280 - what a life update 🥟😎🧛🏾
life can feel full for you too if you just spend a bunch of money
Hey there, !
WHOOEY it has been a minute since we've chatted and I feel like a lot has happened.
Wait, it's still every 5th newsletter that I do one of these so...the same amount of time has passed since the last time I did a life update?
Ah, I guess it's one of those time perception things where the more things you do the longer your life feels. Mmm...getting over the death anxiety the only way I know how - doing things!!
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Okay yes I went away to Korea and HK which was fun and fantastic and all the other superlatives starting with f. From experience I know that I won't be able to discuss everything here because if I start I won't stop and we'll just be reading like 2000+ words on the best place to drink in Hongdae (protip: Little Big, a bar where there's no menu, just an incredibly personalised service to make you a drink tailored to your requirements) or why Sun King Yuen in Hong Kong was one of my favourite new quality-to-quantity-to-value restaurants. Instead, here's a few happy snaps of the trip :D
What can I say? The boy loves to eat. Yum Cha in HK (One Dim Sum), a vibey fried chicken place in Korea where you 'paint' your sauces on to the chicken (Kyochon Pilbang), and a Michelin starred traditional Korean dumpling place (Gaeasong Dumpling).
We did one particularly bougie meal and this dish was my absolute favourite - it was abalone prepared with a number of different sauces, one being a pate-type thing made with the abalone stomach and lungs, which was EXTREMELY tasty and umami. I can't describe the texture of it - I asked if I could have another dish of it but I don't think the English got across :(
I show suckling pig only because this time I went back to HK to eat it, they just threw the whole pig on the table with some scissors and went 'okay you do it yourself'. Which my relatives were taken aback by but I was excited for. What a gimmick, yet what FUN.
Thank you to Soph for this Nami Island / Gwanchang Rail Bike / Alpaca World daytrip recommendation because I mean LOOK AT THOSE ALPACAS they are super fluffy and fun, and the one that I was assigned to walk around for a bit was JUST AS FOOD MOTIVATED AS GANDALF. I guess all the animals be hungry and thirsty round me.
The Ikseon-Dong area in Seoul is full of aesthetic af cafes. My favourite was the Soha Salt Pond which sells salt bread, as well as the one pictured up top, the Cheongsudang Bakery, which looks hella nice. Food-wise Soha was better than Cheongsudang, and next time I go I need to try Mil Toast. Walking around the area we also found a place called Acorn Caricature which could do these nice drawings in like 3 minutes. Way better than those exaggerated carnival type drawings. Look how much better I look in Korea!!
These ones are just included for fun :D
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Coming back to the 'real' world there is a renewed sense of purpose to do stuff. I think more importantly it's the slow peeling back of The Path and the tension between 'saving money for a family' that isn't materialising vs. enjoying my life as it is because why not? I'm not a super adventurous type but I am definitely feeling less guilty about taking a random holiday or two when the time calls for it (see: above in Korea/HK), and doing things that make me happy. That's the goal, isn't it?
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The celebrancy course is getting BACK ON TRACK (I hope) - with 2 completed, 2 prepared (to be filmed) and 8 ceremonies left, there is a 🔥🔥🔥that I must take advantage of to push forth and get shit done. If y'all are interested in helping out let me know and I will be highly grateful <3
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The CYOA story is coming - I'm working out the format and the chunking of each choice, which is proving a little difficult because it needs to progress enough to be significant, but also not railroad too much. A very interesting exercise in writing! As an aside, a goal I'm trying to get through this year is to break into all the empty notebooks I have at home - I think after a long 30-something years of buying notebooks everytime I went overseas, I should probably like...use them. Maybe poetry? Maybe 3d printing ideas? But definitely things like this - planning the CYOA - are great things to start with.
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GANDALF IS BACK look at him I think his stay with his grandparents has made him a little fatter - apparently grandpa just loved to feed the food-motivated boi that loves to eat. He asked me if there was supposed to be an extra feeding at night because Gandlaf would keep meowing at the food dispenser as if there was an extra feeding - NOPE he just be wantin' food all the time. Oh I love him so <3
Chat soon :)
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📋Today's Question
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Sinners - 3.75 stars - you want to go watch a great movie? Get ye to a cinema to watch Sinners, a story about black history in the South of America, weaving music, community, the American spirit, and most importantly, vampires into a wonderfully fun film. My only complaints are that captions would have been helpful; the accents were a bit strong, but there is one scene that will captivate you to no end. Highly recommended.
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UNIQLO Hong Kong - which I know sounds like a supremely silly recommendation but I didn't know that they have done this hyper-localisation where not only are there Hong Kong/Macau exclusive t-shirts, but also suburb-level exclusive t-shirts as well - if you go to the Lee Theatre store in Causeway Bay, it's got different stuff to the one in the Tai Koo store! What a cool strategy.
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Thousands of North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500—and they keep getting hired for more jobs - what? What?? And all it takes at the end of a interview is 'Say something mean about Kim Jong Un'??? The world simulation is breaking down all around us.
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How to win an argument with a toddler - short and sweet analogy. Articles are too long these days.
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Life Is Not Short | DKB Show - just a li'l philosophy for whenever you read this. It's a good reminder that delayed gratification is fine and all, but you still need to live, now.