#103 The Gugi area of Bukhansan Park is insanely beautiful

Transcript

Alright, it's only a couple of days past the last episode I did, where one of my problems in Japan was every day I was running out having adventures so I wasn't getting anything done as far as like editing podcasts or writing or whatever. And then when I first got here to South Korea, it was the opposite thing. I didn't want to go out and have adventures necessarily because I hadn't really found the hiking trails yet and the pollution was really bad when I first got here. So no problems, getting tons done. Now it's starting to flip the other way, the pollution has calmed down a lot here in late February and these hiking trails are incredible and never ending. They're so easy to get to and you could just do this forever. But yesterday, things did slip from good to moderate, so good excuse to take a day off, go to a coffee shop instead, do some writing and stuff. But then today I got back to hiking and it's very hard to figure out where I am. I don't know what gate means on these signs. I just got to a big arch, went through the arch, the top is like a cool traditional rooftop looking Asian rooftop design. This thing is awesome. But I guess this isn't the gate. I thought maybe gate meant this like an opening in in the wall because there is a wall going across also. But it says it's 0.3 kilometers to the day-to-mone gate, D-A-E-N-A-M-M-U-N. And then 1.2 kilometers is the other way to day-to-mone gate. Apparently it's like the gate is a path. I don't fucking understand. But this has been fucking amazing. I started where I ended last episode. I came down along that stream and got to the main entrance gate to Buchansen National Park or one of the main entrances from the Buchansen subway station. So I suspect it's kind of the main entrance. So I thought I'd start from there now and go up that stream and see what happened. And I've just been going along these paths and I saw in the distance the peak. I think it was the first episode I did from South Korea where there was a peak that looked like it might have a tree on top. But it kind of was a weird looking tree because it looked kind of like a palm tree. It turns out it's actually a metal, big metal apparatus which makes sense because it is so visible even from a distance that it's a lot bigger than I thought it was.

But I saw that thing from the opposite side. That's the one where I didn't quite go all the way to the top. I went almost to the top and it's like that's enough from going back down. So I started heading toward that from the opposite side and I've just been hiking all afternoon. Now the sun is finally starting to go down. So I'm also from this gate starting to go down.

But yeah, it's again just beautiful if anything too warm but still snow up here on the mountain. So it's like I was saying in Japan how there's like a bizarre impossible weather and stuff that you just can't have. And North America. This isn't as crazy and dreamlike feeling but it's kind of like that. Down in the city there's no snow at all. It's super warm. Up here it's still super warm. I'm like taking my coat off and just like sweating and dying. But there's snow everywhere and it's like fucking awesome. And this particular walk that I happened upon, you know there's been some mildly sketchy parts but nothing too steep, nothing too scary. All pretty good.

Oh, there's a person. A moderate number of people, not a ton, some.

You put this recorder away till I pass this person.

But what is extra bizarre? Perfect timing. Oh, there's another one. So I just passed one hiker and then another hiker passed me.

And that hiker was being followed by three dogs and now a fourth one just passed me by where again it seems like are those his dogs? But I don't think so. Pretty sure those are wild dogs that just live on the mountain. Those ones seem pretty nice though. Not quite sure why they were following that one guy.

But that's appropriate because yeah, that's why I fired up the recorder today as I just wanted to tell a wild dog story.

It's a little hard to tell where I was but I think it was must have been Young Choosa Temple, Y-E-O-N-G-C-H-U-S-A. But I'm actually not sure. That's just at a quick glance. That's the only temple showing up on my pre-downloaded Google map that's anywhere around here. 5:00 But anyway, it was some temple up here in the mountain and I'm like wicked high up. But again, it's been this nice pretty gradual increase.

So I don't feel scared, which is nice. But yeah, there's a lot fewer temples in South Korea than there are in Japan. And by a lot, I mean like 1,000,000 as many. They're very rare actually. But there are still some.

And the ones in Japan always had, if not someone actively there, you know, a caretaker person that was always stopping by. But I guess not in the mountains necessarily. Anyway, this particular one had nobody. It's pretty big, pretty large.

But nobody was around. And I stopped in and I wasn't even wearing my coats because it was so hot. Tossed my coats on a little bench. Took a couple pictures of the amazing view.

Okay, here's another gateway entrance. This must be the one. It's the 0.2 kilometers. So the gate does mean an entrance, I guess. So that was just telling me that there was another passageway this way. And then there was another one kilometer the other way. All right, that makes sense. That makes sense.

These trails incidentally, these Buchansen national park trails, that one I was on last episode was quite representative of how they seem to go. The ones more directly in the city have way more of the pre-built passages and stairways and stuff.

These ones are much more natural, just the stone stairs. And there's only pre-built wooden steps if they really need them. Only if it's real desperate. However, even though it's like a natural hiking spot the whole way, there are little rope fences, pretty much the whole way.

Just to keep you on track. So it's a very nice compromise. It feels very natural and really cool. And it's like, you know, you can imagine that being some historical Korean dude who had to tromp through the mountains.

I remember I went to a place in White Rock, New York, that had like traditional Korean gruel type stuff, like super healthy mountain food. And it was really boring tasting, but I always remembered it because apparently it's super healthy. So you can imagine you're one of those dudes making that stuff in a pot.

But at the same time, there's still signs everywhere and clear directions and you're not going to get lost.

Sense-yong Information Center, but that's five kilometers, that's pretty far. And Desongam Temple 0.5. But I don't want to go to any temples, so I'm going to go through this gate. And hopefully on the other side of this gate, you can just start heading back down the mountain because the same situation as last time Sun is pretty high up in the sky still, but it's going to go down fast.

There we go. Googie Ranger Station, G-U-G-I, only two and a half kilometers. It's about 4.30, no problem.

Yeah, the B-Bong Peak, 2.2 kilometers. Is that the one? I can't see the antenna from here, but I think that's the one. So I'm going to fail to go up there once again, and probably forever for the rest of my life. I don't need to go to peaks, I don't fucking care.

Whoa, wait a sec. That must be another peak they're talking about because that it's right there. It's like really close.

There's a nice map of the mountain. Yeah, I'm actually not too far from where I was last time. That's interesting.

Actually, this is probably not the same one. I'm realizing there's probably multiple of these things. It seems unlikely that there would be just one. Anyway, whatever. Through the gate, let's get out of here.

Oh yeah, this looks pretty good. Back to stairway land now. The city's not too close, but it looks like stairs straight down, sweet.

Whoops, I'm on top of the gate. Gotta go back down.

Yeah, it's supposed to, I'll mention that it did say when I left the house today, we were back to green, we were back to no problem with the air quality. And it all seemed pretty good, but once you do get up to these parts where you can see really far, definitely the distance. It takes quite a while to see the pollution build up. You know, things aren't terrible today, but on a truly clear day, it's just clear in the distance. Today is definitely not to that way. I have a feeling when I get home and check, it's probably slipped into moderate, you know, moderate problems.

So I did have a mask with me, so I just threw on the mask, like fuck it, why not? Even if it's just a piece of mind. Because walking pretty much continuously upward for the last two and a half hours.

I'm still almost like a little surprised how well my body has adapted to this, especially my bad knee. It hasn't been a problem, as long as I just go very slow. I just trudge at an extremely slow uniform pace. And I just have to breathe super deeply every single breath. I need every single breath to be the deepest breath I can do. And then I can hike all afternoon and it's no problem. But even if we've only slipped into moderate pollution, still like that wouldn't be so bad if I was just walking around normally. But when I'm breathing as deep as possible, I don't know, it just feels better to have a mask on just to be on the safe side.

So I've got it off while I'm doing this little podcast, but I will put it back on after, because whatever, the mask costs 33 cents. Why not? Why not use it? But as I was coming up, I saw signs for the wild boars.

And I see them all the time, and there's a bunch of them in Japan too. But I stopped and took the time to translate one, and it just kind of described that it's not uncommon to see wild boars. And because everything is so fenced off here, you're only going to be on the main hiking courses. You're not going to be off in the wilds, but you will sometimes find boars that are crossing over to get to wherever they're going. And they're probably not going to bother you, but it said, don't yell at them, don't throw stones, and don't turn your back to them. So be cool, but don't be overly aggressive, and everything should be fine. And then I saw boar poop right after that, and it weirded me out enough that I was like, okay, let's not listen to music. Let's just listen to the nerds in the podcast, Yammer, so at least I'm aware of what's going on around me.

But it wasn't boars that were the problem. I've still only ever seen one boar once in Fukuoka back in 2019.

Instead, I got up to that temple. That temple I was saying is just a weird no one there temple. I have no sense of what's going on with temples at all in this country. I barely understood what was going on in Japan. I really don't know here.

Here, it seems a lot more common just to see Christian churches, which I do remember one of my Vancouver friends. He wanted to take me out for some traditional Korean food back in the day. So we went to a little mom and pop place in Vancouver that was just besoughten with Jesus imagery and crosses. And he was like, oh yeah, it's a big thing, big thing in South Korea. And now that I'm here, I mean, it's not as many churches as you'll find in like, say Quebec or something. But there's quite a few. It's pretty comparable to North America.

So, what the temples are for and how they work? I have no fucking idea. But nobody was around. And yeah, I was just chilling. It took a picture. And then I was like, all right, do I just have to go back? There were some steps possibly leading up into the mountains. I was trying to determine, can I keep going up from here? Do I just have to go back to the main trail? And then suddenly a dog started barking at me. He scared the fuck out of me. And he was clearly a wild dog, but he had... I don't know if that's where I can't tell. Like, those dogs I just passed earlier. It seemed very nice. Almost domestic-like. Maybe that's why they were following that guy, because they're just not scared of him. And they're like, I don't know, maybe he'll drop a chocolate bar or something.

This dog was very upset at me, but he had like a little hanker chip on, or like somebody had put something on him. So, you know, I'm just trying to case the situation in a millisecond. While I just had to put my hands up, I was like, whoa, whoa, calm down, guy. And though they said, don't yell at the boars. Like, I just couldn't... I yelled at the dogs because I just was shocked. I was like, what the fuck? 15:00 But it seemed like this dog had been nice in the past. Someone had approached this dog successfully. And then I saw he was kind of up on the rocks a little bit, a bit above my head. Right at the bottom of the rocks, not too far from me, was a dog laying there, sleeping.

Again, trying to clock the situation in a millisecond. Probably that's a female dog, probably pregnant, because like, you know, they're just wild dogs on the mountain. I just hadn't seen it at all. I hadn't noticed it at all. So that was the protector dog telling me, hey, get the fuck away from that other dog. So yeah, I just took my coat and I just, I kept the boar training in mind. I didn't turn my back to the dog because I don't know, I don't think dogs would attack me. But just walked while facing the dog, but the dog pretty much immediately just went off and did something else. Didn't care. As soon as it was clear that I was leaving, it was, he was happy.

But yeah, that just adds to, so I learned about the stray cats, the wild cats, and then I upgraded that to wild dogs. And now I've upgraded it to being scared shitless by a wild dog. But just so strange, because yeah, it's just like the dogs just sort of, the dogs use the temple. The dogs hang out at the temple. I don't know, maybe there's like little shelters there and stuff. It's definitely strange, like that's certainly again one of those things that you would never find at a temple in Japan.

There would either be people maintaining the temple, or when I did find some temples way up in mountains. There were no wild dogs that I was aware of to go along with it. But anyway, got the fucking blood pump and that's where fucking sure. And yeah, geez, this is great. I mean this whole day has been like a perfectly awesome hike. And again, I could have gone a little higher, a little farther up. But I'm very happy to not quite go to the peaks. For me, this is the best. Not to quite get to the point where you're actually using all fours to climb. Because I probably could use some hiking poles, it probably wouldn't kill me. There's been a couple little slippy parts here and there.

But, but I really don't seem to need them. The crab block phenomenon or the crab block thing, it totally does work.

And if anything ever was scary enough to feel like I was like, oh, I shouldn't proceed without poles, which I guess has happened. I can just go back, you know. Either there's an alternate route, which there's quite a few. Like I did find several, several, I had several opportunities during this walk to just bail out, go down into a valley to a ranger station. Or I could have just gone straight back as I did with one of the peaks.

Yeah, that's hiking. It is, it's really a plus. It is so accessible, so well laid out, so well sign posted, so impossible to get lost. Like, fucking wonderful.

And that main entrance where I ended last podcast and where I started today, there was one of those little coffee machines where for like 40 cents, you can get a little cup of coffee. And then I noticed today on my way in several of them. There's like two or three of those machines. And there was one on the way that was only 30 cents. I just loved those little machines so much.

Or maybe I'll briefly talk about boot tech too. I was having some problems with these boots hurting my feet. So I just watched some nice Australian man talking about boot theory, because I don't buy boots that often. Good day mate, what are you doing, your boots are hurting. Take out your insoles. And I did realize, because I always wear special insoles for my, for my flat feet. So I actually had double insoles in this thing.

So I was taking up a lot of space there, because it was like the tops, the tops of my feet that were kind of getting pushed against the boot, and we're hurting. So I took out the bottom normal insoles and just used my fancy ones. And I was like, oh yeah, cool, I didn't even think of that. Didn't even realize really that there were insoles in there for me to take out 2.2 kilometers to Googie Ranger Station.

Only point to Munsasa Temple. But now I'm like, I've got this weird association with temples. Like, they're just going to be dogs at these temples that are going to yell at me, or is that just a one off? I don't know. But I mean, I was not that into going to temples in Japan.

So I'm no really give a shit here either. I don't need peaks, I don't need temples, I don't need waterfalls. I just like to, just again, the through path. 20:00 The through path is what I like, not the destination hike.

So yeah, taking out the bottom sole, that helped. And then it didn't occur to me till the guy on the YouTube video mentioned it. You don't actually need to lace up all of the little eyelets on your boot. Specifically, these boots, they have like a zipper down along the side, which is really nice. You don't actually need to untie them every time you can just undo the zipper.

But yeah, basically, I just took the, I took the laces out, and I only laced the top two eyelets around my ankle, just to hold the boot around my ankle. And I just didn't lace any of the other ones. And yeah, it's great. And now they don't hurt at all. Perfect. These are also kind of designed, so the tongue, you can't really like remove the tongue. The tongue is connected to the boot. So that's kind of good. Because yeah, I do think if I didn't lace them at all, maybe my tongue and my boot would start drifting all around. And this one, it's all just together. Delightful.

Oh man, look at all these peaks walking next to a peak. The big scary boulder on the top. And over in the distance, there's another peak with the big scary boulder on top. And if you look up people on YouTube, you know, people doing these hikes around here. They get up to the top and they do the fucking dorky ass. Like, I'm king of the world. I actually saw a guy do that in real life the other day. And it's like, yeah, again, I don't know how you fuckers aren't scared of heights.

But enjoy. Enjoy your cunt.

But it's really nice how optional they are here. It's very easy to find little routes that just sort of circumvent most of the time. There's a little route to not quite have to go to the peak. Just walk along the side of the peak. Best of both worlds, you get to see the cool peak. You get to have the vicarious thrill of imagining what it would be like to be standing up there while you fucking struggle not to shit your fucking pants. And you don't have to actually do it.

Yeah, overall, man, it's growing on me. My time here in South Korea is growing on me a lot. It's going to be very interesting to go to other places and see, you know. Maybe I can get all of this upside that I enjoy about Seoul without the crushing pollution downside. We will see. But even Seoul itself, you know. Now that I know about it, now that I'm ready, now that I know what to expect.

This seems cool. You know, I do think once I'm not here anymore, I suspect this will settle into my nice little nostalgia fucking circuits of my brain, especially now. I mean, yeah, because I guess it was initially when I first got here. It was just the city. And I was just walking around the city. And the most hiking mountain stuff I could find was just the small mountain, not that far from Hong Kong University with a bunch of exercise equipment on it and a dead cat. You know, it was just depressing. And I could see these mountains in the distance, but I had no idea what the situation would be like.

And yeah, now that I'm finding more and more how super duper good these mountains are for hiking and how incredibly accessible and easy and fun and cool it is and beautiful and amazing, that then all you got to do is you had just wait for it to line up with a non-pollution day. Man, though, it is so warm. I can't imagine doing this in the summer. It must be fucking a nightmare. Even in the winter with all this snow here, it is far too hot. But this has been the story I suppose of this whole podcast is that this is some kind of weird El Nino year. So everything is kind of warm in general.

But yeah, I'm glad that things are coming around because I really was, you know, having to leave Japan was just such a kick in the dick. And I still feel it sometimes. Like I'm amazed. It's amazing like just how you just can't fight against the crappulence of the human brain. You know, you can tell yourself not to behave one way or another, but you just kind of can't help it. You can tell yourself, oh, Japan's amazing. You haven't been here in a long time. It might be a while before you can come back. Don't take it for granted. But then it'll happen. It'll just happen. I mean, I was there for three months. And I think the clearest example I can think of is Anoshima, that island. There was like a super touristy island. But I mean, I just remember that feeling because that was right by the end of the trip. Or I was like, man, this thing is touristy. Man, this thing is busy. Ah, look at that. A big beautiful temple. Like whatever. You've seen one. You've seen them all. 25:00 And that just seems like such a crazy thing that I felt that way. Because now that I've been gone for a bit. Ah, man, I would love so much to go back to Anoshima Island. It was so beautiful and so awesome and so amazing. And yeah, it was like the crappiest thing I did in Japan. You know, it was just kind of a tourist trap. But it was still fucking amazing. It was beautiful. If that's the worst thing, you know? But again, it's all relative. And just because I'd been there too long, I was taking it for granted. Where if I could snap my fingers and go back there right now? You'd got damn right, I would. The place was fucking awesome. But I could not feel that way about it at the time. I'd been there too long. I just couldn't help but take it for granted. If I ever did somehow move to Japan and just lived there, it would ruin it. It would ruin the whole thing. Because I would just live there and it wouldn't be exciting anymore.

Anyway, it's getting a little steeper on the way down here. And we're back to for real paths, not the wooden stairs. So I'm going to hang this fucking thing up.

Have my hands at the ready. I was thinking of taking this recorder out a little earlier right after the dog situation. But that's when I was still going up. And it was like some mildly treacherous cliffside stuff. And it's like, dude, don't pull out a fucking recorder. You only have two hands. You know, at least a little fucking mindful of what you're doing. It's a lot easier now than I'm going down. But yeah, it's definitely getting steeper. So, been yearning for like half an hour. I'll probably have something else to add to this episode later. And if not, this will just be an episode. Whatever. I'm going to put my mask back on, even though I think everything's okay today. It's just, it's still just eerie. You know, I got to go with the evidence that my eyes see. And my eyes have to look quite far in the distance before the haze settles in. But it's there. It's definitely there.

I can hear a little stream down there.

Damn, man. It's so good. Yeah, like it's just kind of been compounding or like, maybe not compounding. But just growing. The farther I get from the city, the Anson Mountain and Ingwansen. Both, both really good. And right by the city, you know, there's a McDonald's tucked away in between. There was two mountains. Those mountains were great, you know. Ingwansen, I guess, was the first like really great discovery with the wall and everything. And I'm like, this is really fucking good. And now that I've gone even further, you know, at first with this Buconson stuff, because it's a huge national park. I was just at the flat parts. And those were pretty good, too. Those were pretty nice. Just walk along the flat parts. And now that I'm moving deeper into the real mountains, because I just didn't have a good approach from before. I'm finding better areas of approach. It just gets better and better and more and more beautiful.

So yeah, there's no question. No question about it, man. Things in Seoul are very much improving.

I just want to hop back in to say that this route that I'm on heading to Gugi Information Center, G-U-G-I. This is out of control how beautiful this is. This is so fucking excellent. It's really long. I do feel like I'm going fairly slow because I go slow on the way up so I don't get blown up. You know, I don't get winded and so I don't hurt my knee. I got to go slow on the way down because I'm a lot more, you know, there's been enough, you know, it's just like constantly going down these, you know, just rocks and pathways. You know, my foot will get kind of, we'll just brush against a rock here and again, a little tiny stumble. Enough times that I start thinking like, man, imagine, this is such a long route. The sun is going down more and more. What if I spraying my ankle or God forbid broke my ankle? How the fuck would I even get out of here? I don't have a proper cell phone. I got nothing. So I am going a bit slow because I do feel like going down is worse than going up. If I'm going to get hurt, it's going to be going down. But this is also really long. It just won't stop, but I just saw a sign that said 0.7 kilometers to the information booth. So I'm almost there. But this is fucking wonderful. I can't believe how beautiful this is just like going down through this valley, the rocks on either side along this stream.

And I haven't seen any people once again, one of these people list things, but it could be because it's getting a bit late. It's a little past 5.30 and technically this park for February closes at four. But I think I saw a sign that says, you know, within a few days, once it switches over to March, they switch it up to six o'clock. So really, I'm in six o'clock zone. I'm technically, I'm basically okay. I'm still within the parameters really, but technically the park's closed. So maybe that's why I'm not seeing anyone. But this is just like everything else, really well sign posted. It has the rope fences everywhere so you could never get lost. Rest areas. Little signs all over the place that either have little ecological information like, oh, you might find this interesting or like, hey, don't go swimming here because there's, you know, it's deeper than it looks. There's undertoes. Don't do it. But yeah, it's just fucking beautiful. And this is one of these cases that to come at it the way I did, you know, that's like a little tricky and a little weird. If it happens to happen though, it's amazing. But much like last episode, I think this is probably a similar case that now that I know this is here, now that I found it on the way out, this seems like it would be a wonderful place to start from. So Googie, G-U-G-I, I don't specifically know where it is or how to get to it, but I will learn as I exit. But yeah, if you started at the Googie Information Center and went up the stream from here, again, even if you didn't want to, you know, go for real up to a peak or something, even if you just went along this for a few kilometers and just came straight back, probably not even a few. I mean the mountain still right there. I think it is only, what did it say? Two points, something? Probably less than three kilometers. And it's really fucking pretty. Like I just have had those little moments where I'm kind of taken a back where like I'll cross over a bridge and see like the the stream running below me and just like just have those little moments where I just stop and I'm just like, whoa, like look how pretty this is. And that's happened like fucking ten times. This is an incredibly beautiful walk though it is, it is a little eerie. I'm glad I saw that sign. It is a little eerie that it's like obviously I'm going somewhere. Like right now I'm on more of those like man-made steps. There's quite a few of those. It's kind of 50-50 man-made stuff and just the natural path. There's another rest area. I'm obviously going somewhere but because I'm in between, you know, I'm in a valley, I can't see anything. You know, even though the sun is still up in the sky because I'm between mountains, it feels darker than it really is out there. And I just seem like I can never get to the end. It's a really long route. So that's mildly weird feeling just because the sun's on its way down. But the fact that it's so long is really a benefit. If you start from here, if you're not under any kind of a time crunch, I mean this is mega good. Like the other, the other place where I started today, the main entrance. I keep calling it the main entrance, the Jiang Nian, J-E-O-N-G-N-E-U-N-G, that entrance. That one's good. But now this one, where's my little blue dot? Oh yeah, that's nice. You can see on the blue dot. Yeah, I'm getting close to civilization. I'm a ways west from there. I don't know how you would get here on the subway. That'll be something I will learn. I want to get back to the city. Am I anywhere near any subways? Maybe not. I might have some city walking ahead of me. Oh, there we go. Certainly not close. Oh, that's MOOC J. That's definitely not close. But I know that station. Wow, I actually know. Wow, I know where I am. Fuck yeah, I've been along here all. Oh, this is like, yeah, this is no biggie. I can get, get back from here. Easy.

Yeah, googie dong. This is a hell of a starting point. It is fucking awesome. It is the, the prettiest part of anything. I've seen anywhere around here so far. It's fucking great. It is A plus 10 out of 10. What a good fucking walk. This is walk along the stream. It's, it's crazy. It's crazy how nice this is.

And yeah, I know where it's going to spit me out. So yeah, there is no train extremely close to here. It would probably take a bus. I still haven't cracked open the bus experience. I'm just going to walk. Yeah, this is, this is unbelievable. Holy fuck, this is pretty. And like I've criss-crossed across this stream across these bridges. Like half a dozen times and every time it's beautiful. It's like, fuck yes, this is nice. Holy shit.

Yeah, I have a feeling I might do because basically what I did today was, you know, I just went back to where I exited before and then used it as my starting point and just went a different way instead of returning to, you know, last time I came from the east this time I went west and then I went in this big horseshoe loop and ended up here. So I believe next time I approach this mountain, maybe I'll do this same thing. Like I'll come here to Gookie and start from here because at the base level, again, even if I just walk up this stream and walk straight back, that's a heck of a good day. This thing is fucking beautiful. It's amazing. But if I got time on my side, I'll just do the same thing. Instead of going east, I'll go west. Just go further west because I'm reaching the limits actually of how far west you can even go at Buchansen. And the stuff west from here, that's why I know where I am. That's why I recognize it on the map. That's the first stuff that I did in Buchansen is that western part where it's relatively flat.

Oh man, yeah, and here's like just a little, that look of like, you know, the water as it pulls at the bottom of a little mini waterfall where it's just like perfectly clear. And it's got this blueish greenish look that just looks so beautiful.

But yeah, it's so weird, even though I know for sure that I'm almost at the end, like I even just saw my little blue dot on the map. And it's like, you know, at the border of the mountain. I'm almost out of here. But it still doesn't feel like it. I feel completely just insconced in fucking nature here. It's just like, I guess it's very cool to be up on a ridge and to be able to see forever. But this is kind of cool in its own way, too, of just like being down in between. Where you can't see shit. You know, you're just enveloped in everything.

Hey, there's somebody.

Hello. But he's literally the only person I've seen for like the last hour, but hey, at least there's somebody. This is weird though, where I'm just like escaping. Glad to get out of here just in time.

Where this reminds me of when I was on the mountain in Fukuoka. My god, have I forgotten the name of that mountain? The one right by Umu Miyashi Station? Yeah, I don't remember right now. But yeah, I remember I was coming down that mountain and it was not a short fucking journey.

It took me like another hour from the point that I saw these two dudes to get to the bottom. And it got dark long before I got to the bottom and they were going up and it's like, I still wonder what those guys are up to. What the hell was that? All right, anyway, here we go. Another rest spot, a bunch of benches, and a washroom.

You know, the the washroom culture is not as insanely reliable as it is in Japan, but it has grown on me. You know, it's a little tougher to find washrooms here in Korea, but it's not that bad. Once you kind of sort out how it works, the subway stations are quite, quite reliable. And there's quite a lot of them. So at the very least, you know, you can kind of navigate around based on that. And yes, as far as public washrooms go, it hasn't been too bad. I was a little concerned at first. It seemed a little tough to find washrooms, but it's been I've been finding it easier and easier.

Slightly weird stuff, though. I'm just going to keep going. I don't need to use this washroom. I was going to wrap up the podcast, but I'm just like it's always ingrained in my brain that I should use a washroom, but I guess I don't actually need to. But yeah, this just happened to me earlier today and it's happened to me a handful of times where there is toilet paper. You know, it's not like I've heard that quite a bit in like China say that you should really travel with toilet paper on you just in case. And I do always have some tissues tucked away in my daybag just in case. But one thing that I've noticed several times is if you go into a bathroom, there's also squat toilets here, but they're pretty rare. I'd say they're more rare here than they are in Japan, but there's still some. But if you go into a stall, double check first to make sure that there's toilet paper in there, because sometimes for whatever reason, I don't know why there's toilet paper outside of the stall. You have to take a bunch of toilet paper with you and bring it in. You know, it's a little odd, but I do very much like even though they don't have fancy toilets here, they don't 40:00 have the fancy bidets and stuff like they do in Japan. It's just normal toilets, but they also have way better toilet paper. Japan has that goddamn tissue paper like it's like candy fucking cotton candy. It just like dissolves. I hate Japanese toilet paper, but I guess the idea is that because of the bidet, you don't need the toilet paper as much, but still I fucking hate that toilet paper. Here they have really sturdy solid toilet paper. So no bidets, but great toilet paper. All right, I'm just passing these little gates. Yeah, these are a thing too that designate the official start of a hike. It's just these, it's like a turn style, but with no turn style, just some little waist-high gates that you walk past. On, I guess there's a little sign here that could technically close this off. That's got like, yeah, the hours of operation. Oh, I guess starting next month, it's still only five o'clock. But I wonder what that means. Does that mean get out of the park by five o'clock? Or does that mean don't start after five o'clock? Because it's still light out, and it's like six o'clock now. Those numbers seem a little early in the day for exiting the park, but they would be extremely good advice for starting. Definitely don't start after that point. And there's a camera. There's like CCTV cameras like everywhere, just all over the place. And I'm just like, I don't care, that's cool. I don't know, I don't really have a lot of experience with that. I've never really been to a country that has zillions of cameras everywhere.

I don't know, I suppose if you're a paranoid person, maybe it's probably unpleasant because they really are everywhere. But I tend to just, I don't know, just put them out of my mind because I'm definitely one of those people that's more of the mindset that like, you know, I'm not doing anything wrong. So it's probably good to have cameras like if something horrible happened.

It's nice that maybe they'll catch it on camera. I'm sure there's many people that would disagree, but there's also many people in the world that really think that they're more important than they are. You know, how can you spy on me, government, it's like whatever, who fucking cares.

Not me, but alright, now I'm definitely back in civilization, there's no apartment building, there's a real road, there's some cars. Amazing.

No nearby subways, I got a bit of a walk ahead of me.

Quite a walk in fact, but maybe I will go to, you know, it's, if I just walk south, you know, break up every journey into bits and it doesn't seem as bad. A fair distance south, I'll eventually get to the big overpass that has a walking path underneath it.

Then walk west from there, I can get to Hanji station, H-O-N, G-J-E, and you know what's by there? A fucking McDonald's, and I'm starving to goddamn death. Sadly, the cheesecake and raspberry baked pies, they don't have them anymore, fuck those were good, those were so good, but I mean, I probably ate a dozen of them conservatively, probably more like 15, so I certainly, I certainly gorged my fucking chair of those bad boys. Ah, it's just nice, just nice to be like, I'm putting the pieces together, I know where things are, I know how to get places. Oh, and that's Bukonson National Park, Googie Ranger Station, G-U-G-I. Yeah, that is a primo, primo fucking start to a journey, holy, sweet shit, it is a shame it's like so hard to get to this start bit, that's gonna be the problem, I guess. You know, I'm still struggling to wake up early, I woke up a little before noon today, that's not bad, but yeah, there's no, I don't know, maybe I'll actually have to break out a bus, because without a bus there is no easy way to get here, but yeah, this is 10 thumbs up, this is awesome, fucking good shit, fucking wonderful. It's even funny, like even in the titles of these episodes, it's like, don't come to Seoul in the winter, things are looking up in Seoul, maybe do come to Seoul in the winter, what am I gonna call this one, like, I'm having some deliriously great days in Seoul now, I don't know, I'm sure I'll think of a better title than that, but yeah, it's really turning around, hey, and there's some people walking dogs on leashes, 45:00 remarkable, full on civilization, what a thing, Those dog walkers were foreigners. Lots of foreigners around here. They definitely are more, I mean, there was a lot of foreigners in Japan too, but I think that thing that I had heard about how it's just kind of easier to emigrate to South Korea, that there's less strictness, you know, Japan's huge into excessive bureaucracy and horrifying paperwork and not necessarily making it easy to integrate.