#111 Busan is pretty amazing

Transcript

Alright, I think I'm just gonna hop in whenever a little detail hits me in Busan that I want to yammer about, but I did have that feeling today, the way that in Japan, I pretty effortlessly just made podcasts, like every freaking day. I kind of feel like that here. It's the feeling I got so far. This is again only my second full day in Busan, but it's just like, yeah, I could, like I was kind of pushing myself in Japan to do adventures, pushing myself a little hard because it's like, ah, here I am, you know, it'll be a little while before I get to come back. So I kind of had that feeling here of like, ah, that fucking lake on the mountain that I saw in the map. It's really not that far. I could go fucking push. I could go push myself to go do that.

But I just, you know, I don't want to push. I want to take, take South Korea as I have been doing just much more casually. If I do spend some days just at coffee shops, not doing anything, that's fine, man. It's fine. I don't need to go gorge on it like I did Japan, but it is nice that it just, ah, I just have that feeling for whatever reason in Busan. It just feels way more like the excitement of travel that was definitely a little tamped down in the other cities, which just based purely on population. Jetchon was I think 50,000 or something, so you know, real small. But I looked up Busan versus Seoul because Busan feels way smaller than Seoul. And it is. It's over 3 million people. It's still big, but it's all relative because Seoul is over 10 million people. So Busan is the second biggest, and it is, ah, Busan saying it like French, less than the Busan. It's like less than a third of the population. And yeah, that feels good.

It's, ah, it's got all the big city stuff, but, but to a way smaller degree. Anyway, the reason I pulled up my recorder right now is, ah, the mountain I was on last episode, which was just yesterday for me. It's Mount Hwaji, it's called HWAJI. And I just crossed over a bridge from that mountain to the citizens park. I finally made it there. And I thought this was interesting because I saw all of the, ah, the borer signs yesterday on the mountain. And I was pontificating about like, are there really borers for real? But even looking at it now from across the street, it is a pretty big mountain to be just smack dab in the middle of a city.

And this confirms that there are. I passed this bridge over the road called the Eco Bridge. And this is just what I thought was interesting. There's, ah, a sign here. The Eco Bridge, which is an overpass constructed to serve as a wildlife crossing, linking Busan citizens park and Mount Hwaji, allows wildlife to pass freely and safely above the roadway at night and park visitors during the day. And then there's some stuff about, ah, some more Eco stuff that they did, making sure to maintain native vegetation, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I just thought that was really interesting that this overpass, you know, I just assumed it was for people. You know, it's what I did. That, that, that, that I walk across the overpass. But that idea that at night, animals can use this to not have to deal with the traffic. That's pretty fucking fascinating. And now looking at this bridge, it is kind of like wooden slats in the middle. But on either side it is just, just grass, which presumably animals would prefer to walk on. And I just thought that was fucking neat. What a neat thing.

All right, it's the next day. I'm, ah, back on that little mountain that's really close to my Airbnb, but I'm passing through. I'm trying to get to this, this mythic lake that's on the map.

Doesn't seem all that far. But I am, ah, I definitely caught a little something a couple of days ago. Felt that little tickle in my throat that pretty unmistakable, oh, that feels like a cold feeling. And then there's been a couple of times where our little cough has started to take hold. And I've still got my, my halls, my black halls from Japan. Pop one of those bad boys in my mouth. I don't know what cough drops they have here in Korea. I have not looked yet.

There was definitely weird in Japan trying to figure out what was a cough drop and just buying some, sort of tea-medicated lozenges and some, some cough drop gum, which I believe was a latte product now that I think about it. But even though I'm definitely very minorly sick, basically, I'm still holding to the idea that I essentially haven't gotten sick on this trip, because this one is so minor that it's there, it's hanging on. I feel a little right now, but I kind of forget, I keep forgetting that I'm sick and then it'll hit me again. I'm like, oh yeah, no, okay, that was a thing. Wasn't my imagination, but it's so minor. Still crazy, just, I feel so blessed. I feel so lucky that I haven't gotten full on sick. I mean, I, I got food poisoned in Yokohama, but that was different. That was my own fault.

Man, this is, I still can't believe how nice this is for being right by the city. I mean, there's traffic and cars like on every side of me, but I can hardly hear them. It's like, man, this is nice. But yeah, because I was feeling a little sick, I stayed up extra late last night. I stayed up till like five in the morning because I was like, yeah, whatever, who cares? I'm kind of sick. We'll just take tomorrow off. We'll just fucking chill.

Never a good, there's never a good reason to stay up till five in the morning. It's never the right call. But then despite staying up all night, oh, there's the shrine. I was at the other day.

I'm above it. I've circled up around it. But yeah, despite staying up all night and having this little nagging sickness that is dragging me down a little bit, still, I'm just, I'm filled again with that sense of like, I gotta go. I gotta go, man, I gotta go explore. The way soul I didn't initially want to explore because I couldn't find anything. And then I slowly started finding the ways to the mountains. And then I started getting getting into the groove. Jetchon, similar in a different way. I didn't especially want to explore because I was only exploring how to get to the Daiso and the Burger King. And like, I couldn't figure out again how to get anywhere. Interesting. For a while. Busan, again, it's just, I'll just repeat, I guess, the same thing that I've said. But now that it's been a few days, half a week, whatever, it seems like my initial impressions were just right. It's just pretty, it's pretty freaking clean.

Way more so than soul. And it's so easy. This is much easier to get to nature stuff than, than anywhere else I've been in South Korea. And I haven't like big time explored. I haven't gotten back on the subway even. I haven't gone to the seaside. There's all kinds of shit that I have not even attempted. I'm just staying in my neighborhood for now. It's like, let's just take a slow, take it easy. Let's just learn the lay of the land around here. Because like today for whatever reason, my phone, the little blue dot is not working. I rebooted the phone, toggle my location on and off. No blue dot for me today. I don't know why. But it's not bad. It's like, okay, but I know how to get to this park. And I know if I get to one particular corner of it, that'll take me fairly near the lake. You know, I just want to get to know this place. I want to be able to walk around without my stupid blue dot. Just to start things off.

Because I'll be here for a minimum of five weeks and it's looking like longer. Because like, I guess I just got to figure out am I staying in Busan right up to the bitter end of my visa here? Which right now it's early April and that doesn't expire till the end of July. It's a while. Or do I want to go back to Seoul? If I did, it would just be to hike Bukhansen and maybe a couple other of the mountains. See what they're like in the summertime.

Or if it helps with flights. Maybe I should. Anyway, whatever.

I'll just give my mind a little time to settle. And the answer will come and the answer will form in my mind. And this place is littered with cherry blossom leaves, especially on the way here.

I took a little detour through a little neighborhood I never went through before.

There was a market set up, some kind of little weekend markets, stalls and stuff, selling things. And cherry blossom trees everywhere, all blooming. And cherry blossoms swirling through the air. So it's undeniable. At first I was like, is this, you know, because I'm just so dumb, 10:00 I don't know what I'm looking at. I'm like, this is this is it, right? These are cherry blossoms. It's undeniable now. There are mix. These ones on the ground of white and pink.

And like, this is it. This is the full cherry blossom experience.

And I still just can't help but be like, I don't know, it must say something about me. I don't know what. There's probably some term for this personality type or whatever. But it reminds me a lot of how I felt about the waterfalls in Japan. That it's less about the thing itself, because waterfalls are undeniably nice. Blooming cherry blossoms swirling with their, their blossoms drifting through the air. It's undeniably nice. So this isn't about the phenomenon itself. It really is. My attitude comes from other people's attitude. It's just, it's just like that something like a waterfall is such a focus. Gotta go to the waterfall. Gotta see the waterfall. When the whole journey to the waterfall is probably as good if not better than the waterfall. And the cherry blossoms, it's just I guess that, again, because I've just been saturated, not only in Japanese media. I mean, obviously, they're way into cherry blossom stuff. But because I've been surrounded by other North American nerds who are also saturated in Japanese media, I've just heard so much about the cherry blossoms to the point of like I want to plan my trip to see the cherry blossoms. Like what's the point of going if I don't get to see the cherry blossoms? I gotta go see the cherry blossoms. That's what I got a problem with is that I just still can't shake that feeling that that the cherry blossoms only make everything like 5% nicer. It's just not that big a deal, where I feel like people talk about it like it makes things 80% nicer. Like it's so incredibly better to have the cherry blossoms blooming. And I mean, I'm just belaboring the same thing I already said, but I guess we'll just put a cap on it there. I'll never mention it again, but that is definitely how I feel now that I've had some days to soak in the cherry blossoms and that they just keep getting better and better. But yeah, they're just not that important. It reminds me of a weird comparison, but somehow I never saw Star Wars when I was a kid, but being a big nerd with a bunch of nerd friends and then working at a comic store for years. Man, people talk about Star Wars, especially before it got run into the ground, but people talked about Star Wars like it was the fucking Bible. So if I'd seen it as a kid, I'm sure I'd have some love for it. Or if it was a semi obscure movie, I would have been like, wow, actually, that's pretty good. They made that in the 70s. Holy shit. But when you've been hearing about it for decades and then you'll watch it as an adult, it's fucking trash. It's garbage. It's like this sucks. And again, it's like, who cares?

Whatever. It's not the movie I'm mad at. It's the fucking people that wouldn't shut up about it.

So I don't know. I guess that's my advice. Be it waterfalls, Star Wars, cherry blossoms, or anything else. If you've got like one thing that you're so into, that it eclipses all else and you can't shut up about it, shut up about it. You're annoying, and no one wants to hear it. Because in my estimation, nothing is all that great, which conversely means everything is kind of great. You know? I don't know, just flatten out the world, flatten out your perception. Like right now, I've just moved into a part where there are no cherry blossoms. It's just normal trees. They're nice and green. And they're awesome. They're just as good. Sleep deprived and slightly sick man. Complains about fucking cherry blossoms and Star Wars. And who's that 11?

But the other thing I wanted to mention is it seems like it's pretty common in South Korea for these places to have really well-stocked kitchens. Like I was really impressed in Seoul how much stuff was available in the little communal kitchen at the little softhouse I was at, especially I guess because I didn't realize it first. And after a week or so I started to figure out like, oh wait a second, there's like noodles and instant coffee and cereal. 15:00 And if you really want to get fancy there's rice and you can actually like make some real stuff and it's like wow cool. But it's very nice and just so convenient too if you do. I mean I could also just go outside and go across the street and buy something from a convenience store. You know, things are crazy convenient no matter what, even in Jetchon there was a 24 hour convenience store like a block and a half away. But did not even have to go outside. If you get caught in the middle of the night and you just need to put something in your belly. Very nice. And then in Jetchon also that place was much more like rustic but even that kitchen had some stuff. This one here I guess following on from it being instead of the sub $15 accommodations. This is the $30 a day accommodations that I got at $15 a day because I booked ludicrous amounts of time. This kitchen is insane. It has noodles but like five different varieties. It's got rice, it's got cereal in these like gumball machine looking things where you got to, you twist it and the cereal comes out. I just passed a lady doing the famous barefoot walk that I saw in Jetchon but she was carrying her shoes. She's doing temporary barefoot walk to people in Jetchon. They just left the house that way. They were hardcore. Oh there's the, I recognize that bore sign. I'm approaching it from a different side this time but all right so if I go up this hill that's where I went. The first time I was here so now I'm going to take this path to the left and see what happens. Man I hope my little blue GPS dot turns on. It's going to be a little tricky to figure out where I'm going without it but I mean I still got a map. It'll all work out. I'll figure it out. The weather's insane too. So nice. Now that I'm a little further south and so far the air quality index it's just edged over. It's like 50 is the point below 50 is the green everything's good and I got a day or two of that. This is edged up a little above that but it doesn't seem as bad. It does seem better. I still got a mask. I still put it on when I'm doing very strenuous uphill hiking and stuff but yeah it does seem like those crazy days like in Seoul appear to be a lot more rare. But yeah the kitchen. So yeah the they have also like many different varieties of instant coffee but then also the pods you put in this fucking cool-ass machine. That's a pretty nice view that you can't see but take my word for it. Oh geez my phone. I don't ever notice this before. I guess it's because I don't usually have this phone connected to Wi-Fi but I did this morning so it has the temperature. 16 degrees Celsius that is downright fucking hot. But yeah this pod machine I mean I know the pod machines. I think they're kind of falling out of favor because they just fill land fields full of garbage. They're terrible. Terrible idea. So wasteful. But in this one you put the pod in and then you choose how much water you want to run through it with a little meter on the front and I was like how do you where's the buttons? Where's the up and down? How do you change the meter and then I tried just swiping on the actual machine and yeah you just use your finger and swipe it up. Rupin is like fucking Star Trek you know little thing goes up and I'm like yeah right on but yeah beyond all this stuff this place also has eggs and like a lot of them a lot of eggs available that is like wow this place is set up this is nuts this is way way more than I ever expected but I made this morning this came back to me I forgot about this this is like a ludicrous fucking thing but I used to do this and I will start again and it's not as crazy as it sounds I don't think first off let me talk about cereal without milk because the one thing this kitchen doesn't seem to have is milk the place in Seoul did but it was just like two one-liter containers each day sometimes there'd be some milk around usually not so I could be the case here too maybe it just goes fast but I only ever wanted it for my instant coffee so instead I just started using other cans of coffee that were sweet as sweetener for my instant coffee whatever anyway but I'm a big fan of I became a fan while traveling of cereal without milk because milk I mean 20:00 it flams you up I think it's not that great for you I don't know I don't really miss having milk in my life and now bear with me because this is going to sound bad cereal with water I know that's one of the devil's fucking things and it's like who who does that and I agree I think it's weird to just pour water on cereal however there's ways you can make that work I mean you can make that work it's not bad it's fine but it is like kind of a weird and semi gross thing to do you don't want to just pour water on cornflakes and fucking eat that really if you have any other options that's pretty pretty desperate there's other things you could be eating in your life but because of traveling and not wanting to have a bunch of ingredients with me and usually not having access to a fridge I found that what works with water is miniweets again you don't put the miniweets in a bowl and then pour water on them I'm not a fucking psychopath I just would have a bottle of water I always have water with me and I would just have the box of miniweets and if you just toss two or three miniweets in your mouth and take a swig of water it just gives you the moisture to be able to chew those things up and you know they're covered on one side in frosting they're very sweet which milk is one of those deceptively sweet things also you're just kind of putting sweet on sweet they're sweet enough sunshine you know and there is just something weirdly unpleasant about a bowl full of watery cereal in your spoon with your watery cereal but if it's just in your mouth already you just put them in your mouth and you take a swig of water you don't notice that it's water and it doesn't taste like it's water it just tastes like miniweets because they're just sugar anyway basically with some nice wheat stuff you know they're at least semi healthy with the sugar but that was the perfect thing because you could just put it on your shelf you don't need to worry about refrigerating milk and you can just eat your miniweets over the course of two or three days wash them down with water is a great but then I came up with this thing of super cereal which again it's very important what kind of cereal you're using for this but it's coffee on cereal and again don't just pour coffee on cornflakes don't just pour coffee on rice crispies again that makes you a psychopath it really works with chocolate cereal you know cocoa puffs type cereal or Reese puffs you know they're close enough and really like it's not so crazy because if there's anything that goes well with coffee it's chocolate and sugar and that's what those cereals are and that's what they have here they have this one cereal they've got frosted flakes and this one that looks like like checks but chocolate chocolate checks so yeah I just filled my bowl with chocolate checks made a fancy espresso coffee with the fancy machine put that shit right on there slightly weird because you know it was warm but if I wanted to take extra time I could make the coffee put some ice cubes in it let it cool down then put it on the cereal I don't know that I give that much of a fuck but that'd be easy enough to do but yeah coffee cereal man it really gets you going man that's how you start the day with the bang because you're getting all the sugar energy of your garbage fucking chocolatey cereal plus the caffeine of coffee and it tastes really good I mean this is a seriously degenerate breakfast but I forgot all about it it's like oh I have everything I need right here to do this it's perfect because I don't know how else I'm going to eat this cereal since it doesn't seem to be any milk I was like should I go buy milk or something but wait there's coffee and again how am I going to drink this coffee it's just black coffee when it comes out of the pod I don't like black coffee so I got cereal that I can't easily eat I got coffee that I can't easily drink put them together the cereal compliments the coffee with its chocolate and sugar the coffee compliments the cereal by making it liquidy and cerealized so you can actually eat it and it's fucking wonderful 25:00 that is my new fucking go-to that's what I'm doing every morning but anyway there's the delightful travel tip you can in fact eat cereal with water if you got the right kind of cereal my recommendation is frosted miniweets and if you want a super breakfast coffee on your chocolatey sugary cereal who mama fuck it's good oh this is so nice holy shit this is nice just walking along the ridge of this park looking down at a bunch of buildings I'm right by the city but this part here is very quiet this would be a sweet place to live it's really quiet but it's right by the park in the distance there's more mountains that like the very close distance they're really close from here I can't see any people on them but I mean I have to imagine there's a hiking trail along the ridge of that mountain it's right next to Busan it's like right there and yet today like I said it's just a little bit above 50 just a little bit into the moderate a QI zone this is probably the level that it was at probably many days in Fukuoka and I just never realized so it just seems fine this guy's clear everything's nice and pretty I mean in the in the world of coffee pods maybe a certain amount of air pollution is just the price that that we have to pay till some future generations hopefully clean this shit up but yeah it was only just that in in Seoul it was so insane I guess I'm a little curious about that too if I did go back to Seoul more in the summer maybe it would be more like this maybe those really bad days where I literally felt like I was playing fucking fallout like I was in the road maybe that's what they mean about the winter you know maybe that's just a winter thing but those days were truly awful fuck this is good this is so nice not a cherry blossom inside still it's still 10 out of 10 maybe that's I said I wasn't gonna talk about it anymore didn't I maybe that's the thing with with cherry blossoms and waterfalls and it's like if if everything is already an A plus if everything's already a 10 out of 10 and then you add an extra nice thing to it it just it can't get better you can't go beyond 10 you can't go beyond A plus I don't know I wonder sometimes let's get real philosophical while I'm on the fucking mountain do what you want to do on the mountain I kind of can't tell if I have a good attitude or a bad attitude like I can't tell if I'm happy or sad I can't tell what where I fit in the spectrum necessarily like I feel like I'm a pretty easy to please person I feel like I'm generally pretty content but on the other hand I feel like I am also way more critical than a lot of people are you know like if I wanted to lean on that I could write a whole fucking essay about every moment in my stupid life about all the things in that moment that I didn't like and that I wish were different and that I wish I could change so it's like I feel like I'm I'm doing an okay job of just kind of enjoying the life that I got while I'm here but at the same time I do feel like I'm you know I've had to learn how to do that I'm making myself do that it doesn't feel like my natural inclination but I guess I'm old enough now to just realize like who cares what's the point you're not going to change everything you're not going to change anything in fact you're gonna be dead tomorrow you know it all goes by so fucking fast just enjoy it while you're here and fucking relax so I just feel like I'm I'm bobbin in the middle but it seems good enough just let your happiness be happiness right and don't overthink it don't poke the bear too much I read I think I think I'm approaching the correct corner of this park but if I am see like I don't know it's so hard to tell with maps the maps that I saw with the with the big lake on it I mean it did seem to be a pretty big lake though the lake itself didn't seem that far away but if it's over where I think it is if I I mean I'm sure I've gotten turned around I don't 30:00 know what I'm really looking at but I hope it's not over there because that mountain I'm looking at is really really really big like double the one I'm on now for sure blue dot why have you abandoned me Oh my God, there it is. I literally pulled out my other phone, the one that never works, and I'm like, I don't know. Let me try that one, I guess. The terrible phone that barely has location services at all. And then the dot popped into view. Oh man. I was actually right.

I am actually looking in the right direction, but there's the mountain that I'm on right now.

There's the lake with a bunch of greenery around it, so as to suggest a park. And in between is just a black evil maw of nothingness on the map. Hopefully that's the mountain. And this lake, hopefully it's in more of a crater somehow. That's not a start to get to, but from here. Yeah, if I just wind my way down to the road and just walk along, it seems so close. Chi-up-dong is what it's called, CHOEUP-DEONG. Oh yeah, Busan's Children's Grand Park. Oh, in a kid's water park. Children's Creativity of Learning. Okay, okay. Now that I've zoomed in a little further on the map. Alright, yeah, clearly. Clearly this is not going to be a problem. I doubt that they need to ferry children to the kid's park up a terrifying peak. But it's fucking crazy that it's literally right next to a terrifying peak. It has the thing I love about like being in a place for a long time and being able to take time. Like even if I somehow failed to get there today, it's like, oh, I'll get a little closer though. Learn the route a little more. And then today when I go there, now I'm suddenly completely changed what I expect. If it is like a just a children's park, I presume I won't be spending much time there. But from there, I can scope out like, are there hiking trails from there? Will that lead me on to the next crazy thing? Yeah, it seemed to be on the right path. So that's enough rambling for now.

Let me turn this thing off and figure out how to get to the exciting crazy children's park.

So that lake it turns out is in a valley between the mountains after all. So on my way there, I saw a little path going up into the woods and I'm like, all right, let me take that little path. And maybe it'll just pass my ass right over there.

And there was an old feller who came in right behind me and then I passed a bunch of old people. Old dudes, old ladies. I'm gonna say old, you know, older than me. I don't know, probably not extremely older than me though. Not young no more. But I could also just be, it's a Friday afternoon. This is the same thing I noticed in Seoul as it seems like only the old people enjoy the hiking. But maybe it's just that the young people are actually at work, you know.

A situation which I miraculously managed to avoid. Thank you, Papa. Thank you, Papa.

Looking down on me, disappointed. But my greatest fear came true. I did in fact skirt around the lake and just go up this big enormous insane mountain instead because it's just where the path went.

And you know, I'll go down at some point and check out that there lake, but it does seem like, like I noticed that it'd be in a kids park and all. It's probably not, you know, it's probably a one time go check out the lake type of Deely. This is what I'm meant to do. And yeah, midway up, I was looking over and it's like, oh, there's the stadiums that I saw from the other mountain a couple days ago on the rainy day. The stadiums and the helipad and stuff. Now I'm on the other side. I'm on the opposite side. And I'm twice as high up. There's the mountain. There's that first mountain that I found with the the shrine and stuff. I'm looking at the totality of it. And yeah, 35:00 it's a pretty, pretty small little mountain by these standards. And then I just kept going up and going up and going up and I'm not quite at the top yet, but I got to be close. I think I see a little structure up there. I thought I should start recording before I get to the top though, because presumably I've seen a fair number of people today hiking around because it's such good weather. It's so beautiful. If they're going to be loitering around anywhere, it's probably up there. Then I will feel embarrassed to talk. Oh, there's a shrine I can see in the distance. There seem to be a lot more shrines here than in Seoul. But yeah, I'm on this mountain that is fucking pretty goddamn big. But then across from here in the distance, like a real big mountain. And then quite a ways in the distance, getting a little hazy out there. That's a true mother fucker because it's quite a bit further back. Yet it's the same height. There's like this really big mountain, you know, probably a couple hours walk from here and an hour and a half walk from here. And then this other one, like who can even say at that distance, probably take me four hours to walk there and it's the same height. Maybe three hours, I don't know.

And actually over on the other side of the little children's park lake, that mountain's really fucking big too. Wow, this shit is wild. I shouldn't think about it. I wasn't feeling freaked out. And now I just felt the little tingle in my knees of like, you're really high up, my dude.

This crow makes it feel like I'm on the boss run. I'm heading toward a dark soul's boss up here. But yeah, man, it's just the awesomeness of Busan.

Continues unabated. This is fucking pretty wonderful. And all I can see around me is just the city intertwined with mountains. The amount of mountains to go hike around on is just they're fucking everywhere. They're all over the place. And it's not even a case like in Seoul where I mean, you don't have to take the subway, but it helps. You know, even the, see if I can remember the names. I knew all the mountain names when I was there. The mountain with the wall on it. Damn, I forget. But like, you could walk to that one from Hangek University, but it's better to take the train. You know, it's a little too far. And in Bukhansen, again, you can walk there. But it would take like a solid couple hours. Here, who knows what I'll actually need to take the subway. You know, until I want to go check out the coast, there doesn't seem to be any need. Everywhere I walk around here is just parks and hiking and mountains and awesome shit. So fucking good, dude. Busan, man. You know, it's like jinxing myself. I was saying right before I came here that I did, in fact, have some hopes for this city that this was going to be the one that I would really enjoy in South Korea.

But I don't know, just the, the other cities and just the, you know, same old, same old, just the grime and the pollution and stuff. And just keeping my eye on the air quality index, just I had this bad feeling that Busan wasn't going to be any different. But it's really different. It is really fucking different. It's crazy. It's so, it's so good. This place is fucking great.

I don't know what this is. Some weird little building up here.

But there's a little guidepost. Yeah, I guess I'll probably end up going down the other side.

To where? Who the fuck knows? My slight sickness, I'm definitely feeling like fuck, I wish I had a coffee.

Oh, there's just little seats in here. Just a weird little room with a newspaper in it and a couple of chairs and some rakes for those who like to rake. And some little cups and some water. It's everything you need in there. Little shelter. Oh, it's actually locked up. You can't go in.

Oh well, still cool. Cool though, apparently inaccessible.

But yeah, just, I do, my head's a little swimmy. I have a little energy sapped. I do just wish I could slam a nice coffee right now. I think I just need to add that to my arsenal. I just need to buy a can of coffee from one of the machines and tuck it away in my jacket pocket in an emergency such as the end of the world. Wow, this place. Here's the marker of the top. It's only 399 meters, only 400. It feels a lot bigger than that. I wonder if it could be that 40:00 because I don't really know how these markings are marked. Like, is it from sea level? I guess that's the only proper way to do it, right? I don't know. I don't know what is considered the base of a mountain. I never looked into it before. So it could be that those other mountains in Seoul and Japan or wherever, you know, they have bigger numbers because I've definitely been 500, 600, 700, 700. I don't know if I ever hit 800. And it did not feel this high.

But Busan is, of course, right by the ocean. The city itself is basically sea level. So maybe this 400 meters just feels bigger. Because yeah, I mean, that was a, I was on a mountain in Jeju that was 400, right by the golf course. And it did not feel nearly this high. One kilometer back to the children's center, 1.45 kilometers forward to the meeting forest. So I guess that's the plan back down the other side. I can see city out there somewhere, ramble my way down there and then hopefully find a convenience store. I need some coffee.

And then on this side, further on, more big mountains and then there's some water. There's my first view of the water. And then behind the water is more mountains. This is fucking great.

Holy fuck, dude. This city is fucking awesome. Shit, man. Just purely geographically.

Not, you know, because culturally, I do vibe more with Japan just because of the pop culture, just because of all that's one thing that's kind of missing here. I just listened to a podcast, some video game guy did about his first time going to Japan. And it was exciting just to hear, you know, like I don't buy anything because I don't like to carry extra stuff. All I've got is my little, my two little Yuru camp gotcha things that I got in Fukuoka and my little super cub key chain that I got in Ikebukuro. And that's it. So I was listening to this guy talk about all the stores he went to and all the shit that he bought. I bought a Japanese version of Spider-Man 2 for the PS4 and it's like, what a dumb thing to what the fuck would you buy that for? But he was talking about all the different stores and the different types of pop culture stores and that he found like a store in Akihabra that's entirely based on the PC 88, which was like an old Japanese computer that mostly had what are those called like visual novels generally of the porn variety back then. They pretty much all had sex themes. And anyway, a whole store dedicated to that called Beep, I'd never even heard of that. But that is something that is very lacking here in Korea is like, I would just go into these stores in Japan and they were very fun just to go look at all the manga and just look at all the stuff and look at all the old action figures and look at all the old toys and see how much stuff I recognized and see all this new stuff I didn't. There's just nothing like that here, not a goddamn thing. Which I guess makes sense because I don't know what I don't know what Korean pop culture even is. I saw a store that had a big poster of anagreengables but even that was the Studio Ghibli anagreengables from Japan.

Anyway, yeah, it's safe to say. Culturally, I fit in with Japan way more because just because of being raised with Japanese stuff. But purely geographically, just purely as a place if I am just just my enjoying the mountains, you know, Ome station type of shit or just Hukuloka type shit. This is definitely on par. Busan is very much like that. City stuff, subways, convenience stores, all the nice modern stuff, all the big city stuff, and super easy access to hiking and mountains and nature and I haven't even gotten to the to the water yet. I haven't even seen the ocean.

This really feels like, I mean, this is, you know, this does just kind of keep happening. Apologies to South Korea that I'm just always comparing South Korea to Japan, but it is just the fact of the matter that I'm only here because I got kicked out of Japan and I did hope like, oh, perhaps South Korea will be a nice addendum I can add on whenever I go to Japan. I can go over to South Korea and just get another bite at the apple and it just wasn't that way in Seoul.

Where this very much feels that way, this really does feel like 45:00 it's like another potentially offensive comparison, but this is like sweet sweet methadone. It's like, oh, you took away my fix. You took away my Japan, but this feels pretty close. This will get me over the hump.

This place is real good is what I'm trying to say.

Try not to take offense to my offensive nonsense. I like Busan a lot. This is real good.

What the hell is that? I'm just looking at a part of the city I've not seen before, that weaves its way along the edge of a big mega mountain, and there's like a giant cage, but it's not like one of the golf things, one of those green ones that I've learned to recognize, the big green netting that I noticed in Japan, and they're all over Korea as well, that are like golfing cages. This is way bigger than that. There's like buildings, and then this cage is three, probably two and a half, almost three times taller than the buildings, than the apartment buildings. What the fuck is that? What's in there? That is weird as shit. But alright, assuming nothing else fucking fascinating happens today, let's call that an episode. I'm a little hungry as well. Why am I so unprepared? I usually bring maybe not a coffee, but I usually do tuck away like a fucking snickers bar or something or granola bar. I got nothing today. All I got is, I mean I got water, so that's better than nothing. I guess I didn't expect this became a bit more of a hike than I expected, but I definitely fucked up. I am not. I'm having a snack attack, my dudes. I don't have any snacks. Oh no. What am I going to do? Even though I'm surrounded by city, and I'll be at a convenience store within an hour, for sure. But anyway, yeah, Busan fucking wonderful. Wonderful so far. What a great place.