Beef and Choe

The first time I heard of David Choe, it was during an interview with Howard Stern. Even back then, I recognized that he fancied himself a raconteur, a guy who made his first million off of gambling using a strict Martingale betting system in blackjack (Doubling your next bet each time you lose), then eventually made a fortune by being asked by Facebook, then a young company, to paint their head office, and in lieu of cash he asked to be paid in Facebook stocks. He makes for a good talker, but most listeners know that you can’t take whatever he’s saying as 100% truth. I’ll buy the Facebook story… the gambling story, not so much.

So when Netflix’s show Beef got viral with its success and eventually a story by David Choe regarding getting away with raping a masseuse got viral as well, I wasn’t that surprised. And just like in Howard stern with the Martingale betting system, I can’t 100% tell whether the story is true or not. What is true however is that in telling the story at the time, he was looking to regale his listeners, as a raconteur would. And if he is not guilty of sexually assaulting a masseuse and getting away with it, he is definitely guilty in taking rape lightly and trying to turn it into an entertaining yarn. Now, I’m not a prude. I do believe that you can make a joke about anything. But there was no joke in the story. No punchline. Just a, “hur hur hur, I got away with raping a masseuse, isn’t that nuts?! I’m David Choe.”

Maybe it wasn’t even played as a joke. Maybe it was more of a machismo thing. “I’m David Choe, sex monster.” Who knows? It’s just a bizarre story to tell, or more accurately, confess, and not expect any blow back.

When I was watching Beef, (spoiler alert) my wife and I both observed that all families have someone like David Choe’s character, someone who borrows money from family, ends up wasting it, then sorta disappearing or just being relegated into the outside periphery of the family. The one uncle that failed. The one uncle who went to prison and is never talked about again. The one uncle who never quite fit in and is still trying to find himself even in his forties. This was David’s character. And he played it well. Unfortunately, just like his character in the TV series, his past statements is ruining it for everyone else. People are now trying to boycott the TV series.

I watched and finished the whole series before the David Choe story went viral. I quite enjoyed it. And I actually thought that David did some decent acting amongst more seasoned peers like Steven Yeun and Ali Wong. David sells the character quite frankly, at least to me, because he talks and acts in real life like the type of person that would actually do what his character did in the show. I mean, take his own words as evidence. He gambled himself into his first million, and at one point had nothing but $500 in his pocket. Now, isn’t that the type of stuff that black sheep uncles would do? Lucky for him, it all worked out for him if the gambling story is to be believed.

Knowing that at worst he is a rapist and at the very least he’s an awful comedian with rape fantasies, would I have still enjoyed the series? Would I still recommend it to people? I would like to think that I could suspend reality a bit and indulge in the story that’s being fed to me on screen. And as for recommending the show. I would still recommend it. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and as of now, David is just guilty of having bad stories. And to boycott the series would be doing Yeun, Wong, and everyone else involved in the TV series a huge disservice. It would be letting the bad uncle, the uncle that the rest of the family would rather you not know about, take the whole family down.

Now, this is different of course with enjoying the works of people like Woody Allen or Roman Polanski. By not watching their films, you’re not buying their products, You are actually hurting them. With Beef, David is not the main character nor is he the director, writer, or one of the executive producers. He just played the bad guy, and he turned out to be a bit of an awful guy in real life. Keep on not watching Allen and Polanski films. Go ahead and watch Beef.

Moving

I will be moving into a new apartment in a month. I’m kinda excited to move to a new place even though it’s only a block away. My current place is small, and truthfully, I’ve never been in a “big” place in Korea, even when I was living outside of Seoul. So yeah, moving into a relatively spacious two-bedroom apartment is kind of a big deal, in my opinion, especially right in the middle of Seoul.

And it comes with quite a few perks, too. A lobby with security that makes it look like a hotel, a sunny view of the Namsan Tower, access to a gym, a driving range, and study room within the building, a sauna in the bathroom, a spacious kitchen, and again, the building is conveniently located minutes from many of Seoul’s landmarks. I’ll still be taking the subway to work, of course, but that’s an inescapable part of life in the city.

Unfortunately, I’m not buying my place. I’m not renting it either. There’s a weird in-between system in Korea where people deposit a huge amount of money in the landlord’s account, and they don’t have to pay rent during the lease agreement. Much like many people in the country, I’m too poor to afford buying my own place within the city, especially with apartment prices skyrocketing after the previous administrations market policies. Seriously, the housing market here has become much like Hong Kong. You’re either extremely rich to be able to afford living within the city or just extremely lucky. I happen to be the latter.

One of the things that works against me is that most people when they get married, they get a huge amount of money from the groom’s parents in order to purchase a house. Being a foreigner, I never got that luxury. Heck, I didn’t get any help with anything from my father regarding my housing. I feel guilty that with regards to my wife’s family, and how generous they are with us; the relationship is just off kilter. My Korean in-laws just give and give, while my side of the family is nothing but dead silence.

So what do I do? What is there to do but to just work my ass off. Take every opportunity to earn money and just say yes. Luckily, Korea has been generous to me. As a foreigner, there is always opportunity to earn money as long as you hustle. So yeah, I’m hustling, hustling for that that two-bedroom apartment right in the middle of Seoul.

The Last of a Series

I just published my third book of collected drawings done during the pandemic. This is probably my last, since I can’t keep on churning the same type of collection every year. The idea for Pseudologia Fantastica was almost a whim, and carrying on that whim for over three years is a little long. That’s not to say that I’m going to stop drawing using my current style, busy drawings that fill the full page, but I’m not going to do them anymore with the purpose of publishing. There are still many ideas that I feel like I need to push, so I’m still going to continue with it.

Also, the pandemic, which was the catalyst to my busy drawing style, hasn’t really affected me much recently in regards to my art. In fact, I’ve been much busier now and I’m finding less time to make art.

I encourage artists to make prints and make books of collections of their art. Not only are they an alternative way of selling your work, they are also an alternative way of showing your work, free from the confines of a traditional gallery. I kinda wish I sold prints much earlier in my career. I always thought that my works were cheap enough as it is, and a Glico print wouldn’t make sense as an alternative purchase. But now I find that prints are just as good a way of driving revenue as much as the original. It’s also a way of meeting your audiences halfway, especially if they don’t necessarily have the resources to purchase an original. The same goes for books of collected works.

Anyway, I hope the people who get my third book enjoy my collection. They’re basically the same images found on my Instagram and featured on this website, but it also includes explanations as well as a list of things found on the page, much like an I Spy book.

Oh Covid!

The corona virus has come to my doorstep. My wife caught the virus. She had a cold starting on Monday, then come Tuesday, she went to the doctor and they did a test on her. Positive. It finally got her. It sucks because it will affect us financially since she gets paid by the class she teaches and not in a salaried position. It also sucks because she’s in the middle of a yoga certification course which requires a hundred hours of lessons. This puts her behind on her classes and puts us behind financially. And to complicate matters more, we are in the process of moving apartments and we need to get rid of our current apartment. We already turned down three prospective visitors/tenants who could take over the apartment for us due to it being a covid quarantine area at the moment.

What about me? Well, I caught a cold, and it’s not so bad. It’s just that my throat hurts a little.. I’ve had four shots of the vaccine, so I’m hoping that whatever my wife has, I’m already immune to it. See, she only had the two mandatory shots. I kinda resent her for not getting the extra two boosters. Maybe she would still be covid-free if she wasn’t “too busy” to take them. Now she has too much time on her hands. And since we live in a small apartment, I have to get really serious about cleanliness and try not to catch the virus from her. I’ve been dodging this thing for about three years now. And I think if I could just get through a couple more days or so, she wouldn’t be contagious anymore and I would still be a covid virgin.

Living with a covid patient in a small apartment is tricky since there’s really no way to isolate her. Our food has been meticulously separated and I sleep on the couch while she sleeps on the bed, but other than that, there’s no serious separation. My wife sprays surfaces with disinfectants constantly however, which I guess would help prevent me from catching it on surfaces that she touches. We also have an air disinfectant running to keep the air clean, fingers crossed.

My friend suggested that my current cold is actually the covid virus. Well, perhaps, but I’m not suffering from fever, chills, muscles aches, or headaches. I also take a test every day before going to work, and so far each time I tested negative. So I’m thinking it’s not covid, but a something that a bit of Tylenol Cold could easily knock out.

And yes, despite my wife catching covid, I still go to work. It’s probably the safest place for me right now, not being in close proximity with what I know is a certified covid case. I also have no excuse not to go to work since I’m perfectly healthy (despite the cold). There’s jobs and side jobs to do and money to be earned. I guess the biggest test for me will be the weekend where I will be at home trying to avoid catching covid for two days. I figure if I still test negative come Monday morning, I’ll be scot free.

So yeah, here’s hoping I don’t catch the virus. I know it would be a miracle, but hey, I don’t really ask God for much. I just hope that my wife gets better soon and I don’t catch it and prolong our collective suffering. Will be updating this after a couple more days. 

…

Covid got me. No symptoms, but got tested at a clinic and they say I’m positive. Damn it. 

Bye Twitter

I used to love Twitter. I used my account mainly to rant about politics and react to political comments. It was fun, but boy it was infuriating. It was an endless Internet debate. I was constantly trying to one-up or outsmart one commenter or another, constantly reacting to the news, constantly correcting other people’s bad takes. But then I got banned. I tried to get my account reinstated, but then I noticed how stress-free I was. It was like a weight has been lifted. I don’t have to fight anyone online nor do I have to constantly broadcast my point of view about everything. And for the record, I was banned for overstepping my bounds arguing with Laura Ingraham over the death of George Floyd.

Anyway, I didn’t feel like I was missing out the minute I stopped looking at Twitter every hour. I figure I am busy enough dealing with my Instagram account and Reddit, that I don’t need the negativity that is Twitter. And really, the vibe on those other platforms are very different compared to Twitter. On Instagram, everyone is being positive and supportive of my art. On Reddit, I get to read and give constructive advice on many things, or go on a wormhole and educate myself about a subject. On Twitter, it’s like being in the middle of a playground fight all of the time.

So when Elon Musk decided to buy Twitter, I really didn’t care that much. I already wasn’t a big fan of Elon Musk. For someone so rich, he seemed to be so thirsty for approval, so needy in proving his macho, edgelodrd Tony Stark vision of himself. The man is not Tony Stark. Also, Tony Stark is an awful superhero, a lazily-written deus ex machina of a character. “Oh I know how to save the universe, I’ll just use uhm… nanobots! Yes, that’s it!” But back to Elon Musk. He’s not a genius. He was born rich, and turned that privilege into even more wealth. He didn’t invent the electric cars Tesla is pumping out. His engineers did. If anything, all of the ideas that come out of his head, and not from his engineers or any expert, seem to be totally dumb. Self-driving cars by 2023? Highly unlikely. Travelling in a hyperloop? More like a long, single-lane tunnel that’s heavily backed up. Buying twitter to make it more free for free-speech warriors. Well, that just sounds like a disaster.

And what do you know? The minute he buys it, more n-words start popping up, hate speech increases, and advertisers started fleeing. There are many other ways he’s messing up Twitter, but I’m sure you can find that in other places in the Internet, and by the time you’re reading this, I’m sure he’s already done much more than I could list. That is, if Twitter still exists.

Now I feel bad for many of the people he’s fired in the company, but not all of them. To save money, he’s fired about half of the company’s workforce and has let go of anyone questioning his intelligence or expertise in technology or running the company. I feel bad for those people, but hey, if you’re in Silicon Valley and have coding skills, you’re already more employable than I am. You’ll be fine. Or at least, I hope you’ll be fine. It’s really callous of Musk to fire people right before the holidays. But I suppose that’s him being edgy. Who I don’t feel bad for is the CEO and the other executives he fired the minute he bought Twitter. They were the same people who forced him to buy the company in the first place. I’m sure they expected to be fired. And being executives, I’m sure they all had golden parachutes and was more than happy to be fired rather than stick around and see first hand how Musk sinks Twitter.

I really wish the old Twitter would come back but I think it’s all far gone now. Everyone is gleefully watching Musk fail to run the company. He wanted to be the king of free speech and an edgelord, but now it seems like he’s the one in the middle of the school playground being egged on and teased by everybody. Within two weeks of buying the company, Musk is already hinting at bankruptcy. It’s even affecting the stock price of his other company, Tesla. Unless something dramatically miraculous happens, Twitter will soon be dead.

Goodbye, Twitter, my old friend. It was fun while it lasted. Sometime, I’ll sign up and try to learn Mastodon. Maybe that’s where I can get my old Twitter fix back.

Itaewon Halloween

I don’t think I need to explain what happened last Saturday in Itaewon. It’s a tragedy and it’s amazing that such a thing could happen in an open area with no obvious catalyst. In any case, let me just quickly go about with my musings.

First off, I appreciate all of the calls of concern I got from people. I live near the area and I could easily have gone to celebrate Halloween that night. Fortunately for me, I had a very busy week, and I wasn’t really in the mood to go out for Halloween night. Also, the tragedy happened on a Saturday. The big Halloween parties usually happen on Friday nights in Itaewon. I’m guessing the crowd was bigger on Friday night than it was on Saturday, so it’s a mystery as to why the tragedy occurred on Saturday while nothing happened on Friday.

And yeah, when the tragedy happened, I was out having a meal and drinking somewhere else close by. I was so tired, I was home by around nine, watching crime shows on Netflix. The gravity of the news didn’t really hit me until the next morning.

Itaewon has a really interesting history. It was first seen as the foreign underbelly of Seoul. While popular, people would rather hang out in other, more hip places. Itaewon was simply just a place for foreigners to hang out. Then the song “Itaewon Freedom” came out and made it a popular place among the locals. Halloween made it particularly popular, with people dressing up and everything. A sexy nurse here, a Harley Quinn there… it was prime fodder for social networking material.

Then covid hit, and many of the bars and restaurants were forced to closed down. Several places I used to frequent are no longer around. Many of the small restaurants and buildings have been demolished, and now a lot of spaces in Itaewon are under construction, bound to be giant buildings or office spaces in the next couple of years. Last year, people started to be more comfortable going out in Itaewon. Business was starting to pick up. People even celebrated Halloween, I remember. But this year, with this thing happening over Halloween, I’m afraid it’s going to once again scare some business away from the area. After all, who wants to party where over 150 people died in one night? It’s such a grim scenario.

There are videos online of people chanting “push, push, push” as the crowd tried to move, regardless of what was happening a few feet from people. People don’t directly see what’s happening a few feet from them, so they could be unwittingly crushing someone as they’re going with the crowd which is chanting “push, push, push.” A smaller version of this happens every day in trains. I experience it regularly. People would push their way in, not considering the people already inside, regardless of whether the train is already packed. These people would ignore the discomfort their causing and pretend everything is normal as they hug the doors of the train. Selfishly, these same people would not move out of the way or just step out of the train for a bit whenever people want to get out, probably in fear that they would not be able to push themselves in a second time around. When a simple “실례합니다 (Shil-leh-ham-nee-dah)/ Excuse me” wouldn’t do, I have to resort to “Get out of my damned way.”

Now imagine about a hundred of these train jerks in the Halloween crowd just starting to push themselves through in one direction. One pusher multiplies his/her force via domino effect. Now imagine a hundred more pushers going on the opposite direction, unwilling to compromise, pretending that each push is not inconveniencing or hurting other people, the same mentality of the person squeezing himself in at the crowded train door. Then add in a chant of “push, push, push.” Push, push, push. Then you can stop wondering why such an incident could happen.

On April 16, 2014, a ferry, the MV Sewol, full of high school students sank in Korea, killing 360 people. In memory of the tragedy, people wore yellow ribbons. People are already comparing the Halloween incident to the Sewol incident, and now I see black ribbons online for the tragedy. It is certainly something that has shocked the nation and made them aware of life’s fragility. I think this will be seen in the same light in the future, the same collective PTSD. Right now, the small alleyway and the are around it is still closed off to the public. Who knows what will happen to the area in the future once things have settled down. Will businesses be affected? Will people still go to Itaewon to have a good time?

Some people in the government are blaming the tragedy on the lack of police presence to prevent such tragedy. I’m not sure if more police would have prevented the tragedy. I don’t think young people and definitely inebriated foreigners wouldn’t pay much attention to Korean police. They have such a weak presence in the country and don’t really command that much authority.

The lack of police presence could be attributed to political rallies happening close by. The president moved his political headquarters close to Itaewon, and it made the area a hotbed of protests and counter protesters during the weekend. Who knows, maybe if the president was more popular, there wouldn’t be too many protests. And there would’ve been more police available for the Itaewon Halloween celebration. It’s an interesting “what if,” but as I mentioned, I’m not sure more police presence would’ve prevented the tragedy.

Will this prevent future Halloween celebrations in Itaewon? Probably not. There would probably be a memorial set at the alleyway where the tragedy happened, but as for young people partying, I don’t think there’s no stopping it. If not Itaewon, there’s always Hongdae and other places. You don’t have to look far really. Hebangcheon is just a few minutes walk from Itaewon, and it’s filled with bars and foreigners (though not clubs).

Ugh, young artists!

Stories like this are garbage. Art Basel Miami, his parents, Alex Hagwood at the New York Times, and anyone else promoting him aren’t doing the arts any favor.

In a nutshell, Andres Valencia, a 10 year old kid, has been selling his work for six figures and is being hailed as an art prodigy and a “Little Picasso.” He’s also blowing up online, even with members of BTS boosting him. What people are missing from the story, or solely from the headline, is just how connected the kid is in the art world, with a mother who’s a jewellery designer with relations with a gallery owner. Raise your hand if you’re an artist who knows a gallery owner pushing your work at 10?

Now, I’m not saying that the kid’s works are not remarkable. I’m also not saying that the whole thing is a fraud. But stories like this is fodder for cliché sayings like, “my kid can do that!” It devalues art and the years of hardwork by many artists when boom, out of nowhere, the New York Times just hails a ten year old the next Picasso. Who needs an art education? Who needs years of perfecting your craft? Why bother painting the hands of peasants? Just skip ahead and be avante garde at 10!

The thing is, young art “prodigies” are not unique. The article mentions this, and some of them are later suspected to be fraudulent. Again, I don’t suspect anything fraudulent here necessarily, but this kid will be forgotten by the art world after a few years just like the many art prodigies people proclaimed as the next greatest thing. “Little Picasso?” People have been studying Picasso and will study his works for years. This kid’s works will be bought by speculative investors and that’s about it. And in a few years, another new kid will be the next greatest thing.

If anything, stories like this read like a big “f**k you” to all other struggling artists, or heck, any artist who spent years getting to where they are now. What’s taking you so long? How come you’re not selling six figure works yet? Why weren’t you represented by a gallery and connected to so many people at 10? I guess you just don’t have it. Look at the kid’s pic on the paper. He looks so bored and disinterested. Art success is soooooo easy. Why aren’t you successful yet?

See, young visual artists, are the simplest to artificially pump into the news as the next big thing. Visual arts is so subjective, much more than singing or playing musical instruments. With musical instruments or singing, what’s good or what’s not good is more universal. One can easily tell if a kid sings or plays a musical instrument well. But they don’t often get in the news or blow up online with recording deals or whatever. Selling paintings for high prices make for great, albeit obnoxious, headlines. And yes, it’s much easier to fake or blow up via galleries and connections compared to other things. Other fields are not as subjective and harder to manipulate. This is why there’s no real-life Doogie Howser M.D.s.

Stories like this hurt artists. It hurts the arts by trivializing it. Don’t study art. If you’re not born with it and not gaining attention at a certain young age, just go to STEM. You’ll earn more money there.

God Save the Queen

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, but I guess if anything, the death of the Queen is something to write about. I’ve kinda been wondering about her death for the past couple of years, how a shift that would be. Many people, including my mother, lived and died with only one monarch in the British throne. Now I get to see one pass, one that’s been there for seven decades. The lady’s been in our money for so long. She’s a staple in ‘Kid’s in the Hall’ and many Canadian sketches. We used to sing “God Save the Queen” right after singing “Oh, Canada” back in school (The national anthem followed by the royal anthem). She’s as ubiquitous to Canada as the moose and the beaver.

I asked a British friend if it’s strange that I’d feel upset over the Queen’s passing. He thought it odd. I think it odd too. Afterall, she doesn’t really affect me much, nor does the monarchy. But I guess I’m mourning not just the death of from what I know is a pretty decent monarch that presided over the whitling away of the British empire’s colonies, but also the passing of a Canadian symbol.

I’m not a fan of the monarchy for its tabloid drama. I don’t watch ‘The Crown’ either. I really find all of the drama behind the royals a bit tacky, and I could only imagine how mortified as a parent and a grandmother the Queen must’ve been throughout each scandal. My wife was never a fan of the Queen due to her perceived coldness during Diana’s death. But people do acknowledge that she did bow over the late princess’ casket, something that was never done. It was always vice versa; subjects bow to the Queen and the Queen never bows to anyone. That bow shows love, respect, and humanity, as much as the tabloids would love to cast the Queen as the villain during the princess’ death.

If there’s anything I’m not happy about, but I really can’t blame her for, was the way Prince Andrew’s scandal was handled. The man clearly had illegal relations with minors and the Queen made it disappear. I realize she’s dealing with her own son, but the whole thing cast such a dark, disgusting shadow over the monarchy. The prince was caught being a pedophile, and the Queen had to fetch money from her purse to bail her son out. It was disappointing. I would’ve let the courts handle the whole thing instead of sorting it out in the shadows. Sure, the prince had to give up privileges and military ranks, but so did Prince Harry. One is a criminal pedophile, while the other is just someone who wants to protect his wife from the paparazzi. What Prince Andrew got was barely a slap on the wrist.

Looking at the monarchy, it would seem like the Queen’s biggest challenges came not from external forces but more from her own family.

Now of course there’s bitterness towards the monarchy over its colonial past, but I really don’t think the Queen is responsible for much of it. As I mentioned, she presided over the shrinking of the British empire, preserving as much diplomatic relations with the country’s former colonies as she could. In Canada, we are fully not divorced from the authority of the monarchy since many of the agreements with the First Nations were with Canada’s colonial powers at the time. But it’s not like Britain lords over Canada, except maybe once in a while when some British idiot would remark to me that, “we used to own you guys.” To which I would reply, “as someone with a Filipino background, technically it’s the Spanish that used to own me. Also, your racism is showing.”

God bless the Queen. It’s like a good distant grandmother has died. The Queen is dead. Long live the King. 

No Artists Needed

Been reading about DALL-E 2 recently. For the uninitiated, it’s an AI tool that generates images based on text prompts. So for example, someone can type in, “Woman buys blue toilet paper in Walmart seen from behind” and the AI will generate an image that matches that description. The technology is still in its early stages, and many of the results look funny during experimentation that some news outlets have tried to sell it as a fun tool to create memes. But some results look quite good and it’s scary how accurate the AI can recreate text prompts into images.

The AI tool is being sold as a possible tool to help people quickly visualize images. This can be anything from helping people with physical disadvantages express themselves to production companies quickly storyboard ideas. That second scenario sounds like it’s bound to make some artists redundant.

What surprised me about the tool is how good some of the pieces it generates can be. They look like someone actually labored and made art. AI can already generate written words to simulate real people. They do this well enough with millions of bots posting messages on Twitter and writing spam e-mail that they convince thousands of people with their authenticity. But now this DALL-E 2 could be doing the same thing, only with digital art and photography. It can make images that can move the hearts and minds of some people.

There’s already a debate whether some conceptual artists are actual artists (*cough* Damien Hirst *cough*), but with AI, anyone can type out any of their wild ideas and it’s up to the AI to make art out of it. Forget talent, skill, or training… all you need is a good idea and a bit of wit. How long before we see a group of artists calling themselves AI artists who never lifted a brush or a pencil all of their life?

I believe it was Picasso who said, “good artists copy; great artists steal.” TS Elliott similarly said, “the immature poet imitates; the mature poet plagiarizes.” The DALL-E 2 and what it will eventually become is the ultimate thief. It will copy style and technique and appropriate it to whatever the user whims it to. I know someone who currently creates abstract digital paintings. He sells prints of his works. Now how similar would the works be if I used DALL-E 2 and entered “Swishy digital painting with soft pastel tones”? How safe are my works? “Busy ink drawing filling the page with an octopus hidden somewhere”?

Now, the makers of the program claim that there are safeguards which prevent people from making counterfeit images, using political figures, generating pornography, etc. But really, at some point this is all going to get duplicated or someone is going to find some sort of workaround. Next thing you know, we’ll have a convincing picture of “President Biden at a nude resort” floating around the Internet.

It’s simply too rife for potential abuse.

About Covid

It’s been a while since I’ve done a coronavirus update, so here it is. It’s been over two years now, and I still haven’t caught it. Knowing someone who’s caught it is much more common these days, so is getting over it without much complications. I think taking the vaccine helps, and the treatments have gotten much better. My sister-in-law here and her family caught the virus from a daycare center, and they’re all much better now. I got coworkers and acquaintances here who caught it, too.

My bestfriend in Canada caught the virus, too. She seems to be doing well, but it shows that the virus is still out there causing trouble.

And me, I’m still successfully dodging that bullet.

They’re giving out second booster shots now to people who want it, but only to a certain age. A lot of people didn’t even bother getting the first booster because not long after they made the booster available last year, they made vaccine passes no longer necessary.

For a while, cases in the country were down to around 10,000 a day, which was quite low. People have begun to relax more as open public mask mandates have been lifted, although it is still required in closed public spaces. Even in the office, I see people occasionally taking off their masks when sitting around their desks. It just doesn’t seem to be something people worry too much about anymore.

There are no more limitations to gatherings, nor are there curfews. Once again, drunk people roam the streets and ride the trains of Seoul late at night. That’s one thing I kinda miss about the pandemic. The people and quiet at night. That, and the obligation to finish drinking at 10:00. I know, I know. That’s early. But I’m getting old, and going out for drinks has gotten pretty expensive these days.

I’ve been able to go to the gym these days, too. Finally. I haven’t regularly worked out in two years. Just doing push ups and ab rollers at home. People still have to wear masks however, but I come in super early and I tend to work out without a mask on when no one is around. Shhhhh!

When it comes to traveling though, some people are still wary, while a significant number of Koreans are taking the first opportunity to travel that they can. Some countries don’t require negative tests nor visas to enter, but South Korea still requires negative PCR tests to allow people in. My sister will be visiting on September and she’s got herself a visa. So yeah, tourism is slowly making a comeback in the country.

Relations between Japan and Korea still haven’t been normalized however, and Koreans would still need to apply for a visa when traveling to Japan. Uncertainty regarding Covid and the situation with Japan made me decide to just stay in the country for now and just vacation somewhere I haven’t been to: Busan. I will be on vacation this week, and I’m hoping all goes well.

What scares me though is the current uptick in cases happening around the world due to the new omicron variant. Yesterday, Korea had 40,000 new cases of coronavirus in the country. Japan had over 100,000. I’m hoping this is just a minor blip and not something that would last. God, I remember when Korea was being hailed as a model country with cases less than 1000 a day. Now it seems we’re just as bad (or as good) as other countries.