#105 So long, Seoul

Transcript

Alright, I suspect this is going to be my farewell to Seoul episode. It's Friday right now and my train out of here is Monday. Originally, I was going to maybe take a bullet train all the way to Busan, but instead I'm only taking a normal train 90 minutes to some city not that far from here. So it's really not that big of a journey anyway. But let's do up, down, up. Good thing, bad thing. And then mainly good things.

And by the way, this will tie into what I'm going to talk about this episode, but I am at the John Young Gate of Buchanan National Park, J-E-O-N-G-N-E-U-N-G.

Next to the big rock mounds I mentioned last episode, but I'm going the opposite way this time. And I found the rock mounds. That's some important. Again, yeah, that'll tie into what I'm going to talk about after.

But yeah, good thing. I'm glad that I stayed in Seoul for this little extra bit. Because when I first got here, I had two Airbnb bookings back to back.

And for the first time ever, I looked into the idea of canceling the second one, because I wanted to get out of here so bad, because it just seemed so dour.

The city itself was just so much grimeier, and I found it so much less pleasant than Japan, and I had found no way to escape. I didn't know about the mountains yet. So I was just walking through this city, and the pollution problem became more and more evident. And yeah, I was just walking through this like literally gray. Like the sky was gray from pollution. Garbage strewn about just walking around this city, and I was just like, God, damn it, I hate this. I don't want to get out of here.

So I'm glad my Airbnb was not really cancelable, because things turned around a lot. Things went a lot better. So I'm glad I didn't bail out halfway through.

Even in hindsight now, the first day I was here already in my mind has a much better connotation when I think about it. Because it's one of those things like, it can only be the first time one time, you know.

So the first night I arrived in my Airbnb's by Hapjong station near Hangek University. Super hip, super happen in neighborhood. Have I mentioned by the way that on the weekends, there's a lot of dance clubs around there.

If you walk past one of those areas, they do that super, super crazy loud, something music that just like rumbles your whole head, but not inside. I'm sure inside also, they do that fucking outside on the street. As you walk by, you get the, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

It's interesting to walk past once or twice and then get the fuck out of there.

But yeah, the first night, getting to my Airbnb and realizing I didn't have a power adapter for my computer.

And then going out onto that main strip and seeing all the big buildings and stuff and trying to find somewhere that would sell an adapter. But all the stores were way too high end around there and I finally realized I could go to a 7-11.

And the 7-11s generally, all the convenience stores, there's so much smaller here than they are in Japan. They're just little tiny like bodega style, holes in the wall, like New York style.

But I found one, tucked away in some corner somewhere, found a little adapter for like $5.

Paid with my tea money card, like it was a weird thing because I just sort of didn't feel, I didn't feel overwhelmed at all. Even at that time, I felt a little proud of just how kind of easily I could navigate like, okay, I know, basically I can sort out this problem.

And I've been doing enough big cities now in my life that I mean like way back in 2003, the first time I went to Montreal, outside of like a family trip. When I was just there with one of my friends, I remember it feeling kind of overwhelming. It just felt so busy, there were so many people, it felt so crowded, where nowadays Montreal feels like a ghost town compared to the other fucking places I've been.

But yeah, it was a weird day at best and even now already, now thinking back to it, it feels better.

It's like, yeah, it actually was kind of cool, kind of an exciting big cool city with all the lights and stuff and sorting out the little, you know, how much I love to just sort out a small problem, you know, how easily I sorted out the small problem. 5:00 I think it feels better too in my memory because Japan has receded a lot. It's a lot easier to take South Korea on its own merits.

Now that it's been a month and a half, Japan has receded back into being a dream. A dream I can go back to someday but that doesn't feel real, it already has just returned to legend in my subconscious. Where at that point, I had been there that morning, you know, and that sudden shift, the shift from Japan to South Korea, that didn't feel good. But I don't remember how that felt anymore, that's all gone.

But yeah, in those first couple of weeks, I remember kind of the best I could manage to get out of the city was kind of the first mini mountain that I found that wasn't too far from there. And it just had some exercise equipment on it and was no big deal, but it was like it was all right.

Walking up the kind of back side of it, I found a little bench halfway up, receded into some woods a little so I could just kind of sit there and look out over the hazy city. The weird haze of the city.

Just sit there with my phone and do some writing or something and I was like, well, I guess this will do. I guess this will do while I wait out this weird purgatory. But then, yeah, things got a lot better with each step.

Anson Mountain was the first one that I found. But really, in Lonson was the big one with the wall. That's still an awesome walk. I did it just a couple of days ago. Not only is there the main wall walk, but there's a part where it splits off and goes along the ridge of a second mountain. And that part is really cool.

There are some parts where you're basically just walking along a bare rock that has a rope fence on both sides, which, thank God, it would be scary as fuck without that. Even with it, it's a little freaky.

But it's pretty amazing because you're way up in the air and you can see the city on both sides.

And you just make your way down the ridge and, yeah, very, very excellent. So that turned things around a lot. I was like, man, in Lonson, that's really good. But there was still the creepiness of the pollution haze in the distance.

But then I think what really made me like it around here is this place, this Buchanan National Park. This took some time because at first I was just finding stuff over on the west part of it. Just kind of flat pathways. That were pretty cool, but I gradually found my way to the real peaks, like I'm walking right now. Or I don't quite go to the peaks, but you know, I kind of go up toward a peak and then skirt it around. In between peaks is my preferred method. So you have the combination of this National Park is insanely beautiful and enormous. And really, well signposts didn't really well maintain. It's everything you could want.

And at the same time, the pollution didn't really get better. Just my interpretation of it relaxed a little.

Where today is a moderate day.

You know, the green days where it's just, you know, non-polluted. You really can't count on that. It happens sometimes, but if you just wait for those days, it's a long wait for a train that's never going to come.

The red days are still, I think, a good day to stay inside. Go to a coffee shop instead. Do not go hiking. Because it's visible. You can tell on those days, like it really looks like the apocalypse. It's fucking horrible.

That's what it was like the first day I went up in Wanson when I didn't realize that things were this way. And yeah, it made my chest burn and my throat hurt.

And it looked like a nightmare. So those days stay home, but today, a moderate day. It's like, hey, whatever. I don't live here. I'm just visiting.

I don't have my mask on right now, but I'll put it on when I'm done podcasting. I should have it on, but, you know, I'll survive. Whatever. Moderates good enough. So I found these really beautiful walking paths. This really amazing national park I say found. I mean, it's right there. It's right by the train. But it just still took a lot of tries. It did take me several weeks to really suss out what's going on around here to parse out how everything works. Because I guess, yeah, that's another memory I had at first. Is failed attempts to get up mountains. 10:00 Because there's mountains fucking everywhere. They're all over the place. But I'd pick one and try to approach it. And if you can't find the official entrance, the official path, you're not getting up there.

You very much need to be on the prescribed paths around here. And once you're on them, it's great. You're not going to get lost.

But yeah, I remember one day in particular, just trying to go to some mountain and failing. But walking through a whole different part of town I'd never been to, and it just got worse and worse. It got more dirty and more fucked up and more awful. And I'm like, that's fucking city sucks. Fucking hate this. So things have definitely turned around for my fucking hate this.

Now I like this almost to the point that it's like, oh, I'm leaving in a few days. That's sort of sucks. I could spend a lot more time exploring Buchansen.

But yeah, that's the upside. Glad I stayed longer because things are going much, much better. I'm feeling a lot better about this place. You know, the combination of Japan has become fuzzier to me. So I'm not really comparing the two anymore.

My idea of what's an acceptable level of pollution creepily has just changed. It's like, I'm moderate day. That's fine. I'll still go hiking.

And the bigger the mountains get, the better they get around here. And they're all so close and they're so easy to get to. Once you know how to get there, it's wonderful.

So there's the up. Now the down, why I'm actually, ultimately I am glad that I'm getting the fuck out of here and leaving, is just because of the Airbnb. My two stays are at the same place, but the change in room completely fucked me. I'm at this little tiny, sharehouse, soft house, with like 30 some people all crammed in there, 30 little rooms.

And the first room I was in had a window I could open, not both panes. Like you couldn't open it straight to the outside, which is actually better. You know, keep that pollution air out. But if you opened one of the panes, you could regulate the temperature in the room. Small thing, but makes all the difference, because then I moved to a different room that doesn't have a window. And I'm at the mercy of whatever the heat is in this building. And the heat is always between too hot and literal oven.

And it's just so awful. You know, I tried to come do this hike yesterday and I couldn't. Because I just couldn't fall asleep. I was up till like six or seven a.m. And then I tried to come here, but by the time I got my shit together and got out here, I was on the train and everything. And I realized it was nearing on to 3 p.m. That's like, I just can't do this today.

Whereas today wasn't exactly an early riser, but yeah, I mean, now it's 140 right now, but I'm already on the route, on the way up. That's a big difference. If I was still not even close to here yet, I just didn't want to risk it. I want to make sure I got plenty of time.

So I don't need to be stressed about the sun going down.

And yeah, the heat, I don't know, dude. I just can't sleep through it. But I don't know if I was like going to engage the various difficult to sleep situations that I've been on in this trip. I was thinking about them.

And it's like, all right, the sanganjaya place that I had bedbugs. Is that better or worse? Like, would I trade it in? It's like, no, I would not. The being right next to the train track in Akiruno. Would I trade this for that? No, I would not. The insane amount of snoring, you know, just the chainsaw snoring of a person beneath me in a bunk bed when I was by the sky tree. Would I trade this for that? No, no, I would not.

So it's hard to say this is the worst of them because all those situations were awful. It's just not being able to sleep is just shit. There's no good version of it. However, none of those other situations made me physically angry. This one, last night, just trying to fall asleep.

So close. Feeling your own mind start to just like produce abstract imagery. You're like, oh jeez, I'm almost asleep. And then waking up because you're just sweating.

And that happens over and over and over for like four hours. I was so angry. 15:00 It's like torture. It's like actual torture.

So it's hard to say that this is the worst sleeping situation because like I said, I wouldn't trade it for any of the other ones. I wouldn't want any of them.

But this is the one that makes me lose my shit that is making me become untethered from civil politeness. Like, so fucking angry. So I mean, maybe this is the worst. It's so awful. And again, it's amazing how much difference it makes. I will happily come back to this place when I'm back in Seoul. I like it a lot. The little place overall is great. But you need to be able to regulate the temperature. It's just like, fuck, this room without a window. I will definitely not return to that room.

They had so bad. And my sleep schedule has become so fucked that I literally wasn't sure if I'd be able to manage coming back here with only these last few days because even today it was like, ooh, I managed to pull it off somehow. I managed to fall asleep somewhere around 4.30 in the morning and woke up early enough to get my ass out here at a reasonable time to go hike over this mountain. But it might not happen tomorrow. It might not happen on Sunday. This might be it. You know, this is officially closing the case on this little mountain as much as I love it.

This is my fairly well because I just... I'm a bad sleeper anyway. And this is ridiculous. It's like having little demons with firepokers poking me all night. And it's like, what? Just sleep? Just sleep through it. It's fucking so insane. So shit.

Hmm, this is interesting. So I'm going to the Day Songman Gate. And I knew I wanted a temple on the way. There's a sign here that leads toward two different temples, but one of them is only 0.2 kilometers away. So let's go see. Quite sure this is not the one I'm meaning to go to, but that's very close. So let's at least just go see what it is. Yeah, this is why I don't want to start too late in the day because if everything goes just right, even starting very late in the day, I'm probably fine. But I like having the option of experimenting. And that's what I want to talk about with the final up. Is I want to ramble some of the little adventures that I had on this mountain and how incredibly minor minute changes in which route you take. It can really take you to some remarkably different places. But perhaps I'll save that till I'm on my way down on the other side because I'm on my way up right now and it's only getting steeper and steeper. So yeah, let's take a little mountain hike break while I hike up and over this bad boy.

Oh, man, I can actually see the speaker. So I went to the side shrine that was 0.2 kilometers away. It was really kind of a cute little shrine. I've only found a couple of shrines where you can actually go in and then there's all the little Buddhist statues and stuff. That was one of them though. Very cool. And now I'm passing the bigger shrine that I passed down by before coming the other way. And yet it's playing cool, eerie, chanting music. But I actually see the speaker. In Japan, I could never see those speakers. They're always scaring the crap out of me. Although I can probably only see this one because it's because it's March. And there's no leaves on this tree, otherwise we'd be hidden away. But yeah, I'm only halfway up the mountain. Maybe a little more than half, but I figured actually I should record on the way up because it's the classic conundrum. Going up is harder, physio wise. But going down is harder, footing wise. And so far, it seems like the snow is actually maybe melted up here. But we'll see. Last time I was up here, there was still a bunch of snow at the top. And I still got a ways to go. So yeah, going down, 20:00 the slippery snowy steps on the other side. Probably better that I focus and pay attention and have my hands free. In case I got to do a little crab walking. So I'm going to record on the way up, but I also, man, I go up so slow. I am like a legitimate 90 year old man speed. I'm almost like proud of myself because I find that so hard to do normally. Like down on the ground, if I just walked slower day to day, it would probably be better for my various joints and aches and pains.

But there's that little neurotic bit of me that's like hard to slow down.

But I've gotten very good at going slow up mountains because you just kind of get into the groove of it. And yeah, just knowing that if I go really slow, my knees won't hurt tomorrow.

My hips won't hurt tomorrow. Nothing will hurt tomorrow. If anything, I'll feel better tomorrow.

I will become stronger by going really, really slow. Pain is a powerful motivator and the avoidance thereof. Yeah, if I go up slow, I won't injure myself. And I got to breathe really deeply the whole time, but I also won't get that horrible, uncomfortable blown up feeling. I don't know, what do people call that? Just being winded, I guess? In wrestling, they call it being blown up when you, you know, you're just huffing for air. It's a bad feeling and I realize like I always felt that way hiking and going up mountains and stuff. It always was this like painfully unpleasant, like, oh, Jesus, I can barely breathe because I was always going too fast, even if I was a young whipper snapper. But it's like the only fucking equation I really ever remembered from high school physics is just, well, I say I remember it, I don't actually remember. The gist of it is the energy over time, you know, you want to get somewhere faster, it takes more energy. You want to get there slower, it takes less energy and more time. And it's a good trade. You take the time, you get to spend more time on the mountain, you get to really soak it in and you don't expend energy to the point of injuring yourself and feeling miserable. It's just great.

So yeah, this place, Buconson National Park also, despite being so huge in having all these official entrances and stuff, still surprisingly difficult as a nut to crack. Where like I was saying, I first found various stuff over to the west, just weird little pathways that were relatively flat. And those were cool. And I kept seeing the one mountain peak with the weird antenna on top and thinking like, can you actually go there? Is that a thing? And then I found that you can literally just go right up the ridge of that mountain. Where it was kind of cool, but it was also quite steep and kind of freaky. And I didn't go all the way to the top. I just found a path to go down. So it was like, I was having a hard time finding the happy middle.

Because I either found the really flat part or the way to intense steep part.

And then I found another path toward a big mountain. And similar thing, I went most of the way up, three quarters of the way and it just was so steep. And I was using all my hands and feet and climbing literally and I didn't have my proper boots yet. And it was just freaking me out. I just went back down. So I was like, man, Buconson's cool, but it's so intense.

Like these are actual mountains. And then the day that it all became clear was instead of the west side. It was when I took the train line over to the east side. And I just, I call it the King's Quest Day because I don't know what else to call it. The day where I was talking about walking up steps. I mean, the episode was called, maybe you should visit the soul in the winter. It was such a good day that I was turning around like, yeah, even though the pollution is a problem. It's so beautiful on this mountain path. The snowy steps up through the rocks that it's hard not to recommend that. It was so nice. I went and checked by the way. I don't know. It was definitely King's Quest V I was thinking of because I don't think six has any snow parts. But in five, in my memory, the snow area gradually became snowy, but it actually doesn't. 25:00 It's like one screen. You just go up in the mountains and all of a sudden boom, you're in the snow. And then you go through that for a bit. And then it's like one screen back to no snow. Really what it's closer to is Quest for Glory 1. That whole game takes place in the spring. With the snow melting around the trees, that's what it was more like.

But even that day, my approach to the mountain was literally just go to a station near the edge of the mountain. Look for a little point on Google Maps where it seems like the road goes up and disappears into the mountain. And cross one's fingers. And yeah, it was a little bit weird. I had to go up through some neighborhood behind some houses to a little park and then through a very ramshackle series of trails that were just kind of behind people's houses. But there were other people there and stuff. And I had to walk through that for some time before it became national park, dun dun dun. Super beautiful heading upward into the snowy, beautiful rock paths and rock fucking steps. It really wasn't until the end of that day where I exited at the spot that I entered today. That was where I'd say I finally, I finally found one of the proper entrances to the park. Like until then, I'd just kind of been cobbling my way through or just sneaking my way in wherever I could.

When in this case, because everything is so well laid out and so well curated and manicured here in Seoul, it's better to take the big official entrances. Way better.

Leads to way more options. Way less ramshackle of an adventure.

And on this cool rock outcropping, whoosh, I shouldn't walk any closer, a little freaky.

Really good view. Really good view. And yeah, again, it's like this is more than polluted enough today to have freaked me out before. I got a little app for my phone. I think it said today it was like somewhere between 80 and 90 or under 50 is where you want to be to not be in danger.

But you just, I don't know, you just get used to it. I will definitely put my mask back on again after I'm done recording this podcast, but yeah, it's all relative, I guess. I do feel like living here is very, that'd be a very difficult choice. But for just visiting, not that bad. And I am curious to see how much difference it makes. Again, like I said, my next place is only an hour and a half from here. Is that far enough? On my little app, I have been checking like good old Busan, the other famous city. It's way down by the coast and it does seem significantly better air quality-wise, but I'm not heading straight there. I'm going to meander my way down.

Bad, this one building. Maybe I should go see that. I don't know how it would look from the ground, but since I've only got the weekend left and this is almost certainly my last day hiking mountains here, I believe this big, it looks so crazy because it's like this giant building. It's way bigger than all the other buildings. And because it's always in the misty haze of pollution, it looks like it's out of a fucking sci-fi book from the 60s or something.

And I believe it's Lot Tower, L-O-T-T-E. I'll tell you about him soon, but I met a guy who told me, you must be referring to Lot Tower because it's the biggest building structure in Seoul.

It's interesting to just to realize which companies are from which country, like a lot. The little ice cream pouch that I bought in Japan was a lot ice cream. Turns out Lot is Korean, big time Korean company. Where on the other hand, there's Daiso stores. I never really used them in Japan, but I used them quite a bit here for whatever reason, just the way things worked out. I didn't need a dollar store in Japan. Here I seem to always need one for some little thing or another. And they take tea money cards, but Daiso's Japanese and they're everywhere around here.

So yeah, Lot has made it to Japan. Daiso's made it to here. I'm sure there's all kinds of crossover, but it's interesting to figure out who's from where.

But yeah, from this John Young entrance, I came back here, hung a left, hung a west, and ended up at Googie, which Googie is still my favorite entrance. It's also, I mean, they're all very pretty, because it's always like following these streams, tends to be where I guess the major entrances are. Googie was really cool, and then I figured out how to get to Googie on foot pretty easily through the tunnel, see previous episodes, for details. So what I wanted to do, because I went from Googie to this John Young entrance and didn't realize right away that it was the same one. Like, oh, wait, that's that one that I've been to several times. I kind of did it by accident. But then I thought, all right, that's quite a straightforward route that I took that particular branch between, because the entrances are basically next to each other. So you're just heading west to east or east to west to get from one to the other. And it's not that bad, you know, it's over a mountain, but not over a peak of a mountain. It's just up to this gate, up one side down the other.

It takes a while, it'll take the afternoon, but it's pretty straightforward and a very nice walk from one major entrance to the other. So I thought, let's do that in reverse, which is what I'm doing today. But today is attempt number two, because attempt number one, I was really surprised how much, like I was saying earlier, small little navigational differences have huge differences to the outcome. I'm starting to see snow now, snow is starting to appear on the sides of the mountain and a bit on the steps. So yeah, the landmarks all seemed pretty easy to follow, because from Googie, there's not actually very many options. It's quite straightforward up to the Daedongmun Gate, but I did find a little, just before the gate, a little side path over to a temple, but then that still led up to the gate. And then there's quite a few options on the other side of the gate. You can go down this way that I came up this time where the big rock mounds are the give-away that you're on this path. If you head over to the west, that takes you over to King's Questland, and also you can take an alternate route over to a temple with wild dogs, where the wild dogs chase me away and scared me. You can go along the gate, there's different stuff. But anyway, so I came in at Jungyun, and I knew that I had already gone from there, west through the nature interpretive trail. I did that once, and actually that took me up to that temple with the scary dogs. That was quite a long route to that one, winding around the size of the mountains. Very cool, but very long. So I knew I wanted to trend a little easterly, and I was looking for those rock piles, but I guess I went too far east.

I took one turn too many, because I was going along, and I didn't see the rock piles, and it's like, okay, well, those are very distinctive. I'm definitely on a different route. But I'm still just heading up into the mountains. How bad could it be? How different could it be? And it wasn't crazy different. It was just a different route up the mountains. So that was pretty cool, but it got me to a different gate. Up in the snow, there's like a wall up there, like a little mini-great wall, and the gates are the archways that go through the wall. So I got up there. It was super snowy. I was at a different gate, but from there I could go west along the gate to the Denomen gate that I was trying to get to. And it was pretty tricky. It was a longer trek than I expected, and it was really steep and really snowy, but there was not only ropes, but like, it was like a rope fence, so like pillars in the ground with ropes, that you could basically use to kind of climb, which was good, because it was very slippery and slidy. So much so that when I got way up to one of the peak parts, I met some other hikers, some older, everybody's older. Very few young hikers here, some, but not many. Everybody's my age or older, mostly. It seems, I don't know what the young folk are up to in this town, going to fucking hapji young, going to the clubs, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, but the old 35:00 people are all about mountain hiking and doing exercise on the mountains with all the exercise equipment that's everywhere. But they couldn't speak English, but one lady pointed to some, she had like literal chains on her boots, and was like, hey, you should have these. They're like, oh yeah, maybe, even like, I got these new boots with these big treads, they're still pretty slippery up here. And yeah, her husband was like, he could speak a little English, so he's like, hey, careful, slidy. But all I could do was assure them that I would be, that I would be careful.

But it was, it was tricky. It was pretty tough, but I went along that and I got to the gate, and I'm like, sweet. All right, here's the gate. Just head straight down here. That's the gate with the lightning warning sign. Be careful, you could be struck by lightning.

But these gates are very cool and very beautiful. But I was like, no problem. There's really only, you know, like I was saying, the googie route is very limited. It's very straightforward. There's not all these different options you can take. So I was like, all right, just head down from here.

And I did it. But I knew there was like a slight little side divergence to a temple.

And I think today I will try again to take that little side route. But just knowing that that was there kind of messed me up because I was like, all right, I know I need to trend to the right a little bit to go take that little extra loop over to the temple. But I just went to the right too soon. Because again, there's like these options that you would never notice on your way coming in one direction because you would have had to double back. You know, it's like right behind you. You just walked past it and you don't realize going on these routes backwards is like a whole different thing. There's so many weird options and divergences that you just don't see until you're in the reverse, come in in the reverse method. Which is definitely the best way to describe that coming in the reverse method. Oh man, these mountain peaks are pretty.

Fuck my dick. It's so nice. But yeah, I started going down this path and I'd also seen a little again, a little temple down there somewhere. And I was like, well, that doesn't seem like the same temple. The temple I was thinking of was like on the edge of the mountain.

This was a temple down in a valley. But I'd seen it when I was going along the side of the gate. It's like, what is that tucked away down there? And I seem to be heading toward it. And it was really steep, really steep on the way down. Had to slide on my butt a little bit because it was so steep and snowy. But it was nowhere near any cliffs or anything. It was again just going down into a valley. Very not scary. Just steep. But there were quite a few other hikers and stuff. And there was a power line going down it like way down all the way down really. So so many signs of civilization that I was like, all right, quite quickly sure this was not the right way. But there's some building down there. There's other people hiking. There's a power line. There's it quickly turned into again a stream just following a stream down. So I was like, all right, this was the wrong way. But let's see what this is. Let's explore.

Because yes, since all the trails are so prescribed, it's kind of cool that even on a part of the route where I didn't really think there were options. I thought there was kind of just the one way down to Googie. But I found another way. And I'm like, all right, cool. Let's see what this is. And the first sign that I saw said that it was heading to another entrance.

And it was about four kilometers. Which all the other routes are only about two. These are all like quite short paths. They're just really, really steep, you know. I'm looking out of the city right now. It's just not that far away. It's right there. Once I get over to the other side of this, there will be more city, not that far away, about two kilometers. It's just that you go up, way up is what makes it feel much longer than it is. But four kilometers is obviously double.

But I was like, yeah, that's all right. You know, it's getting a little late in the day. But at this point, it stays light till like 630. And at that point, I don't know, it's probably like four o'clock. It was like, yeah, no problem. This will be fine. I'm clearly on the way down on a well-marked trail. Again, with the power lines. If anything, it was more major than the average trail. Other people are on it. It's just a nice, gradual, but long walk. So I'm like, all right, cool. Let's see what 40:00 this is. And basically, it was taking me north, which all these other paths basically are just I'm going east or west and just popping back out down at the south end of the mountains. North, it just goes on and on and on forever. Way high up north, not forever, but for a ways.

And this was definitely one of those cases. We're not only, I'm not quite sure where the four kilometer delineation is. I think it was actually farther than that. Because once it got to the official entrance, it still went on for some time. On more of an official paved road, winding its way down. But the whole walk down to the main entrance was extremely beautiful and pretty and nice and gradual and easy. Oh, and I walked past over a wild dog. There was one point where a wild dog was trotting toward me. And I really had no way to get out of the way. There's nowhere I could go. We were at a point where it was just the stream on one side and the cliff on another. So I just stood off to the side and let it trot by. It was a female dog. And it just tried to buy and then as it went past me, then it stopped and looked back at me. Just watched me as I left. But it's kind of interesting. Just on the mountain highway. I just let it in a dog pass.

Point eight kilometers.

The Songman Gate. Is that what I've been... I feel like the gate that I'm going to in the gate that's on my map. They both start with D. But I don't think that's the same name.

Day Naman.

Day Songman, you know. Oh, I see. Okay. They're essentially the same gate.

Day Dongman, Day Jung Day. All the gates along that all have just variations of that name. So they're very close to each other. They're essentially either or where I believe it was the Bogon one gate that I went to when I got turned around a little B-O-G-U-N-G-M-U-N.

And the Songdike Bong Peak must be where I met those people who were concerned about my footwear and my lack of chains. I don't think I need to change on my feet. I think that's a little severe. But again, I don't know. I think a lot of it really is just my willingness to scramble. My willingness to be on all fours. But I guess if you do just want to stay upright and on your two feet the whole time, then yeah, I guess you need chains and you need poles and you need all this stuff.

But you can get a lot done if you go to crab mode.

So yeah, it slowly made my way along the northern route, the 4 km route, gradually down, nice and pretty. A lot of snow in there, because I guess it's just in this valley. Didn't get as much sun. Quite a bit of snow here now, incidentally. A lot of the snow is melted, but there's still a fair amount up here. And here's another sign. Yeah, so many signs. So well sign-posted. Okay, Songmun Gate, Jungyeon's where I came from. Yeah, only 2.3 kilometers, where I came from. Sure, let's feel longer. And then over that way to the Bugak Park Ranger Post, is that? I don't think that's the dog temple. I think it's higher up. But anyway, it's over there somewhere. I am. There's just stone steps here, again, straight out of a medieval adventure game. So fucking cool looking. But anyway, yeah, so the other day, as I was going north, gradually making my way down through the valley. Toward the end, I met a guy, a South Korean guy, but who could speak English. And was fairly enthusiastic. And actually, I wish I had asked him. And they thought about this after, but he had something on his back that was like a little metal step stool or something. So I'm sure it's some kind of climbing equipment, but I don't know what the heck it was. But we got to chatting as we were walking. And his English was pretty good. I found out he, he lived for six months in Australia. And that does seem pretty much like at the level he was at where we could talk pretty easily. But it was definitely that level of English, or maybe he just was looking for people to talk to because it did feel like it would easily slip from his grasp if he stopped using it. You know, he was at that point of like, it would be easy to just let this fade away. But again, more than good enough for us to just chat about stuff. So, 45:00 you know, we just talked about where I was from. And now I was staying at a little softhouse. If anything, I thought it was pretty good that my softhouse is like so cheap. It was like 16 bucks a day or whatever it is. He gets $10 a day. He's like, hey, those things are super cheap. So it's like, man, maybe there's some even more cheap ones out there. Like, man. But basically, he offered me a drive to the subway, which turned out to be a great boon. I was very glad I ran into this guy because that's when I realized that the entrance quote unquote was still very far from anything. It seemed like we just kept driving and driving and driving down this winding road past all these other people. Not having like a fun hike part of the hike. They were just stuck walking along the side of this winding road. Here we go. Il Siona Temple with restrooms. That's the one for sure. Il Sionsa, ILS, E-O-N-S-A temple. That's the wild dog temple. I don't know if it's always a wild dog temple, but the day I went it sure was. So I will not go that way. Just continue on.

Yeah, he said it'd probably be like another half an hour to walk down that road. And then it just spit us out in the middle and nowhere. Like, even in a car, it was quite a drive to a metro station. So I was very glad to bump into this guy and happy to accept his offer of a drive because it was at that point like 5.30 or something.