• Voter turnout reaches 79.4 percent, 4th highest since 1987
• Lee's projected victory expected to turn page on political crisis that shook the nation for past 6 months

Today is election day and it's a special one for our family because my wife was able to vote for the first time here in Korea after getting her Korean citizenship last year.

I've been using Samsung Pay exclusively for the past 3 years in Korea so I don't need to take any card or cash with me, just my phone. It's very convinient, but now I can't pay for my coffee today.

Just sitting here in the library and reading the newspaper after the TV debate. At the same time my wife and her sister are debating who to vote for in the family chat.

It's a good feeling that democracy is still alive and well in Korea even though the 2 party system is not how I would have set it up.

I can't vote anyway, so at least I can hope for the best outcome next week.

The engravings on the rock face of Bangudae, located on the lower part of a cliff on a tributary of a river in Ulsan, were first discovered in 1971 and were designated as the country's National Treasure No. 285.

Bangudae was listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2011. Korea applied for the UNESCO listing of the petroglyphs, located in Ulsan, in January last year.

If registered, the petroglyphs will become Korea's 17th UNESCO World Heritage site.

We should have waited and moved to Busan for that :D

A growing black market for Hanwoo bull semen — used to breed Korea’s prized native cattle known for their premium beef — is drawing criticism from livestock producers, as government-supplied breeding material is being resold online at prices up to 40 times its original cost.

Despite being intended to improve the genetic quality of Korea’s premium cattle, the system is now drawing criticism for fueling speculation rather than supporting livestock development.

On online platforms like Naver’s used goods marketplace and KakaoTalk’s open chatrooms, hundreds of listings for Hanwoo semen can be found, with prices ranging from 100,000 to 500,000 won ($73 to $365) per dose — far above the official rates of 3,000 to 10,000 won.

Some sellers even offer bulk deals, listing 100 doses for as much as 35 million won. With no expiration date, semen collected from bulls slaughtered over a decade ago is still being resold.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21579890

Massive wildfires that killed at least 32 people and scorched an area nearly double the size of Seoul in late March could become more common under human-driven climate change, scientists warn.

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• study cited: summary and full PDF

A South Korean soldier at the inter-Korean border accidentally fired a machine gun toward North Korea last week, prompting the military to air broadcasts to notify the North of the mistake, military officials said Sunday.

The accident happened at around 6:00 a.m. Wednesday when the soldier mistakenly fired a single round from the K6 heavy machine gun from a guard post inside the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas in Cheorwon County, about 70 kilometers north of Seoul, according to the officials.

Lee Jae-myung, former chairman of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), secured the party’s nomination for the June 3 presidential election, officially setting the stage for his third presidential bid, Sunday.

The 61-year-old secured the nomination with 89.77 percent support in a weighted system, with 50 percent of the decision based on party members' votes and 50 percent on public opinion poll results.

Lee’s commanding lead left the party's two other candidates far behind. Gyeonggi Province Gov. Kim Dong-yeon followed with 6.87 percent, while former South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo garnered 3.36 percent.

Normally when you need to wait at a crossing because it's red you take out your phone to waste some time. But you have to be quite anxious and look up if it's already green or not, otherwise you miss the green light.

But they help you out with that here in Korea by building in the traffic light into the curb. You're looking down on your phone and see the red line left and right of it. Once it changes to green you immediately are aware of it because it's in your field of view constantly.

Great invention!

I took the background picture just outside and put the stock picture hands with a phone on top of it so you can easier visualize it how it looks like in reality.

Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/7bcDN

Japanese consumers who used to treat foreign-grown rice with scepticism have been forced to develop a taste for it amid domestic shortage

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250422183342/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/22/japan-south-korea-rice-import-crisis

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Beijing recently asked South Korean companies not to export products containing China's rare earth minerals to U.S. defense firms, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Tuesday, citing government and company sources.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250422122859/https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-asks-korea-not-export-products-using-rare-earths-us-defense-firms-paper-2025-04-22/

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Nearly half of small- and medium-sized exporters in Korea have shown interest in hiring foreign nationals for white-collar jobs amid the country's declining population and young jobseekers' preference for large companies.

However, Korea's current visa system has been cited as a major obstacle to bringing more foreign professionals on board.

Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA will open its first Seoul store next week, giving up the brand’s signature “blue box” architecture to localize it inside a new business complex in the city’s easternmost district.

Korean currency weakens 10.9 won to 1,484.1 won per dollar, KOSPI drops 1.7%

The Korean currency weakened to the lowest level in more than 16 years against the U.S. dollar, Wednesday, as Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs take effects.

The won closed at 1,484.1 won per dollar on the daytime trading market, depreciating by 10.9 won from the previous day’s close. It was the lowest level since March 12, 2009, during the global financial crisis.

The won’s depreciation was largely attributable to a 25 percent tariff against Korea-manufactured goods, market analysts said.

I'm not sure what they expected, not everyone runs and gets a new ARC just because of that immediately.

By chance I got a new ARC about a month ago and I got one which supports the mobile ID, but when I started looking into it how to set it up I couldn't find a straight forward description, especially not in English. This is why I still don't have it even though I was low key excited about that possibility.

New presidential election must be held by June 3

The Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, resulting in his immediate removal from office. The decision to remove the president from office was unanimous, with all eight Constitutional Court justices voting in favor, 8–0.

The ruling came 111 days after the National Assembly passed the impeachment motion, accusing Yoon of treason for declaring martial law on Dec. 3, which was deemed a violation of constitutional rights.

Oh, widely known as the “Gganbu grandpa” from the Netflix drama “Squid Game,” was sentenced in the first trial to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, for forcibly groping a younger actress from a theater troupe.