#119 A delightful trip to Ulsan, South Korea

Transcript

Alright, today is a day of weird adventure, so I'm in a train station. I wonder, is that pulling out my phone? Can I figure out what this place is called? I don't see any English signs, so I think maybe not. There's a map out here, what do we got? Hey, here we go. Taiwan Gang Station. T-A-E-H-W-A-G-A-N-G station. You are here. Oh, is that water? Is that water? I see on the map, excellent, because that was the plan, and I was afraid the plan was going to fail. So, over the last couple episodes, I've been moving my way more and more. I've been on like the eastern coastline of Busan, and just walking around it, you know, not like these exactly epic adventures. I guess I haven't really gone all that far, ultimately, but it's been great. Just, I'm like, oh, this is amazing, and this is amazing, and I just keep walking, amazing. So, last night, I bailed out at this train station I've never been on before, the blue line in Busan, which it turns out it's an above ground train, and I saw today, getting on the blue line, a real train go by, and that's obviously where I am now. Like, this is a real train station, not a subway station. This is one of those stations you would take to go to another city. Like, I did when I went to Jeju, or even just from Seoul to here, or if you've seen the movie Train to Busan, which I finally watched, that whole deal. This is one of those. So, it's just kind of cool that basically the train system you can take partially as a subway as well. There's the big trains, but there's just subway level trains.

And I was kind of thinking I could just go back to where I was yesterday. It was a really great little area with surfers and stuff, and just that beautiful feeling where you feel like you're indoors, even when you're outdoors, which I mostly only feel in Japan. But it's such a neat feeling, like yesterday I was sitting outside a convenience store and just checking out this intersection, just watching, you know, taxi cab drivers, puttering around, and the surfers, and some guy in a skateboard going by, and just everything was just like, and I guess maybe because it was overcast yesterday too, it sort of felt like there was a little roof over everything. And it just was like a perfect little tablo, a perfect little place. And I was like, you know, I could just go straight back there. I could just start from there. But I'm not totally sure where you can go from there. I'm not totally confident that you can keep walking up the coast, because even the coastline I was walking up, it's because they distinctly made a promenade, a wooden promenade you can walk along, for several kilometers. It's really long. I don't know if they are going to continue to do that.

But I also noticed last night, as I bailed out on the blue line and went back into the center of Busan, that I wasn't really that close to the end. The blue line goes a lot farther. So that was my idea today, is I was like, you know what? Fuck it. Let's just sit on the blue line all the way to the end. Let's just go to the end. Maybe it'll just keep taking me up the coast. And we'll just see. I mean, maybe I can just start at the end of the coast and work my way down instead. Or who knows, who knows what's going to happen. Now, here's the tourist information center. I've never used a tourist information center. Don't believe I will today either. But I mean, the very fact that there is one suggests that there's something around here. Because yeah, then as I went deeper, I noticed that the stops started getting longer and longer between stops. We're going farther and farther. At one point, I did see like a roller coaster and cool medieval castle spires. So I did check out my map. And it's latte world. It's an adventure like theme park for kids, presumably. Because that's the other thing. I could have checked on a map. Where is the end of the blue line? Where is it going to take me? But what fun is that? I wanted to just take it. And then now I'm here. And I was like, now we'll figure out where I am. Now we'll figure out what's going on. But I did briefly check just to see what the castles were. It was latte world. And then we went farther and farther, definitely out of the city going through fields and countryside stuff. Speaking of, does that look like a ferris wheel? That's a good reason to walk. Because I don't even know which direction to walk. I'll walk toward the ferris wheel. I don't know which direction the water might be. But there's a huge train yard by this station that I don't even know 5:00 if I can pass by that at all. So yeah, let's walk toward the ferris wheel. That's presumably would be more. If I can get to the water, that's probably the way. It has going farther and farther. And then I had one point where I looked at the window and I could see the ocean. And it was right there. And it was like going along the southern coast below Yokohama when I was taking those trains and just heading farther and further west to explore that way. That's how it felt. Just like, boom, cool the ocean. And I had that feeling of like, oh, I should get off here maybe. But it did seem a little bit like a fishing type place. Like semi-industrial didn't really seem like there were any like walking along the water type of stuff. And I still really wasn't anywhere near the end of the line. But then yeah, we just kept going and going and going and going. And it's just more and more rural and more and more just nothing and less and less people on the train. And even though I'm just on a train line, it's the easiest thing in the world to just bail out. But it still just feels uncomfortable and weird like, where am I going? What am I doing? This is just more and more feeling like this makes no fucking sense. I'm definitely the only foreigner. Because like, where am I?

What am I doing? I don't know. And I guess I'd gotten pretty confident with Japan. Like, I was thinking of that day in Fukuoka when I went on that whole weird walk through like just the empty mountain that was like, zombie, empty, trying to get to a waterfall that then was had collapsed because of, because of weather. You couldn't get through the trail to the waterfall. Saga, I think that place was called. That was one of the wildest adventures I did in Japan. That was like, where the fuck am I? I'm just traveling to the middle of fucking nowhere. But it didn't feel uncomfortable because I've just gotten comfortable with Japan. And I just have that feeling in my brain that it's just whatever I do in Japan is just valuable anyway. Just seeing weird odd corners of Japan feels like a valuable thing to do to my subconscious that was raised on Japanese media. I can't shake it. I think it's just fundamentally important in some weird way. Where South Korea just feels different. This just feels like, where am I going? Where the hell am I? What the fuck is this plan? This is feeling weirder and weirder. To the point that it's like, I really started feeling like, well, this is just, I think it's clear that this plan has failed because stop after stop after stop is just fucking nothing. It's just fields or factories. It's just nothing. That I was like, maybe I should just stop. I should just go back the other way. This is so silly. But I had to remind myself, no, no, no, don't do that because with train lines and subway lines and stuff, the lights always darkest before the dawn. Even just going out to like dawn mills station in Toronto. Those few stops before dawn mills are a ghost town. There's nothing there. In Japan, I had several times where going to the end of the line opened up a whole new world. Because what it took me a while to learn and I had to remind myself today is that the end of the line, you know, like the line doesn't just peter out and peter out and peter out until it cannot sustain itself anymore and then stop. If that was the case, it would have stopped way sooner. It would have stopped at the last major place. It's trying to get somewhere. The end of the line is always somewhere, somewhere that is on some level worse getting to. And it's just that those five, six stops before that, they might be literally nothing. They might be just a weird place where there shouldn't be a train in the first place. They just happen to be on the way. And that is the case for sure. Now that I'm here, like I just walked past a to some place, the coffee chain. Oh, there's a Starbucks ahead of me. A drive through Starbucks because yeah, I mean obviously when you're this far out, it is car country, but that there was that tourist center and you know, this is the normal place, whatever this is. There's a bunch of hotels and stuff, relatively big buildings. So yeah, I'm glad that I just fought through. I just, I was like, wait it out, dude, you're almost there. Just keep going. But anyway, I guess the plan then would be once I get here, then check a map, then figure out what's going on. If I can get to the water, great, get to the water and go from there. See what that's 10:00 like. And if I'm nowhere near the water, I just assumed that the train line would stay more or less on the coast, but who knows if I end up way inland and I don't know what I'm doing, then the adventure will be just try to walk back one station, just see if I can walk to the next station back, and then bail out and go home. But yeah, now that I'm here, this place is relatively major, like it feels, it feels bigger than jetchon I guess. Probably a little similar, but even just these hotels and stuff that I'm walking by are pretty big. So yeah, now the time has come. Now it's time to pull out my phone and figure out like, what the fuck is this? Where, where am I? What did I do today?

There's the little dot on latte world adventure Busan. The last time I pulled out my phone by the Busan National Science Museum apparently. I read it, it appears I am at Ulsan, the ULSAN. There's Busan, Yangsan, which yeah, I guess I've seen the word Yangsan many times on the subway. One of the other subway lines terminates at Yangsan. The green line I believe, because yeah, I was trying to remember it either goes to Yangsan or Jangsan, and I have to remember which side, and I always want to take the Jangsan side, because that's the one that goes toward the eastern coast. So I just remembered it alphabetically. Go with the lower letter, the J, and then since why is at the end of the alphabet, that's the one I don't want. That's the one that takes me where I don't want to go. Again, because I never know what any of these words mean or anything. I got to come up with weird ways to remember shit. So I'm in Ulsan. This is bringing me back to like the Netherlands. How I would just keep inching my way farther and farther where there was Amsterdam. And then I'd get to the edge of Amsterdam, and it would just become Amstelvien, and then it did not become oat sorn, nearly as speltly. It was instead just a big long field full of cows and sheep and stuff, and that's when it became oat sorn. So am I near the actual water? I don't know, maybe not. Well, it's like an inlet, I guess. It seems like I can get to a river pretty easily, that then would empty into the ocean proper. So I am a bit inland, but I guess this is a, and I do seem to be walking the right way. Whatever that Ferris wheel was that I saw, I just saw like peeking between some buildings. I don't know where that is or where that went. It's a pre-downloaded Google map of this area. It's not fantastically well populated with stuff. Google Maps, you know, everybody told me not to use Google Maps in general in South Korea. You want to use Naver Maps, but as far as I could determine, Naver Maps does not have an offline option, and I'm an offline man. So I've been using Google Maps, which in Busan proper, and so on, and even Jetchon serve me pretty well. But in Ulsan, it certainly doesn't have any fucking Ferris wheels listed.

Anyway, yeah, I guess I'll just keep walking now, try to get to the water, see what happens from there. But anyway, yeah, that's what's going on today. That's the adventure. And if I guess if I zoom out more, I mean, just by the sheer amount of time I was on that train. Yeah, whoo, geez. Buddy, I am very, very, very fucking far away from the Moontan Trail and all the stuff I was doing yesterday.

I tried to figure out where just to get even just one station back, see if I can just make my way one station back toward heading South, back down to Busan. And I'm going to try to go along the water in order to do that. Yeah, overall, I definitely, I don't really know what the heck I'm doing or what, but yeah, this is actually definitely bigger than Jeju now that I'm walking around a bit. It is just kind of remarkable how things can go from so many stations in a row. Oh, there's the fairs wheel. How things can go from so many stations in a row of just the most rural shit you've ever seen in your life. Like a Korean horror movie, rural where it's like, I just don't even want to be around here. And then you get to the end of the line and duh, duh, duh, big city. You're in a city now. 15:00 And I love these little plans just as an excuse to explore. I'm sure my eyes passed over Ulsan on a map before it's right next to Busan, but it would never stick in my mind, you know, I would never remember it. Now I will. Now I'll be like, oh yeah, I've been there. I was there for one afternoon. I walked around randomly for no reason once. But you know, I can add it like this is the only way things stick in my mind, but then they will stick for fucking ever. I'll never forget it. Not like it's some magical place. It's just another city seems fine, but today's a nice day. Just the sense of exploration, the feeling of pointless adventure.

I even, since I didn't have all my layers in my rain resistant jacket in my umbrella yesterday, and then I got rained on. I was like, oh yeah, I guess I should bring all that stuff. But then it was wicked hot when I left. And I'm like, God, this is that that sucky thing is like it is better to have the layers than to not have them. But it really does suck sweat and to death with your big fucking jacket when you don't need it. But it's cooled down a bit. It's actually just four o'clock. It took a long time for me to get out here.

But you know, of course I got started slow as always. But the weather is cooled down so I can wear my rain jacket and not melt into a sweat puddle.

Yeah, it's just nice that this is working out. This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping. I was hoping would happen. It's obviously, it's not going to be, I guess you know, if you've listened to this podcast, like this is how it goes. None of these adventures have any point. There's no reason to do this stuff. It's just fun to go to a place for no particular reason and walk around. And this is all working out extremely well in that sense. Because yeah, it was just feeling so I am glad that I learned that lesson. Get to the end of the line. Get to the end. Ride that extra three or four stops. Sit on the train that extra 20 minutes. Because then you'll get somewhere. If I had stopped three stops ago, then this would be a different situation. Then it would be what the hell has I done. What am I doing? Where am I? I'm just in some, you know, agricultural bizarre place where you're not supposed to walk around. And I would have just been trapped and stuck. And it just would have been the weirdest stupidest fucking thing.

Where instead this is just a sensible stupid thing. Still pointless. But there's sidewalks and traffic lights and stores and things. Well, this is a place where a person is supposed to walk around is supposed to be. It's a dang Ferris wheel.

Yes, just I don't know. It just feels so good too. I just love that is one thing that you can kind of do in Canada a little bit. There are places you can go in Toronto on the train. But it's a little more utilitarian, I guess. Because it's not like any of the neighborhoods are like that exciting to go to unless you have a reason to go. I don't know. And Montreal kind of similar. The train in Montreal is really useful for the center. But as you get out onto the edges and you go to the... I don't know. Eastern Montreal or Laval or whatever. It's kind of like, yeah, okay, why did I come here though? I guess the closest is Vancouver. Vancouver, you can really have some adventures on the train. You can really go some neat interesting places.

Again, it's probably just the difference between above ground trains and subways. Now that I think about it. It's Toronto and Montreal or subways. Vancouver and Japan, a lot of Japan is above ground trains. And this train that I'm on right now was an above ground train. Like above ground trains. They can take you some places. I guess subways, yeah, they just don't. Subways are just too... too contained. Too small.

There's the Ferris wheel I made it.

It wasn't the last time I saw a Ferris wheel. I guess Yokohama. So scary. Never in my life. Never in my life will I take. I don't think I've ever even been on one. I used to go on roller coasters because when I was a kid I wasn't scared of heights. I started developing when I was a teenager. Actually, I was on a roller coaster in Universal Studios in Florida when I was like 17 when I realized I don't think I can do this anymore. 20:00 This feels real fucking bad. Did I go on? There was this ridiculous rickety. It was like one of the last wooden roller coasters. I wonder if it's still there. But it was at Coney Island when I lived in New York in 2008, 2009. I don't think I went on that thing. I don't know. Anyway. I don't think I've ever been on a Ferris wheel. But yeah, today will not be the day.

Latte Cinema. That's one thing me and my friend used to do is kind of like a perverse joke almost. When we were traveling, we would go see a movie. No matter where we were. It's like, let's just like even though we're in this amazing four in place, let's go see a stupid fucking movie. But we broke the chain when we were in Amsterdam because we just couldn't find any movies we wanted to see. And the first time I visited Japan, I almost went to see Avengers Endgame I think was out at the time. And you know, it just felt like I had to cap off the story. But I just was too uncomfortable to go navigate a Japanese cinema by myself. And I was not in some kind of big hurry, so I just waited and I watched that movie later. I wonder what would be playing here. I wonder what. I don't remember seeing any other movie theaters. I'm sure I'll walk by a bunch.

But anyway, alright. Alright. That's what I'm doing today. Oh, and a dea coffee. Part of me just wants to stop at a dea and chill out. But you know, it's four o'clock. I mean, it is going to be light for like, now that it's later in the year. I mean, I do have like a solid three hours. Really not in a big hurry.

But I'm a little antsy now. I've been sitting on that train for so goddamn long. I want to walk around. I want to explore. So yeah, I'm going to do that for a bit.

Well, here's a random little dumb thing, but I still haven't run out of deodorant. But that's kind of amazing to me. I'm like, I can't believe I haven't run out yet. But I got to be, it's got to be happening soon. It's got to be close. So I started keeping my eyes peeled for deodorant. And as one of those things were after like four or five straight days of actually, you know, actively keeping my eyes peeled. I was like, something weird is going on here. None of the convenience store chains seem to have deodorant. Daiso is where I go to just get everything. They don't have any. So I finally did this little reddit check. Like, what's up with this? And it appears that I mean, I know it's a thing that also I learned about this in Japan. So I'm sure it's the same here that it is a bit of a less common product because I was quite shocked to learn this. But apparently in general, Asian people actually have different types of sweat glands than us. I don't know. Apparently the jokes in old anime ping pong club and stuff about the gross smelling Americans. It's kind of true. Our sweat generally smells worse than the average Asian. But it kind of goes, you know, it's still one of those things. There are still Asians that have the same type of sweat or the same sweat gland stuff. I don't know. You don't have to look it up. I don't know the details, of course. There are some percentage that are just like us. And I'm in general not a very bad smelling sweat guy. But it's like dangerous to think that about yourself because then you're the gross sweaty guy, you know? Rather not risk it. So I searched on reddit and somebody said, all of young. All of young is your friend where I have seen those stores around. I didn't really know what they were. They seem to be mainly women's beauty stores. Make-up stores. Somebody said you could get vitamins there, but I tried once and that didn't work so well. I got them from a pharmacy. My very expensive multivitamins.

And then the other day, just a couple of days ago, when I was on my search for the dental clinic on the way there, I saw an especially big olive young. So I went in and I looked all around and I just, you know, the men's section is pretty well contained. So it's less to look through and I couldn't. I couldn't find deodorant anywhere. And they did mention on reddit, they're like, yeah, you know, all of young is your friend. But it's going to cost you like $8 for one stick of deodorant. Which again, it's all sort of depends. I mean in Canada for like a brand named deodorant is probably $5.50. 25:00 So it's similar to the vitamin situation. It's like I kick it up to $8, whatever. It's not that different. It's just that I never paid $5.50 in Canada. You just wait until there's a sale on. What is that brand called? I keep thinking of Fisherman's friend, but Fisherman's friend is our cough drops. There's like a brand.

All I can think of is old Fisherman. It's definitely old spice. Old Fisherman. You just wait till the old spice is on sale, you know, and you can get it for $2.50. So I was like, geez, $8 for deodorant. All right. Well, whatever price of doing business, price of being in a different place. But I still can't find deodorant for any price. I just stopped in. I was like, hey, while I'm in Olsen, I just walked by and all of young. I don't know. Maybe it's different here somehow. Let's just go check. When in saw the one man who was in there. So it's like, okay, there's the man section.

And all I could find was like, there was one thing that seemed like it might be some kind of possible deodorant type product. And it was the classic two for one, but it was $28. And just like, well, whatever dude, no fucking way. I'm not even sure if that is what what I think it is, but that's insane. There's no fucking way.

I don't know. I mean, I don't want to be the guy who's just using aftershave under my fucking armpits and just assuming that that's good enough. But a day of reckoning is coming. My deodorant is going to run out. And it's just weird. It's like, what do you mean all of young as your friend? Like, I would need someone to like take me into the store, stand me in front of this magical supposed deodorant and literally put my hand on it. That's the only way this is going to happen because it just doesn't fucking exist.

And I got to assume the reason why the convenience stores and the Dysos don't have deodorant is if it is $8 a stick, like, you know, Dysos a dollar store. They just probably wouldn't sell something that costs $8.

A lot of music playing in this town. I don't know if you've noticed while they're walking around, quite a bit of random music popping in. Anyway, that's a prop of nothing. Just thought I'd mention it because it's been on my mind and I just tried and failed once again. Maybe all of young has deodorant, but I wouldn't put fucking money on it. I can't find the fucking shit.

Yeah, this is fucking party town. There's so much music at plays and also on apparently.

I ran to just been walking around, and it's funny that my very first impression was like, is this compare to Jetchon size-wise? It's so much bigger, way bigger. I mean, I'm sure everything is bigger than Jetchon. It's just that one specific street I was on, if you compare it to the biggest, most developed street in Jetchon. Jetchon still felt a little smaller. It did not have the proper perspective. But yeah, I've just been walking around, little weird parks and stuff wandering around this city. And yeah, definitely won't be, I think, my plan, again, my quote-unquote plan, to walk to the next station. That was just to have something to do if I needed a goal. But that's not going to happen. Instead, I'm just going to mosey around, and then eventually get back on the train that I got on in the first place. But yeah, this place is pretty nice, and I just had a little flashback where I was having a little bit of trouble getting to this river that's to the north. My little, my little blue dot on the GPS was not popping up, and I was like, I think I'm going the right way. It's a little hard to tell. And then I got to still, like, a not a big road. I think it's still just two lanes, but a busy road that is like, hmm, how do I cross that? And I saw a little tunnel that went under the road. And man, that gave me a flashback to really early on in Seoul when I was just wandering randomly and had no idea what was going on. And I would see some mountain parks around, but I could never seem to get to the top. They were just fences everywhere. And I did find a spot somewhat like this where I had to go down through a tunnel under a busy road to get to the waterfront. 30:00 And I remember it very fucking distinctly just standing at the waterfront, looking out to cross at the other side of the river in Seoul, the side with the latte tower and stuff. And just the haze and just looking at the big city through the haze. And it just was like, like eventually I started finding those mountains to the north and stuff and things started to open up a little. But man, at that early juncture, man, that place fucking sucked so fucking bad. I don't know that I minced my words too much at the time, but if I did, let me not mince them now. Now that I've been to some other places in South Korea, Seoul fucking sucks. It fucking sucks, dude. It's terrible. And I've had like people talk it up to me. I've known people that love Seoul, but it's no different, I guess, than New York. I know a fuck ton of people that love New York. I mean, you're in good company. There's a lot of other people that think the way you do, but if you're even remotely interested in having a nice life, those cities are shit. They're shit. They're terrible. I hate them both. I'm going on record. Seoul is fucking garbage. God, that place is bad.

Now I mean, again, it's a complicated world and stuff. I'm not saying I'll never go back and expect I'm sure I will, because I do really like the mountains. The mountains are great. The city is dog shit. It's terrible. But I mean, again, it's all perspective, right? Like I would very much compare Seoul to New York. And like I was just saying, like a lot of people would consider that a great compliment. Wow, you think Seoul is the equivalent of New York? Yes, I do. Yes, I do very much. They both can disappear tomorrow, and I would not fucking miss them. Terrible places. Just awful. But anyway, let's stop being so horribly negative. The reason why that came to mind is that this is really nice. This is fucking great. This is reminding me a bit of the Erikawa River, except this river is smaller. I can't tell you the name, unfortunately, because I think actually it's not just that the pre-downloaded Google map thing is pretty scant in South Korea. I'm actually not sure that my pre-downloaded map goes up this far. So I tried to check for, you know, because sometimes there is random Wi-Fi in just parks and stuff. I was like, I wonder if I can just download the map. But unfortunately not.

It's like I can't tell you the name of this river, but it's in the northern part of Ulsan, and I'm just walking along it to the east, just gradually moseying back in the general direction of the train station. Because you know, no big hurry, but it'll get dark eventually. And it's a pretty long ride back. But there's nothing to it. It pretty much the blue line takes me straight to. It'll connect to the orange line. And then from there I can either walk a few stops or transfer onto the orange and go straight home. No problem.

But yeah, this has a bit of the Erikawa vibes except smaller, which is kind of good because like the river is actually right there. Like I could actually walk over and touch it. Where with the Erikawa I really couldn't. It couldn't get near it. But yeah, just there's a bridge behind me. There's a bridge ahead of me. There's just more city on the other side. And it's great that it's such a clear day today. And the last time I checked the air index, I mean it does change throughout the day. But it was below 50. It was green. It was fine. I mean I have a mask, but I'm not wearing it. I still do see some people wearing masks and stuff. But it does seem like it's kind of you're kind of all in in South Korea. Either people wear masks every day or they never wear them. You know, I don't know that people are really bothering to keep up with what's going on day to day. Which does make sense. You just get burned out.

But I have not been wearing my mask today and it seems fine. Everything seems very fucking nice.

So that area I was in before with all the music playing. I noticed that it was like a 35:00 fuck that's loud.

Loud and shit. But that was like a bar slash club area because I saw a place that was like from 1030 to midnight we play hip hop and then from midnight to close it's EDM. But I found this other little neighborhood on my way back to the station. It's pretty dark. Pretty dark now.

But this place is cool because it feels super Amsterdam-y. I didn't know where. It's all of these semi upscale clothing stores. I don't know. I'm not good with clothes. I don't know if these things are actually fancy. But I can bet you they're expensive because it has the same vibe as the place just like the tourist district in Amsterdam where near Central Station I bought a 99 euro pair of fucking jeans there once because I was desperate for jeans because my only pair of jeans I sat in a puddle of pee. But yeah it's the cool clothing stores and it's just got the smell too of like waffles and coffee and bakery confectionery stuff. And the streets are like not cobblestone but not just pavement you know they are like brick brick streets. And unfortunately they're not pedestrian streets. There's still cars all over them even though they're narrow and there's no room for this fucking nonsense. But it's nice. Everything's all lit up. Just this nice little shopping district and it's like ah cool this place is neat. What a delightful little city. I have enjoyed this wander a lot. But what brought me here is I did I went to a burger king like a degenerate. I admit it. I'm still doing that. They take my fucking card. I can order through the machine. I just don't want to go to the convenience stores unless I need to. When I get back to my Airbnb I'll eat some homemade kimchi and make up for it. I'll eat some real food.

But since I was sitting at the burger king and I had Wi-Fi I don't normally do this. But I was like let me just do a quick little wiki. You know I went from just randomly arriving here. I mean here's another part of this shopping street. I'll lit up so nice. There is actually I mean there is one street in Jetchon that is like this too but it's literally one tiny little street. So yeah I thought like let's go from just rolling in at total random knowing nothing. Walked around for the afternoon. Got a sense of the place. Even on the way out it's like oh wow this is actually nicer than I thought it was. You know it was really nice to walk by the by the water but now this whole area is really cool. Let me just hop on Wikipedia. Let's just take a little gander. Let's actually learn some shit about this town. And this really surprised me because this place has seemed so nice. Because the picture Wikipedia paints it is not bad. It's just uh it would it would cause me to have a much different expectation. First off it's uh over a million people that live here. It's like the seventh or eighth biggest city. So it's just a touch bigger than Jetchon. But Ulsan is the industrial powerhouse of South Korea forming the heart of the Ulsan industrial district. It has the world's largest automobile assembly plant operated by Hyundai. The world's largest shipyard operated by Hyundai heavy industries and the world's third largest oil refinery owned by SK Energy. To me that sounds like red flag number one red flag number two and red flag number three. Doesn't that sound awful? That sounds like this place is going to suck in especially coming from Seoul and the experiences I've had so far with the weather in South Korea. This sounds like it should be a disaster area. And to be fair I'm sure it is you know it's just up the street from Busan. So those four days when Busan was blanketed in insane levels of pollution obviously Ulsan was as well. There's no question. I'm sure the pollution here is just as bad as it is everywhere else you know there's going to be some horrible days here but it doesn't seem at all worse you know today has been really good it edged up a little bit just past 50 but really not too bad at all today totally comparable to Busan or Jeju or wherever.

Oh shit I didn't realize I walked right back to the Ferris wheel it's lit up now 40:00 it's a nice way to wrap this up loop back around to the Ferris wheel.

But yeah I don't know I just thought that was kind of interesting that yeah I guess that's one reason why I don't I don't do a lot of Wikipedia research and here's the tale of the tape you know here's the raw the raw Wikipedia info about a given place or whatever because it's I don't know it's kind of I guess it's just not relevant really to just a person walking around to the experience of just a person walking around Wikipedia could say hey this is the best place in the world but if walking around sucks then it sucks or Wikipedia could say hey this place is an industrial nightmare this place is like a land of the machines where humans should shall not tread which is kind of how it sounds but no this is really fucking nice I mean oh geez I even just right now like I'm at kind of a big intersection I'm gonna fight my way through here get back to the station but now that it's all lit up I mean it was nice before it's kind of beautiful I kind of fucking I kind of fucking really like Ulsan this place seems really good and again if like the 11 million nearly 11 million of soul obviously obviously too much for my tender constitution the three to four million of Busan no problem so this one million very comfortable feels very good this feels like a very good size this place is fucking cool I do I mean I have no idea if there's Airbnb and stuff out here I saw one other foreign guy he was like a a guy from India or you know I don't know if he's from India he had the the complexion of a man from India I saw him he was the only other foreign type guy that I saw here today but obviously there's more I mean there's a million fucking people here but this seems like I mean I suppose geez I just realized I could still I could still do this like I've got after Busan I'm going to Jeju and then I guess probably back to Busan but I'm just so fed up with the musty smell in my fucking Airbnb it's just driving me nuts I mean it's just the smallest of problems that I've had in Airbnb's here but I'm just like always doing all the laundry of all my bedding and trying to maintain air flow and it's just I'm just sick of it I'm gonna get home there today and it's gonna smell all musty and I'm fucking tired of it maybe this is a sign maybe instead of Busan maybe I should try to come up here that'd be kind of cool and it's still like I just have to hop on a train you know I was still considering trying to hit up the Moontan road at night on the way back but I am running out of running out of steam a little bit and and I only know the one entrance I don't know where the other end of the Moontan road is because I I didn't make it all the way through it yesterday so I don't want to try to find it in the night maybe tomorrow hey there's a toyoko in I've never seen one of those in South Korea there are those ins that are all over Japan that have the blue neon lighting up at the top they're all over Japan and you can recognize them from far away because they have the big blue writing I looked into that once because in Akiruno when I was having a hard time finding an Airbnb out there they have a toyoko in but it was very expensive it would have been 50 or 60 bucks a night which again I'm sure is a good deal for a hotel but a bad deal for for me and it was all booked up man it'd be one thing not like it's I mean again I know I live a blessed life I just get to wander around but I do have to try to you know keep things semi-reasonable try to find cheap Airbnb and stuff man if I was just mega rich and I could just go to hotels wherever man it would open up things would open up the world it'd be so easy and then I could get a fucking phone with a data plan and then I could get a rental car and a personal driver too why not with skies the fucking limit but I mean the hotel thing I am a little jealous I see all these hotels everywhere here even even in Jetshan the instructions of how to get to my place we're like hey it's across the street from the real hotel from the big cool fancy hotel if I was just an infinite money man a lot of things about my life wouldn't really change but I would love to be a hotel guy I remember the guy who started Mad Magazine. I think his name was William Gaines. I remember 45:00 he lived in a hotel. And the story I heard about him was he lived in this fancy hotel that had a fancy restaurant downstairs. And he was like, hey, listen, I'm rich. I own this big magazine. I live in this hotel. I'll come to this restaurant two if not three times a day. You will make fucking bank off of me. I'll be in here all the time. All that I request is that you don't make me wear a tie because you know, it was like you're supposed to have formal attire. And they were like, we just can't. We're supposed to wear fancy. You must wear a tie. So he's like, well, fuck you then. Anyway, somewhere else. Why do I know that anecdote? I don't know. I don't fucking know. But anyway, I'd call this. This is a shockingly successful random fucking adventure, dude. It's really worked out well. Never heard of Ulsan in my fucking goddamn life. And I had a very good day here. This is really cool. I like this place. Again, who knows? I mean, if I did stay here for a number of weeks, I do kind of get the sense that I haven't in just one day, I don't think it would take me. I think I've seen a decent percentage of the city. I don't think it would take me that long to hit all the borders. But again, the train's right here. But yeah, overall, pretty goddamn good. So even though with all my effusive praise, if you were staying in Busan, would I recommend that you sit on the train all the way to the end to come to Ulsan? I would say, yes, if you're staying in Busan for a long time, like me, like I was there for five weeks. In five weeks, I definitely got time on the fucking schedule to sit on the train all day to come up here. This is really cool. If you're a little more packed for time, and you know, there's a lot to do in Busan. You'll be fine. But, but this is awfully nice. Such a fucking flip-flop from just as I was approaching here. Like as I really did want to bail out earlier today, I was like, I should just get right off this train, get right on the other one going back home, and give up. What was I thinking? Why would I come to the middle of nowhere? But as I said earlier, let's just reiterate one last time. Go to the end of the line. The end of the line is the thing. The reason there were all those pointless stops in the middle of nowhere is because it was important for that train to make it all the way to Ulsan because Ulsan is the industrial powerhouse of the world with the biggest autom... I had blows my mind. The biggest automotive plant is the biggest shipyard.