching a drama, and that was it, I left my Hong Kong first love to switch over to Korean

I think the first K drama I watched was Autumn in my Heart, but I wouldn't call that my first love. I think it was "My Lovely Samsoon" that brought me over to the dark side XD
One look at Hyun Bin and I thought, "Man, this guy is SMOKIN' hot!"

Happy 5th birthday, Dramabeans! :D

Funnily enough it's actually You're Beautiful! That drama definitely sent me over the dark side. It was the drama that made me forsake homework and other forms of entertainment so that I can watch the next episode. It was the one that also had me on Google all the time looking up Lee Hong Ki =)

I used to think watching dramas of any kind were a waste of time until I got hooked onto Kdramas! Boys Over Flowers did me in. Lol!

Boys over Flowers. But it was really Coffee Prince that was and is my first love. It was also what brought me to your website!

My name is kim samsoon... thanks jb and gf!

my first k-drama was You're beautiful (now i know that the world of drama is infinite but at that time this harem of young asian pretty boy made me fell for the dark side of the drama XD i was captivated by Jeremy (oh please he is so sweet/naive/child-like that you can't dislike him! well and also the fact that i love the stories when the female character try to act as a boy (like coffe prince, hana kimi,etc) because it creates a lot of funny misunderstang ! well now when i think about it i realize that it is mmm a light drama and it's mmm a teenage-drama but well when i saw it i really enjoyed myself XD and i guess everybody loves pig-rabbit! XD

My first drama ever was either Dae Jang Geum or Phoenix, which I watched with this incredibly weird dubbing in China. I didn't really like or dislike either(but I do remember thinking that Eric did angst really pretty).

Flash forward to a few years later, to where I meet my doom. I watched the Japanese version of Hana Yori Dango. My cousin, who was already into dramas and had spent months already trying to coax me over to the dark side, told me that there was a Korean adaptation coming up. I was curious so I watched the first few episodes. And I was addicted.

Now that I'm three years in this addiction, I realize that Boys Before Flowers wasn't exactly perfection. Not even close. But this drama is special to me because it was the introduction for me to other amazing cracktastic KDramas.

The Korean drama that totally got me HOOKED on dramas forever and infinity was I'm Sorry I Love You. I didn't understand how a drama could make me feel that emotionally drained, from smiling from cheek to cheek one episode and bawling my eyes out the next, but it sure had me coming back for more. From then it went to a masquerade of Goong, Full House, My Girl, My Name is Kim Sam Soon and the list goes on and on. And now here we are about to enter 2012, and my drama craze hasn't died down a bit.

My first drama love was Autumn in My Heart, LOL....I probably wouldve hated it if I watched it now, but back then that was THE SHIT! hahaha....Won Bin and SSH were so hot in it. The tragic incest storyline was crap but back then it just seemed sooo sad and tragic that it moved me somehow.

I don't know if my answer counts because my first drama was Boys Over Flowers The Japan version-Hana Yori Dango for those in the know. I was a fan of the manga and was freaking out to see a live action version.
But my first Kdrama was Goong/Princess Hours. It's sad but you could pretty much stick the word princess in the title of anything and I'm just about sold.
Anyways Happy 5th birthday Dramabeans!
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first of all, congratulations on your 5th year! i am such a fan of your site that i recommended it to all those addicted to k-dramas (or anything korean) that i know :D

as for my first k-drama love, it would be SOMETHING HAPPENED IN BALI/WHAT HAPPENED IN BALI. I was amazed by the actors who all did well (not to mention they are all good looking), I was amazed by Jo In Sung (who, since then, has become my biggest crush ever!) and I was amazed by the ending which defined tragedy and pain in k-drama! and then I thought--wow, that one's really good! i think i should see more k-dramas! and until now, i am such a fan of k-dramas :D

I had watched some japanese dramas before, one of them was called Hana Yori Dango, maybe you've heard of it.^^ For fun, I gave Boys Over Flowers a try and I fell in love with Lee Min Ho. And Korea. Then I watched Coffee Prince, My Girl, Dal Ja's Spring, Soulmate (thanks to you!)... No turning back for me!

Coffee Prince was my first real crack drama.

I remember seeing Dalja's Spring when I was really little with my mom, but it was Coffee Prince that made me start watching dramas on my own :)

First of all, Happy 5th Anniversary DB!!! What an amazing milestone, especially on the internetz. Yes, the internet does = cats, and thus 5 years is a freaking long time.

My first drama love (and I feel like I've talked about this so much on the OT that I hope no one who frequents it reads this!) is the old, old, old Chinese drama, Monkey Goes West. I dunno if my local PBS programmers were secretly drama fans or if they really thought it was educational television, but I watched it religiously for months as a child when it was re-aired on PBS (since I wasn't even born during its first run). I guess Monkey was the Chinese equivalent of a sageuk, or perhaps that was par of the course in the early-mid-70s. I dunno. I was hooked.

My real love affair, however, didn't happen until just last year or so when I was trying to find out more about this Revenge of the Gumiho thing I kept running into on KBS World. Which led me to looking up "gumiho" (turns out I already knew the Japanese version of the 9-tail fox myth, but didn't know there was a Korean one as well) which led me here. I couldn't find RoG online, didn't have the tools yet, but I somehow found BOF recaps here...which led to full-blown k-drama obsession. I watched BOF fanatically, going to work early, watching between calls, refraining from taking lunch, staying up till all hours -- all the classic symptoms of a drama addict -- even though, in hindsight, it's kind of a messed up drama. (Really, Jan Di, you go from sassy-girl to girl-who-loves-her-tormentor?) But I had to know HOW THE STORY ENDED! Even after it went all wackadoodle on me what with the amnesia and Bummie screaming at the sky. We all have to start somewhere, right?

There have been other dramas in between, and certainly post-BOF dramas I love a heckuva lot more (The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry, is it yet time to rewatch you again?), but I still credit Monkey Goes West as my first true love. I've carried the love of Monkey in my heart since I was in junior high. At the time I kept waiting for a Season 2, not realizing that wasn't how Asian dramas worked. Heck, if the internet had been around then the way it is now, I would have scoured the net looking for Monkey references -- as I eventually did do once I discovered the world of k-dramas online. So, thank you, Monkey with your crazy antics, funky costumes and early wire-work for breathing the first hint of life into my drama-loving heart.

And thank you DB, GF and all the volunteer writers/recappers for sharing your obsession and giving us a place to do the same.

Email: cmrprindle at gmail dot com