#110 Great first day in Busan, South Korea

Transcript

Alright, it's my first day waking up in Busan. I got here yesterday, so technically my second day. And wow, man, that's just like that first impression goes a long way. Like I remember, even though nowadays, I give Toronto a bit of a hard time because it's so flat and it's not near nature stuff. You know, I moved there in 2010. It was a long time ago. Nowadays, I'm much more of a hiking man, so it's troublesome, but the first day I arrived, I was quite blown away by how much I liked it. Whoa, Toronto's a lot better than everybody told me it was, because Toronto's the big bad city in Canada. It's a very unpopulated, calm and clean compared to big American cities, but by Canadian standards, oh, it's like, oh, I don't know if you want to go to Toronto. Then I got there and I loved it. The first impression, when I got to Japan, I don't know, I didn't have specific expectations about Japan, as much as I love it now, and I've realized how much it has intertwined itself with my whole life with video games and anime and all this shit. It's like, oh yeah, I have more of a connection to Japan than I realized, but I didn't really realize that, so I put off going for a long time. And then when I got there, I was like, oh my goodness, this is hitting me a lot more than I expected.

Whereas, on the other hand, when I first got to Seoul, right away, I was like, what's going on here? This doesn't feel right. This is weird, man. I'm not quite comfortable. This is an odd feeling place. It doesn't feel like I thought it would feel. It's like this bizarre amalgam of Asia and America. And then once the really, scarierly bad pollution days hit where I felt like I was in the apocalypse, I literally tried to leave. I'm like, can I get out of my fucking Airbnb? Can I get out of here? And then, you know, things settled a bit and I got used to it. Then I tried going to a smaller city. Went to Jetshon. And in a different way, I was like, okay, now this isn't going to work. I was hoping I'd get near nature. And it took me away from nature. It got a little harder to get to nature. So literally the next day I booked all my stuff for Busan. It's like, all right, you know, this will be fine. I'll hang out here for three weeks. And again, it was, you know, it got better as I stayed longer and found my way around and learned about stuff. But right away, first impression was I'm ready to go. And not only that, but my idea of just going to small cities in South Korea is like, I don't think so. I think it's just going to be this over and over, more or less. So basically, my first impressions in Korea have been a little shaky. But Busan, man, right away, just right away. Literally last night, I started looking into, because I'm here for a long time, like five weeks. But I started, I've never done this before. I went on the same way in Seoul. I'd never gone on Airbnb before to see what the protocol is for cancelling. I've never gone on Airbnb before to see what the protocol is for extending. Like, I was just going to make a second booking to extend it longer. But the way it's set up is they want a day in between people, which is nice. A lot of places, you know, they book people in the same night that you leave. So they have to prepare the room that afternoon. And it's really tough to do.

The turnover time is too short. So here, it would be, if I booked a second stay at the same place, it would just be awkward, because there's a day in the middle where I have nothing booked. So I had to go into the menus and find the actual extension thing. And then I was like, you know what? Just calm down. You don't need to do this right now, because you got to figure out what you're doing. How long am I staying? Is this the plan now? My only other real plan was either go to Jeju Island or go back to Seoul. And going back to Seoul is largely predicated on flights. So I got to figure out if I stay in Busan. Presumably, I can just fly out of here. It's probably not any different. You know, I'm sure it's probably about the same. Because I don't know what my flight even is. Am I just flying hard way, straight back to like Toronto? I don't know. So that's the thing. I got to figure out what I'm doing at the end of this career trip before I can start extending, figuring out how I'm going to extend Busan. But right away, this was my immediate feeling. It's like, this feels good. This feels different than Seoul. I want to stay here. 5:00 This is where I want to stay while I'm here. And today I'm getting rained on, but the bonus to that is also that there's no pollution today. That's the other thing I guess. It'll be good to just chill for a little bit to see how that feels. Because that really, I mean, I've been keeping my eye on the air quality index here. I'm in like a little forested area, but it's right by the city. So sirens, unfortunately. And it doesn't seem like by the numbers that things are that much better here in Busan. They definitely are better. Like yesterday, it was only slightly moderately a problem here in Busan. And it was straight up to the over 100 red level danger zone in Seoul.

That seems to be what I noticed mostly is there's been a couple of times since I left Seoul that it's hit that super danger zone where it's like literally dunco outside today. And it never did that at all in Busan or Jetchun. So I think maybe that's what people mean when they say how bad things are in Seoul is just that it hits those insane levels sometimes. And it seems like the rest of South Korea doesn't so much. The rest of South Korea is just moderate pollution, but there is pollution. And it was kind of like a sea saw from what I saw. It'd be bad in Seoul one day and okay in Busan. And then a day or two later it would flip flop. So maybe it is just weather patterns passing down through the city. I guess we'll see. That definitely could have a big effect. So we'll see.

Hmm is it tent here? Is there somebody actually sleeping in that? Bad fucking day for tents.

Oh no it looks like just stuff. Stuff in a tent.

But I guess the first thing I noticed is going along on the train. I was better rested than I was afraid I would be. But I still could only keep my eyes open half the trip. And then I just have to lie down and just I just couldn't stay alert. One of the most useful things that I have that my mom gave me right before I left. She knew I didn't want to take extra stuff that I wouldn't need. But she's like try this though. And it's like one of those little neckrest pillows that you can get at the airport or whatever. But those airport ones are always full of like little bean bag things so they're really big and cumbersome. You wouldn't really be able to just travel around with that. Where she gave me an inflatable one. And I never really see them for sale. But if this one ever breaks I got to try to find one because it's great. It's like so small that I literally forget that I have it. And then whenever it's travel time I can just inflate it. And it's just the best. I just basically used it as a pillow. So I wasn't awake for the whole train ride but looking out the window I thought that could be like a somewhat interesting way to pick a place to go because I'd look at the window sometimes and see places that I'm just like what is that place? Look at that little town. If I was going to do the little town thing because there's some that are really little that really are right by the mountains where Jetcham was a bit away. Jetcham was maybe a little mid-sized. It'd be an interesting way to decide where to go. Just like look at the window. But I didn't get to look at the window as much as I wanted to because I kept falling asleep. But yeah luckily my my cyst pain where if I sit too long I get these stabbing pains in my abdomen that was like really really bad back in my hometown and then was still moderately bad on my flight to Japan. It is getting a little better. It didn't really bother me just my knee did. I just didn't ever room for my big long-lanky knee. My knee hurt quite a bit but anyway whatever. Not the worst day of traveling. And I started to see cherry blossoms on the way out the window. It's like oh they're these mythical cherry blossoms that you always hear about in Japan and I've never seen and I'm not sure I guess that's the thing is like I'm like oh there they are. I didn't even think about Korea because I was like when am I ever going to get to Japan that time of year. If anything I've been realizing how much I like the winter I would kind of want to go in the winter and maybe even go up north in Japan. When am I ever going to see these cherry blossoms? Did not occur to me that I could see them over here in Korea. So yeah saw a bunch of cherry blossoms and now like this park I'm in right now there's a bunch of them. It's like I just know so little about blossoms or anything that I was like are these them? I don't even know. They're not very strongly pink. They're mostly white with a little bit of pink. It's early April right now so maybe I missed the very initial blooming.

And then it's kind of like a waterfall situation where I kind of I guess I'm just a weird guy. I just don't know what other people like and why they like it. I just like my own stupid shit. So like I can stare to waterfall and be like yeah I mean it's all right. I don't know why people mix it to be real about these. I was feeling that way about the cherry blossom trees in a way too. I'm just like I guess that's I mean all right I guess I'm looking at them. I like as there's something else I'm supposed to do. I'm not quite sure if I'm getting the whole thing. It wasn't until I came into this park and like right now they're falling. The little blossom leaves are falling gently from the trees mixing with the rain and I'm like okay that's definitely that's the thing for sure. This is what everybody talks about the gently falling cherry blossoms. I'm seeing it. I'm seeing the thing and it is nice it's fine but I just I'm so weird that people make such a big deal about stuff like this. Like you got to get to the place at the exact right time. Where's the best spot for viewing? Oh you can actually travel with the weather to see more cherry blossom. Like who gives a shit about cherry blossoms? You fucking weirdo? Who gives a fucking? It's all right but it's a world full of nice things. It's a world full of nice things. This isn't that much nicer than any of that shit. It's fine. Hey look at all these cherry blossom trees. Like all right cool. Anyway whatever. I saw I did see them and I mean yeah it's okay but it's certainly not worth basing a trip around but it's kind of nice to tick that off my box. It's like yeah if I see them I see them. If I don't I don't. It's just like a waterfall to me. It's like yeah it's nice but I don't care. I don't care. I don't need to fucking make plans for this. Hey here's a little coming up to a temple which those are fairly rare in Korea. There's a little sign with some monks near a cherry blossom in a little arrow so let's follow the arrow up into the cherry blossom trees.

This is though why I always liked Carl Pilkington's travel shows. You know I don't want this to be like a negative you know travel log but you know so many travel things are overly positive about fucking nothing. Where the reality sometimes it's just just kind of like it's just stuff. I like traveling around and seeing the stuff but to try to pretend that one bit of the stuff is so much better than the other stuff. Get out of here. Get out of here. You know I'm sure Yokohama is prettier in the spring when all of those flower gardens and stuff are blooming but it was still so pretty in the winter that I miss it all the time. I wish I was there right now.

I guess what's the saying of like let happiness be happiness. You know you don't need your happiness to be more happy. If you got something that you like that's fine it doesn't need to be upgraded.

It doesn't need to be the ultimate best thing every time. But anyway that being said let me talk about how Busan is the ultimate best thing and how I like it more than the other cities.

Because yeah I came into the station and I guess that's the first thing I noticed is there would be many times in Japan when I'd walk out of a random subway station and just like the vibe just you know around a subway station it's always just chain stores and stuff usually. But sometimes it's just a nice vibe you just feel like the neighborhood feels good. It's like yeah I like this this feels good. And even though I was at Busan station and again it was just city stuff I guess it was kind of nice because I was happy to get back to city stuff after jet-chon and I had that vibe right away of like ah nice this feels nice I like this and there was a huge mountain right there which I mean that's not as easy as it sounds like it took me a long time in Seoul to figure out how to get to the actual hikeable mountains because even the ones that were near my Airbnb that were just parks but they were still enormous big mountains poking up out of the ground but there'd be no pass to get up or I'd find a little pathway and it would go a little ways up to like a single bench with a CCTV camera which I'm like what is that for and then all fenced off and I that one park in particular I never did figure out I'm sure there must be some way to get up there but it's tricky so just because there's mountains everywhere in Busan doesn't mean I can just go hike in right away but maybe I can and they're right there and it's just like oh that's I like that feeling I love being by mountainy stuff I mean right now if I're gonna hike it up a hill 15:00 when my little recorder is getting a little bit wet maybe I shouldn't be doing this but I just got to be a little more careful to hold my umbrella outward it's okay if I get wet it's got to protect protect the the tech protect the tech wow another shrine what is this let me just make sure this is like neat enough that I should figure out what this is called man though it's hard to pull up my phone in the rain all right it's worth it though I got to figure out what this is called So my Airbnb is near Yang-Jeon-Dong station, Y-A-N-G-J-E-O-N-G. Oh, here we go. So it's Busan citizens park, but I'm not there. I'm across the street from there. So yeah, this is pretty cool. I am in like a little mountain area. And on the other side is Busan-Acead Main Stadium. So I guess I'll just keep trudging, see where I get, because yet it's also rounded by city on every side. So a good first day adventure can't go wrong. But again, just that I found this just randomly, just walking around. It's like perfect. Ah, so good. It's that, like I've said, a few times about old Jichon. The irony of cities sometimes is you get more nature stuff. It's easier to access rather than harder. But yeah, one thing that was nice about being back in the city is my tea money card basically reactivated, where I could use it in Jichon, but I only used it once to take the bus. And it's just a little tougher because there's no subway stations to go refill the tea money card. So I never quite knew how much money was on it. And you can refill it by taking it into a convenience store and asking them to top it up. But I mean, I so much prefer just using the machine. So I just paid for stuff with cash or credit card or whatever. To make sure my tea money card had money on it for when I got here. So it had like 40 bucks still on it. But it's like ding, ding, ding. That thing reactivated now. I'm, ah, I can get around again. I can do stuff. But I found Busan station, just like always, very confusing. Happened to me several times in Japan getting lost in the stations and not knowing what was going on. I only defined the main line, line one and take it eight stops. No big deal. But I was like, I don't know. I don't know which one to go to. That's to this. So I did the classic thing that I did in Fukuoka. I remember for sure. But where you just walk to the next station so that it's just the one line at that station. And then, you know, you just go into the station. And there's one line and you go left, you go right. That's it. I used to do that in Toronto with the buses because they would get super packed. But it was always at the major intersections that they got super packed. So I figured out that if you just walk one bus stop before the main intersection, you can just hop on no problem. Is this the end of the road? Nice little temple. But I think this is as far up as I can go. But here in Busan, I did the opposite. I just walked one station toward my Airbnb because it does, you know, it's that countertuitive thing. It seems natural to go toward where you're going. But once you're on transit, it doesn't actually matter where you started. But I didn't know how busy it was going to be. Turns out, transit in Busan. Super busy. Super busy. Because then, I was at the station after Busan station. So that's obviously where everybody funnels out of various transports and different lines and whatever. So the train was mega packed. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to wait for the next one. And the next one was mega packed. I'm like, Jesus, let's wait for one more. And the third one was mega packed. So I'm like, all right, sorry, everybody. I mean, I got my big awkward book bag. This sucks, but I got to squeeze in. Unless I go back through the turn style and just walk to a different station. There's nothing I can do. So I had to squeeze into the train where it just never was busy like that in Seoul. It got busy-ish, but never like that sardine packed in thing. And Busan, it does. So yeah, if I had known that, and now I do know that, I could have gone the other way. If I had walked the other way, because it was a very short walk to the next station, not a big deal. But if I had walked back a station and got on one station before Busan, then I could have pulled my old Toronto trick. Got on the train that is much emptier and about to empty out even more before all the new people clamber in. But just that walk to the next station was just, yeah, it's just a nice little 20:00 city, city walk, but it just feels different. There's something about the vibe that feels different. Maybe it's like a coastal thing. I don't know. I don't know that it could be because this is the closest point to Japan. And there's a ferry from here to Fukuoka, but it just feels more like Japan. It just felt cleaner and just nice. It just felt nice. And I was walking along and I saw the big mountain to the side. And I'm like, I'm going to try to do some with you, my friend.

But then since the subway was so packed, I also bailed out of the subway early. Like two stops earlier than I should have even though I had my big heavy book bag. But it's not like I was out of energy because all I was doing was sitting on a train all day. I could carry my big heavy book bag for a while. Here we go. Found a different path to go up further. And yeah, I was getting quite dark at that point by the time I got out of the subway. And I walked through this little like fish market area that was closing down. But just I was actually pretty big. It wasn't little. It took many blocks, but I was just walking through as people were shuttering things up.

And again, just felt nice. Just felt cool. Had a good feeling vibe. There was one point where somebody drove a truck through there like a delivery truck or something. And there was no room. There was barely room for this truck by itself. It was a small truck, but this was a very small little, you know, it's clearly a foot market. It's like when people would drive through Kensington Market in Toronto. It's like, how is this even legal? Get the fuck out of here. What are you doing here? But Asia is, you know, Asia is crazy. So this guy just fucking brute forces his way through.

And then he turned a corner and then caught a last glimpse of him turning another corner. And it again, it kind of felt just like again, sort of weirdly magical in a way that it's just not an experience that would happen in North America. Because even at Kensington, I mean, there's a lot more room. There's multiple lanes in Kensington. This was one of those things. It's just like, yeah, and Asia, they just don't give a fuck. It's like, hey, dude, get out of the fucking way. Dick, are you going to get run over? It's like a boss from a video game. It's like uncharted too. And the guy in the truck is trying to run you over. It's just like, oh man, all right, all right.

But it is kind of cool in a weird way. Man, yeah, right now I'm just in a little wooded grove. The cherry blossoms are drifting through the air. And I mean, yeah, it's not bad, but it's like, I don't know, cherry blossoms is kind of weird. They sort of, it sort of feels like confetti.

I don't know. Let's not dwell on that. So I'm not feeling cherry blossoms. Who cares? Let everyone else in the world love the shit out of them.

But yeah, then I walked the rest of the way. And it's just just through like a little mini park in the middle of the city. Got to my Airbnb. And it just, it's so hard to put your finger on this stuff. Like why? What's how do vibes work? I guess just in general though, it is just that it, it just feels cleaner here. And maybe that's all it takes for me. Because you know, like I've said many a time, even visiting Japan, it's not like I'm particularly going to see sights and I'm not learning the language necessarily. And I rarely talk to people. I'm actually just there for the place mostly. And Japan is just the place where people clean up after themselves. It's like the only one in the world. Where there's that famous story from a, there's like soccer or something, some sport. Where the Japanese fans cleaned up after themselves before they left the stadium. And it made the news because literally no other nation on earth did that. Including my precious Canada. See, maybe it seems like I'm riding Japan's dick enough a lot, but they fucking earned it. They deserve it, man. Like if you just want a place where people look after it, it's the place on the earth. It's the one. So that my first impression of Seoul was that there was garbage everywhere. And my first impression of Jetshon was that it was a teeny tiny version of Seoul. Take that as you will.

And my first impression of Busan is like, oh, it's clean and nice. Maybe I haven't stumbled around to the wrong parts of town yet. But maybe that's all it takes for me and fuck it. I accept it. That's what I like. I like cleaning up after oneself. Actually, I just watched a YouTube video recently. The guy's name is Samurai Machae. By the time this episode comes out, it will no longer be a new video. But he was talking about customs in Japan that 25:00 are less known that people might not be aware of. And one of them is cleaning public toilets. There's a little bit of a history of like famous Japanese entrepreneurs and stuff who spend some time cleaning public toilets. Because it's like a zen thing, you know, it's just you really center yourself and you really can't pretend you're a big shot when you're cleaning a toilet. It's not even your toilet. And maybe some karma idea that you know, you help the world society. And then that comes back to you. Partially that it's just nice to do. And the Samurai Machae guy said he was very skeptical of this practice at first, but he tried it and he likes it. And now he does that. And I mean, it makes sense to me. It's like I just got a little the little note that when people in Airbnb can leave you a little private note. The little private note that the lady in Jetchon left me was so impressed with how clean I left the place and that I all I did was I folded up all the blankets and stuff. But people just don't do that. And just leave their shit. And I haven't graduated to cleaning toilets. But I cleaned the unmanned cafe. I was happy to clean it up. You know, and run the little mop cloth across the floor and clean the counter. If I lived in Jetchon and I went there all the time, I would absolutely just clean it up all the time if it needed to be cleaned up. I respect that greatly. And my first impression of Busan is that it's got a lot more of that feeling. But there is also just something something in the air. Probably a coastal thing. And I like that too.

So yeah, things were looking pretty good. But the reason I think why I got these itchy fingers to extend to my Airbnb is it's so impossible to determine what an Airbnb is really going to be like. I was just saying I think last episode about how anytime I go anywhere, I kind of invent an idea in my brain of what it's going to be like just because your your brain just does that. It's like, well, here's what we can probably expect. Even literally just this because I saw it was the citizens park. I expected a flat park and maybe it is because I guess I didn't go there. Then when I saw that it was a big mountain that literally has a bore warning. I'm like, really? I mean, we're right in the city. I really doubt there's bores here, but I mean, I figure that warning probably is more for if a bore comes down from the proper mountains at night or something it could be here. But maybe there's bores here.

But I saw that it was a big mountain and I'm like, oh, of course, I shouldn't know. Why make a park on flat ground where you could build buildings when you can make the park out of the mountain that's in your way. But even this park is just not what I expected.

At all, I didn't expect fluttering cherry blossoms and temples and nature walks. I'm fucking like less than 10 minutes away from my Airbnb. It's just fucking crazy. What the fuck is this doing here? But along those lines, the Airbnb's are never quite how I expect them to be either. And this one, it wasn't how I expected, but in the best way every fucking time.

This is the place that was, this place was $30 a day, but because I booked it for over a month, I got a 50% discount, which is heavy, man. The only time I ever got a 50% discount was one time in Vancouver. It was like this McManchin. And it was like February, you know, just when nobody was traveling because British Columbia legitimately sucks in the winter time. You never get to see the sun. I regretted being there. So they had rooms available. And yeah, I got this really nice room in this really nice mini-manchin. And it was gorgeous. And it was like 500 bucks for the whole month, which was an insane deal for Vancouver. The Vancouver area was way at the surre end of the sky train, but hey, whatever, close enough.

But that's rare. Out here, obviously, it's less rare because they have these these share houses. And like the place in Seoul was, I don't remember the specifics, but less than $15 a day. The place in Jetcheon, way less. It was like 12 or something. We're in Busan. I couldn't really find that type of thing, or I'm sure I would have just booked to that. But then I found this place that would give me the 50% off. So it went from $30 a day to $15 a day. And it's like perfect. Awesome. Amazing. But then I got there. And it's a way bigger 30:00 complex than I expected. Even bigger than the one in Seoul, because the specific floors may be a little smaller. Is it though? Hmm, I don't know about the same. But then there's multiple floors, and they have like a whole second setup around the corner. So they definitely just deal in bulk. It's a massive number of rooms, which also explains why they're happy to give me 50% off if I'll just stay there for a long period of time, just so the place is full. Just so it's not sitting there empty.

But I got there. Very nice place. Everything was super modern, super clean, super well setup.

And then I got into the room, and it didn't have any of this weird heat under the floor stuff. It had one of those fancy expensive heater units like in Japan. The big one that you mount on the wall, that's a heater slash air conditioner, that I haven't plugged in yet. Hopefully I just won't need to use it at all. We're in very temperate time of year right now. But as I'm looking around, there's a mini fridge. I'm like, oh shit, my other place didn't have that. Again, I haven't plugged it in. I don't know that I'll need a fridge, so I might not bother plugging it in, because I don't want to use up their power for me to put, you know, one can of coffee in a fridge. I can just let the can of coffee be a little lukewarm in the morning when I drink it. But it's there.

There's one other person. I saw quite a few people down at the bottom by the temple walking through the cherry blossoms. Only one person up here, so she's going that way. That's a good excuse for me to take this other path so I don't bother her with my yammering. This is pretty fucking nice. This is great. This is like if I don't have a day where I can just go on a big epic trek to somewhere. If this is what I do, if I have one of these horrible days where I'm up on night and I barely get any sleep, but I just got to go outside and do a little mini hike, this is right here. And they had kind of all the basic amenities that toothbrush toothpaste, that type of thing. But also, not just like a little candy, a bunch of them, like six of them. It's these kind of cookies that are pretty common here that I found at the Daiso and stuff that my dad used to love, that I haven't had them forever, where it's kind of like a chocolate cookie, like a chocolate coating, and a bit of a cookie bottom, soft cookie. But then it's just like marshmallow stuff inside. And then like maybe some some jam, some jelly. There's like a British name for that, right? Jammy Dodger, some shit, I don't know. But anyway, dad and like a little wafer and all this stuff, which is nice because I didn't buy any little snackie snacks on my way to the place. So instead of having to go out that night, I just had to cut a little snackie snacks just to make my stomach calm the fuck down and let me go to bed.

And then across the street is a burger king, just like there wasn't soul. Am I destined to just be a burger king guy again? I mean, it seems so lame, but it's weird. There's just not a lot of middle ground. Either I could really like just, you know, go into actual restaurants and order things. Which I didn't do in Japan, and I'm not going to do here. I'm just not. It's not. It's beyond my comfort level. You try traveling by yourself and see how you do with it. If you're with another person, it's a lot easier to go into these little socially awkward situations. Hey, I didn't even want to get on the fucking bus. Definitely not going to go in and try to navigate a menu and a random restaurant.

But in Japan, I counterbalanced it with all the fun, cool, interesting stuff you could get at convenience stores. And it's just not that way here. I mean, they have 7-11 here. And it's just like the only time in my life that 7-11 has not sparked joy. You know, nowadays, I don't like North American 7-11, but at the time, when I first moved to Vancouver, and I never been to a 7-11 before, they seemed wonderful. Open all night, get a gross hot dog, get some candy. You know.

Then in Japan, it's just truly amazing. Just goddamn. I mean, the convenience store game in Japan is so far above everybody. It's in this is nuts. We're here. It's like there's those weird little, uh, Mackie Roll style push-pops. They're okay in a pinch. The sandwiches are just like, they're okay, but they're always so weird. Like, there's just, I'm just not excited to go to the convenience store here. I see the 7-11 sign in. I don't care. It's like goddamn, that's so strange. What's going on here? How come the convenience stores are not even close to the Japan level?

I did find a kind of coffee I really like though. 35:00 I don't remember the brand name, but there are these like little plastic bottles, but then they have the size up. Whichever the one is that's in plastic bottles, and it says size up on it to get a bigger one, which is still by North American standards, a small coffee. And you can get the normal one is like a beige label. The vanilla one is a white label, and then the pink label is the, I think that's the low sugar one. And they're basically always three for the price of two. The little signs everywhere that I didn't understand at first. Two plus one, they'll say, or one plus one means buy one, get one free, buy two, get one free. So I just buy three of those and drink them in the morning.

Unfortunately, I do not know what the brand name is called, but they're great.

But you know, yeah, besides just buying shit like that, the magical wonderland of the convenience stores, just not, it's not how it is here. Again, it's the same I guess as everything. It's that combination feeling. It feels like Asia and America together. I'm not excited about convenience stores in America either, and you know, they're just utilitarian. That's how it is here. I mean, they're better here than America. It's sad when you go back to North America and go to a 7-Eleven, and it's like, fuck. Unless I want to buy a phone charger, a single apple, and a, I don't know, a piece of jerky. There's nothing here. It's fucking terrible.

There's another bore warning sign. This place is actually pretty fucking big. I got to a dead end, so now I'm going on the trail that the lady went on, but I'm behind her enough now that hopefully she can't hear me. I don't see her anywhere. Sound carries though. I'm probably a really obnoxious guy doing a podcast, but it's rainy. There's nobody out here. But anyway, maybe there really are bears here. Let's try to translate the sign, fuck it. How many times can I bring it up and not actually figure out what's going on?

Once again, it is wonderful to just have that assurance that Google Translate, it's just going to work. It almost always works in Korea way more than it worked in Japan.

Notification of precautions.

Hikers and residents, please be careful.

This is apparently what happens if you see a bore. So I did read this. I've read this sign in Bokansen. Do not run or sound at calmly. Do not look at your back, which I think means don't turn your back to the bore.

Don't move with the eyes of this boiler on your back. Okay, maybe this one isn't working as well.

Anyway, I remember the other side though. It said, yeah, don't yell at it. Don't throw rocks and stuff at it. Don't eye contact. Don't show your back to the bore and just edge away, just slowly move away. And again, who knows? There was that snake warning sign in Kamine Park that was from 2008, so it's hard to say if they're even worse snakes as a constant problem or if it just happened one time.

And yeah, the little run I had with a bore in Fukuoka, it was just trying to do a nab convenience store food.

It didn't seem that scary. It seemed scary because it was big, but it didn't seem like it wanted to attack anybody or whatever.

Famous last words. As I get pelted by a bore, the bore head butts me live on the podcast.

But anyway, so I was like, yeah, this place is nice. This is a nice little Airbnb place.

As a washer and dryer, you got to pay for the dryer, but it's only a dollar, so that's fine, don't care.

And they give you towels, a bunch of towels, where that was one of my weird little bug bears with other places where they're like, can you please pay us separately for a towel? If you need a towel, you can rent a towel for like three bucks and you got to do it outside of the Airbnb system separately. And it's like, dude, I could go to Daiso and buy a towel for three bucks. The fuck? It's just annoying. So this place, a bunch of towels, and that relates to, this is where my mind was just fucking blown. In my room was a little extra door. I was like, now what the hell is this? Because I was basically like, my philosophy for traveling in general while I live with one book bag, my one book bag life, is just don't give me anything extra and I won't pay anything extra and we'll both be happy. Simple accommodations are super fine. I learned in Japan that I should try to avoid like bunk bed scenarios. That's a little too annoying. But as long as you just have your own room, after that, I don't know what could possibly 40:00 be too few amenities because like that place in Seoul literally had one shower. I mean, it was like a triple shower, like a military style shower with curtains between. So you could take three showers at once if you want to get naked with strangers, but nobody did. Everybody always took individual showers.

And because there was only one shower for literally 30 rooms, I realized once I moved to the other room that was nearer there and I could hear people walking by, people were taking showers all night, you know, you're supposed to not take a shower after 11. But 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m., people are just taking showers whenever. But I really never had a huge problem taking a shower. The only thing that kind of was annoying is because I finally gave up on hair clippers, forgot my cord, back in Canada, way back at the start of this journey in it, never recovered. So now I just, I just use little disposable razors to raise my hair once in a while. But that takes some time. That was a little tricky. There were times when I didn't quite have time to properly shave my little head and my little noggin. So it's like, well, better wear a hat today. And you know, I'll finish it up either tonight or tomorrow on my next shower to smooth it out and make sure there's no little weird patchy parts. I mean, I wear a hat every day, so it doesn't fucking matter.

But besides that one little thing, just to take a normal shower where you're not trying to shave your whole stupid head. I couldn't believe how much of a non-problem it was.

And it just makes you realize like, like in North America, we all have our own shower. And it's just sitting there. It's just sitting there empty right now. The shower at my mom's house is empty. The shower at your house is empty. 99.99% of the time. It's just sitting there. No one's using it. And like, yeah, like one shower for 30 people, you know. In North America, it's like, man, you gotta have a washroom for every member of the family. We have so many washrooms. It sounds mental to share your shower with 10 people at alone 30. But it's just, I would have said that too, I guess. I mean, it sounds crazy, but it's unbelievably not a problem.