#114 It's too expensive to fly home

Transcript

So there's this really big mountain right by my Airbnb in Busan that I think it's the one that I saw the very first day that I was here trying to figure out the maneuver around in my brains. That on the right side that I'm thinking it doesn't matter. There's mountains everywhere, but this one it's very close. And I've tried a couple of times to get up it, but the same thing here as in Japan just because you see a mountain doesn't matter.

I mean, you can just go there. You got to figure out the way up or you will not make it. And I think I found the way up. I think it's literally just a road. Beacon Fire Station in Hangriang Mountain, H-W-A-N-G-R-Y-E-O-N-G mountain. But on the way there, north of there, I saw another mountain just saw it as I was walking. Much smaller. But I thought, hey, let's go try that.

And I found Bay Sanxion Castle site, B-A-E-S-A-N-S-E-O-N-G, and a temple. I think those are one in the same. I think that's where I just was. Very nice, really big elaborate temple. And then there was a little pass up into the woods, but there's barbed wire fence here. It's not extremely serious barbed wire fence. I think I could get over it, but I'm not gonna do that. Now the message of barbed wire fence is plenty. I don't know what's on top of this mountain, but it's not for me. But that's not so bad. I can just cross it off the list. Like, okay, for all intents and purposes, I explored this mountain. I found what there is to find. I can either go back to that other mountain today or just save it. Because it's really fucking hot out. My arms and my neck are not enjoying this sun. It's so hot.

How strange. There's someone just walked by on the other side of the barbed wire.

So that begs the question, is there a way to get over there? Or did he do a little fence hopping? This is very confusing. Anyway, I'll just keep walking along. See what happens.

Because there are a lot of, you know, don't fall down the hill type of fences in Korea. And I could see that. It's kind of a steep stumble down to this temple.

Barbed wire is very weird. This is unusual. Anyway, I also hear construction in the distance that I didn't realize was going on. So, let me sort this out. I'll hop back into the podcast in a bit.

Nice. I saw a sign on the other side of the barbed wire pointing away from me, one of those standards. Don't smoke. Don't burn down the whole forest, please. Signs. And since it was pointing away from me, it's like, okay, so you are supposed to be able to be over there.

You're not supposed to connect to these two places. So, yeah, right next door to the temple is a public park. 20 minutes later. Now I'm on the other side. I'm at that sign. I'm on the other side of the barbed wire. I'm on the proper side now. It's interesting. I guess it's just, you know, they don't want people descending upon the temple in the night or something.

Because this barbed wire is serious, man. Like, I followed the thing all the way. And there was not a single spot. I thought maybe I could skirt around the edge of it at the end, but there was no end. Like, they really sealed it up tight.

And it is a little steep. So, yeah, maybe they just don't want people coming in not from the main entrance. Maybe it's a liability thing that they don't want people to fall down this hill.

But I don't know. I get a kind of weird feeling that it's just like, you know, it's just two properties owned by two entities. And it's just like, hey, these don't connect.

I don't actually know anything about Buddhism, but my presumption would be that it would be, you know, shouldn't it be open? Shouldn't it be like flowing, flowing like water? Where this is like, no, you don't come in here.

You want to come in here. You go down to the street. You walk around and you come in the front door. Like a polite person. Anyway, this is pretty cool. It's not a very big mountain, but it's very nice. It's a Sunday today and there's just people. Just people up here exercising and hiking around and doing stuff.

But yeah, one reason why I'm checking out these closer mountains is I'm still basically doing day on, day off. You know, one day to go pick a distinct peak or something and try to get up it and then the next day just find a coffee shop and chill out. It seems like it's working pretty well. And it is kind of nice because yeah, in Japan, I did feel like I tried not to take days off. You know, it's like, let's just try to absorb as much of this as I can in the 90 days that I'm here. Where with South Korea, I feel so much more comfortable in that I've got more time here.

The Canadian visitor visa is 180 days. And this is all like a bonus anyway. This is all just a bonus because it's next door to Japan. So I just happen to be here. So if I see stuff, I see stuff. If I just see a coffee shop, then I just see a coffee shop. And it's like, you know, it's kind of nice in a way to chill a little bit.

It looks like I'm at the peak. But yeah, last episode I was at a way bigger mountain. This one, for instance, does not have an elevation number because it's probably just not that impressive. Where the one I was at last episode was almost 650 meters, which feels way bigger because I think the base level of Busan is lower because we're by the sea. I did look that up, not super specifically, but they do, they do measure mountains based on sea level. And then there's a whole process of what is the average sea level. How do you actually determine that? But I didn't get too deep into that because that's okay. I'll take their word for it.

But that's interesting to know that if you're farther away from the sea and you're in a more mountainous region, 600 meters might not feel like 600 meters. But when you're by the sea, it sure does. Holy crap. It's real high.

And yeah, notice that day I had a bit of a sore knee on the way back, which again I think is usually because I went down too fast, not from going up. It's so hard to modulate your speed when you're going down. Where is it easy to modulate your speed going up because you don't have much choice.

But then when I got back home, I was so exhausted in this unnatural way, especially being an insomniac as I am. I don't really ever get tired like that. I mean, even last night is like, all right, I should try to get to bed a little earlier. I went to bed at like one in the morning. But not really. I'm in Han, fuck around, can't fall asleep or whatever. I didn't really fall asleep till five in the morning. It's just like, God damn it. Oh well, whatever.

That constant awareness of like, oh, I'm almost asleep. Like you're not supposed to be aware that you're almost asleep. You're just supposed to fucking fall asleep. So it's weird for me to just be dead tired.

But when I got back from that mountain, I like couldn't move. I like laid down and just for half an hour, I just couldn't move. I still didn't properly fall asleep. But I was like, dude, I like just turned into stone. I turned into a rock. What is going on? And then I got it in my head. It's this little trick of the human brain, I guess, that it's like, okay, so I got up to that mountain. And there were signs up there that said you could keep going along the ridge for like a while, like in other four or five kilometers. So I was like, cool. Maybe I should do that. Because in my mind, like a little trick of the mind, it's like a, like a save point in a video game or something. God, there's too many people here. I keep trying to go different ways to avoid people with their everywhere.

This park is too small. Too small for me to talk to myself. Someone listening to their radio.

But yeah, it seems like in my mind, like, cool. I'll just hop back to there and then go from there and go a little farther. But it took all day to get there the first time. You know, it's not like I have any secret trick, secret shortcut to get there. I just got to go back. I got to go all the way back.

And I did try to do that a couple of days after.

And I really only made it like halfway up. Even that first day, I was like, oh jeez, this is really rough. This is a very tough ascent.

But I did pretty much go straight up the side of the mountain. It was on a path, but it wasn't like a very well-used path. Where there did seem to be a more gradual way to get up there. It's always so hard to find these things. You know, you just got to keep dicking around until you stumble upon the proper method. 10:00 So I thought I would try to stand one of the more major paths and see if I could figure out a more gentle ascent. And I didn't. Instead, I just walked along the edge of the mountain, but it was still nice. Got a different view of the reservoir. Just went halfway up the mountain and crossed and down.

But that was fine. Halfway is fine. And I was like, yeah, that's okay. I don't need to go back up there. And I think I figured out what the deal is. Like why these particular mountains are just sapping my strength so hard.

And it's that in Seoul, you know, I'd always take the subway to whichever mountain.

I remembered it in Wonson, right? That was the name I couldn't remember. And then of course, Bukansen. So you'd basically just start at the foot of the mountain. And it was that way a lot in Japan as well. You know, take the subway to Ome or the dreaded Okutama with its terrifying, steep mountains, but you're still basically starting right there.

Where I realized here when I come back from from any of these mountain hikes in Busan, like even just last episode when I was at the end when I was talking about robot statues and stuff just walking through the city. I didn't pull out my phone at all my little map while I was recording that because all I did at any time I got to an intersection is just which way it goes down.

Just go down, just keep following down, down, down. And everything went down until I finally got to this big highway overpass. And when I got to that, it's like, okay, now I know I need to follow that because that goes over and connects to the edge of the Busan citizens park, the main middle park right by my Airbnb. But I could easily navigate just by going down. And that made me realize, like, wait a second, if I'm so evidently going down the whole time, then the reverse is obviously true as well. Oh, here's the second peak. This one looks higher up. Well, all right then, let's try to go to that. But yeah, the whole walk's in 90 minutes or so just to get to the base of the mountain. In this case, I'd been going uphill that whole time, but, you know, just gradually. So I didn't really notice. It didn't really click in that I was, but that's 90 minutes of gradually going up, gradually going up, gradually going up. Then you get to the mountain and it's like, super gear. Now we're really going up. Now it's getting steep.

So I was not starting at 100%. I was like 75% at best. Who knows? Who knows how much of my strength was being, like, not accidentally unknowingly, inadvertently sapped away.

So yeah, even though there's that little trick, that little trick of the explorer part of the human brain that's like, okay, I've already been to this distance. I got to X. Now from X, we'll push on to Y and you can just sort of shortcut it in your brain. Just presume it's easy to get back to X. Just because your brain is like, yeah, we know about that. We did that already. But the dumb little trick of your brain, you can't trick your body. You can't trick these brutal rolling hills that are so, like, it's such an interesting thing that it's not just a steep mountain because I've had a surprisingly easy time with that type of situation. If you just give me the steepest steps in the world, you know, I can handle that. The thing in Jetchan, where I went up, like, 700 meters in one kilometer, that's, like, essentially straight up. There was no biggie. I did that. No problem. I mean, it was a problem, but I did it. Whereas, like, a 90-minute gradual grind up a more gentle incline, surprisingly harsh, because you don't realize that it's taken so much at you.

Very interesting, interesting phenomenon, all very easy, all very simple junior high school level physics. But it's not something I would ever think about till it's happening to me. Hey, here's a little washroom.

Privacy, please.

There, not featured through the magic of editing. It was me peeing. I'm sure you can imagine.

425 meters with a little hiking man.

Meter's distance, not height.

Sounds good to me. Let's do that. Ooh, azalea flowers. Yeah, the cherry blossoms are definitely pretty much done for. I am very surprised how quick that went.

But other stuff is blooming now. New flowers and everything. Very nice. But yeah, it made me realize, instead of, like, pushing it, let's go a little farther. Let's go a little farther. Let's try a new route. Let's try a new thing. Add to this. Add to that. Put a new appendage on every little dumb trip, because that's kind of what I do everywhere else. I think in Busan, perhaps that is not the best plan. I mean, I still haven't even really taken the subway.

Other than a little bit on the very first day, I've only been exploring to places I can walk to.

And I'm learning that it's rough. It's so cool, because it's like, yeah, there's a mountain. Like in my backyard, like two neighborhoods away or whatever. You can just walk to it. But it's tougher than it seems.

Instead of adding to the adventure, perhaps I should be taking the adventure down a notch. Maybe that should be about the farthest that a person goes not the beginning of an adventure. I should be doing smaller adventures than that. So yeah, I'm exploring closer places. And then maybe I can start taking the subway, so that I can start some of these journeys. It's a little fresher without the 90-minute grindfest to get to the start.

Oh, sorry. English only. Oh, sorry. English only. Oh, sorry. Indonesia. Only in Canadian. Canada. Canada. Yeah. Ah. Vancouver. Vancouver. Ah, no, the other side, the east coast. So. It's nice. It's nice there, but it's cold. Nice to meet you.

There's a classic conversation that, who knows what anyone's saying, whatever.

Here's another signpost with 1170 meters to something. I'm quite sure this park is not a kilometer wide. I think that just means this is the way to loop around the outside edge instead of going straight up to the peak. Works for me. Man, yeah, there are a lot of people here, I guess, because it's Sunday. There's a barefoot walk. Maybe that's one reason why they put down those hey carpet-looking things on so many of the trails, since the barefoot walk is so popular. Just to make that a little easier, less rocks.

I remember my brother used to do that when he was a kid in the summertime. He would just not wear shoes and build up calluses on his feet. He was so proud of how he could walk on spiky, spiky rocks. I feel like he even walked on glass ones just to prove how bad he was.

But yeah, it's cool in theory, but again, because of my fallen arches and stuff, I can't do that. Man, in fact, I've been destroying socks. I upgraded my socks to fancy fucking sports socks, and I'm still just tearing the heels out of them.

It's weird that I'm not tearing the shit out of my actual heel. I never noticed that my socks are obliterated, so I guess maybe the bottoms of my feet are tough enough.

But I don't know. I think maybe I need to venture to like one of the actual for real hiking stores or something. Get some more bad-ass socks, because yeah, I'm just obliterating everything.

But yeah, that's the specifics of how things are going in Busan. For more general stuff, it's been really hard to sort out in my brain what's going on, but I think it's finally shaking loose. This happens to me a lot where I don't. I'm definitely not a fan of making quick decisions. It's one thing I always hated about school and jobs is I hate being pushed to make a choice.

I much rather let things stew until the path becomes clear, and it can take a while, and it's uncomfortable. It'd be nice to just know and to just make a choice and just have a path set. It's a little uncomfortable to spend a week or two floating in space, not quite knowing what you're doing, but I just can't deny that whatever I had in mind just doesn't feel right. It just doesn't feel like the way forward.

Writing a novel actually feels very much the same way, so what it takes so long is even if you don't know what comes next or what the next move is or what the next step is, you can tell what's not when you don't have it. 20:00 And when you don't have it, don't push forward, don't write that chapter, it's not going to be good.

And in life, don't make that choice if you don't have to, it's not going to be the right thing. You're going to realize later, like, I wish I'd gone a little slower, thought things through more.

I mean, I felt like this my whole life. I feel like it's like a battleship turning around. It's very slow. I just know that I don't know what to do, and then I very slowly turn the ship around until things become clear.

I got to get off this path. There are so many fucking people here. It's ridiculous. So I'm going up the steep path because nobody's on the steep path.

But yeah, for some mountain philosophizing, I was thinking like I don't think it's anything unusual about me that I have this like decision paralysis or that it's so hard to determine the right way forward.

I don't think that's necessarily unique to me. I think a lot of people feel that way. So they just allow other people to make the decision. You know, you know, it's your job or whatever. Just let someone else be the boss, let someone else make the choice.

And then of course, there's people that are great at making snap decisions and quick acting blood, blood, blood. But I also doubt that that's necessarily the best policy, the best method. Sometimes it's appropriate.

But basically, I guess where I was getting tangled up is I just kind of figured like, okay, this trip is probably kind of coming to an end.

The idea was to go to Japan. And then South Korea was right here. And then I just figured like, yeah, right, probably about time to go back to Canada making appearance. But you know, with the idea that I don't have any more reason to be in Canada than anywhere else. I don't have a house there. I don't have an apartment. I don't have a job. I got nothing there. Any more than I do here.

You know, it just seemed like probably about time. Especially if I go to Toronto first by the time I get back to my hometown, it'll be about a year. And I was like, that seems alright.

So, because I was presuming I would go back to Canada, that led me to think like, well, I basically need to be in Busan or Seoul. For an international flight, it's got to be one of the other. But then I did a little research research and brutal shocking. I mean, I know it was expensive to get to Japan. But I also caught like the WestJet flight, which is the somewhat cheaper of our very few airlines that we have in Canada. And it was right at the end of the season, right before they stopped flying to Japan for the winter. So as this cheap as it was going to get, and I don't remember anymore what it was, but it was over $1,000. So I mean, I knew that. But my visa in South Korea ends at the end of July. And at the end of July, I checked that whole week. The cheapest flight any time during that whole week is still a 31 hour layover crazy flight, which is fine. I learned in Calgary, I don't mind. I kind of want to test that. How many days can I live in airports? I couldn't believe how not a problem that was. So that's not a problem, but if I'm going to have one of these weird, long layover, bizarre flights, I'd like for it to be at least affordable.

And the cheapest flight that whole week was $1,600. Plus, these taxes blah, blah, blah. It's going to be a lot more than that. And any other flight was more than that. Realistically, it's like two grand to get home.

And then, you know, the idea was to go to Toronto. Toronto is not going to be cheap. It's going to be very expensive. So it's like, fuck, dude, thousands of dollars to get back to Toronto. That, you know, all my friends lived there. I like to see them. But I don't need to see the city of Toronto again. I lived there for years. I'm good with Toronto. It just was like, this doesn't really make sense. This is way too expensive. And I think it is just like Canada is kind of uniquely bad to fly to. Because it's so big and so far away with so few people. So even, I mean, getting to America is not cheap. But it's cheaper because there's a lot more flights and a lot more options. Canada, there's just so few airlines and so few places to go. And so little demand that, yeah, have fun to give me $2,000, please. Like, fuck, that would have to be a pretty crazy emergency to justify that. 25:00 And it certainly is not that. I don't even want to go home really. I just kind of felt like, yeah, probably about time.

So then I started looking into like, well, what else is around here instead? It just makes more sense to take things in smaller stages. Like, even if I go to another country, another country, another country, then home. You know, maybe I go the other way around over to Europe or something. You know, it's probably going to add up to the same amount to fly to these places. But at least I'd get something out of it. You know, at least there'd be more to it.

So especially near here is Taipei, which I transferred through an airport in Taipei back in 2019 when I came back from Japan the first time. So I spent an afternoon in the airport. So that's like, you know, I have such a hard time with geography unless I've been to a place. It's a lot blurrier until I've been there. But that was close enough to being there that it always stayed in my mind. Like, okay, I know Taipei is right there. I looked into it very briefly and one of the first things I saw on good old trip advisor again. I love trip advisor. The trip advisor forums. Somebody mentioned how there are 7-Elevens and Family Marts on like every block. And I was like, ding, ding, ding. Like, oh, that sounds fun. Because like, even just in a shallow way. You know, that's what I've been doing is like, I now know the difference between a 7-Eleven in North America versus Japan versus South Korea. They're pretty different, you know, they're all quite different. Japan is by far the king. But what's Taipei like, you know, like just to have that little shallow goal, you know, that very silly thing to do. But it's kind of nice because it takes a little bit of the pressure off of, you know, just the general stress of travel. It's like, yeah, that's a silly thing to do and a silly reason to go there. But it is a plan. It is a reason to go there. That I legitimately, in my shallow way, I'm curious about. I kind of thought the 7-Elevens in South Korea would be a lot more like Japan. And they're just not. They're very different. So what's Taipei like? Only one way to find out. I mean, probably there's YouTube videos about it. But I could have watched a YouTube video about South Korean convenience stores too. Wouldn't have sunk in, like going there. Going there, that's the thing. And since I'm already here, again, since I'm next door, as a little test, I'm like, well, what would that cost? I have it cost $1,600 minimum to get to Toronto. What does it cost to get to Taipei? $200 bucks. $250, a push. It's like, dude, if that's not the God of travel telling me not to go home, I don't know what is.

And now I'm getting higher up. I can see past the tree line trying to orient myself. I'm like, what is this enormous mountain I'm looking at? I don't think that's the one with the reservoir. I believe that's over to my left, but I don't see the reservoir from here. So I don't know what that mountain is, but it's even bigger. Again, not that far. It doesn't seem that hard to get to. The city goes halfway up the mountain before the mountain finally makes the building stop. That's a big one, man. What the heck mountain is that?

Since I've been kind of twisting around this park, I'm a little not sure.

Which side of it I'm on right now.

But yeah, instead of this, you know, just the feeling of this horrible barrier, this horrible financial barrier, especially. But then also the 31-hour flight just to get to Toronto. It's like this just doesn't make any sense. If I could do it for like, I don't know, 800 bucks, I'm sure I would. I don't know how I think that would happen. Maybe if I search more, I mean, there are some weird flights where you can fly through America that can help. I might be able to cobble something together, but it's going to be brutal no matter what.

So yeah, maybe this just doesn't make sense, you know? I just kind of had it in my mind to like, yeah, you know, I guess I should head home. But why exactly? You know? Nobody minds too much.

I used to go years and years. I mean, like when I moved to Vancouver and when I moved to Toronto, each of those times I was gone for like four years, where I barely even talked to anybody back home. At least now I've taught my mom like how to do internet phone calls and stuff. I talk to her every week or so. It doesn't feel that different from being there. You know, if I was there in person, I would still just go visit her once a week. Doing it through the video phone is not so bad. You know, I guess that's the main guilt. It's just like, yeah, you know, me poor old Ma, and my dad's passed away. 30:00 But I was talking to her and I mentioned this to her and like, yeah, I think maybe I'm going to take longer because $200 versus $1,600, it's just like very clear. And even she said like, yeah, you know, it's not like you got like a family. She said, it's not like you got family to come back to here. She's like, oh, I mean, you know, there's some, but not like a family. Like I got a wife and kids. You know, the insinuation was pretty clear. Like she's good. She's fine. She's got her own life going on. She doesn't need me around. It's not that big a deal.

I'll get back eventually. And well, she even mentioned to like, you know, I'm sure you'll just get back and then get stuck crazy to leave again. And I said, oh, yeah, like no question. The moment I get back, I'll be counting down the days until I leave again. So yeah, it does just make sense to just go some more places while I'm here. Like why the fuck not? So Taipei seems like a good plan. And then I was like, I guess I don't know, maybe Vietnam. It's right there. Then I could hop over to Europe. There's good old Amsterdam that I've been to before. And then there's France that I do speak French. That could be interesting to see how my French Canadian French holds up to Parisian French. They seem pretty different, but I'm sure I can fudge my way through. So yeah, in the end, 200 bucks to get to Taiwan. 200 more bucks to get to Vietnam. 500 bucks to get to Amsterdam. Who knows how much to get to... You know, it'll all add up to the same, you know, $1,500, $1,600, $2,000, whatever. But at least all have stopped places and done things on the way. And it just doesn't feel so insane. Depending that kind of money to fly straight back to Canada is just insane. I just can't do it. And yeah, there's just I kind of made up the reasons to do it. There's no particular reason to do that.

So then that also loosens up. That's where I haven't booked any more time at my Airbnb yet. Because even though this Airbnb is super nice and Busan seems super nice, because I started with that assumption that I needed to be in Busan or Seoul, I was like, all right, I guess I'll just stay in Busan. I guess for three months, I'm just going to stay here because this is pretty nice. I like this city. But I didn't book the days because it just was such an... It's an ostentatious amount of time. That's where I had the idea that maybe I should message my Airbnb person first to warn them and just say like, I know this is ludicrous. I'm already there for like five weeks to add another almost two months on to that. I thought I should ask them first. That's a little much, isn't it? Is that okay? And I just hemmed in hot and didn't do it because something felt wrong. It just didn't feel like the right thing to do. It just seemed wrong. And now that everything is slowly coming together, it's like, yeah, that would have been wrong. That was the wrong choice. That is working under presumptions that, you know, starting with incorrect assumptions of what I was going to do from here. If I'm not going back to Toronto, it doesn't matter if I'm in Busan or Seoul. I don't need international flights. I could be anywhere because a little tiny flight to Taiwan, who gives a crap, I could do that for many where. That's the beauty of not being in Canada. So many options, so many airlines, so many little Carmen San Diego around the world in 80 days, neat little things you can do that are just not available. Canada is so limited and so expensive for flights.

Man, this is getting higher up than I thought. This mountain is actually deceptively high. Walking along the edge of it, along this little path with occasional little steps reminds me of in the first Monkey Island game, the guy who runs the little lighthouse thing at the edge of the cliff. In these two people I passed both have brimmed hats. That's not a bad idea.

The brim on the front. But when on the back to protect the neck wouldn't be a bad idea, although I still think just maybe a very thin jacket-y type thing might be good.

So anyway, with these thoughts rolling around in my mind, everything loosening up and becoming so much easier. It's like, okay, I don't necessarily have to stay and boost on this whole time. Because I was also kind of feeling, you know, like, a soul was so polluted. And jet-john was so small that it's like, okay, I don't really want to go back to soul. And I don't necessarily want to go to a different smaller city, because I've done those experiments.

But this would loosen things up a little. Specifically, there's Jeju Island. It's a little island off of Korea that I could check out.

If I can find a little cheap flight to that, which I'm sure I can. This is a pretty good view, episode, image time.

So specifically, where am I going? What am I doing? I don't know. But it's okay now, because it doesn't matter as much.

To book the flight home, I had to book out, you know, in several months in advance, a couple months in advance, and then book all the stuff leading up to that. Like, yeah, weird amount of lead up time, too much. Made things stiff. Now it's like, yeah, I can book some more time in Busan, but it doesn't have to be the whole time, because three months is so long. Like, I haven't stayed anywhere for three months, you know.

Even in 2019, when I stayed at some places for quite a long time in Japan, it was still like a month, I think, was the longest date in Nekke, Tabashi.

Maybe a little over a month, but not three months. And I guess I was just so relieved to get away from the pollution of Seoul. I kind of thought like, ah, this is the magic of Busan.

But Busan's still a little bit polluted, and, ah, a lot of it is just the time of year.

If I go somewhere else near here, like Jeju, or even just another city on the coast, I think things will be about the same.

As nice as Busan is, I'm just going to want to go somewhere else eventually. I don't want to be here that long.

Now that I don't need a big, bad international flight.

Oh, still going up. I think this is the final ascent. This is getting pretty steep.

So then, then I started thinking, like, so if I do stay in Korea until my 180 days are up. And then I go to Taipei, and then maybe Vietnam or something, even just Taipei, I don't know. I'm still in this part of the world where all these flights are very available and pretty darn cheap.

And that's quite a long break since I left Japan, and the Japan visitor visa is so, ah, indistinct. You get 90 days, but then maybe you can go back for 90 more. It's just not in the books, but I'm a citizen in good standing. I got money in the bank. It's probably not a problem. And it's not like I just left and came straight back. This would be, you know, months that I've been gone. I'll have been gone for, you know, six, seven, eight, nine months, whoever we'll see.

And the plan was always to go back to Canada and just buy my time and total my thumbs for a bit. And then go back to Japan. I just wanted to keep things flexible, keep the option open. But if I'm just hanging around in this part of the world, then the plan is just to go back to Japan ultimately anyway. And it's going to cost me thousands and thousands of dollars to fly home and fly back. It's starting to seem more and more like I should just take that second bite of the Japan Apple right now while I'm here. And then when I do go home again, I will have to wait at least a full year before I try to go back to Japan again. Maybe a little longer just to make sure everything is copazetic.

But at that time, I'll still go by fast and it'll be a better excuse at that point to actually stay home for a while, you know. It's just making more and more sense because also I think some of those flights, the horror flight, it's not actually a direct flight from Seoul or Busan to Toronto. They pretty much go through Narita, like that also got in my mind is like, so I mean, I have to go to Japan anyway. I have to go transfer through Japan.

Again, I feel like it's the travel gods going like, hey buddy, Japan was the whole point here, right? All this other stuff is nice, but Japan's the place that is really like fascinating to you. It's right there. It costs you a zillion dollars to go home and it costs you like a couple hundred to go back to Japan.

So especially if you dick around for a while, dick around and Taipei, dick around somewhere else. That year before you're officially supposed to go back anyway, it could just, it could naturally just be up or it'll be very near up, starting to make a lot of sense.

And I'm looking at a side of the city I've never seen before because there's like a big archway, a big circular arch going over a road. Like there's a bridge going across the river and then on the other side of the bridge is an arch. I say big, but it's actually very small compared to all the skyscrapers and then the enormous mountain behind it.

Man, what the hell is that mountain? That thing is fucking big. 40:00 Although Jesus, there's some buildings in the deep distance that must be also on top of mountains. There's no way they're really that tall. They look fucking wicked tall.

It's so hard to tell on Google maps what mountain I'm looking at. But this one that I might be looking at, Jiang San waterfall, as much shit as I've talked about waterfalls in the past. Again, a goal is a goal, right? A target is a target. It could be a thing to go check out.

I mean, if I did stay in Busan for three months, there's certainly enough to do. But yeah, I was thinking how like, geez, I mean, even stuff like I was in Chiba for like five days. I can't believe how much stuff happened in five days. I was in Fukuoka last time for only three weeks and I did a lot of stuff in fucking three weeks.

I went back to the legal mine building that was like four days. Three months is just a crazy amount of time. That is ludicrous. So I mean, yeah, I doubt I'll stay in Busan that long.

But yeah, this could also be where I'm starting to realize if this trip is going to go longer than I thought. And if I do go back to Japan, I'm sure I'll kick it back into gear with obsessive amounts of podcasting. Where when I'm not in Japan, I just record once in a while when some thoughts cross my mind. But when I'm in Japan, it's like every day. I just want to record what I'm doing. I thought I would be doling these podcasts out for a while before I went back to Japan. But if I'm going back sooner, I might have to double these up, you know, one week is not enough. Maybe if it hits, if there was a point where this podcast started coming out twice a week, this was when I realized that I should do that. Anyway, this is definitely the top, very nice view. Very successful day. This turned out better than I expected. This mountain is a lot bigger than it seems from a distance. Let's see if there's a number at the very, very tippity top.

Yeah, I got a number for me. Yeah, mere 256 meters.

But again, with the basin-like geography of Busan, there's mountains all around me that are all much bigger than this. But the actual city is a four-real 250 meters down. You know, it's quite far down there.

Yeah, it's such a weird phenomenon. Like I was saying the other day, I was on a 400 meter mountain, and I was blowing my fucking mind how high up it felt. And then the 650 meter one is like, fuck me. Yeah, this one's only 250, and it's like, this is high. This is very, very nice.

Fuck yeah.

Mission mother fucking accomplished for today. This is sweet.

And because this mountain is like literally next door to my Airbnb, it's like fucking across the street.

It's only three o'clock, plenty of time in the day. This isn't one of these like, ramble my way home, get home in the dark type of days. I can go to a coffee shop now, and do a coffee shop stop as well.

Get a little writing done on my fucking proverbial novel.

Supposed novel. Phantom novel.

But yeah, again, I guess I haven't given an official thank you to my Phantom Dad. Phantom novels, Phantom dads, Phantom jobs, Phantom goals in life. It's a Phantom life I lead. A Phantom ghost floating through the world. But man, I sure do appreciate it. I sure do appreciate getting inheritance money from a dear old hard work and dad. And of course, my currently still working mom. I'm sure she could retire, but she doesn't do that and maybe never will. But just that I have the, not just the luxury of these long visits and vacations, because again, it's like, why do I, what am I going home for? Just to pay more money to live there than it costs me to live here. It's just, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. I'm a dirty trust fund. No good beat Nick.

But it's also nice to just have that flexibility when it's just feeling like, like I don't know what the right choice is. I don't know how to proceed forward. I don't know what to do, and it's just this little stress knot in my gut for a week and a half where I just am paralyzed within decision.